[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for August 19 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

Aug 19, 2012



        
        
    
        
                

    
    
        




Sermons for Proper 15 
 
John 6:51-58 - "Holy Living"
Ephesians 4:25-5:2 - "Aroma of Christ Church" by Leonard Sweet
 
John 6, the sermon title "Holy Living"  
 
Years ago, Harry Emerson Fosdick, then at the height of his influence as minister of the Riverside Church, New York City, was making a tour of Palestine and other countries of the Near and Middle East. He was invited to give an address at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where the student body comprised citizens of many countries and representatives from sixteen different religions. What could one say that would be relevant or of interest to so mixed and varied a group? This is how Fosdick began: "I do not ask anyone here to change his religion; but I do ask all of you to face up to this question: What is your religion doing to your character?" 
 
This was a call to consider one of the great issues of human belief: religion and life, Christianity and character, word and spirit. Emerson once said, "What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear a word you say." Jesus' discourse in this whole sixth chapter of the Gospel of John had two foci - spirit and life. "The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." By this he meant that those who appropriated his spirit, i.e., fed upon him as the bread of life, would find, thereby, a fulfillment and satisfaction no other means could give. 
 
The traditions of the world of his time, of course, had a different emphasis...
 
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Ephesians 4, the sermon titled "Aroma of Christ Church" by Leonard Sweet   
 
Have you ever been assaulted by a smell? 
 
Walking down the street, creeping out of a vent in the sidewalk; strolling along the mid-way of a carnival or fair, wafting its way from a kiosk - sometimes an odor will "hit you" and almost send you reeling. Sometimes that odor will even thrust your psyche back into another time and place. 
 
Maybe it's the sweet smell of caramel apples. 
Maybe it's the pungent punch of garlic and onion. 
Maybe it's moldy and murky smell of a basement. 
Maybe it's the seaweedy smell of the beach. 
 
Whatever the odor, it is officious - meaning, it is "large and in charge." It teleports you back to a particular place and a particular time. Each of us has memory smells. Our sense of smell is the physical sense most associated with memory. Smells, more than sounds, more than sights, more than touches, transport our minds and bodies back in time to an imprinted memory. Garlic brings you back to your grandmother's kitchen. A wet woolen smell brings you back to the locker room-or to the terror of the day you fell in a frozen pond and almost drowned. Rising yeast smells like every Sunday dinner. Gasoline chokes you with memories of a car crash. Nothing evokes strong emotions, strong memories, strong longings, like the sense of smell. It is a powerful communicator to our inner being. 
 
In the days of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, burnt offerings were the norm - small birds, little lambs, calves, great grains - all were sacrificed and burned. Burnt sacrifice was offered to appease God's righteous anger over the sins and transgressions the people of Israel had committed...
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining http://www.sermons.com/signup
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Abiding with Christ
 
Eat this Bread and you will live, he promises. But even more than that, eat this Bread and I will abide with you, and you will abide with me. I like that word abide. I have pictures again: look, can you see them? They are images of home, of dwelling, of staying with, of living in and with, of trusting and being there. To abide is to know that no matter what comes our way, we will not be deserted nor left to face whatever the matter is on our own. Christ comes to live within us, to take up residence in our spirits, and promises not to leave. 
 
Over the years I have witnessed many scenes of this abiding presence played out in the lives of persons I have known. None are more powerful, more moving, more meaningful than the images which walk across my mind of faithful spouses who care for each other to the very end. Let me draw them for you. There is one now, walking his wife, a victim of Alzheimer's disease, down the streets in front of the nursing home. She in a wheelchair, not knowing a thing. He pushing her faithfully day after day. Their love of more than 60 years abides in his heart. Here is another: the picture of a woman standing beside the bed of her husband, holding a hand, offering a calm, reassuring voice to this one who has only moments before been thrown into convulsions. "I will not leave you." Finally, here is the unspoken presence of a Loving Friend who calms my own grieving spirit in the dark hospital room where my father lays dying. "Those who eat my flesh? abide in me, and I in them (John 6:56, NRSV)." 
 
In a world of fast food chains in every village, of drive-through windows, of buffet lines and all-you-can-eat salad bars, we are today offered a different food, the Bread of Life. It is food for a hungry soul. It is eternal food which, when you eat it, satisfies the craving of your heart and opens your eyes to see that all else is imitation and second rate.

Larry M. Goodpaster, Like a Breath of Fresh Air, CSS Publishing Company 
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O, Lord Give Me a Penny
 
A man asked God, "What does a billion dollars mean to you who are all powerful?"
"Hardly a penny." God said.
Then the man asked God , "And what are a thousand centuries to you?" God answered "Hardly a second!!"
Thinking he had God backed into a corner, the man then said, "Then if that's the case, O, Lord give me a penny !!"
"Sure," God replied. "In just a minute."
 
Wisdom isn't outsmarting God, wisdom is living in and with God. Wisdom is being in Christ and surrounded by Christ. Wisdom is eating and drinking from the feast which God has prepared for us.
 
Traditional
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Bread Is Not a Mere Commodity
 
The theologian John Macquarrie relates that the Scottish churchman, George Macleod, used to watch grain ships from Canada and the United States bringing their cargoes of wheat into Liverpool harbor, and he reflected that the wheat has the potentiality of becoming the body of Christ. This is the point at which sacramental theology spills over into the market place. Bread is not a mere commodity; things are not mere bits of matter. We can learn something of this from natural theology, but we learn it above all from Jesus Christ, the bread of God which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
 
John Macquarrie, A Guide to the Sacraments, p,156 
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The Truth
 
There is an Irish saying, "the person who speaks the truth should have one foot in the stirrup." He should be ready to ride off at once. People do not like the truth, especially when it challenges their attitudes; and the reaction is often to try to destroy the evidence of the truth or the one who witnesses to it. 

Father Gerry Pierse, The Dangerous Memory of Jesus
 
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