[Propertalk] Sermon tips for Luke 4:21-30 - January 31 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

Those of us who've grown up in Nazareth know that it has its challenges. We've seen some of the violence that simmers beneath the surface of civility, the willingness the draw hard lines between insider and outsider, the family identities that can crush true expression of self, the thinly veiled prejudice propped up with a Proverb. Jesus has had to rescue some of us from that. And it's not the last time a congregation in a rural community would try to run a preacher out of town who dared to preach the truth of God's word.

<>

Apparently scholarship suggests that Nazareth was a small community of anywhere between 500 and 2000 people...

http://faithandleadership.com/sermons/nazareth?page=0,1

Jeremy Troxler
- - - - -

And I didn't have much religious authority that day [preaching in my home church] with Mrs. Hague.  Mrs. Hague was there at that worship service.  She was still elderly, still wearing her black horned rimmed glasses, still wearing the black lace ribbon that attached to the glasses so she could hang them around her neck.  She didn't hear my sermon at all that day on the occasion of my parents' fiftieth.  She just sat there in the pew, itching to tell me something.  I knew it.  Right after the service, she found me and said:  "Do you remember what you said at your ordination sermon a few years back?"  No, I had no idea.  "What did I say?"  She said:  "You said you were kind of wild as a kid and that everyone was kind of surprised you were going to become a minister.  You said the only difference between you and the other kids in town was that you never got caught."  That is all she remembered from my ordination ten years earlier.  She never heard the sermon; she only remembered that I was like all the other kids but just didn't get caught.  All she could think of was a silly remark that I made so many years ago.  I didn't have much religious authority Mrs. Hague's life; that's for sure. 
<>

The people there that day were offended by the Incarnation, that God actually became a human being.  That was the scandal, the stumbling block. 

<>

And the only thing worse than having God speak to you through your spouse is to have God speak to you through your teenage daughter.  Yes, I said teenage daughter.  In years past, my daughter Anne would say to me after I lost my temper:  "Dad, you are getting just like Grandpa Markquart."  Now, that was not a compliment.  And I wish that God would find some other way to talk with me about my temper.  Give me a sermon, God.  You don't have to talk to me through my teenage daughter.  

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_c_kidfromnazareth.htm

Edward F. Markquart
- - - - -

God's love is a gift. God's love gives us life and the sun and the earth and our home. God gives us our arms and our minds. To stand before God and say, "Look at what I can do! You must love me for what I can do!" is an insult. It is an insult because it says to God that we do not trust God to love us. Instead, we tell God that we have to earn God's love. How presumptuous! When someone offers us a gift, it is an insult to ask if we can pay for it. It is to reject their kindness. It is to say, "I can do it myself. I don't need your help." 
How can we say to God, "I don't need your help?" It is a lack of love for God. It is to say that we don't want God to love us. 

http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-9/070128-6-e.html

Timothy J. Hoyer, 2007
- - - - -

Ever hear of a "Ruby Begonia"?  I am sure that some of you know what I am talking about.  Can you imagine that a Ruby Begonia is what a city is proud of and for which it is noted?  Well, there is one here in Texas.  The city is Cuero.  The Ruby Begonia is, catch this, a turkey!  Yes, a bird, a variety of turkey!  Every year Cuero proudly has Ruby Begonia races with some neighboring town to see which "turkey" is the fastest!  Every town, village, hamlet, burg wants something, somebody, anything to make it stand out.
<>

There were two responses to Jesus.  One was "Wow! Isn't he the best, the wisest you have ever heard?" and the other: "Who's fulfilling what around here?  Isn't this the carpenter's son?  He's Joseph's son." They didn't want action they wanted Jesus to do something for them, not for them to change and get moving.

http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-6/040201-3-e.html

Walter W. Harms
- - - - -
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20100130/6d4543f9/attachment.htm>