[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for December 23 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

December 23, 2012



        
        
    
        
                

    
    
        
        
        
            

        
        
        


Sermons for Advent 4
 
Luke 1:39-56 - "Blessed Among Women"
Luke 1:39-56 - "Live the Lullaby" by Leonard Sweet
 
Luke 1, the sermon title "Blessed Among Women" 
 
The Gospel of Luke, above all books of the New Testament, is about women. It reads as if a woman might have written it. It contains intimate details which hardly would have occurred to a man. It begins with the birth of John the Baptist, focusing on Elizabeth, his mother. The next major section is Mary's story. To her we will shortly return. There follows the prophecy of an old woman named Anna. When the boy Jesus went to the temple to debate the learned doctors, the only person Luke quotes is his mother.

Many of Luke's stories from Jesus' ministry are about women: the woman who was a sinner, the woman who wouldn't give up, the widow of Nain, the bent over woman, the widow who gave her mighty mites. At the resurrection it was only women who had the faith to go to the garden of graves. The text lists Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of Jesus, and other women. Luke reports that when they told the disciples about the empty tomb these men assumed it was an idle tale and did not believe them. And mind you, all of this from a culture in which women didn't count.

The central character in the birth narrative, a story only told by Luke, is the person closest to the event, Mary. There are two ways over the years I have imagined this virgin queen. I have seen her as a frightened little girl, overwhelmed by events far beyond her control -- just a simple, rural, unlettered child God had chosen to be the vessel of grace. One year, I referred to her as a teenager from Amazonia -- a town much like Nazareth in terms of its place in the world of the powerful.

But there is another way to view Mary, a way more faithful to Luke's text. Here we find a determined, strong, assertive woman; a model for all women -- a woman of power and influence: educated, sharp, committed. It is the resourceful, competent, clear woman from whom Jesus learned much of what he knew about God's will for him and for his world. It is a woman blessed.
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining http://www.sermons.com/signup 
 


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Luke 1, the sermon titled "Live the Lullaby" by Leonard Sweet 
 
Every baby will keep every parent up all night, at least once. It's a rule. Whether because they are teething or colicky, anxious or tummy-troubled, or just plain fussy, it's part of a baby's mission in life to keep its parents awake weeping and wailing. 
 
We parents are "hard-wired" to respond to an infant's cries. What has kept us grieving all week, a grief that can't be spoken? What has kept our hearts hurting all week, a pain that won't go away? When an infant or child is in trouble, or hurt, or killed, both our right and left brains insist we must do something to "fix" the situation. If our hearts melt at the mere sound of a distressed infant, how much more do our hearts overflow in anguish at the sight of children being harmed or in harm's way - even if our own nerve endings are jangling and cross-firing. 
 
Before there were "white noise" recordings, washing machines, or long car rides to soothe the plaintive cries of a child, parents in every culture on the planet came up with the same plan to quiet a crying child - lullabies. Sweet melodies, slowly cadenced, softly sung, lullabies "lull" little ones into a dreamy place. They also have almost lulled me to my doom. One of my favorite CDs is Tom Wasinger's "The World Sings Goodnight," which I have downloaded into the playlist of my truck. These 33 lullabies are from all over the world - Bolivia, Indonesia, Poland, Russia, Ethiopia, Japan, Egypt, India, Algeria, Iran, to name a few other than the more obvious ones from the US and Canada. My problem is that as I'm barreling down the highway listening to these lullabies, I'm also being lulled to sleep...
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining http://www.sermons.com/signup 
 


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Divinity Clothed with Dust
 
It is said that Henry David Thoreau once spent a whole day in Walden Pond up to his neck in the water. His idea was to see and experience the world as a frog sees it. But Thoreau did not become a frog! 

"Sesame Street" is closer to the Christmas story. They had a skit one time of the old fairy tale where the beautiful princess kisses an ugly frog and the frog becomes a handsome prince. In the Sesame Street telling, however, the princess kissed the frog, whereupon she turned into a frog herself. That is closer to what we celebrate at Christmas. God did not swoop down and survey the human situation from a safe distance. God emptied himself. He lay aside his celestial robes to don the simple raiment of a man. Divinity clothed itself with dust. 

King Duncan, www.Sermons.com, Collected Sermons
 
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