[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for August 10 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

Sermons for Proper 14
 
Matthew 14:22-33 – “Fear”
Romans 10:5-15 – “The Runner”
 
Matthew 14, the sermon title “Fear”   
 
In the story of creation found in the Book of Genesis, we read where Adam and Eve had partaken of the forbidden fruit, something which had been specifically denied them. Knowing that God is searching for them, they attempt to hide. It is a scene perhaps reminiscent of many of our childhoods when we had done something that we were not supposed to and we literally hid from our searching parents. Finally God finds them, as we know that He will, for, after all, where can we go to hide from God? God asks them why they are hiding. Do you remember the response that Adam gave: “Because, I was afraid?”
 
I think this very poignant story reminds us that fear is so basic to whom we are as humans, it goes all the way back to the beginning of time. To be human is to experience fear.
 
There seems to be no limit to our fears. In a peanuts cartoon strip Charlie Brown goes to Lucy for a nickels worth of psychiatric help. She proceeds to pinpoint his particular ‘fear’. Perhaps, she says, you have hypengyophobia, which is the fear of responsibility. Charlie Brown says no. Well, perhaps you have ailurophobia, which is the fear of cats. No. Well, maybe you have climacophobia, which is the fear of staircases. No. Exasperated, Lucy says well, maybe you have pantophobia, which is the fear of everything. Yes, says Charles, that is the one!
 
Sometimes we feel like we are afraid of everything. We are afraid of ourselves. We are afraid of people. We are afraid of the future. We are afraid of the past. We are afraid of life. We are afraid of death.
Every person, every Christian, must fight their own fears. Even Paul, the sturdy Christian warrior, had to do so... 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com athttp://www.sermons.com/signup 
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Romans 10, the sermon titled “The Runner” 
 
Your most beloved things are not always your most perfect things.
And your most beloved relationships are not always your most perfect relationships.
 
Remember your “blankie?” Come on now, you all had one. And it was in perfect shape, right? It was the rattiest, most stained, most beat up thing anyone has ever seen. But the condition it was in mattered not a wit at nap time, or bedtime, or cry time.
 
Or what about that stuffed animal? Come on, now. You all had one. And it was in perfect shape, right? No matter how unstuffed your stuffed animal, or how smelly and gross it was, all that mattered was that your special, indispensable friend was within arms’ length when you needed a comforter.
 
Isaiah 40:1 offers the ultimate “comfort food” – at least for those of us who have outgrown blankies and stuffed animals but still need to have that comfort moment when we are in the midst of the world’s unending maelstrom of misery. Here it is: “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” Isaiah 40:1 makes it crystal clear that God is ultimately concerned with healing, not with hurting, humanity. Jesus saw himself in his first coming, not as a judge dispensing justice, but as a physician dispensing healing. (Matthew 9:9-13).
In this week’s epistle text that message is once again extolled and embellished. Paul makes the point that he always makes: the point that righteousness through human attempts at good works, through the dutiful “actions” of keeping the law, will always result in failure. Humans just cannot be “good enough” do-gooders to get in good with God…
 
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com athttp://www.sermons.com/signup 
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We All Need This Boat
 
Our friend William Willimon, the Dean of the Chapel at Duke, tells of a visit he made one afternoon to the office of a lawyer in his congregation. It was just a drop-in. Will says he did not know the man that well - his wife seemed to bear the church interest for the family. Listen to the story in Will's own words:

"It was at the end of the day. I entered the outer office of his law firm. Everyone had left. All was dark, except for a light coming from the inner office. He called to me. Invited me to come back to his office.

"'Didn't expect to see you here, preacher,' he said in a voice that sounded tired. 'Come on in, I was just about to fix myself a drink. Can I interest you in one?'

"'Sure,' I said, 'if it's caffeine free, diet.'

"He poured out the drinks, offered me a seat, reared himself back in his chair, feet on the disordered desk before him.

"'What sort of day have you had?' I asked.

"'A typical day,' he said, again sounding tired. 'Misery.'

"'Oh, I'm sorry. What was miserable about it?' I asked.

"'My day began with my assisting a couple evict their aging father from his house so they could take everything he has while he's in the nursing home. All legal. Not particularly moral, but legal. Then, by lunchtime I was helping a client evade his workers' insurance payments. It's legal! This afternoon, I have been enabling a woman to ruin her husband's life forever with the sweetest divorce you ever saw. That's my day.'

"What could I say?
"'Which,' he continued, 'helps explain why I'm in your church on a Sunday morning.'

"'I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed,' I said, 'thinking what on earth I have to say in a sermon which might be helpful to you on a Sunday.'

"'It's not the sermon that I come for, preacher,' he said, fixing his gaze upon me. 'It's the music. I go a whole week sometimes with nothing beautiful, little good, until Sunday. Sometimes, when that choir sings, it is for me the difference between life and death.'"

Why are YOU here? You don't have to answer. The fact that you ARE here is enough. You NEED this ship. We all do. Stay in the boat. Because it is here we hear, "Take heart. It is I; don't be afraid."

David E. Leininger, Stay in the Boat!
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Humor: Missing the Rocks
 
There is a joke concerning this text that has gone around for years about three ministers out fishing together in a small boat. One of them, suddenly realizing that he had left his tackle box in the cabin, stepped out of the boat, and walked on the water over to shore. Just then, the second one said he had forgotten his faithful fishing hat on the front seat of the car. He too stepped out of the boat and walked on the water over to shore. When they had both returned, the third minister who had watched this remarkable demonstration with mouth open and eyes wide, reasoned to himself "My faith is as strong as theirs. I can do that too."
 
So he stepped out of the boat and promptly sank to the bottom. His two companions dragged him out, but once they got him in the boat, he was determined not to be shown up. He stepped out once more, and immediately sank again. As his friends pulled him out, he sputtered, "My faith is as strong as yours. Why can't I walk on the water?"

The first two looked at each another and one finally said, "We'd better tell him where those rocks are before he drowns himself."

David E. Leininger, Mayday!
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