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Sermon
Alex Gondola
"The two biggest sellers in any bookstore are the cookbooks and the diet books. The cookbooks tell you how to prepare the food and the diet books tell you how not to eat any of it." So observed Sixty Minutes commentator Andy Rooney (quoted by Fred Lyon in "The Savior Life Diet," Lectionary Homiletics, August, 1997, p. 21). I made a trip to the discount bookstore this past week to see if Andy Roone...
Sermon
Alex Gondola
From time to time, all of us have been guilty of taking some remarkable things for granted, simply because they have become familiar to us. Take, for instance, the ancient and honorable game of golf. Most of us understand the basic principles of golf. Some of us play golf. Some of us play at it. But suppose you had to explain golf to someone who had never seen it before -- say an Aborigine from th...
3. Holy Believing
John 6:25-59
Sermon
Donald Macleod
"Truly, truly, Isay to you, he who believes has eternal life." (v. 47) No one wants to die. Yet, who among us would like to live forever? This is our paradox. This is our dilemma. To die means the end of what we are and have; it signifies also the cessation of whatever yet we had hoped to be. But wouldn't living forever be equally undesireable? For it holds out endlessness and sameness, like Shake...
Sermon
Charles R. Leary
I enjoy watching comedians we all can name our favorites doing monologues. I’m sure you’ve seen this happen. In the middle of a monologue when the mood is mounting, what is supposed to be the punch line falls flat. The comedian does a back-up motion, possibly a turn-around on the floor, and says, “Oh! I thought that one would go over big!” At that point he may try to explain it. When the audience ...
5. The Robe
John 6:25-59
Sermon
Robert Salzgeber
The people's question concerning "How Jesus said that he came down from heaven" was preconditioned by a particular Jewish mind-set of that day. The majority of the Hebrews, during the time of Jesus, believed that the spiritual world emanated from the physical world. Flesh, blood and race projected one's spiritual aura. So it is natural and normal for the people to grumble when Jesus says that he i...
6. The Banquet
John 6:25-59
Sermon
Robert Salzgeber
The people argued, "How can this man give us flesh to eat?" To eat and drink the Lord's portion of an offered sacrifice was considered (later on in the Jewish tradition) a desecration or offensive because it was believed that the sacrifice belonged to God. To consume the life force, to consume God, was believed to be a sacrilege. But despite the religious calcification of the covenant tradition, t...
7. Holy Believing
John 6:25-59
Sermon
Donald Macleod
Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among...
8. Soul Food
John 6:25-59
Sermon
Larry Goodpaster
We have become, for the most part, very visual people. We watch body language, study facial expressions, look at moving pictures and stare at live-action shots in order to absorb what is happening. We would rather see a motion picture than read the book, watch the news than pick up the paper, and turn on television than turn to one another for quality communication. Everywhere you go, it seems tha...
9. The Robe
John 6:25-59
Sermon
Robert Salzgeber
The people's question concerning "How Jesus said that he came down from heaven" was preconditioned by a particular Jewish mind-set of that day. The majority of the Hebrews, during the time of Jesus, believed that the spiritual world emanated from the physical world. Flesh, blood and race projected one's spiritual aura. So it is natural and normal for the people to grumble when Jesus says that he i...
10. The Banquet
John 6:25-59
Sermon
Robert Salzgeber
The people argued, "How can this man give us flesh to eat?" To eat and drink the Lord's portion of an offered sacrifice was considered (later on in the Jewish tradition) a desecration or offensive because it was believed that the sacrifice belonged to God. To consume the life force, to consume God, was believed to be a sacrilege. But despite the religious calcification of the covenant tradition, t...
Sermon
Bill Bouknight
As I was walking the beautiful Augusta National Golf Course several weeks ago; I noticed .the famous German golfer, Bernard Langer, practicing for the Masters. He is a two-time winner of that prestigious tournament. As I watched him, I thought about his personal testimony which he offers far and wide. Langer says that when he won the Masters in 1985, his priorities were golf, golf, and more golf, ...
Sermon
Richard Patt
"So [the people] asked [Jesus]: ‘What can we do in order to do what God wants us to do?’ " (v. 28, TEV,) What a far-ranging question this is! It’s an all-embracing theme we have to discuss here: "What God wants us to do." Obviously it is impossible for us to use these fifteen minutes or so and come up with a comprehensive answer to this question. Think, for instance, of the rainbow-like nature of ...
Sermon
Richard Patt
"So [the people] said, ‘This man is Jesus, son of Joseph, isn’t he? We know his father and mother. How, then, does he now say he came down from heaven?’ " (v. 42, TEV) This little story calls to mind the age-old truth that you can’t always judge a book by its cover. Most of us do that more than we’d like to admit. We draw conclusions about others on the basis of outward appearance. We neglect to t...
Sermon
Richard Patt
"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" (v. 52, TEV) In these times of world hunger, when many even within our own prosperous land find it difficult to put food on the table, we ought to be careful when complaining about our daily bread. But some of the "come-ons" that so-called quality restaurants advertise these days can irk any of us. The other evening my wife and I visited a local restaur...
Sermon
Brett Blair
Before we read the text for this morning I am going to ask you to do something a little different. I want you to listen to the reading not with a heart of faith but with a skeptical mind. If it helps, imagine that you do not know that Jesus is anything else but a teacher. You are a first century person who has just been introduced to him. [Read John 6:35, 41-51] Pretty incredible isn't it? For s...
Sermon
Stephen M. Crotts
During World War II allied armies marched into Germany on their way to Berlin. Retreating German soldiers switched road signs and destroyed landmarks in an effort to confuse their enemy. And, to an extent, it worked, for many a G.I. followed a false marker only to end up in the wrong place. That just goes to show the need for landmarks, the importance of reliable signposts by which to steer. Here...
17. Drop It!
John 6:25-59
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
In a recent David Letterman show, Letterman offered his live audience a videotape depicting what he called an incident that took place during a hunting expedition at President Bush's Texas ranch. The clip (actually one that has been around for a while) shows a big, burly hunter, outfitted in the latest camouflage gear, high-powered rifle in hand, being furiously attacked by a deer. The buck jumps ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
If you've ever driven across this great country of ours, you've undoubtedly heard of a place called Wall Drug Store. Not Wal-Mart Drug Store. Wall Drug Store. Though located in Wall, South Dakota (pop. 800), this little business starts advertising its distant presence while you're at least a dozen states away. Especially on interstate 90 somewhere around Idaho to the West and Iowa to the East, str...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
Our "Post-Age Culture" is coping with Armageddon anxiety and catching millennial fever. Satan's six-pack (666) has us under the influence of easy answers, easy solutions and easy excuses. What to do? This week's biblical text is "brought to life" as much by the number it bears as by what it says. Read this text of rejection, John 6:66, one more time: "Because of this many of his disciples turned b...
20. Go Fly A Kite
John 6:25-59
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
The health care debate is getting intense, and tense. This past week an unnamed congressman was told by another member of Congress to “Go fly a kite.” There is another meaning to that phrase than “Buck Off” or “Go Jump In The Lake.” I think I can count on all of you over 40 having seen  a movie named “Mary Poppins.” Am I right? How many of you have never seen that Disney classic? . . . Wow. [React...
Sermon
R. Robert Cueni
I am going to tell you a story. Keep in mind that it is just a story. In fact, because it has elements of magical impossibility, it can even be called a fairy tale. As such, it begins with that familiar line common to all good stories and fairy tales. Once upon a time, there was a village named Tranquil. It was an enormously blessed place. Tranquil had no serious problems. There was no homelessne...
Sermon
Rick McCracken-Bennett
When I was very young, being reared in another denomination, my mother and I, for reasons I cannot remember, were at church together without the rest of the family. In my memory it was evening; also for reasons I cannot remember. What I do recall is that my mother had a very traumatic experience at that service of Holy Eucharist. We were seated in back instead of in our customary pew halfway up o...
23. Holy Diet
John 6:24-35
Sermon
Donald Macleod
So when the people saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the f...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
Jesus has two major metaphors for himself-Bread and Water: "Bread of Life" and "Living Water." For the Christian, the #1 soul food is bread and water. What makes bread come alive, what turns juice into wine, is YEAST. There is a Kudzu cartoon that shows the preacher reading from the pulpit the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily....low-fat, low-cholesterol, salt-free bread ..." The last fr...
Sermon
Eric Ritz
Some children wrote letters to their pastor: Dear Pastor, I know God loves everybody but He never met my sister. Yours sincerely, Arnold. Age 8, Nashville. Dear Pastor, Please say in your sermon that Peter Peterson has been a good boy all week. I am Peter Peterson. Sincerely, Pete. Age 9, Phoenix Dear Pastor, My father should be a minister. Every day he gives us a sermon about something. Robert...
Showing 1 to 25 of 91 results