[Propertalk] SermonWriter materials for Nov. 26 (Thanksgiving)

[Joe Parrish]

The following are SermonWriter materials for Nov. 26 (Thanksgiving). They 
focus on Matthew 6:25-33, where Jesus says, "Do not worry about your life."

These materials consist of the exegesis of Matthew 6:25-33, links to several 
Thanksgiving sermons, and several Thought Provokers.

Dick Donovan


SCRIPTURE:  Matthew 6:25-33


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SERMONS:

I have several Thanksgiving sermons posted on my web site at 
www.lectionary.org.  While only one is on this text, you can find ideas for 
your sermon in the Thanksgiving sermons for other texts as well.

TO SEE THESE THANKSGIVING SERMONS, go to http://www.lectionary.org/

Then click on the "Sermons" link on the left side of the page (in the blue).

Then click on the "Special Days and Occasions" link.

Then scroll down to Thanksgiving, which will be near the end of the page.


I AM ASKING YOU TO GO THROUGH THESE STEPS to make you aware of the many 
sermons for various Special Days and Occasions that I have posted on 
www.lectionary.org.  You will probably find them helpful on some occasion in 
the future.

If you prefer, you can go directly to the one sermon on this text by 
clicking the following link:

http://www.lectionary.org/Sermons/Stray/Matt/Matt%2006.25-34,%20NotPlatitudes.htm


THOUGHT PROVOKERS:

Thank God every morning when you get up
that you have something to do that day which  must be done,
whether you like it or not.

James Russell Lowell

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

If only the people who worry about their liabilities
would think about the riches they do possess,
they would stop worrying.
Would you sell both your eyes for a million dollars.
or your two legs.or your hands.or your hearing?
Add up what you do have,
and you'll find that you won't sell them for all the gold in the world.
The best things in life are yours, if you can appreciate yourself.
That's the way to stop worrying -- and start living!

Dale Carnegie

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

We should spend as much time in thanking God for His benefits
as we do in asking Him for them.

Vincent de Paul

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to happiness and all 
perfection,
he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself
to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you.
For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you,
if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.

William Law

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The best way in which we can say, "Thank You, God,"
is to live that way in our relationship to him and to our fellow man,
to live graciously and winsomely in our everyday experience
so that this world will be a better world because we live in it.

A. Reuben Gornitzka

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *



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HYMN STORY:  Now Thank We All Our God

Martin Rinckart (1586-1649 A.D.) was born in Eilenburg, Germany -- a small 
city near Leipzig, which in the 20th century ended up behind the Iron 
Curtain in East Germany for several decades.

Rinckart studied for the Lutheran ministry, and was called to serve as 
pastor of the church at Eilenburg, his home town.   He arrived there just 
before the beginning of the Thirty Years War, a war that devastated Germany 
in general and Eilenburg in particular.  Being a walled city, Eilenburg 
became a place of refuge and soon became badly overcrowded, rendering it 
susceptible to disease.  The plague of 1637 decimated the town, killing 
8,000 people, including Rinckart's wife.  Rinckart often conducted forty or 
fifty funerals a day for plague victims.

It seems incongruous that a hymn like "Now Thank We All Our God" should come 
out of such circumstances.  However, Rinckart wrote the first two stanzas, 
not as a hymn for public worship, but as a table grace for his family.  At 
the end of the war, his hymn was sung to celebrate the signing of the Peace 
of Westphalia -- the treaty that ended the war.

But we would know nothing of this hymn except for the good work of Catherine 
Winkworth, an English woman who translated many German hymns into English --  
this hymn and "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" being the best known.

NOTE:  See additional hymn stories at 
http://www.lectionary.org/hymnstories.htm


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