Sermon and Worship Resources

These Illustrations are based on John 4:5-42
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Sermon Opener - Living Water for the Thirsty Soul - John 4:5-42

One of the commencement traditions at Harvard University is Senior Class Chapel. On the morning of their graduation, seniors gather in Memorial Church to hear the minister offer words of solace and encouragement as they leave "the Yard" to take their places in the world.

The 1998 senior class heard the unvarnished truth from the Rev. Peter Gomes, minister at Harvard and the author of several books on the Bible, including The Good Book and Sermons. In his gentle ringing tones, that call to mind a cross between a Shakespearean actor and the TV sitcom character Frasier, the inimitable Doctor Gomes took no prisoners as he began:

"You are going to be sent out of here for good, and most of you aren’t ready to go. The president is about to bid you into the fellowship of educated men and women and," - and here he paused and spoke each word slowly for emphasis - "you know just - how - dumb - you - really - are."

The senior class cheered in agreement.

"And worse than that," Doctor Gomes continued, "the world - and your parents in particular - are going to expect that you will be among the brightest and best. But you know that you can no longer fool all the people even some of the time. By noontime today, you will be out of here. By tomorrow you will be history. By Saturday, you will be toast. That’s a fact - no exceptions, no extensions."

"Nevertheless, there is reason to hope," Doctor Gomes promised. "The future is God’s gift to you. God will not let you stumble or fall. God has not brought you this far to this place to abandon you or leave you here alone and afraid. The God of Israel never stumbles, never sleeps, never goes on sabbatical. Thus, my beloved and bewildered young friends, do not be afraid."

What Doctor Gomes did for the senior class at Harvard, Jesus does for the woman at the well. Before we take a look at the story let me let you in on a fascinating fact. You can go to Israel today and take a journey to Samaria to the town of Sychar. A place the passage of time seems to have forgotten…

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Scrubbing Our Social Media Accounts - Romans 5:1-11

We’re about two months away from high school and college graduation season. It’s a very exciting and stressful time for students, teachers and parents. Our prayers are with all our young people as they make the move into jobs or college or some new chapter of their lives.

There’s an online company called BrandYourself that claims it has the perfect graduation gift for high school and college students. It’s called the “Student Makeover.” It’s not a beauty and grooming service. It’s an online service for cleaning up your social media profiles. For $99, the company will scour all your social media profiles—Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.—and remove what it calls, “risky online references to sex, alcohol, drugs, politics, religion and more.” The company also does an in-depth search of the Internet to compile a “reputation score” for each client. The reputation score shows you how “clean” or “questionable” your online reputation is, and what steps you can take to delete troubling posts or pictures.

Now I know that none of our young people need such a service, but I understand that a growing number of college recruiters and job recruiters use a young person’s social media accounts to decide if they’ll offer you college admission or a job, so cleaning up your social media account is becoming big business these days. (1)

Most of us know what it’s like to do some foolish or crazy stuff in our younger years. Those of us who grew up in a time before social media can leave those regrets in the past because there aren’t a lot of photos or posts about it. But these days a person’s whole life, every random thought and emotion and insensitive joke and embarrassing picture, can wind up online. And it’s nearly impossible to take this stuff back, unless you hire a company like BrandYourself to delete most of it. So be careful.

Kate Eichorn wrote a book about the dangers of the online world called The End of Forgetting. In her book she says that our online information means we can’t ever forget the past or distance ourselves from it.

In an interview about her book, she said, “My point is that there is something liberating about being able to forget the past and reinvent yourself in the present. Much of growing up, I would argue, is about reinventing yourself multiple times, and that requires being able to forget who you were six months ago, three years ago, 10 years ago. So forgetting is ultimately about freedom.” (2)

Forgetting is ultimately about freedom. I think there’s some truth to her statement. In what ways does our past define us? In what ways does it inspire us or hold us back? And what does it mean to be set free from our past?...

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Look Around You

William Easum, in his book, Dancing with Dinosaurs, suggests that the dinosaurs ate only the vegetation that was right at their eye level. With their massive appetites, they quickly devoured all the food they could easily see. Then he writes: "Still, food was plentiful if the dinosaur merely bent down to reach the vegetation. But perhaps the dinosaur's neck was too stiff to bend down to the vegetation, or the dinosaur was too nearsighted to see the vegetation. Perhaps dinosaurs became extinct because of their unwillingness or inability to see what was happening all around them" [p. 15]. Do you think that he could be making an analogy to the church? Jesus says, "Look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting." If they took that literally and looked around, whom would they see?

Brian P. Stoffregen, Exegetical Notes

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Some Things Must Be Shared

A Mercedes-Benz TV commercial shows one of their cars colliding with a concrete wall during a safety test. Someone then asks a Mercedes engineer why their company does not enforce their patent on their car's energy-absorbing car body. The Mercedes' design has been copied by almost every other car maker in the world in spite of the fact that they have an exclusive patent.

The engineer replies in a clipped German accent, "Because in life, some things are just too important not to share."

Wow! What a great statement. Some things are just too important not to share. As Christians we believe that the good news of Jesus Christ is one of those things that is too important not to share. No, that is an understatement. We believe that Jesus Christ MUST be shared with our friends, our neighbors, the world. The work of sharing the news of Jesus Christ we call evangelism. The Christian faith has been advanced through the ages by people who were willing to take upon themselves the responsibility of being evangelists - those who spread the good news of Christ.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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A New Creation

Once there was a man on a train going across the desert in Arizona. He was the only person in the car who had not pulled down the window shades to keep out the glare of the hot sun on the parched earth. In contrast to the other passengers, he kept looking out his window, and seemed actually to enjoy the dismal scene.

After a while the curious man seated across the aisle, asked, "Sir, what do you see in that wasteland that makes you smile?"

"Oh," he replied," I'm in the irrigation business, and I was thinking if we could only get water to this land that the desert would become a garden."

That's what Jesus is teaching His disciples. He wants us to see the world's people as He sees them. Every one of them is precious in His sight. By divine grace, they can become a new creation, made beautiful in holiness.

Robert E. Coleman, Evangelism: Behold the Harvest!

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I Can't Remember

A few years ago, rumors spread that a certain Catholic woman was having visions of Jesus. The archbishop decided to check her out.

'Is it true, m'am, that you have visions of Jesus?' asked the cleric.

'Yes,' the woman replied.

'Well, the next time you have a vision, I want you to ask Jesus to tell you the sins that I confessed in my last confession. Please call me if anything happens.'

Ten days later the woman notified her spiritual leader of a recent apparition.

Within the hour the archbishop arrived. 'What did Jesus say?' he asked.

She took his hand and gazed deep into his eyes. 'Bishop,' she said, 'these are his exact words: I CAN'T REMEMBER. '

Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up and Burnt Out (Portland, Ore.: Multnomah Press, 1990), 116-117

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An Unexpected Evangelist

This wonderful man was not well educated and his manner was somewhat rough and crude. He became a Christian and took the Lord's requirement seriously. He kept pestering his pastor to put him to work. Finally, the minister handed him a list of ten names with this explanation: "These are all members of the church, but they seldom attend. Some of them are prominent people in the community. Contact them about being more faithful. Here is some church stationary to write letters. Get them back in church."

The man accepted the challenge with rugged determination and enthusiasm. About three weeks later a letter from a prominent physician whose name had been on the list arrived at the church office. Inside was a large check and a brief note: "Dear Pastor, Enclosed is my check for $1,000 to help make up for my missing church so much, but be assured that I will be present this Lord's Day and each Lord's Day following. I will not by choice miss services again. Sincerely... P.S. Would you please tell your secretary that there is only one `T' in dirty and no `C' in Skunk."

Ah, those unexpected evangelists. To this day, that nameless Samaritan woman, the first unexpected evangelist, is revered in many cultures. In southern Mexico, La Samaritana is remembered on the fourth Friday in Lent, when specially-flavored water is given to commemorate her gift of water to Jesus. The Orthodox know her as St. Photini, or Svetlana in Russian. Her name means "equal to the apostles," and she is honored as apostle and martyr on the Feast of the Samaritan Woman.

Can you do what she did? Invite friends and neighbors? Of course, you can.

David E. Leininger, Collected Sermons, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc.

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Criticizing Evangelistic Efforts

One day a lady criticized D. L. Moody for his methods of evangelism in attempting to win people to the Lord. Moody's reply was "I agree with you. I don't like the way I do it either. Tell me, how do you do it?" The lady replied, "I don't do it." Moody retorted, "Then I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it."

James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) p. 178.

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That First Longing

Carl Jung, the great psychoanalyst, tried to explain why so many people were fascinated by UFO phenomena. He wrote: "We are all born to believe. The eyes may be wrong, but the psyche is right. We are all looking for a perfect model of ourselves."

C. S. Lewis made the same point when he observed: “Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job, but something has evaded us.” (quoted in The Joyful Christian)

Robert Bachelder, Between Dying and Birth, CSS Publishing Company

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True Worship

During the tenure of the great orator Henry Ward Beecher, a visiting minister (Beecher's brother) once substituted for the popular pastor. A large audience had already assembled to hear Beecher, and when the substitute pastor stepped into the pulpit, several disappointed listeners began to move toward the exits. That's when the minister stood and said loudly, "All who have come here today to worship Henry Ward Beecher may now withdraw from the church. All who have come to worship God keep your seats!"

Today in the Word, April, 1989, p. 22

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Keeping Perspective

“This is the transcript of an ACTUAL radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. Radio conversation released by the Chief of Naval Operations 10-10-95.

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH, THAT’S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.”

Who you think you are is important, but who you really are is even more important. Every once in a while we begin to think too highly of ourselves… What am I saying? We always think too highly of ourselves! Every once in a while someone comes along who cuts us down to size. The captain of the USS Lincoln thought he was so important he could demand that a Canadian crew change its course to avoid a collision. When he finally learned that the “Canadian crew” was someone tending a lighthouse, things took their proper perspective. The American vessel changed course.

If the woman at the well is to come to a saving faith, she must change her course, just as Jesus required of Nicodemus.

Bob Deffinbaugh, The Woman at the Well

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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL
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Sermon Opener – Living a Well-Storied Life by Leonard Sweet - John 4:5-42

When you were a child, how many times did you beg your mom or dad “Please give me another list of rules and regulations.”

Right. I thought so. Never.

But how often did you try to put off bedtime by begging to hear “Just one more story. Please!?”

What do we do at family reunions and holiday celebrations? We trot out the same old stories, initiating each new generation in the stories of the ancestors. In their telling and re-telling, we make them living history, not just dead facts.

Stories are how we learn who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we are going. A mature human being lives a well-storied life.

There are stories that teach us about our identity as Americans — George Washington stories, covered wagon pioneer stories, North and South stories, Great Depression stories, December 7, 1941 stories, hippy-dippy sixties stories, 9-11 stories, Katrina stories (add some stories from your own community here).

There are still other stories that teach us about our family identity. Ellis Island stories, proud moment stories, scandalous secret stories, celebration stories, triumph and tragedy stories, new love stories, old grudge stories.

Christians are more than just our country’s stories. Christians are more than our family’s stories. Christians have the “greatest story ever told.” We have the story of Adam and Eve. We have the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We have the story of Jesus.

Our most basic identity as Christians? We tell the story of Jesus to the world.

But do you KNOW the living story of your faith?

The truth is that we Christians are woe-fully under-storied. A few months ago a Pew study of religious knowledge (http://religions.pewforum.org/reports) found that our knowledge of the Bible, world religions and what the Constitution says - about religion in public life is embarrassingly low. How low?

Atheists and agnostics scored better than evangelicals or Catholics. Bible‑belt Southerners who scored the worst. Those who believe the Bible is the literal word of God did slightly worse than average, while those who say it is not the word of God scored slightly better. A lot of Americans think Deuteronomy is a rock group. More Christian than you’d care to imagine think Joan of Arc was married to Noah.

In today’s gospel text Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman as he rests in the shadow of Jacob’s well. According to tradition and culture, these are two people who should not speak to each other. In fact, except for Jesus’ initial request for a drink of water, he and the woman do not really “speak.” Did you catch it when we read the text this morning?

You say, well if they didn’t speak, what did they do?

They told each other stories...

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The "Samaritan Problem"

The most direct route north to Galilee was through the region of Samaria. Yet a good Jew of Jesus' day would often be inclined to avoid this region. The problem with Samaria was the people who lived there. They were not good Jews. They were not pure Jews by heredity; they were Jews who had been ethnically mixed over generations of mixed marriages with the Arab race. The people of Samaria were not even faithfully practicing the Hebrew religion, but were mixing Judaism with vestiges of their earlier roots in pagan religions. Such religious practices made them (ritually) impure in the eyes of a Jew of Jesus' day. When it came to religious and social matters it was better for a Jew to avoid them.

Mark Ellingsen, Preparation and Manifestation, CSS Publishing

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Before I Build a Wall…

One of my favorite poets is Robert Frost. Of all his writings, my favorite is "Mending Wall." It's the story of two New England farmers who go out each spring to mend the rock fences that have fallen down over the winter. They do it every spring, under the belief that "good fences make good neighbors." But this particular spring, one farmer is beginning to question that long held assumption. As they work their respective sides of the fence, wearing their fingers raw with the rocks, he begins to reason. "He is all pine and I am all apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across and eat the cones under his pines. Why is it that we need to build these fences back every spring?" Then he says this:

Before I built a wall, I'd ask to know
What I am walling in or walling out
And to whom I am like to give an offense
For something there is that doesn't love a wall
That wants it down.

Friends come in when the rest of the world is going out. And this day Jesus stopped to befriend the woman at the well. That's the Jesus I want to know. Do you know Him?

J. Howard Olds, Faith Breaks, www.Sermons.com

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Worship Cannot Be Confined to a Particular Place

In the Muslim religion there are three cities which are considered sacred:

Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. The Muslims believe that to worship in the city of Jerusalem is as good as performing 1000 acts of worship anywhere else in the world. Mecca and Medina would bring even greater honor. But meaningful worship...worship that is done in spirit and in truth...does not depend upon location. True Worshipers are those who honestly and truthfully respond to the message of the Messiah.

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com

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The Sobering Effect of Truth

Any of us more than fifty years old can probably remember where we were when we first heard of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

British novelist David Lodge, in the introduction to one of his books, tells where he was--in a theater watching the performance of a satirical revue he had helped write. In one sketch, a character demonstrated his nonchalance in an interview by holding a transistor radio to his ear. The actor playing the part always tuned in to a real broadcast. Suddenly came the announcement that President Kennedy had been shot. The actor quickly switched it off, but it was too late. Reality had interrupted the staged comedy. For many believers, worship, prayer, and Scripture are a nonchalant charade. They don't expect anything significant to happen, but suddenly God's reality breaks through, and they're shocked.

Adapted from an unknown Source, www.eSermons.com.

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A Drink of Water to a Thirsty Soul

For those conducting Communion this Sunday this illustration offers some strong tie-ins for a conclusion:

Have you heard the legend of the Fisher King? When the Fisher King was a boy, he was sent out to spend the night alone in the forest, as a test of his courage to be king. During the night, he had a vision of the Holy Grail—the cup used by our Lord at the last supper. He saw it surrounded by great flames of fire, and he immediately became excited by the prospect of the wealth and glory that would be his by possessing such a great prize.

Greedily, he reached into the flames to grab it, but the flames were too hot, and he was severely wounded. As the years went by, the Fisher King became more despondent and alone, and his wound grew deeper. One day, feeling sad and depressed and in pain, he went for a walk in the forest and came upon a court jester.

"Are you all right?" the jester asked. "Is there anything I can do for you?

Anything at all?"

"Well, I am very thirsty," the Fisher King replied. The jester took an old dilapidated cup from his bag, filled it with water from a nearby stream, and gave it to the Fisher King. As he drank, he suddenly felt his wound healing for the first time. And incredibly, the old cup he was drinking from had turned into the Holy Grail.

"What wonderful magic do you possess?" the Fisher King asked the jester. The jester just shrugged and said, "I know no magic. I only gave a drink of water to a thirsty soul."

James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not to Be True, Dimensions, p.105-106

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The Future Is God’s Gift to You

One of the commencement traditions at Harvard University is Senior Class Chapel. On the morning of graduation, seniors gather in Memorial Church to hear the minister offer words of solace and encouragement as they leave “the Yard” to take their places in the world.

“You are going to be sent out of here for good, and most of you aren’t ready to go. The president is about to bid you into the fellowship of educated men and women and,” - and here he paused and spoke each word slowly for emphasis - “you know just - how - dumb - you - really - are.”

The senior class cheered in agreement.

“And worse than that,” Doctor Gomes continued, “the world - and your parents in particular - are going to expect that you will be among the brightest and best. But you know that you can no longer fool all the people even some of the time. By noontime today, you will be out of here. By tomorrow you will be history. By Saturday, you will be toast. That’s a fact - no exceptions, no extensions.”

"Nevertheless, there is reason to hope," Doctor Gomes promised. “The future is God’s gift to you. God will not let you stumble or fall. God has not brought you this far to this place to abandon you or leave you here alone and afraid. The God of Israel never stumbles, never sleeps, never goes on sabbatical. Thus, my beloved and bewildered young friends, do not be afraid.”

What Doctor Gomes did for the senior class at Harvard, Jesus does for the woman at the well.

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com

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It’s a Sin Problem

In 1991 a black man named Rodney King was beaten unmercifully by white police of Los Angeles. Someone captured that crime on video-tape. The acquittal of the police set off a firestorm. On the other side, of that tragedy, Rodney King asked plaintively, "Can't we all Just get along?" That is America's greatest challenge. Can her majority and minority races accept each other as full partners in the American family? It is not only appropriate but indeed obligatory that we ask that question here in Memphis, the place where thirty years ago Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sacrificed his life in the struggle of African Americans for full inclusion. A new book has just come out related to Dr. King. This book, entitled "Dear Dr. King," was edited by Jan Colbert and Ann McMillan Harms. It contains letters written by children in 1997 to this social reformer whom they never knew. One 7-year-old wrote, "Dear Dr. King, I thought your speech would do it, but it didn't. (signed) Love, Maggie." Some thought Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation proclamation would do it, but it didn't. Some thought the passing of the 13th and 14^th Amendments to the Constitution would do it, but it didn't. Some thought that the 1964 Civil Rights Law would do it, but it didn't.

Why is the challenge of interracial harmony so difficult?

Because it is not just a matter of good laws or economic opportunity or better education. Fundamentally it is a moral and spiritual issue. As Governor Huckabee once said, "It's not a skin problem; it's a sin problem."

Bill Bouknight, Collected Sermons, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc.

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Sermon Outline: Worship

William P. Cubine offers this sermon outline:

1. God in Worship. All true worship begins with the self-revelation of the Divine. God reveals himself to us.

2. The Worshiper in Worship. In worship we must confess or declare our sins and not ignore them.

3. The Results of True Worship. God will commission and authorize us to go out.

William P. Cubine in James W. Cox, The Minister's Manual, HarperCollins, 1996, p. 60-61.

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Turning Jesus Down

In the past fifteen to twenty years, many churches have been designed in response to consumer surveys. In several Midwestern suburban areas the surveys have had similar results. People want the church to provide a good community center with an excellent gym and Nautilus-caliber training equipment; they want quality affordable day care and after school care for children; they want a variety of self-help and support groups; and they want sermons dealing with timely issues like money management and enhancing self-esteem. What they do not want are worship services where they are asked to participate or sing hymns; and they do not want sermons dealing with topics like sin, personal ethics, world hunger, or self-sacrifice. In response to such trends, within the past few years one of the larger churches in Evansville discontinued serving communion or baptizing people during regular worship services. They have discovered that people don't want religious rituals that talk about the new birth or the body and blood of Christ; they want a fellowship that will basically affirm who they are as good and worthwhile individuals and encourage them to maximize their potential. After watching a fairly detailed television account of one of these rapidly growing churches a few years ago, my daughter remarked that it was good for the planners to ask what people want out of a church, but that it might not hurt also to ask what God wants out of the church.

There is the control issue again. Does God have any control over the church, or is the church simply an institution designed to meet the articulated desires of its members? The woman at the well felt comfortable turning Jesus down. Sometimes we do too.

John N. Brittain, The Backside of God, CSS Publishing Company.

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I Was Just Preaching…

A minister tells about a young woman who was a member of a congregation he served. After college, she had entered pharmacy school, but from time to time she came home and worshipped with her parents. One Sunday evening, after one of her visits, the minister received a telephone call from her father. The father, somewhat upset, reported that his daughter had just called with the news that she had suddenly decided to drop out of pharmacy school. When the minister asked what could possibly have precipitated a decision, the father confessed that he had no idea and asked the minister to call his daughter and to "talk some sense into her."

When the minister did call the young woman, he expressed shock that she would decide to forfeit all of her hard work and that she should think long and hard before throwing it away. "How in the world did you come to this decision?" he asked her. "It was your sermon yesterday that started me thinking," she replied. She went on to describe the theme of the sermon, that God calls everyone to a ministry, that God has some service for every Christian to do. She said that she realized that she was in pharmacy school for selfish reasons, to enter a lucrative career rather than to serve God. She had remembered a wonderful summer spent working as a part of a church program teaching reading to the children of migrant workers and how much she had felt that she was truly serving God then. So, after hearing the sermon that morning, she had decided to dedicate her life to working with underprivileged children. There was a long silence on the minister's end of the line. "Now look," he finally said, "I was just preaching."

Words, words, words. Sermon words, words of the call of God ... and the wall came tumbling down.

Thomas G. Long, Whispering the Lyrics, CSS Publishing.

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What Words Do You Speak?

My uncle Ed ran an American Oil service station in a small town in South Carolina. He was a wonderful man. He hunted and fished and told loud, uproarious jokes and people loved him. While he was still a young man, his big heart failed him, and the family gathered for the funeral. I was a young teenager at the time. The minister at Ed's church was on vacation, and despite assurances from the family that he needn't come back for the service, he insisted and interrupted his time away to return.

He drove half the night and all the next morning, arriving just in time to come by the family home and to accompany us to the church for the funeral. I will never forget his arrival. Indeed, as I look back on it now, it created in me one of the first stirrings toward ministry. The family was all together in the living room of Ed's home, and through the big picture window we saw the minister arrive. He got out of his stripped down Ford, all spindle-legged, wearing a cheap blue suit, clutching his service book like a life preserver. Now that I am a minister myself, I think I know what was going through his mind as he approached the house: "What to say? Dear God, what to say? What words do you speak when words seem hardly enough?"

What he did not know, could not know, is how the atmosphere in that living room changed the moment we saw him step out of his car. It was anticipation, but more than that. His arrival was, in its own way, a call to worship. This frail human being, striding across the lawn in his off-the-rack preacher suit, desperately trying to find some words of meaning to speak, brought with him, by the grace of God, the presence of Christ. In his presence and in his words -- words, words, words -- was the living Word.

And because the Word became flesh and dwells among us, so will it be for us, too. When we suck up our fear and venture out in faith into the tempest of confusion and hurt and try to find something -- anything -- gracious to say to people in need, the promise is that, by the mercy of God, our frail words become the earthen vessels for the Word so desperately needed, the Word that is Christ. So will it be for all of us.

Thomas G. Long, Whispering the Lyrics, CSS Publishing.

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We All Have Skepticism

We all have skepticism in us. Think about these phrases: “Open wide now, this isn’t going to hurt a bit.” “It is easy to assemble. Just follow the directions.” “Please, daddy, I’ll walk him. I’ll feed him. I’ll do everything.” “Hi. I’m from the IRS and I’m here to help you.” “Mother is only staying for two weeks. You’ll hardly know she is in the house.” People may come to Jesus with some of that same skepticism. That’s OK, as long as we are willing to listen. Because gradually people realize that when Jesus opens His mouth, the only thing that comes out is the truth.

George Clark, A Step of Faith

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Mary Magdalene: An Adulteress?

I don’t know if you realize it or not, but there’s a great preoccupation these days with Jesus’ relationship with women. The Da Vinci Code has sold six million copies. It’s a fast paced thriller that claims Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, and the church knew about this, the novel claims, but suppressed it. And let me ask you, as an aside, whenever you hear the name “Mary Magdalene,” what comes to your mind? The woman accused of adultery? The woman history says was a prostitute? If it does, then you’ve been taken in.

In the year 591, in a sermon, Pope Gregory the Great, identified Mary Magdalene with the adulteress woman. And in 1969, the Vatican said he was wrong. The Vatican moves slowly. 1,378 years is a long time. There’s no relationship in the New Testament between the woman taken in adultery and Mary Magdalene. Mel Gibson erroneously identifies her with the adulterous woman, even though he poignantly portrays Jesus and Mary Magdalene. It’s clear that Jesus had a fondness for women. Luke, far more than any of the other gospel writers, points that out. Women were the first evangelizers, the first to tell the good news of Jesus’ resurrection to his disciples. Martha and Mary, Lazarus’ sisters, whom we will again encounter in two weeks in the Lenten liturgy, were always considered to be his confidants. Their home was a place he could go for refreshment and peace. And today this troubled but lovely lady who brought many people, a whole village, to believe in him.

David J. McBriar, Give Me a Drink

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Martin Luther

In 1520 Martin Luther explained the nature of faith using marriage as an illustration: "The third incomparable benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh [Ephesians 5:31-32]. And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage ... it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were his own ..."

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com

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Why Always the Bible?

The author Hans-Ruedi Weber relates a story which is often told in East Africa. A simple woman always walked around with her bulky Bible. She never was parted from it. So the villagers began to tease her: "Why always the Bible?" they asked. "There are so many other books you could read." Yet the woman kept on living with her Bible, neither disturbed nor angered by all the teasing. But finally one day, she knelt down in the midst of those who laughed at her. She held up the Bible, high above her head, and said with a great smile: "Yes, of course there are many books which I could read. Yet there is only one book which reads me."

I thought of this story as I read of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. How improbable a meeting it must have seemed to Jesus’ disciples. Jews were contemptuous of Samaritans. Rabbis avoided speaking to women in public. But with his customary disdain for the national and sexual chauvinism of his day, Jesus spoke to this woman, and he graced her.

Robert Bachelder, Between Dying And Birth, CSS Publishing.

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Worship

Isaac Watts wrote fifty-two books, twenty-nine of them on theology. But he is best remembered for his hymns. He wrote more than seven hundred, and even today the average modern hymnal will have twenty or more of his songs--276 years after they were written. When he died he was reciting one of his favorites: "I'll Praise My Maker While I Breathe."

James Cox, The Minister's Manual, HarperCollins, 1996, p. 328.

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Lateral Thinking

Edward DeBono is a man who travels all over the world, giving seminars on how to think. He teaches what he calls “lateral thinking,” and he illustrates what he means by that from an experience early in his life.

Some thirty years ago he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. One night he attended a party in London. The party lasted late, and he got back to Oxford after the gates were closed. Traditionally in that college the gates were locked at twenty minutes past midnight. So, in order to get to his room, he had to scale the college walls.

There were two walls, and he said, “I got over the first one without too much difficulty and came to the second wall. It was about the same height as the first one. I climbed that, and jumped to the other side only to find myself outside again.”

He had climbed in and out across a corner of the wall. He tried again, this time with more careful attention to where that second wall was. He noticed that there was a gate in the wall, and as the gate was lower than the rest of the wall, and provided footholds, he decided to climb over the gate. He did, and as he was sitting astride the top of the gate, it slowly opened. It had never been locked.

He said he learned a lesson from that. No matter how good you are in climbing a wall, you should always pick the right one. And when he applied that to problem-solving, he called it “lateral thinking.” Instead of facing problems head-on, instead of trying to climb over them just because they are there, try lateral thinking. And by that he means try solutions that are not obvious. Don’t attack the problem head-on. Take detours, moving latterly, or even sometimes moving backwards, until you find the gate that no one knew was open.

Maxie Dunnam, www.Sermons.com

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Happiness in All the Wrong Places

If only I could move to a new town and make a new start, then I would be happy. If only I could change jobs, buy a new home, find the right man, get through college, have enough to retire, then I would be happy. If only I had this...if only I could find that.... Looking for happiness in all the wrong places.

Will Rogers said that now and then he grew tired of the same old surroundings. Then he would wish for a new place to live and work. He said he would pick some city that sounded attractive. Before he moved, however, he would subscribe to the leading newspaper in his proposed new home and read that newspaper for thirty days. Rogers declared that he would always decide not to move. The news from where he planned to live was no better than the news where he was.

Will Rogers was right. Happiness rarely comes from a change of locations, or a change of mates, or a change of situations of any kind. It is amazing how many people go through life looking for happiness in all the wrong places.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Searching for Happiness

St. Thomas Aquinas told of a man who heard about a very special ox and determined to have it for his own. He traveled all over the world. He spent his entire fortune. He gave his whole life to the search for this ox. At last, just moments before he died, he realized he had been riding on that very special ox all the time.

You are searching for happiness, perhaps? Look no farther. Look no farther than you own heart. Open your heart to God through His Son, Jesus Christ. He will give you living water. You need never thirst again.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Authentic Evangelism

"Authentic evangelism," writes George G. Hunter, "flows from a mindset that acknowledges the ultimate value of people - forgotten people, lost people, wandering people, up-and-outers, down-and outers - all people. The highest value is to love them, serve them, and reach them."

"Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city." The woman would be back. The woman who shied away from people because she wanted to avoid their scorn was energized to tell others, the very people who had hurt her, that she had found the Messiah.

George G. Hunter, quoted by King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Leading by Example

Bruce Larsen, in his book Ask Me to Dance, includes the story of a member of his congregation who had come from another country. Pastor Larsen said of this person,

“Her faith sparkled and the living water of the spirit flowed out of her soul to all around her.” He invited her to go with him to a seminar on the topic of evangelism. The leaders had prepared tables filled with all sorts of pamphlets and strategies and demographic studies, all aimed at reaching the un‑churched in their area. At some point during the program the leaders turned to this woman and asked her to share some of the reasons that made the church so important and so vital in her home country. At first she was a bit intimidated by the crowds, but then she had this to say, “Well, we never gave pamphlets to people because we never had any. We just showed people by our life and example what it is like to be a Christian, and when they can see for themselves, then they want to be a Christian, too.”

Bruce Larsen, quoted by King Duncan

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Extending Grace

Rich, a friend of mine—who is a chaplain in a county jail in Spokane—is in a church that worries about “those” women. The women of his church asked permission from the owner of a strip bar in their neighborhood to bring true gifts of love on Valentines Day to the women who worked in that club. When finally given permission, they brought letters of love and compassion. They asked a second time if the owner would let them come to provide a meal for the women on Mother’s Day — each time the owner became more uneasy; but each time he said, “Yes.”

Finally, the church asked if they could have a service and a potluck for the neighborhood in the strip bar on Easter Day. The women served food to those coming in as junkies came off the street and received a meal and love. While all of this grace and mercy was occurring, Rich said to the owner, “I don’t know why they (the church women) picked your place — but God bless them for doing so.”

The owner replied; “I know why. I used to be a Pastor and I was so burned out by religion that I went into this business instead.”

Now, there is the food of Jesus! Wouldn’t you love to dine at that table? Wouldn’t you love to reap that harvest?

Jerry Goebel, You Know Who I am and Still Love Me?

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Stretching Faith

Sometime ago in the "Peanuts" comic strip as Lucy, Linus, and Charlie Brown looked up to the sky, Lucy said, "You can see lots of things in the clouds." Then turning to her companions, she asked "What do you see, Linus?"

"Well," he said, "those clouds up there look to me like the map of Belize, the little nation in the Caribbean." Glancing in a different direction, "That cloud looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that cloud formation over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Steven; why I can see Saul of Tarsus standing to one side."

"Uh huh," gasped Lucy, "That's good." "And, what do you see Charlie Brown?" Clearing his throat, Charlie timidly replies, "Oh, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I've changed my mind."

You may smile at Charlie Brown. Yet in a more profound way, he reminds me of the first disciples of Christ who had a hard time stretching their faith to see the coming of the Kingdom of God and the spiritual harvest around them.

Robert E. Coleman, Evangelism: Behold the Harvest!

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Warmth, Warmth, More Warmth

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was the last of the so-called universal human beings. I mean by that, he was one of the last of our western civilization to have gained the mastery of every academic discipline. In his long life, he became renowned as a poet, as an artist, as a musician, as a playwright and historian. There was hardly a single facet of human knowledge of which he did not have a tremendous grasp. As he lay dying in 1832, the story is that he suddenly sat up, bolted upright in bed, and cried out with great poignancy, "Light, light, more light." One of his biographers said that this was a fitting climax to this particular individual's life because his whole existence had been dedicated to learning more, to pushing back the parameters of darkness. He died as he lived, wanting to learn more and more.

Many decades later Miguel Unamuno, the great Spanish philosopher, was reading a biography of Goethe and when he came to the death-bed scene, he allegedly read out loud to his wife what I have just described. Then he closed the book and said very thoughtfully, "You know for all his brilliance, Goethe was mistaken. Instead of crying for light, light, more light, what he should have asked for was warmth, warmth, more warmth, for human beings do not die of the darkness; they die of the cold."

John Claypool, Light and Warmth

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God’s Grace

Anne Lamott, in her book Traveling Mercies, describes a time when a fellow church member told about adopting her son through an organization called ASK, Adopt Special Kids. Part of the adoption process included filling out a questionnaire checking yes or no to one’s willingness to adopt babies that had been born addicted, terminally ill, with physical “defects,” or mental disabilities. She and her husband had checked down the list. Lamott’s pastor said that God, too, is like an adoptive parent who says, “Sure, I’ll take the kids who are addicted, or terminal. I pick all the retarded kids and of course the sadists. The selfish one, the liars . . .I choose them. I choose the disobedient ones and the terrified ones. The self-indulged ones and the trouble-makers. The damaged ones and the unlovable ones. In love, I choose them all. I will be a parent to them all. I will end their separation and bring them home to me.”

That’s the Gospel, friends. That’s the Good News. God’s grace is available to all. To the immoral and the amoral, to the Arab and the Jew, to the native and to the illegal immigrant, to gay and straight, to black and brown and yellow and white. And it is good news.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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We Are the Sinners

Rev. Randall D. Bell tells a powerful story about a pastor who stood in court beside a member of his congregation--an individual who had been “out with the boys,” and had too much to drink. As he was driving home on the rain‑soaked streets and through the dense fog, he turned a corner and heard a sickening clash of metal and breaking glass. Two young people lay dead. They had been thrown from their motorcycle. He was charged with manslaughter and driving under the influence. He sat in court trembling after days of testimony. The judge was about to speak. It could mean years of prison, loss of job, and poverty for his family. The judge spoke: The test for drunkenness had not been properly done; the motorcycle had no proper lights; the jury was ordered to render a not guilty verdict. All that was ominous and foreboding was now gone. He was a free man. The court declared him “not guilty.” His family kissed him--they could go on with their life, all because he had been declared innocent.

Then Rev. Bell adds these words, “Now maybe this story and the way it ended angers you, because you hurt over those young people who were killed. But know this--you and I are that man. His story is our story. We are the sinner who finds himself in the presence of God the Eternal Judge. . . .”

You see, not only are we blinded by our prejudices toward people like the Samaritan woman with her unseemly lifestyle, we are also blinded to the fact that we are the Samaritan woman. We, too, have fallen short of the grace of God, but the hand of grace is reached out to us as well.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Pointing to Christ

The highly esteemed theologian Karl Barth had a painting of the crucifixion on the wall of his study that was painted by the artist Matthias Grunewald. In the painting there is an image of John the Baptist. The artist portrayed John the Baptist pointing his finger to the cross of Jesus in the center of the painting. It’s said that when Barth would talk with a visitor about his work, he would direct them to John the Baptist in the painting, and he would say, “I want to be that finger.” Barth wanted to point people to Christ.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Drinking from the Same Dipper

In his book, Living Faith, former President Jimmy Carter talks about the barriers that divide people and give them a false sense of identity. Having grown up in the South during the time of racial segregation, he had many African-American friends. When his parents were away, he would stay with his black neighbors, Jack and Rachel Clark. He played with black friends, went fishing with them, plowed with mules side by side, and played on the same baseball team. But when he carried water to people working the field, it was unthinkable that black workers and white workers would drink from the same dipper. (Living Faith, pp. 188-9)

Timothy S. Stevens, Living Water

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God's Waters Never Run Dry

DL Moody teels the following story: I remember being in a city where I noticed that the people resorted to a favorite well in one of the parks. I said to a man one day: “Does the well never run dry?”

The man was drinking of the water out of the well; and as he stopped drinking, he smacked his lips, and said: “They have never been able to pump it dry yet. They tried it a few years ago. They put the fire-engines to work, and tried all they could to pump the well dry; but they found there was a river flowing right under the city.”

Thank God, the well of salvation can never run dry either!

D.L. Moody, Moody's Stories