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1. Giving Your All
Mark 12:35-40
Sermon
Erskine White
But she, out of her poverty, has put in everything she had, her whole living. (Mark 12:44) Jesus could really be rough on certain people, especially those whom He perceived to be falsely religious and self-righteous. Judging by some of the severe language we read in the gospels, you didn't want to be on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing administered by one Jesus of Nazareth. When our Lord spok...
Sermon
Wesley T. Runk
One Sunday morning following the divine worship, the pastor greeted his parishioners at the door and accepted comments on his sermon. He had preached a searching sermon on the sin of pride. One particular woman had obviously hung back in order to confess her sin. When all the others had left, she told him that because of his sermon she realized what a sin she had committed during the past week. Th...
Sermon
James W. Moore
I ran across a poem a few years ago that caught my attention. It’s called “The Land of Beginning Again,” and here are the words: I wish there were Some wonderful place Called the Land of Beginning again, Where all our mistakes And all our heartaches And all our poor selfish grief Could be dropped Like a shabby old coat At the door… And never be put on again. The Land of Beginning Again — wouldn’...
4. Mark 12:38-44
Mark 12:38-44
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
Jesus' teachings from Mark are part of a longer section beginning in chapter 11 that confronts and challenges the "organized religions" of his time. One by one Jesus engages in debate, discourse, and sometimes diatribe against the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Scribes, the Herodians, and Temple religion in general. His overarching indictment of the religious-political-economic establishment is sum...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
When Moses descended from the heights of Mount Sinai, he juggled in his arms not two but three Tablets of the Covenant, with five commandments inscribed on each. At least that’s how Mel Brooks tells it in his classic comedy “History of the World, Part I.” ‘Hear me, o hear me! All pay heed!’ the movie Moses proclaims. ‘The Lord, the Lord Jehovah, has given unto you these fifteen . . . [One stone t...
Sermon
King Duncan
Many of you have seen the award-winning motion picture from the 1970s, The Godfather. A chilling film, it is about an aging patriarch of an organized crime family who transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son, Michael.  We see as the film goes along what this responsibility and the power that goes with it does to Michael’s soul. The closing scene of The Godfather is particu...
Sermon
Cathy A. Ammlung
I was startled by a recent analysis of per capita charitable contributions by state. Massachusetts, with the fourth highest personal income in the country, ranked last in charitable contributions. Mississippi, forty-ninth in income, ranked first in actual dollars contributed. Mississippians gave, on average, about forty percent more to charity than did their Yankee cousins! Converted to percentage...
8. What Jesus Saw
Mark 12:38-44
Sermon
King Duncan
Jon Krakauer is a mountaineer and the author of the best-selling book Into Thin Air. The book is about his 1996 expedition to Mt. Everest in which numerous climbers died in a blizzard. Krakauer was not prepared for the deadly blizzard. He didn’t know it was coming. He stood on top of Mt. Everest and just saw some cloud formations and thought nothing was wrong. Later he met another climber who had...
Sermon
Billy D. Strayhorn
The widow Jesus points out in today's passage is considerably different than one I read  about in newspaper article a number of years ago.  It seems that in Indianapolis, a wealthy widow was found dead in her home.  The police discovered over 5 million dollars in cash stuffed in trash cans, shoe boxes, drawers, tool boxes, paper bags, the pockets of clothing and even in a vacuum cleaner bag.  Most...
Sermon
Frank Ramirez
In recent decades, archaeologists have turned their attention to ancient cooking pits and trash heaps because these reveal what ordinary people were doing a long, long time ago. Instead of assuming history is what the rich and powerful rulers were doing in ancient empires, the trash heaps and cooking pits of so-called ordinary people tell us what real life was like. They tell us about what matters...
Sermon
Lori Wagner
“You are worth your weight in gold!” We use this phrase to indicate someone who is extremely useful, helpful, or valuable to someone else. It can refer either to a person or to a thing, but we most often use it to refer to a person. The idea behind the phrase is gratitude –that “we” could not manage without that person, because he or shehas become so valuable to us and to our process or goal in w...
Sermon
Bill Bouknight
A few months ago I received a letter that touched my heart. Let me share a portion of it with you, using fictitious names so that anonymity will be preserved: "Dear Dr. Bouknight: My name is John Brown. I have been a member of Christ Church for four years. At that time a very dear friend, Jean Smith, invited me to attend the 9:45 service. Christ Church has been the only tangible thing in my life t...
Sermon
Donald B. Strobe
In the first parish I served there lived an elderly widow.  She lived alone, except for about a hundred parakeets.  She supplemented her meager income from her late husband’s Social Security by raising and selling those popular birds.  Her health was none too good, and during the cold winter months she was rarely able to make it out to church on Sunday mornings, so I tried to visit her as often as...
14. Celebrate This!
Mark 12:38-44
Sermon
Steven Molin
He was a Lutheran pastor from central Iowa, but with an avocation for carpentry, and that's why he was spending a month's vacation on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. His goal that month was to build a new bathroom for the community there. On the last day of his vacation, a small Indian girl approached him and, in her outstretched hand she held a nickel. "Here," she said, "I want...
Sermon
Thomas Peterson
A couple stands before the pastor in the midday service. He asks, “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” The father says, “I do.” Then the father takes the right hand of the bride in his right hand and places it into the right hand of the pastor who, in turn, places it in the right hand of the groom. The vows are given, and the groom, having taken the right hand of the bride, says, “I,...
16. Annie's Gift
Mark 12:41-44
Sermon
King Duncan
Annie tried to keep her feelings of distress from showing. Why was it so hard? For seventythree years she had been struggling to keep her feelings to herself. That was how she was brought up. "Don't make a scene, Annie," her father would say to her. "Show them you've got some backbone." And she had listened. No matter how much she hurt inside, she was usually able to keep her emotions bottled up. ...
Sermon
Steven E. Albertin
"Taboo." It's a strange, mysterious, ancient-sounding word that we don't use much any more in our modern, scientifically enlightened world. A taboo is something that is forbidden. A taboo is a prohibition. It is usually associated with something sacred and mysterious. Something that is taboo is set aside, never to be touched and desecrated by human hands. We are usually afraid of the taboo. We are...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
How do you measure life? In worldly weights and measures like dollars and cents, or using spiritual scales of love, service and friendship? In our local supermarket, there are several different candy counters. A big display of all the old favorites greets you just as you turn your cart into the first aisle. At the opposite end of the store is half a wall of bulk candy big packages for big famili...
Sermon
King Duncan
I don’t know about you, but I love it when I see wealthy people giving their money away. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t see their giving as in any way sacrificial. They will still have more money in their possession than any of us will ever dream of. But still, it was quite a sight a few years back to see 168 billionaires (yes, that is billionaire with a b) worldwide line up with Bill Gates, the rich...
Sermon
King Duncan
The election is now behind us. I guess it’s safe for me to talk about Warren Buffet’s secretary. In case you’ve been on a deserted island somewhere cut off from all media, Warren Buffet, one of the richest men on earth and a prominent Democrat, caused quite a stir sometime back when he said that his secretary pays a higher percentage of her salary in taxes than he pays. That is because wages are t...
Sermon
King Duncan
I have some good news today for widows. [How many of you fall into that category?] Some of you have been widowed and remarried. Some of you still grieve the loss of your life’s partner. If you are a widow, you can probably use some good news. It’s not easy losing a spouse. Some of you have a void in life that nothing will ever fill. But here’s the good news. Jesus is aware of your situation, and J...
22. A Penny For God
Mark 12:41-44
Sermon
King Duncan
A huge sofa filled the sidewalk in front of a home. Evidently the sofa had been taken out to the curb by the owner for trash collection. Since the sofa was in pretty good shape, a lot of people driving by slowed down for a closer look. But when they saw how big it was, they'd pass on by without stopping. Eventually a compact car pulled up, and two men got out. They removed all the cushions, turned...
23. Two Small Coins
Mark 12:41-44
Sermon
King Duncan
A very wealthy man rang his minister at two in the morning. "Pastor," he said, "I lost everything on the stock market yesterday. I can’t believe it. It’s all gone!" The slowly awaking pastor tried to reassure the man. He said, "I’m so sorry. I know this is a difficult time for you." "But what bothers me the most," the man continued, "is the two million dollars I had pledged to the church buildin...
Sermon
William G. Carter
Here she is again: the widow who goes up to the temple treasury to put in her two cents. Every year she shows up at stewardship time. Teachers and preachers love to point and say, "Look at her! Truly I tell you, she has put in more than all the others." That is not literally true, of course. In terms of quantity, many people in that line put a lot more money in the temple offering. Certainly she ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
I had finished my hospital calls one day, and I could not help noticing a sharp-looking, late-model sports car which stopped at the traffic light alongside me. Visually, it was a thing of beauty! It sat there in sleek elegance, testifying by its design and engineering to its exclusive price tag - undoubtedly some where in at least the $55,000 to $75,000 range. Its driver’s identity lay hidden beh...
Showing 1 to 25 of 38 results