[Propertalk] Fw: Sermon Resources for August 2nd

Sat Aug 1 17:28:55 EDT 2009

Sermon Resources for Proper 13:

    John 6:24-35  -  I Am The Bread Of Life
    John 6:24-35  -  Go Fly A Kite

                                       by Leonard Sweet

John 6, the sermon titled "I Am The Bread of Life"

Sometime this week you will make a trip to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread. It will be readily available on the shelf. There will be quite a variety to choose from. You will pay little attention to the price, not realizing that the packaging that the bread is wrapped in actually costs more than the wheat that is in the bread. All in all, you will think it a very uneventful trip, but you will be wrong.

It is quite difficult for me, as an American, to understand the importance of bread unless I turn on my TV and watch what is going on in so many parts of the world today. When there is no staff of life there is suffering and famine. A simple loaf of bread: Something, which we do not give a second thought, but in certain parts of the world it means life itself.

It is only as we comprehend that situation that we can really begin to understand the importance of bread not only now but also in the time of Jesus. Just think for a moment how so many significant theological events in the Bible revolve around the subject of bread. The most important event in the Old Testament of course, was the Exodus event--the trip from Egypt to the Promised Land. But what caused the Hebrews to be in Egypt in the first place? It was for want of bread you will recall. The wheat crop had failed due to draught, and the Hebrews had migrated to the land of the Pharaoh because there was a surplus in storage there. It was bread, or the lack of it, that initiated this whole chain of events.

Later, when the Jews were on their way to the Promised Land, and they were facing starvation in the bleak wilderness, God rained down bread from heaven, as it was called, in the form of manna.

When Jesus began his ministry, he went into the dessert where he was tempted. As the hot sun braced down upon him, he looked out with sweaty eyes at the round white rocks, and we are told that they took on the appearance of loaves of bread. Satan was tempting Jesus to give bread to the people and end the suffering of world hunger. Yet, Jesus spurned that temptation because, he said, that man cannot live by bread alone.

One day Jesus was praying by the roadside when the disciples walked up and saw him. They were so impressed by the genuine nature of his prayer that they implored him: Master, teach us how to pray. It was in the midst of the Master's prayer that he reminds us of the importance of the staff of life. He prayed: Give us this day our daily bread.

Bread is central to the major stories of the bible but...

1. To satisfy your hunger for heaven you cannot eat the bread of earth.

2. To satisfy your hunger for heaven you must eat the bread of heaven.

The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining www.eSermons.com.

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Second Sermon by Len Sweet

John 6, the sermon entitled "Go Fly A Kite" 

The health care debate is getting intense, and tense. This past week an unnamed congressman was told by another member of Congress to "Go fly a kite." 

There is another meaning to that phrase than "Buck Off" or "Go Jump In The Lake." I think I can count on all of you over 40 having seen a movie named "Mary Poppins." Am I right? How many of you have never seen that Disney classic? . . . Wow. [React to how few, or how many.] 

Those of you who have seen this movie know that it's a story about a magical nanny who saves some poor little rich kids from their father's inattention. Remember the ending? The father re-establishes his relationship with his kids by taking them kite flying. The song the re-born family joyously sings together is "Let's Go Fly A Kite." [If you can play it here, fantastic. Or better yet, get your choir to sing it.] 

Let's go fly a kite

Up to the highest heights

Let's go fly a kite, and send it soaring.

Up in the atmosphere,

Up where the air is clear,

Let's all go . . . fly a kite. 

Flying high. Flying free. Flying solo. Flying together. Flying was the great dream that drove the Apollo 11 astronauts to land on the moon 40 years ago last month (19 July 1969). 

Our Scripture lesson for this morning finds Jesus trying to teach people the difference between earthly bread and heavenly bread, between the visible and the invisible. It's a distinction that Paul captured in his second letter to the church at Corinth: "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18). This morning, I want us to explore what Jesus is driving home to the crowd by this image of being born up into the heavens by the power of the invisible, which we call flying, and in particular kite-flying. 

Flying drove the imaginations of all sorts of adventurers as the twentieth century dawned. Once the Wright brothers finally got aloft, partly as a result of their literal kite-flying, there was no keeping fliers down. Within two decades there were barn-stormers, wing-walkers, crop-dusters. When World War I erupted, there were dive-bombers and dog-fighters. 

Flying became the mark of modernity. But with everything else "modern" it came with lots of strings attached. A pilot had to get certified and licensed. There were engineering concerns. Aerodynamic logistics. Gas. Oil. Spark plugs. Electrical systems. Hydraulics. Weather issues. Visibility requirements. As air travel grew in comfort, speed, altitude, and complexity, the technology that kept flyers tethered to "ground control" became more and more of an intricately tangled web. 

The simple kite on the end of a single string might not get our bodies aloft, but it remains the simplest, most basic form of...  

The rest of Leonard Sweet's sermon can be obtained by joining www.eSermons.com.

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Our Help Comes from Above

Looking out at my backyard during the fall, I noticed the leaves falling while the tree branches remained stretching heavenward--not only did they remain that way after the leaves were gone, but when the snows came and the often brutal winds of Chicago seemed to bend them into submission. But in the spring the trees seemed to speak to me saying, "Notice that we kept our branches lifted towards where our help comes from." To me it seemed that they praised God with or without leaves, as if they knew that keeping their branches up was a means of patient waiting faith, and it was in the spring when the buds appeared on their branches that those trees seemed to say to me, "We told you. We told you that our help comes from above."

So not only does this text tell us that God provides through Jesus not what we want but what we need and that God's promise can sustain us through all times, but, finally, the text tells us God's presence through Jesus allows us room to grow in grace.

Ozzie E. Smith, Jr., What Do You Want?
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Can He Top Jesus?

The relatively brief lection before us here shows a typical interaction between Jesus and the always clueless crowds that followed him around. It's clear here - as in so many parts of the gospels - that Jesus and the crowds are quite simply talking past each other. But perhaps there are deeper issues at work here.

After all, Jesus had just performed a wonderful sign by feeding 5,000 people from a paltry amount of food. Earlier we read what a great impression this made on the crowds - in fact, Jesus felt it necessary to slip away unobtrusively lest he get whisked away in some political, king-making frenzy. But now suddenly it seems that even that was not quite enough. The crowds want to see more. This hankering for more blinds them to what already is present to them at that very moment. Miraculous though the multiplication of the loaves and fishes was, it was still just ordinary bread. The manna in the desert - the bread that had come straight FROM HEAVEN - was perhaps even more impressive. Can Jesus pull off something like THAT? Can he top Moses?

Well, of course, Jesus' ultimate point in this chapter is that just by being there, just by standing in their presence, he already was topping Moses or anything else that had ever appeared on the earth. They were looking straight at the bread of life, that bread that had come down from heaven to be made in human form. But they missed it. They couldn't see it. And maybe part of the explanation for this is because they were still looking to the past, still thinking more about what Moses did once upon a time than the new thing God was doing before their very eyes.

Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations on John 6:24-35
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Spiritual Awareness

In a broadcast address in London, T. S. Eliot talked about "spiritual awareness." He observed that many persons aspire to become Christians and believe, presumably, in the efficacy of the Christian faith, but never reach the stage of actually experiencing it. Aspiring towards real belief, i.e., becoming truly Christian, is one thing, whereas complete awareness of it is another. Aspiring can easily become an end in itself. And, as Charles H. Duthie of Edinburgh remarked: "It is a matter of living forever in the preface and never becoming involved in the story."

This condition of spiritual awareness is clearly defined by Jesus in the words of our text. It is a state of soul devoutly and eagerly to be aspired to, in contrast to what Lord Cecil of Britain once referred to as "believing in God in a commonplace sort of way." And, it becomes the gift and possession of any persons who are utterly dissatisfied with themselves, and who decide to fulfill those important requisites that make them completely satisfied in Christ.

Donald MacLeod, Know The Way, Keep The Truth, Win The Life, CSS Publishing Co.

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A Messy Kitchen

Recently, I received an e-mail about real signs found in the real kitchens of real people.

"A messy kitchen is a happy kitchen and this kitchen is delirious." 

"A clean house is a sign of a misspent life." 

"If we are what we eat, then I'm easy, fast, and cheap." 

"Thou shalt not weigh more than thy refrigerator." 

"My next house will have no kitchen, just vending machines." 

"A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand."

These sayings point to some of our society's attitudes about food: 'only junk food is enjoyable', 'food is meant to satisfy us', 'if I had to cook it, it doesn't taste good', and 'as long as it's not good for me, I should eat as much as I want'. We stuff ourselves, trying to fill the hole inside of us with food, as if we could eat something that would satisfy us. But we could stuff ourselves at every meal and still be hungry for something deeper! 

Staff, www.eSermons.com

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God-shaped Vacuum

"There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ." 

Blaise Pascal

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 A Time to Remember

In his book The Swann's Way, the French novelist Marcel Proust wrote of returning home late one evening on a dull winter day when he faced the prospect of a depressing tomorrow. The maid greeted him and, seeing that he was tired, brought him a cup of hot tea and some cake. Being both tired and depressed he at first refused them. Only at her insistence did he finally begin to drink the tea and eat the cake. Proust wrote that an unexplainable delight suddenly came over him. His anxieties and troubles seemed to vanish. Suddenly, he wrote, I had "ceased to feel mediocre, accidental and mortal."

What caused this wonderful sensation to come over him? He was at a loss to explain it. How could a taste of tea and cake produce this feeling of peace? He drank and ate more but he still could not decipher the secret. The truth, he guessed, must be . . . 

The conclusion to this illustration and many additional illustrations and sermons for Proper 13 can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.

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