[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for November 4 - Part 2

Tue Oct 30 19:34:47 EDT 2012

Wouldn’t It Be Great? 

Wouldn't it be great if I won a million dollars? Well, maybe it wouldn't be so great. Not everyone has the same idea of a great time. One person's wish may be another's nightmare. Take, for example, the story of three men who were sailing together in the Pacific Ocean. Their vessel was wrecked and they found themselves on an island. They had plenty of food, but their existence was in every way different from what their lives had been in the past. The men were walking by the seashore one day after they had been there for some months and found an ancient lantern. One man picked it up. As he began to rub it and clean it, a genie popped out and said, "Well, since you have been good enough to release me, I will give each of you one wish." 

The first man said, "Oh, that's perfectly marvelous. I'm a cattleman from Wyoming and I wish I were back on my ranch." Poof! He was back on his ranch. 

The second man said, "Well, I'm a stockbroker from New York, and I wish that I were back in Manhattan." Poof! He was back in Manhattan with his papers, his telephones, his clients and his computers. 

The third fellow was somewhat more relaxed about life and actually had rather enjoyed life there on the island. He said, "Well, I am quite happy here. I just wish my two friends were back." Poof! Poof! Everybody's idea of a "great time" isn't the same! 

So is it true? Are many Americans sitting around wishing, "Now wouldn't it be great ...if I won the lottery...if I had my dream house...if I was famous...." As Christians...as the people of God...what if instead of wishing for money or fame or success or more "things," we could just as earnestly wish with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength that we could love the Lord our God and love our neighbor as ourselves?

David Beckett, Wouldn’t It Be Great?
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Loving out of Obligation

A rabbi was asked, "Which act of charity is higher--giving out of obligation or giving from the heart?"

All in the class were inclined to respond that giving from the heart had something more in it, but they knew the rabbi was going to say just the opposite, because in spiritual teaching nothing is logical. They were not disappointed.

"Giving from the heart is a wonderful thing," the rabbi said, "It is a very high act and should never be demeaned. But there is something much more important that happens when somebody gives charity out of obligation.

"Consider who is doing the giving. When somebody gives from the heart, there is a clear sense of oneself doing something; in other words, heartfelt charity always involves ego gratification.

"However, when we give out of obligation, when we give at a moment that every part of us is yelling NO! because of one reason or another--perhaps the beneficiary is disgusting, or it is too much money, or any of thousands of reasons we use to avoid giving charity--then we are confronting our own egos, and giving nonetheless. Why? Because we are supposed to. And what this means is that it is not us doing the giving, rather we are vehicles through which God gives...

David A. Cooper, Entering the Sacred Mountain: A Mystical Odyssey, Bell Tower.

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The Strong, Saving Love

I think it was Charlie Brown who said, "I love humanity! It is people I can't stand!" Yet the costly love that Jesus embodies involves an intimate encounter with God's fierce and holy love. It involves pouring out self for real people, sinners all, with all their real-life quirks, faults, smells, and flesh-and-blood sins. 

That harried young mother in the doctor's waiting room (or maybe the next pew): perhaps loving her as yourself means offering to watch the toddler while she feeds the baby. That person in line at the bank who's stumbling over the English language and struggling to understand deposits and withdrawals: could loving him mean stepping out of line and helping him get it straight? That next-door neighbor struggling to keep his marriage together, that daughter who pushes your buttons every ten minutes, that husband scared of being laid off -- these are the ones who desperately need the strong saving love, the compassion and mercy, the challenge and holiness and presence of Jesus. In those moments, dare to risk being rebuffed or inconvenienced. Dare to look foolish and make mistakes. Dare to love God and that person, even if it wrings your heart with pain to do so. It's what we've been created, redeemed, and commanded to do. Hang your whole life on love, for the truth is, it's God's  love,active in you. And his love will never fail.

Cathy A. Ammlung, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing Company
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Beauty and the Beast

G. K. Chesterton once said that the really great lesson of the story of “Beauty and the Beast” is that a thing must be loved before it is loveable. A person must be loved before that person can be loveable. Some of the most unlovely people I have known got that way because they thought that nobody loved them. The fact of the matter is that unless and until we feel ourselves loved, we cannot love. That’s not only a principle of theology but of psychology and sociology as well. Just as abused children grow up to abuse their children, loved children grow up to love their children. Loved persons are able to love. Unloved persons are not. Christianity says something startling. It says that God loves and accepts us “just as we are.” Therefore we can love and accept ourselves and in so doing, love and accept others. 

Donald B. Strobe, Collected Words, www.Sermons.com 
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Love is not blind. Love is the only thing that sees.

Frank Crane

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Chip It Away

There is a story about a man who had a huge boulder in his front yard. He grew weary of this big, unattractive stone in the center of his lawn, so he decided to take advantage of it and turn it into an object of art. He went to work on it with hammer and chisel, and chipped away at the huge boulder until it became a beautiful stone elephant. When he finished, it was gorgeous, breath-taking.

A neighbor asked, "How did you ever carve such a marvelous likeness of an elephant?"

The man answered, "I just chipped away everything that didn't look like an elephant!"

If you have anything in your life right now that doesn't look like love, then, with the help of God, chip it away! If you have anything in your life that doesn't look like compassion or mercy or empathy, then, with the help of God, chip it away! If you have hatred or prejudice or vengeance or envy in your heart, for God's sake, and the for the other person's sake, and for your sake, get rid of it! Let God chip everything out of your life that doesn't look like tenderheartedness.

James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not To Be True, p. 32.

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Representing Christ

When I was at Drew University in New Jersey, I became friends with a Catholic priest named Sean O'Kelly. Sean was redheaded and always seemed to have a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. He spoke with a heavy Irish brogue because he had only been in America for a few years.

While he was in school, he was also pastoring a Catholic church in the heart of Newark, New Jersey. If you want to talk about urban blight and poverty and hunger, all you have to do is to take a trip up and down the streets of Newark.

On one occasion, Sean heard that a family in his parish was hungry. Because of a bureaucratic foul-up, a mother with five small children had no food and no hope of getting any until the end of the month.

Although the family was not Catholic, Sean O'Kelly went to the grocery store and bought a supply of groceries. There were three full sacks, and he went to the apartment building where the family lived. After carrying the groceries up four flights of stairs and walking down a long hall, he came to the apartment. He rang the doorbell, and a little boy about seven years old answered the door. He looked at Father O'Kelly's clerical collar and the sacks of groceries, and then screamed at his mother: "Mama, Mama, come quick. Jesus brought us some food!"

In telling about that incident, Sean said, "I will never forget that child's comment. At that moment, I realized that I was the Christ for a hungry child."

If we are to be the neighbors that God calls us to be, then we need to understand that you and I are expected to help those we have the capacity to help. The opportunities for service are almost endless in every neighborhood - even yours. There are a dozen ways or more for you to help people if you are willing to be the neighbor God calls you to be! Religion in a nutshell means that you really are expected to be "Jesus" to your neighbors when they are in need.

Robert L. Allen, The Greatest Passages of the Bible, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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By loving the unlovable, You made me lovable.

Augustine to God

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It All Started with 10 Commandments

In a cartoon, Frank and Ernest are standing in front of row after row of shelves of books. On top of one of the shelves is a sign, which reads, "Law Library." Franks turns and says to Ernest: "It's frightening when you think that we started out with just Ten Commandments." 

It is sort of frightening isn't it? We started out with 10 and now we have an estimated 35 million laws on the books in the United States alone. Some of them are very good and deeply needed. But there are some that probably need to be repealed. 

For example: Did you know there is a law in Florida that makes it illegal for a woman who's single, divorced or widowed to parachute out of a plane on Sunday afternoon?

In Amarillo, Texas, it is against the law to take a bath on the main street during banking hours…

The rest of this illustration, as well as many additional illustrations and sermons for the whole year, can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.

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