[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for September 30 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

Sermons for Proper 21
Mark 9:38-50 - "Be at Peace with One Another"
Mark 9:38-50: - "All Is Different Now" by Leonard Sweet
 
Mark 9, the sermon title “Be at Peace with One Another"  
 
One person armed with the Gospel of peace can change the world. Telemachus did. He was a monk who lived in the 5th century. He felt God saying to him, "Go to Rome." He was in a cloistered monastery but he put his possessions in a sack and set out for Rome. When he arrived in the city, people were thronging in the streets. He asked why all the excitement and was told that this was the day that the gladiators would be fighting in the coliseum, the day of the games, the circus. He thought to himself, "Four centuries after Christ and they are still killing each other, for enjoyment?" He ran to the coliseum and heard the gladiators saying, "Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar" and he thought, "this isn't right." He jumped over the railing and went out into the middle of the field, got between two gladiators, and tried to stop them. The crowd became enraged and  stonedthe peacemaker to death.
 
When the Emperor of Rome, Honorius, heard about the monk he declared him a Christian martyr and put an end to the games. Legend has it that the very last Gladiatorial game was the one in which Telemachus died.
 
Jesus said, "Have salt in yourselves - be at peace with each other." Sometimes it seems we have gladiatorial games going on inside the church, inside our homes, at work…
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining http://www.sermons.com/signup
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 Mark 9, the sermon titled “All Is Different Now” by Leonard Sweet   
 
Each of us has moments, choices, circumstances in our lives that act as a watershed — experiences dividing our life into everything “before” and everything “after.” The event doesn’t have to be devastating or dramatic. Sometimes it is joyful and exhilarating. Sometimes it is a quiet realization. Sometimes it takes decades for us to even determine just when that moment occurred. 
 
You have a parent or a sibling die. 
You are the first in your family to go away to college. 
You enlist in the military. 
You get married. 
You become a parent. 
You win the lottery. 
You declare bankruptcy. 
You have a heart attack . . . but you wake up.
 
Whatever it may be, the event changes your perspective, changes your life’s trajectory, changes your dreams, and changes your goals. All is different now. 
 
“Before” you lived in one world. 
“After” you live in a different world.
 
A different world is what Jesus kept trying to describe to his disciples. A world so completely topsy-turvy to their experience they found it incomprehensible…
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining http://www.sermons.com/signup


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Changing the Signs
 
William Barclay, a British theologian, tells the following story in his commentary on this Biblical text. He told a story about someone changing signs. That is, at an intersection of the road, one sign would point to the city of Seattle and another sign would point to the city of Tacoma. And the boy wondered to himself: How many people could I send down the wrong road if I changed the signs? Your very life is a sign post with a sign on it. Are you sending people down the wrong road or the right road?
 
Edward F. Markquart, Millstones
 
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I Love You More than Salt
 
An ancient king once asked his three daughters how much they loved him. One daughter said she loved him more than all the gold in the world. One said she loved him more than all the silver in the world. The youngest daughter said she loved him more than salt. The king was not pleased with this answer. But the cook overheard the conversation, so the next day he prepared a good meal for the king, but left out the salt. The food was so insipid that the king couldn't eat it. Then he understood what his daughter meant. He understood the value of salt. 

In the ancient world salt was a valuable and scarce commodity. It was used as currency in some countries even into modern times. During an invasion of Ethiopia, in the late 19th century, Italian soldiers found blocks of salt stored in bank vaults along with other familiar forms of currency. Jesus was paying his disciples a compliment when he called them salt.
 
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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