It was in Scotland in 1881, when a fearful storm swept over that part of the country. A minister in the town of Eyemouth had a great many of the fishermen in his congregation. It had been very stormy weather, and the fishermen had been detained in the harbor for a week. One day, however, the sun shone out in a clear blue sky; it seemed as if the storm had passed away, and the boats started out for the fishing ground. Forty-one boats left the harbor that day.  Before …

Some emergencies, some crisis situations, truly spring upon us with little or no warning. When Mt. St. Helen's exploded back in 1980, not one volcanologist expected the monstrous, nuclear-type blast that f…

During World War II the city of Palermo, Sicily, a military objective of the Allied Powers, was to be bombed by the American Air Force. To warn the Sicilians, telling them to flee, thousands of pamphlets were dropped on the city beforehand, but the citizens si…

We begin by trusting our ignorance and calling it innocence, and by trusting our innocence and calling it purity. And when we hear these rugged statements of our Lord's (Matthew 15:18), we shrink and say:

"But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart." Either Jesus Ch…

In 2001 as the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan advanced through the north and took control of Mazar-e-Sharif, reports slowly made their way to the rest of the world how the common afghan people were responding. The reports underscored for me, once again, the unimaginable oppression of the Taliban government but also, it served as a vivid reminder of the tremendous liberties we enjoy. The Associated Press reported that on Monday,

"In Mazar-e-Sh…

It pays to heed a warning.

Argentinean race driver Juan Manuel Fangio discovered that after the opening lap of the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix. As he approached a dangerous bend for the second time, Fangio noticed…

In 1969, in Pass Christian, Mississippi, a group of people were preparing to have a "hurricane party" in the face of a storm named Camille. Were they ignorant of the dangers? Could they have been overconfident? Did they let their egos and pride influence their decision? We'll never know.

What we do know is that the wind was howling outside the posh Richelieu Apartments when Police Chief Jerry Peralta pulled up sometime after dark. Facing the Beach less than 250 feet from the surf, the apartments were directly in the line of danger. A man with a drink in his hand came out to the second-floor balcony and waved. Peralta yelled…

Of course, like all preachers, John didn't get through to everybody. Some who came to the Jordan with no intention of getting taken in by this man stuck to that determination pretty fiercely. The religious leaders provided John the opportunity to cut loose with his strongest language."Sneaky snakes!" John fairly howled! "Somebody set the field on fire and out slithered you all…

An incident from the American Revolution illustrates that tragedy can result from procrastination. It is reported that Colonel Rahl, commander of the British troops in Trenton, New Jersey, was playing cards when a courier brought an urgent message stating that General George Washington was crossing the De…

A man in Long Island, NY bought a barometer. It arrived the next morning, but to his annoyance, the needle pointed below 29, where the dial read, "Hurricanes…

The theme of poverty, riches, possessions and the realm of God is a constant theme of Luke. It begins with Mary's song. Mary had an encounter with an angel. "You will bear a son and call his name Jesus," the angel announced. "Let it be with me according to your word," said Mary. Elizabeth, Mary's relative, blessed Mary for her trust that God's word of promise would be fulfilled. And then Mary sang a song. Mary's song may just well be the central song of Luke's entire gospel. Luke tells many stories in his gospel that are best understood as comments on her song!

Mary's song sings of a God of great reversals. This God has high regard for a lowly maiden. This God scatters the proud and puts down the mighty from their thrones. The high are made low and the low are exalted. This God, furthermo…

The Road Runner cartoons, Wile E. Coyote and all the Acme products he bought, may be the reason we have so many warning labels on products toady. Warning labels point to dangers in life. Most warning labels make sense but some of them are just downright ridiculous and makes you wonder WHY a company had to put that warning label on their product.

There are a couple of websites devoted to nothing but inane warning labels. Here's a few of them.

"Do not put in mouth." On a box of bottle rockets. 

"Not dishwasher safe." On a remote control for a TV. 

"Do not attempt to stop the bla…

In the early 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, visiting our young nation, was struck by the "general equality of condition among American people." Few were very rich, and few were terribly poor, and de Tocqueville felt that this was fertile soil for the development of true democracy.

Somew…

The world's philosophy is a four-letter word: More. The church's theology is also a four-letter word, but it often means the opposite of more: Love. Will the church be a force and a forum for love?

The problem with our world, our nation and our church can be summed up in one word: More. "More" has become, as Laurence Shames has put it, America's "unofficial national motto." We want more of everything: more fun, more mone…

Two couples stood at the altar in a double wedding ceremony. Capable, hopeful, ambitious young people they entered the ways of wedded bliss with faith and confidence.

As time wrote its story the one young man was exceedingly successful in business and year by year his income grew larger.

The other young man was successful, but his work of service never made him rich in income.

Strangely as the wealthy business man grew richer, his wife became less and less capable; so that her duties as wife, mother and home…

I was reading recently about a tribe in Africa known as the Masai, a race of strong, tall people. This particular tribe has always believed in one god, Engai. They believe Engai is passionately involved in his people's lives. But here is what the Masai believe about their god: that he loves the rich more than the poor, the healthy more than the sick, the virtuous more than…

Sigmund Freud's favorite story was about the sailor shipwrecked on one of the South Sea islands. He was seized by the natives, hoisted to their shoulders, carried to the village, and set on a rude throne. Little by little, he learned that it was their custom once each year to make some man a king, king for a year. He liked it until he began to wonder what happened to all the former kings. Soon he discovered that every ye…

The Rev. Will Campbell is a Baptist prophet from the hills of North Carolina. A few years ago he was invited to preach at the prestigious Riverside Church in New York City. That church has long been noted for its activist preachers and liberal, politically correct agenda. Will Campbell was asked to preach on this subject: "What Riverside Church Can Do to Help the Future of Race Relations in America." Campbell took for his text the same one I am using today, the story of the rich young ruler. At the beginning of his sermon he asked, "What can Riverside Church do to help race r…

The first point is concerned with the reversal of fortune in the after-life (vv. 19-26), the second (vv. 27-31) with the petition of the rich man that Abraham may send Lazarus to his five brethren. . . [Jesus places] the stress is on the second point. That means that Jesus does not want to comment on a social problem, nor does he intend to give teaching about the after-life, but he relates the parable to warn men who resemble the brothers of the rich man of the impending danger. Hence the poor Lazarus is only a secondary figure, introduced by way of contrast. The parable is about the fiv…

Some years ago before the death of Mother Theresa, a television special depicted the grim human conditions that were a part of her daily life. It showed all the horror of the slums of Calcutta and her love for these destitute people. The producer interviewed her as she made her rounds in that dreadful place. Throughout the program commercials interrupted the flow of the discussion. Here is the sequence of the topics and commercials: lepers (bikinis for sale); m…

In George S. Clason's, The Richest Man in Babylon, he teaches an important principle. It's a principle you're familiar with: the person wanting to be rich should give away ten percent of everything he earns. Why? According to Clason there are some deep subconscious, psychological principles.

The first is that…

A true heart of compassion will let people know of God's love and that God has provided a way to experience true life, an abundant life. But How? Do we all have to share the same way? No, the unbelieving world is made up of a variety of people: young, old, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, urban, rural, with different race, personalities, values, politics, and religious backgrounds. It's going to take more than one sty…

American culture is a culture of fixing blame -- fixing blame on others. Whenever the President of our land slips a bit the media ask, "Why? Who is to blame?" When our favorite sports team loses, the question is asked, "Why? Who is to blame?" And on and on it goes. We are anxious to fix the blame somewhere. This "blame" culture may nowhere be so clearly seen as in the mountain of court cases brought in our land. It's getting to the point that when anything wrong happens to anyone the first thought is to go to court in order to assign the blame to someone else.

There lives a man whose name is J. B. J. B. is a lot like an Old Testament character named Job. J. B. protests his innocence when anything goes wrong. His method of choice for assigning blame is a lawsuit. J. B. is a rugged, athleti…

"Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he ...." Many people have learned that song in Sunday school. We might be tempted to think, therefore, that this is a story "for children only." Nothing could be further from the truth. The story of Zacchaeus is one of the most important stories for children and adults in the entire Gospel of Luke. It's important because it tells us how Christians can live with wealth. It's important because the story of Zacchaeus tells how it is that we can be saved.

Zacchaeus was a man who gouged his riches out of his people in the form of additional taxes. He was a man hated by the people of Jericho. Zacchaeus was a sinner. He had broken most of the laws of his people. Zacchaeus stands quite in contrast to a rich young ruler whose story Luke has jus…

In Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot the central character is Prince Myshkin, who does not fit in to the society around him. His peers are striving for status and power. They judge each other on the basis of money or appearance or family connections. In their world, there is no real friendship or int…

There is an apocryphal gospel called "The Gospel According to the Hebrews" most of which is lost; in one of the fragments which remain there is an account of this incident which sheds a little light on its meaning. Here is how that ancient text records this story:

The rich man said to Jesus, "Master, what good thing must I do really to live?" Jesus said to him, "Man, obey the law and the prophets." He said, "I have done so." Jesus said to him, "Go, sell all that you possess, …

There was a minister who had a favorite slogan that he often repeated in his sermons. He said, "The church is not like a country club; it's more like a hospital." That's wha…

1. The Careless Way: To give something to every cause that is presented, without inquiring into its merits.

2. The Impulsive Way: To give from impulse, as much and as often as love and pity and sensibility prompt.

3. The Lazy Way: To make a special offer to earn money for wo…

Ladislas M. Orsy wrote: "There is something wondrous in the taste of bread. It is so ordinary yet it is so good. It is very democratic. It nourishes the poor and …

A woman showed symptoms of a serious internal disorder. She consulted her family doctor, who referred her to a specialist. The specialist, a hematologist, hinted ominously that she had a dangerous condition. Her condition was so delicate that an ordinary cough, or a sneeze, might trigger irreversible and fatal internal bleeding. Surgery was advised. The woman entered the hospital for a high-risk operation.

Prior to the operation, the surgeon began to read the customary document of consent for surgery. The woman interrupted him abruptly. "Don't bother to read it, Doctor," she said. "Just show me where to sign."

The woman was a believer. She knew the meaning of faith. She applied it to her situation. She knew that …

In those first few weeks after 9/11, it was difficult to take in all the things happening, much less make some kind of sense of it all. Occasionally you read something in the paper or you heard something on TV which helped you put things in perspective. I remember by Thursday September 13th all of the sporting events that weekend had been cancelled. One of the NFL athletes was asked about playing on Sunday. He said, "Why? Who wants to play? I have a family and my heart just wouldn't be in it."

A TV journalist stopped a woman on the streets and asked about her business. She said, "I'm not interested in making money any more. My family and my relationships are the most important things in life."

The Late Show with David Letterman, as you may well know, is produced in the heart of New York …

The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the fail…

Christmas was and is the feast for the poor.  Christmas is a festival for the poor, a banquet for the poor.  We are reminded that at Christmas time (and all times), the poor are to be clothed, the hungry are to be filled, the handicapped and blind are to be nourished. These values are at the heart of the original Christmas pageant in the gospel of Luke, and these same values are found then in the rest of Luke's gospel as well. The poor are to be exalted, not only at Christmastime, but also throughout the whole year.

This Christmas gospel, this original Christmas pageant, continues in the…

Dives is not a name. It is a Latin adjective which simply means rich. This is how the tradition evolved which gave the rich man the name …

Many of the hymns of Christianity stir in us a regard to the urgency of our eternal salvation. "Delay not, delay not, O sinner draw near ... delay not, delay not, the hour is at hand." The Advent hymns breathe the urgency too: "Prepare the royal highway; the King of kings is near…

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear this Gospel? Do you wonder if you are one of the rich people whose wealth will make it next to impossible to get into heaven? Have you ever heard this Gospel used in stewardship campaigns in which the prescribed fix or remedy for wealth is to give it to the church, ensuring that God wou…

Martin Copenhaver, Pastor of the Wellesley Congregational Church, offers a vision of what God's Banquet Feast might be like: When God is throwing a party, you never know who will be there or whom you will sit next to. The financier will be seated next to the panhandler he always passed on his way to work. The store owner will be next to the person he just fired, and the doctor will be put next to the woman who just sued him for malpractice. Rush Limbaugh may be beside Barack Obama. A prostitute will sit next to the Pope.

All the "right"…

Once there was a rich man who wanted to do something good for someone in his community. He spent a few days just traveling around his neighborhood and the general vicinity. During his travels, he noticed the poor living conditions of a certain carpenter who lived nearby. So the rich man went to the carpenter and hired him to build a house.

"Now this isn't just any old house you'll be building," the rich man said to the carpenter. "I want you to build this house for a very special person. I want you to use only the finest building materials, hire the best workmen you can find, and spare no exp…

A smile costs nothing, but gives much. It enriches those who receive, without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever. None is so rich or mighty that they can get along without it, and none is so poor but …

Jesus did not condemn the man for eating, drinking and being merry, nor even for being rich. Rather the man was called foolish for building bigger barns. The point of the story is that the entrepreneur was planning to store more of his wealth than he needed to eat, drink and be merry. Look again at the words of the story. The man says, "What shall I do for I have nowhere to store my crops?" Not true! He has barns. His problem is that his harvest has been so great that his present storage facilities will not hold all of the grain. So he decides, "I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain. Then and only then will I have ample goods to eat, drink an…

Psalm 37:25 - "... yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread."

A beggar is a person who lives on the charity of others; there were (and are) professional beggars, who solicited alms publicly, and even went from door to door. They are still numerous in the East; they are usually "lame, maimed, or blind" (Luke 14:13). The commonest and most pathetic form of infirmity is blindness; some of these blind beggars are led by children and have regular places to station themselves.

The begging was sometimes only a simple statement of poverty. "I am poor," "I want a loaf of bread," or "give me the price of a loaf of bread." But occasionally they used the expressive gesture of bringing the forefinger across the teeth and holding it up as a proof that there was absolute…

If I told you to pull out a piece of paper and write on it who you say Jesus is what would you write? We all have some answer; we all have some images of Jesus. Some of them are the images we learned as children in Sunday school which have proved troubling and we don't' have anything to replace them with. Sometimes we dismiss Jesus on the basis of what we knew about Jesus at age six. Some of us have never examined the evidence for ourselves.

One of my main goals in preaching is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. I'm sorry to tell you this, but you probably don't. Because what happens sometimes is that presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity. Jesus is sometimes obstructed by clouds of well-intentioned misinformation.

Bu…

The story is told of Shah Abbis, a Persian monarch who loved his people very much. To know and understand them better, he would mingle with his subjects in various disguises. One day he went as a poor man to the public baths and in a tiny cellar sat beside the fireman who tended the furnace. When it was mealtime the monarch shared his coarse food and talked to his lonely subject as a friend. A…

Dad's are always giving advice. Perhaps you have heard a few of these from your father:

1. The man on the top of the mountain didn't fall there. 
2. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. 
3. Marry a big woman; someone to give you shade in the summer and warmth in the winter. 
4. An excuse is a poor patch for the garment of failure. 
5. Never try to catch two frogs with one hand. 
6. Always throw away the box when you take the last piece of candy. 
7. Honesty is like a trail, once you get off it you realize you are lost. 
8. Remember who you are and where you came from. 
9. Wherever you are in life, first make friends with the cook. 
10. Don't shake the tree too hard, you never know what might fall out. 
11. A closed mouth gathe…

There's a legend of a king who had one beautiful daughter. She had many offers of marriage, but she couldn't make up her mind. A romantic girl, she wanted a man who would love her more than he loved anything else.

Finally, she devised a way to test the love of her suitors. An announcement was made and sent throughout the kingdom that on a certain day, there would be a race. The winner of the race would marry the princess. The race was open to every man in the kingdom, regardless of his position. All that was required was that the man had to profess to love the princess more than he loved anything else.

On the chosen day, men rich and poor gathered for the race. Each professed wholehearted love for the princess. They gathered at the starting line, prepared to run the course of…

Donald Trump, the famous businessman, has a net worth of 3 billion dollars. There is a story about Trump's generosity with a stranger. It is said that Trump's limousine broke down on the Garden State Parkway on the way home from Atlantic City during a weekend excursion. An unemployed auto mechanic stopped to help, succeeded in getting the limo running and then refused to accept any payment for his services. Trump was so impressed that the next day he…

A man was packing a shipment of food for the poor people of Appalachia. He was separating beans from powdered milk, and canned vegetables from canned meats. Reaching into a box filled with various cans, he pulled out a littl…