[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for January 8 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Torn Apart Forever

When I was a little girl on the farm, I used to ride my bike as fast as I could down the lane that led out past the barn toward the pasture with grasshoppers whizzing around my ankles. At the end of the lane, I jumped off the bike and flung myself down on the pasture grass. I looked up at the wide sky. The flat lands of Iowa seemed to have far more sky than New York City. I lay very still, listening to my own breathing. The sunbeams broke through the blue and white sky reaching down to the pasture enfolding me with warmth and wonder. Those beams seemed to me the fingers of God. Later on, when I didn't think of God as a man in the sky, I probably said that it was the light of God or the presence of God. Whatever language I could find, I knew the deep certainty that God was with me. But that day is impossible to recapture. Our barn is now gone. The chicken house and the cattle shed, too. Soon perhaps the house will be gone, torn down and plowed under to make way for more farmland. Only the driveway will remain to remind those passing by that anyone ever lived there. If I could ride my bike down that lane, the sky would not look quite the same -- even on a sunny day. It isn't only nostalgia for a certain place and time, but a realization that the faith of my childhood has been torn in many places. It's impossible to put the pieces back together again as they were.

But the torn place is where God comes through, the place that never again closes as neatly as before. From the day he saw the heavens torn apart, Jesus began tearing apart the pictures of whom Messiah was supposed to be--

Tearing apart the social fabric that separated rich from poor.
Breaking through hardness of heart to bring forth compassion.
Breaking through rituals that had grown rigid or routine.
Tearing apart the chains that bound some in the demon's power.
Tearing apart the notions of what it means to be God's Beloved Son.

Nothing would ever be the same, for the heavens would never again close so tightly.

Barbara K. Lundblad, Torn Apart Forever
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A Relationship Changed by Baptism
 
Let us pretend that you are a young lieutenant, part of the military, part of a presidential honor guard. Every day the President walks into his office, and you snap to attention, click your heals and salute the President. The President nods. Every day, this same procedure occurs. The President walks in; you snap to attention, click your heals and salute. The relationship is stiff, formal, technical, with eyes never looking the President in the eye but eyes always straight ahead, frozen like a stiff wooden soldier. But...in this story...one day, the President stops in front of you, the young lieutenant, and says to you. "Please follow me into my office." You do so and the door is closed. The President orders you to be seated and then looks you in the eye and says, "I want you to become one of my children. I want you to become part of our family. I want you to come to our family outings, our family picnics, the family birthday parties, the family Christmases. I want you to become part of our family." What a moment. What a miracle. And in that moment, the relationship between the President and the young lieutenant is totally transformed. The relationship is no longer formal, stiff, distant and legal but is now close and loving. 
 
That is precisely what happens to us in our baptism. It is God who takes the initiative. The relationship is totally transformed. Baptism is the fantastic invitation from God to know us intimately and closely, so closely that we are called son or daughter, that we become family.
 
Edward F. Markquart, Baptism? What Do We Teach?
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The Promise of Baptism
 
When I baptized my three children I did a new generation kind of thing. We made a DVD for each of our kids so they can celebrate their baptism birthdays. They can see it, they can own it. We blow out the Baptism candle, we open a Baptism gift, and we celebrate the new life Jesus brings to them. They can trust in God's work. There's a lot we can do to make a child's baptism just as personal and memorable as an adult's. The one thing we shouldn't do is take this promise from our children. They need it and we need it.
 
James Mueller 
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Two Forces at Work
 
"What's frightening about listening to John preach is that he puts you in the presence of God. And that's what everybody wants, and that's what everybody doesn't want. Because the light at the altar is different from every other light in the world. In the dim lamps of this world, we can compare ourselves with each other, and all of us come off looking good. We convince ourselves that God grades on the curve, and what's the difference? We're all okay. And then you come in the presence of God, and you're at the altar, and it's all different. For if our hearts condemn us, think of this - - God is greater than our hearts and knows everything. There's no way to modulate the human voice to make a whine acceptable. The whining is over. The excusing is over. It's the school, it's the church, it's the board, it's the government. It isn't! All that's over. It just stops. Like waking from a dream of palaces and patios to find the roof leaks and the rent's due. Like shutting off the stereo, and you hear the rat gnawing in the wall. That's just the fact of it. In my mind, I serve God. But there's another force in my life, and I say, `I'm going to do that.' I don't do it. I say, `I'll never do that.' I do it. Crucified between the sky of what I intend and the earth of what I perform. That's the truth." 
 
Fred B. Craddock, "Have You Ever Heard John Preach?", A Chorus of Witnesses: Model Sermons for Today's Preacher, ed. Thomas G. Long & Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), pp. 34-43.
 
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 Humor: God Help the Fish
 
Sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas. It's said he was a rather nasty fellow with a checkered past.  Later in life Houston made a commitment to Christ and was baptized in a river. The preacher said to him, "Sam, your sins are washed away."  Houston replied, "God help the fish."  Although most of us were not baptized as adults in a river, we can probably relate to this reply. 
 
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
 
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A New Way of Living
 
Sarah Jo Sarchet is a Presbyterian pastor in Chicago. A 10 year-old boy in her congregation named Cameron, walked into her office and said he needed to talk to her. Fresh from soccer practice, and wearing his Cincinnati Reds baseball cap, he had a request for her. "I'd like to be baptized," he said. "We were learning about Jesus' baptism in Sunday School. The teacher asked the class who was baptized, and all the other kids raised their hands. I want to be baptized too."
 
Using her best pastoral care tone of voice, she said, "Cameron, do you really want to be baptized because everyone else is?" His freckles winked up at her and he replied, "No. I want to be baptized because it means I belong to God."
 
She was touched by his understanding. "Well, then," she said, "How about this Sunday?" His smile turned to concern and he asked, "Do I have to be baptized in front of all those people in the church? Can't I just have a friend baptize me in the river?" She asked where he came up with that idea. "Well, Jesus was baptized by his cousin John in a river, wasn't he?"
 
Caught off guard, she conceded, "You have a point. But, if a friend baptized you in the river, how would the church recognize it?" Realizing this was a teachable moment, she climbed up on her foot stool to reach for her Presbyterian Book of Order that was located on the highest shelf. But before she placed her hand on the book, he responded.
 
"I guess by my new way of living" he said.
 
She nearly fell off the foot stool and left the Book of Order on the shelf. Cameron's understanding was neither childish nor simple. It was profound. Baptism calls us to a new way of living.
 
>From a sermon by Sarah Jo Sarchet preached at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago
 
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Knowing the Secret Right from the Start
 
In Princeton, New Jersey, there is a legendary tale about the eminent scientist Albert Einstein walking in front of a local inn and being mistaken for a bell boy by a dowager who had just arrived in a luxury sedan. She orders him to carry her luggage into the hotel, and, according to the story, Einstein does so, receives a small tip, and then continues on to his office to ponder the mysteries of the universe. True or not, the story is delightful, precisely because we savor from the beginning a secret the dowager does not know: the strange-looking, ruffled little man is the most celebrated intellect of our time. Some stories gain their power from our knowing the story's secret from the start.

The Gospel of Mark is just such a story. The secret of Mark's Gospel is the identity of Jesus Christ. In the very first sentence of the Gospel story, Mark lifts the veil and lets us know the secret when he says that this is "... the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Jesus is the Son of God, that's the secret, and lest we miss it, this hidden truth is confirmed in the story's opening episode, when Jesus, coming up out of the waters of baptism, sees the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove from the heavens, which have been torn open like a piece of cloth, and hears the very voice of God telling the secret: "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11). Only Jesus sees the Spirit; only Jesus hears the voice. This is, in the words of one commentator, "a secret epiphany."
 
Thomas G. Long, Shepherds and Bathrobes, CSS Publishing Company
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Pain Is Part of Baptism 
 
Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was a very devout Roman Catholic evangelist. One of the stories that grew out of his ministry concerns a time when he was baptizing new converts in a river. He would wade out waist-deep into the water and call out for new Christians to come to him, one by one, to receive the sacrament. 
 
Once he baptized a mountain chieftain. Saint Patrick was holding a staff in his hands as the new converts made their way into the water. Unfortunately, as he was lowering the chief down under the water three times, he also pressed his staff down into the river bottom.  Afterwards the people on the riverbank noticed their chief limp back to shore. Someone explained to Patrick that, as he pressed the wooden staff into the riverbed, he must have also bruised the foot of the chief. Patrick went to the chief at once and asked, "Why did you not cry out when I stuck you in the foot?" 
 
Surprised the chief answered, "I remembered you telling us about the nails in the cross, and I thought my pain was part of my baptism."
 
When I read that I could not but think how many of us would have been baptized if we knew pain was a part of the process.
 
Traditional
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There Are Many Paths to God and Sainthood

Once upon a time long ago a young man decided to become a saint. He left his home, family, and possessions and journeyed into the hot sands of the desert where he eventually found a dark cave. He thought, "I can find God here. I will be alone and nothing will disturb me." He prayed day and night in the cave, but God sent him many temptations. He imagined all the
good things in life and wanted them desperately, but he was determined to give up everything and be with God alone. After many months, the temptations stopped and the young man was alone with God.

Then one day God called to him, "Leave your cave and go to a distant town. Look for the local shoemaker. Knock on his door and stay with his family for a few days." The holy hermit was puzzled by God's request, but nonetheless left the next morning. He walked across the desert sands and by nightfall had reached the village. He found a small house, knocked on the door and was greeted with a smile and a welcome. The hermit inquired if the man was the local shoemaker. Hearing that he was, the hermit was pleased, but the shoemaker, seeing that the hermit was tired and hungry invited him in to stay. The hermit was given a hearty meal and a clean place to sleep. The hermit stayed with the shoemaker and his family for three days. The two men talked quite a bit and the hermit learned much about the shoemaker, but he revealed little about himself, even though the family was quite curious about him.

Then after three days the hermit said good-bye to the shoemaker and his family and walked back across the desert to his cave, wondering all the while why God had sent him on this mission...
 
For many additional illustrations and sermons for the whole year can be accessed at www.Sermons.com. 
 
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