Sermon and Worship Resources

[While King Duncan is enjoying a well deserved retirement we are going back to his earliest sermons and renewing them. The newly modernized sermon is shown first and below, for reference sake, is the old sermon. We will continue this updating throughout the year bringing fresh takes on King's best sermons.]

Original Title: A Pair of Ducks and Abundant Life
New Title: Paradox Blocks

It’s always interesting to discover a child’s take on things. The Internet recently carried a series of letters from children to their pastors:

Dear Pastor, I’m sorry I can’t leave more money in the plate, but my father didn’t give me a raise in my allowance. Could you have a sermon about a raise in my allowance? Love, Patty (age 10, New Haven).

Dear Pastor, I think a lot more people would come to your church if you moved it to Disneyland. Loreen (age 9, Tacoma).

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, Please say a prayer for our Little League team. We need God’s help or a new pitcher. Thank you. Alexander (age 10, Raleigh).

Dear Pastor, My father says I should learn the Ten Commandments. But I don’t think I want to because we have enough rules already in my house. Joshua (age 10, South Pasadena).

And my favorite:

Dear Pastor, I liked your sermon on Sunday. Especially when it was finished. Ralph (age 11, Akron).

The Sunday School teacher held up a portrait of Christ. She explained to the class that it was not an actual photograph of Christ but only an artist’s conception of what Christ might have looked like.

“But,” said one little girl, “you’ve got to admit it looks a lot like him.”

To a child the picture of Jesus is clear. If he has Nordic features, blonde hair and blue eyes rather than Jewish features, no problem. It was on the wall at Sunday School. Therefore, that’s what Jesus must look like.

Sometimes to persons of very shallow faith, the teachings of Jesus seem clear as well. The simple Gospel...so easy to understand. We sometimes forget how much difficulty Jesus’ teachings gave his own disciples. These were not ignorant men; these were not stupid men, and yet, they were constantly asking Jesus to explain himself. When he wasn’t talking in parables, he was talking in paradox. And what may seem so simple to some was very perplexing to those very close to him. It is only upon mature reflection, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that we can discern the wisdom of Jesus’ words. And we see in some of his paradoxes and some of his parables the principles that are at the heart of successful living in this world.

I want to deal with three of his most important paradoxes today, for I am convinced they are the keys to an abundant life. Now, don’t be put off by the word paradox.

One young fellow listened very intently to what the pastor was saying one day. Afterward he asked his father, “What was the pastor saying about ducks?”

His father said, “I don’t remember he said anything about ducks.”

The boy said, “Oh, yes he did. He said that life is a ‘Pair of Ducks’.”

“Oh,” his Dad replied, “you mean paradox. I think he was talking about two medical doctors, but I’m not sure what he said about them.”

Let me refresh your memory. A paradox is a statement that sounds contradictory, but actually it holds an abundance of truth.

One of the best known paradoxes is found in today’s lesson from Mark: “Then [Jesus] called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” It sounds contradictory, “whoever loses his life . . . will save it.” And yet these are some of the truest words ever spoken.

Einstein once said, "The closer you get to the truth, the more abstract and unrelated your thoughts become." Now, I think I understand what Einstein meant but to be sure I turned to the smartest person I know, the one who, I think, is closest to Einstein’s cognitive abilities: ChatGPT.

Here’s what the AI told me: This quote, “The closer you get to the truth, the more abstract and unrelated your thoughts become.” suggests that as we approach the truth, our understanding of the world becomes more complex and abstract. The truth is often not simple, and it requires a deep understanding of the underlying concepts and principles. As we gain a deeper understanding of the truth, we must be willing to let go of our preconceived notions and embrace new ideas that may seem unrelated or abstract at first. This is the only way to truly understand the world around us.”

And then my Einstein-like Chat friend concluded: “I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.” I think I do.

The idea that truth is often complex, or abstract is something Jesus recognized, but I think there’s one more way he would describe it: It…is…simple.

Our intuition tells us that doesn’t it? We may have a hard time explaining it out loud, but our gut knows it. Instantly: “whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

There are three paradoxes that permeate Christ’s teachings that I would like to lift up today. These paradoxes are critical to an understanding of the abundant life that Christ promised. They are as complex and abstract, as they are simple. If you do not understand these paradoxes, and base your life around them, you will be like a person trying to build an airplane without any understanding of the basic principles of physics. These paradoxes are at the heart of victorious living. We talk about the building blocks of life. Let’s call these paradox blocks.

The first paradox is this: anything you save will be lost.

Years ago, Bishop Reuben Job told about an experience in his own family. He said, “One day a couple of years ago I picked up one of my sons who was 14 years old and competing in a track meet. As any busy father, I wasn’t there but probably should have been there, when he ran the race. But I was there to pick him up. As he came out of the gate, I could see that he had not won. You can tell the difference between a winner and loser. That morning he had left and said, `Daddy, I feel great. I had a good night’s sleep. I’m training and I feel like I really will do well today.’ He doesn’t normally do too well in track. I think he has won two races in 10 years and that day as he came to the car, I could see it had not gone well.

“I thought we could get it over with and said, ‘Son, how did you do?’ And he replied, ‘The worst I have ever done.’ I said, ‘What went wrong? You thought you would do better.’ He said, ‘Well you see, Daddy, it’s like this. I run the 330. And in the Jr. High School where we go, we train on a 330‑yard track. Here, today, the 330-yard track was staked out on a 440-yard course, and I misjudged the race. I started off easy, saving myself, and I started running real hard too late. The race was over too quickly, and when the race was over I had too much left. I hadn’t used all I had.’”

My friends, there is a parable of life. The tragedy of our lives, when all is said and done, is not that we will have received too little but that we will have given too little. Many of us will get to the end of life and confess, “I didn’t use all I had.” Anything that is saved in this world will be lost. Isn’t that the meaning of the parable of the talents? The servant took the one talent and buried it in the ground. The other two servants put their talents to work. Anything you save in this world will be lost.

Isn’t it sad when you read about someone who has died and left a big fortune with no children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews to profit from their life’s work? Doesn’t the question come to your mind: Did they enjoy their wealth while they had it? It is a cliché, of course, to say “You can’t take it with you.” But what good is it if you hoard it right up until the end? Anything you save eventually will be lost.

That’s also true about relationships. The saddest words we hear at a funeral are: I wish I had done more for him or her while there was time. Now some of that grows out of a sense of guilt that all of us feel when we lose someone close. And often we do not need that guilt because we had a wonderful relationship with the person who has gone. But there is also that element of truth that we have so much that we could give away our love, our friendship, our time. Anything we save we will lose. That’s true of all aspects of life. The person who sits around the house all the time conserving his or her energy will have less and less energy to conserve. It’s the person who sits around all the time who feels tired, not the person out vigorously living life. Whatever you save you will lose. That is a lesson of life and the first paradox that we need to see this morning.

A medical doctor, W. Beran Wolfe, once wrote, “If you observe a really happy [person] you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his [children], growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert . . . To find happiness we must seek for it in a focus outside ourselves.”

It is the person who has a purpose for living, it is the person who is giving of himself or herself, who is the happiest. Anything that you save, you will lose.

Now this brings us to the second paradox, and it is related to the first: anything that you share, you will regain. Think about that for a moment. Anything that you share, you will regain.

We were created for sharing. Would you like to spend a miserable day? Go to an amusement park by yourself, ride the rides by yourself, see the shows by yourself. Now there is a sense in which solitude is a marvelous thing, and some of us spend some of our happiest hours alone. But solitude can only be enjoyed when it is balanced off with those hours, we spend with someone else, and there are some experiences which simply cannot be enjoyed by oneself. We were created for sharing.

Wouldn’t it be sad to have a beautiful painting hanging in your house, a Rembrandt or Picasso, and never be able to show it to someone else? How absurd to read about someone who has an expensive painting and puts it in a vault and never brings it out. Of course, they might do that for investment purposes, but then it is just like stocks or bonds; it is not a work of art for that person. A work of art would need to be shared; we would want to say to our neighbors, “Come see what I have!” We would like visitors in our home to admire this beautiful object. Anything that we share, we will regain.

We who are parents know that the greatest blessing in life is not a gift our children can give us; it is what we can give them that really brings us happiness. We can quickly see that, when it comes to our children, it truly is more blessed to give than to receive. If we could only know ourselves to be related to all other persons on this earth, that we are all in this same kind of family relationship, then we would understand that always what we give ultimately is restored to us. We were made for sharing!

We certainly ought to know that in the church. The story is told about a giant bridge that was being built across a portion of New York’s Harbor. Engineers were searching for a place where they could rest the mighty buttresses for the bridge. But they discovered a daunting obstacle in their way. Deep in the mud lay an old sunken barge full of bricks and stones. It had to be moved. Yet in spite of every device used, it remained firmly embedded in the mud. At last one of the engineers conceived an idea. He gathered other barges around the sunken barge and chained them to the sunken vessel while the tide was low. Then everyone waited. The tide was coming in. Higher and higher rose the water and when it did all the barges rose, too, including that old boat mired in the mud of the harbor.

Now there’s a parable! Chained together by the love of Christ, lifted by the power of God, but experiencing the blessings of our Christian faith only as we share it together! If we refuse to be yoked together, then there can be no lifting power. Anything we save we will lose; anything we share, we will regain.

III

Listen to these paradoxes: First, anything you save will be lost. Second, anything you share, you will regain.

Here is third: anything you surrender to God, will be blessed beyond imagination. Just as the boy surrendered to Jesus his five barley loaves and two small fish in the story of the feeding of the multitude and saw an unimaginable miracle, so we, when we surrender anything to God, will be given back many times over.

There is a little children’s book about a couple in Sussex, England who were buying a new teacup. The wife said to her husband, “Look at this one. It is so beautiful; I want to buy it!” And the teacup said, “Ah, but you know I wasn’t always beautiful.” Now in the children’s story the teacup can talk, and the couple isn’t surprised, so they simply asked the teacup what it meant. The teacup said, “Originally, I was just a soggy, ugly, damp lump of clay. They put me on a wheel, and they started turning that wheel until my head became dizzy. Then they started to poke and prod, and it hurt! I cried out, ‘Stop!’ But they said, ‘Not yet.’

At long last they stopped the wheel and put me into a furnace. It became hotter and hotter until I thought I could no longer stand it, and I cried out, ‘Stop!’ But they said, ‘Not yet.’ Finally, they took me out of the furnace, and someone started to put paint on me and the fumes from the paint made me ill. It made my head swim, and I cried out, ‘Stop!’ But they said, ‘Not yet!’ When at long last they had finished painting, they put me back into the furnace and it was hotter than before. And I cried out, ‘Stop!’ and they said, ‘Not yet.’

Finally, they took me out of the furnace, and after I had cooled down, they placed me on a tabletop in front of a mirror. I remembered myself as a soggy, ugly, damp lump of clay. When I looked at my image in the mirror, I lost my breath and I said, in amazement, ‘I am beautiful.’ And then I knew that it was only the pain that I went through that had made it possible for me to be beautiful.” (1)

What a parable. Whatever we surrender in our pain, our failures, our sins will somehow be blessed by God and transformed. God can take the ugliness and the drabness of our lives and turn those lives into something beautiful. But, first of all, we must surrender them to Him. We are the clay, He is the potter. But what He can do with that clay if we will yield ourselves to Him is something glorious!

We stand looking at a century old oak tree and we wonder how this marvelous thing ever rose up out of the dead earth. As a matter of fact, it did not, not with the help of the earth alone. A tree is largely transformed by sunlight. To be sure it drew many of its nutrients from the earth, but the tree is forever drawing upon the streams of sunlight which flood it. This intangible light energy is absorbed into leaf and blossom and fiber until this tree grows into a mighty edifice giving shade to all.

A tree does not worry about surrendering itself to the sun that bathes it. It can do no other. You and I, however, are confronted with a choice. Do we, in a paradox of living, surrender all we are and all we hope to be to God? If we do, we can know this: God is the creator of beauty, and God can take our lives and make something beautiful out of them if we are willing to surrender them.

Anything you save, you will lose. Anything you share, you will regain. And that which you surrender to God, God will bless in a wondrous way. God will transform it into something beautiful and worthy. Isn’t it time you surrendered your life to God?

-------------------------------------------------------

1. I indebted to the Reverend Wasena Wright for this illustration.

[ORIGINAL SERMON]

It’s always interesting to discover a child’s take on things. The Internet recently carried a series of letters from children to their pastors:

Dear Pastor, I think a lot more people would come to your church if you moved it to Disneyland. Loreen (age 9, Tacoma).

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, Please say a prayer for our Little League team. We need God’s help or a new pitcher. Thank you. Alexander (age 10, Raleigh).

Dear Pastor, My father says I should learn the Ten Commandments. But I don’t think I want to because we have enough rules already in my house. Joshua (age 10, South Pasadena).

And my favorite:

Dear Pastor, I liked your sermon on Sunday. Especially when it was finished. Ralph (age 11, Akron).

There is a time-honored story of a Sunday School teacher who held up a portrait of Christ. He explained to the class that it was not an actual photograph of Christ but only an artist’s conception of what Christ looks like.

“But,” said one little girl, “you’ve got to admit it looks a lot like him.”

To a child the picture of Jesus is clear. If he has Nordic features blonde hair and blue eyes rather than Palestinian features, no problem. It was on the wall at Sunday School. Therefore that’s what Jesus must look like.

Sometimes to persons of very shallow faith, the teachings of Jesus seem clear as well. The simple Gospel so easy to understand. We sometimes forget how much difficulty Jesus’ teachings gave his own disciples. These were not ignorant men; these were not stupid men, and yet, they were constantly asking Jesus to explain himself. When he wasn’t talking in parable, he was talking in paradox. And what may seem so simple to some was very perplexing to those very close to him. It is only upon mature reflection, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that we can discern the wisdom of Jesus’ words. And we see in some of his paradoxes and some of his parables the principles that are at the heart of successful living in this world.

I want to deal with three of his most important paradoxes today, for I am convinced they are the keys to an abundant life. Now, don’t be put off by the word paradox.

One young fellow listened very intently to what the pastor was saying one day. Afterward he asked his father, “What was the pastor saying about ducks?”

His father said, “I don’t remember he said anything about ducks.”

The boy said, “Oh, yes he did. He said that life is a ‘Pair of Ducks’.”

“Oh,” his Dad replied, “you mean paradox. I think he was talking about two medical doctors, but I’m not sure what he said about them.”

Let me refresh your memory. A paradox is a statement that sounds contradictory, but actually it holds an abundance of truth.

Albert Einstein once said that the closer you get to truth, the more it appears to be a paradox. I don’t know what paradox Einstein had in mind, but it could not be greater than this one, “whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

There are three paradoxes that permeate Christ’s teachings that I would like to lift up today. These paradoxes are critical to an understanding of the abundant life that Christ promised. If you do not understand these paradoxes, you will be like a person trying to build an airplane without any understanding of the basic principles of physics. These paradoxes are at the heart of victorious living.

The first paradox is this: anything you save will be lost.

Years ago Bishop Reuben Job told about an experience in his own family. He said, “One day a couple of years ago I picked up one of my sons who was 14 years old and competing in a track meet. As any busy father, I wasn’t there but probably should have been there, when he ran the race. But I was there to pick him up. As he came out of the gate, I could see that he had not won. You can tell the difference between a winner and loser. That morning he had left and said, `Daddy, I feel great. I had a good night’s sleep. I’m training and I feel like I really will do well today.’ He doesn’t normally do too well in track I think he has won two races in 10 years and that day as he came to the car, I could see it had not gone well.

“I thought we could get it over with and said, ‘Son, how did you do?’ And he replied, ‘The worst I have ever done.’ I said, ‘What went wrong? You thought you would do better.’ He said, ‘Well you see, Daddy, it’s like this. I run the 330. And in the Jr. High School where we go, we train on a 330‑yard track. Here, today, the 330-yard track was staked out on a 440-yard course, and I misjudged the race. I started off easy, saving myself, and I started running real hard too late. The race was over too quick, and when the race was over I had too much left. I hadn’t used all I had.’” (1)

Isn’t it sad when you read about someone who has died and left a big fortune with no children or grandchildren or nieces or nephews to profit by their life’s work? Doesn’t the question come to your mind: Did they enjoy their wealth while they had it? It is a cliché, of course, to say “You can’t take it with you.” But what good is it if you hoard it right up until the end? Anything you save eventually will be lost.

That’s also true with regard to relationships. The saddest words we hear at a funeral are: I wish I had done more for him or her while there was time. Now some of that grows out of a sense of guilt that all of us feel when we lose someone close. And often we do not need that guilt because we had a wonderful relationship with the person who has gone. But there is also that element of truth that we have so much that we could give away our love, our friendship, our time. Anything we save we will lose. That’s true of all aspects of life. The person who sits around the house all the time conserving his or her energy will have less and less energy to conserve. It’s the person who sits around all the time who feels tired, not the person out vigorously living life. Whatever you save you will lose. That is a lesson of life and the first paradox that we need to see this morning.

It is the person who has a purpose for living, it is the person who is giving of himself or herself, who is the happiest. Anything that you save, you will lose.

Now this brings us to the second paradox, and it is related to the first: anything that you share, you will regain. Think about that for a moment. Anything that you share, you will regain.

We were created for sharing. Would you like to spend a miserable day? Go to an amusement park by yourself, ride the rides by yourself, see the shows by yourself. Now there is a sense in which solitude is a marvelous thing, and some of us spend some of our happiest hours alone. But solitude can only be enjoyed when it is balanced off with those hours we spend with someone else, and there are some experiences which simply cannot be enjoyed by oneself. We were created for sharing.

Wouldn’t it be sad to have a beautiful painting hanging in your house, a Rembrandt or Picasso, and never be able to show it to someone else? How absurd to read about someone who has an expensive painting and puts it in a vault and never bring it out. Of course, they might do that for investment purposes, but then it is just like stocks or bonds; it is not a work of art for that person. A work of art would need to be shared; we would want to say to our neighbors, “Come see what I have!” We would like visitors in our home to admire this beautiful object. Anything that we share, we will regain.

We who are parents know that the greatest blessing in life is not a gift our children can give us; it is what we can give them that really brings us happiness. We can quickly see that, when it comes to our children, it truly is more blessed to give than to receive. If we could only know ourselves to be related to all other persons on this earth in this same kind of family relationship so that we would understand that always what we give ultimately is restored to us. We were made for sharing!

Is that not also a parable of our lives? Chained together by the love of Christ, lifted by the power of God, but experiencing the blessings of our Christian faith only as we share it together! If we refuse to be yoked together, then there can be no lifting power. Anything we save we will lose anything we share, we will regain.

Here is one final paradox: anything you surrender to God, will be blessed beyond imagination. Just as the boy surrendered to Jesus his five barley loaves and two small fish in the story of the feeding of the multitude and saw an unimaginable miracle, so we, when we surrender anything to God, will be given back many times over.

There is a little children’s book about a couple in Sussex, England who were buying a new teacup. The wife said to her husband, “Look at this one. It is so beautiful, I want to buy it!” And the teacup said, “Ah, but you know I wasn’t always beautiful.” Now in the children’s story the teacup can talk, and the couple isn’t surprised, so they simply asked the teacup what it meant. The teacup said, “Originally I was just a soggy, ugly, damp lump of clay. They put me on a wheel and they started turning that wheel until my head became dizzy. Then they started to poke and prod, and it hurt! I cried out, ‘Stop!’ But they said, ‘Not yet.’ At long last they did stop the wheel and put me into a furnace. It became hotter and hotter until I thought I could no longer stand it, and I cried out, ‘Stop’ But they said, ‘Not yet.’ Finally they took me out of the furnace and someone started to put paint on me and the fumes from the paint made me ill. It made my head swim and I cried out, ‘Stop!’ But they said, ‘Not yet!’ When at long last they had finished painting, they put me back into the furnace and it was hotter than before. And I cried out, ‘Stop!’ and they said, ‘Not yet.’ Finally, they took me out of the furnace, and after I had cooled down, they placed me on a tabletop in front of a mirror. I remembered myself as a soggy, ugly, damp lump of clay. When I looked at my image in the mirror, I lost my breath and I said, in amazement, ‘I am beautiful.’ And then I knew that it was only the pain that I went through that had made it possible for me to be beautiful.” (2)

Again, what a parable that is for our lives. Whatever we surrender our pain, our failures, our sins will somehow be blessed by God and transformed. God can take the ugliness and the drabness of our lives and turn those lives into something beautiful. But, first of all, we must surrender them to Him. We are the clay, He is the potter. But what He can do with that clay if we will yield ourselves to Him is something glorious!

A tree does not worry about surrendering itself to the sun that bathes it. It can do no other. You and I, however, are confronted with a choice. Do we surrender all we are and all we hope to be to God? If we do, we can know this: God is the creator of beauty, and God can take our lives and make something beautiful out of them if we are willing to surrender them.

---------------------------------------------------------

1. I have lost the source of this illustration.

2. I indebted to the Reverend Wasena Wright for this illustration.

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., Dynamic Preaching Third Quarter 2009, by King Duncan