[Propertalk] Fw: SermonWriter materials for July 4 (Proper 9C) - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

      SERMON story:




      When I was new in ministry, I served a rural church in Kansas.  While I was visiting parishioners, a family invited me to stay for lunch.  The husband, a farmer, had just come in from the fields.  Over lunch, the wife asked with obvious concern how the work was going.  He allowed that it wasn't going very well.  It looked like rain, and he didn't know how he was going to get the hay in.  He had called several people, but couldn't find anyone to help.  



      I was a city boy, but I knew about hay and rain.  It takes weeks to raise hay, but it takes only minutes to ruin it.  Once hay is cut, it can't survive rain.  



      I said, "I'll help."  My offer took them back a bit.  First of all, I was their minister, and they wouldn't think of asking their minister to load hay.  More importantly, I was a city boy.  In farm parlance, "city boy" is akin to "tenderfoot."  When the going gets tough, farmers don't expect much from a city boy.  They protested, but their protest lacked conviction.  They were desperate!



      I changed into jeans and a T-shirt, and we went to the fields. I have never worked harder!  It was ninety degrees in the shade, and there was no shade.  The bales of hay weighed fifty or sixty pounds.  The bed of the wagon stood three or four feet off the ground.  Getting the first layer on the wagon wasn't too bad.  Getting the second layer on the wagon was harder.  Getting the third layer on the wagon meant lifting bales above our heads.  And then there was the fourth layer -- and the fifth -- and the sixth.  I don't remember how we did it, but we did it.  The hay was safely under cover when the rain started.



      The farmer was embarrassed to have used his minister so poorly, but he was grateful.  I was tired and miserable, but I was also pleased with myself.  Nobody would have mistaken me for a farm boy, but I had stuck it out and had helped to save the day.



      Jesus tells us that proclaiming the kingdom of God has just that kind of urgency.
     
      FOR MORE SERMONS ON THIS TEXT, GO TO:

      http://www.lectionary.org/SermLinks/NT/NT03luke.htm 

      Scroll down to chapter 10.  There are links to three sermons on this text posted there.

     
      TRUE STORY:  See the story of the hay harvest in the sermon above.

     
      THOUGHT PROVOKERS:  



      Throughout the whole (New Testament) 

      there runs the conviction 
      that the time looked forward to by the prophets 
      has in fact arrived in history 
      with the advent of Jesus Christ....  



      The time of Jesus is kairos-a time of opportunity.  

      To embrace the opportunity means salvation; 

      to neglect it, disaster.  

      There is no third course.



       John Marsh



      *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *



      The Church has nothing to do but to save souls; 

      therefore spend and be spent in this work.  

      It is not your business to speak so many times, 

      but to save souls as you can; 

      to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance.



      John Wesley



      *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *



      When the church stops seeking the lost, 
      it is lost.

      Anonymous


      *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *



      Does not the Church, in spite of her eternally heightened prestige, 
      often seem rather to be lingering on 
      as a mere decoration for certain private and public occasions?  
      How much does she really have to say, spiritually, 
      in that central area of modern life 
      where the questions essential to present and future are decided?



      Hans Küng, The Council, Reform and Reunion



      *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

      Carlyle Marney told of a joke that he heard at a meeting of Jewish-Christian Church-Synagogue administrators in Miami: 



      The rabbi begins, "Thus saith the Lord!  The priest begins, "As the Church has always said...."  The Protestant begins, "Now, brethren, it seems to me...."
     
NOTE:  See other hymn stories at http://www.lectionary.org/hymnstories.htm 
      HYMN STORY:  Great Is Thy Faithfulness


      Thomas Obadiah Chisholm was born in a log cabin in Franklin, Kentucky in 1866.  He received his education in a little country schoolhouse, and at age 16 began teaching there.  He became a Christian at age 27, and with no college or seminary training was ordained to the Methodist ministry at age 36.  He served as a Methodist minister for a year, but ill health made it impossible for him to continue.  He moved to Vineland, New Jersey, where he opened an insurance office.  



      Always interested in poetry, Chisholm wrote hundreds of poems during his lifetime.  He was inspired by Lamentations 3:22-23 to write the text for "Great Is Thy Faithfulness."  Those verses read, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."  



      Chisholm experienced that faithfulness.  He suffered ill health most of his adult life, and never made much money -- but he said, "God has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care which have filled me with astonishing gratefulness."



      Chisholm sent the words to "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" to his friend, William Runyan, and Runyan wrote the music for this hymn.  Runyan was a friend of Dr. Will Houghton, the president of Moody Bible Institute, and "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" soon became Houghton's favorite.  Dr. Houghton invited George Beverly Shea, an unknown singer at the time, to sing hymns on the Institute's radio station.  Shea, of course, included Dr. Houghton's favorite hymn in his repertoire.  



      Billy Graham, then a student at Wheaton College, became familiar with George Beverly Shea (and this hymn) through those radio broadcasts, and invited Shea to become part of his ministry.  It was through their work that this hymn became popular internationally.



      Even though he suffered ill health for most of his adult life, Chisholm lived to the ripe old age of 94.  During his later years, he lived in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, a Methodist camp meeting town, where he died in 1960.
     


 

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Richard Niell Donovan

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