[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for July 13 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Forwarded:


Sowing the Seed
 
One of William Barclay's friends tells this story. In the church where he worshiped there was a lonely old man, old Thomas. He had outlived all his friends and hardly anyone knew him. When Thomas died, this friend had the feeling that there would be no one to go to the funeral so he decided to go, so that there might be someone to follow the old man to his last resting-place.

There was no one else, and it was a miserable wet day. The funeral reached the cemetery, and at the gate there was a soldier waiting. An officer, but on his raincoat there were no rank badges. He came to the grave side for the ceremony, then when it was over, he stepped forward and before the open grave swept his hand to a salute that might have been given to a king. The friend walked away with this soldier, and as they walked, the wind blew the soldier's raincoat open to reveal the shoulder badges of a brigadier general.

The general said, "You will perhaps be wondering what I am doing here. Years ago Thomas was my Sunday School teacher; I was a wild lad and a sore trial to him. He never knew what he did for me, but I owe everything I am or will be to old Thomas, and today I had to come to salute him at the end." Thomas did not know what he was doing.

No preacher or teacher ever does. Keep sowing the seed. We can leave the rest to God, including keeping the fire going. And that is GOOD news for all us tenant farmers.
 
David E. Leininger, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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The Life Is in the Seed
 
Doug Murren, in Churches That Heal (1999), retells that old Native American tale of an opossum watching a seed grow.
 
One day an opossum visited his good friend, a raccoon, at his home near the river. The opossum marveled at his friend's lush garden and asked if he could grow one like it. The raccoon assured the opossum he could do so, although he cautioned him, "It is hard work."
 
The opossum eagerly vowed to do the hard work necessary, then asked for and received some seeds. He rushed home with his treasure, buried them amid much laughter and song, went inside to clean up, ate, and went to bed. The next morning he leapt from bed to see his new garden.
 
Nothing. The ground looked no different than it had the day before!
Furious with anger and frustration, the opossum shouted at his buried seeds, "Grow, seeds, grow!" He pounded the ground and stomped his feet. But nothing happened. Soon a large crowd of forest animals gathered to see who was making all the commotion and why. The raccoon came to investigate with all the others.
"What are you doing, Opossum?" he asked. "Your racket has awakened the whole forest."
 
The opossum railed about having no garden, then turned to each seed, and commanded it to grow. When the animals began to mock the opossum for his silly actions, he only screamed louder. At last the raccoon spoke up once more.
"Wait a minute, Possum," he said. "You can't make the seeds grow. You can only make sure they get sun and water, then watch them do their work. The life is in the seed, not in you."
 
As the truth sank in, the opossum ceased his yelling and began to care for the seeds as the raccoon instructed, watering them regularly and getting rid of any weeds that invaded his garden. (On some days, though, when no one was watching, he still shouted a bit.)
 
Then one glorious morning the opossum wandered outside to see that multitudes of beautiful green sprouts dotted his garden. Just a few days later, gorgeous flowers began to bloom. With uncontrollable excitement and pride, the opossum ran to his friend, the raccoon, and asked him to witness the miracle. The raccoon took one long look at the thriving garden and said, "You see, Opossum, all you had to do was let the seeds do the work while you watched."
 
"Yes," smiled the opossum, finally remembering the wise words of his friend many days before, "but it's a hard job watching a seed work."
 
Doug Murren concludes: "There's a lesson there for all of us. Sometimes, as Christians and church leaders, we work too hard and take ourselves too seriously instead of simply planting people in the proper environment and letting them grow." (Doug Murren, in Churches That Heal: Becoming a Church That Mends Broken Hearts and Restores Shattered Lives [West Monroe, La: Howard Publishing, 1999], 13-14, 15.)
 
Adapted by Leonard Sweet, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com
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A Wise Old Bird
 
There is a story about an old man who always had witty and wise answers for people who asked him anything. Once, a smart-alecky came to him with his hands covering something he was holding. He told the sage that he had a small, newly hatched bird in his hands. He challenged the old man to tell him whether the bird was alive or dead. He, of course, planned to prove the old man wrong, because if he said the bird was dead, he would simply open his hands to expose a perfectly healthy baby bird. But if he said the bird was alive, then he would crush the bird before opening his hands. The old man proved wiser than he thought, because he said, "The bird is whatever you choose him to be."
 
And that's the way it is with the kingdom of God. The choice for the kingdom to live or die is within your grasp. What do you chose?
 
Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com
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Where the Roots Take Place
 
Fred Craddock tells a story about the time he got a phone call from a woman whose father had died. She had been a teenager in one of the churches he had served as pastor twenty years before, and he would have sworn that if there was ever a person who never heard a word he said, that teenage girl was it. She was always giggling with her friends in the balcony, passing notes to boys, drawing pictures on the bulletin. But when her father died, she looked up her old pastor, the Rev. Fred Craddock, and gave him a call. "I don't know if you remember me," she started. Oh, yes, he remembered. "When my daddy died, I thought I was going to come apart," she continued. "I cried and cried and cried. I didn't know what to do. But then I remembered something you said in one of your sermons . . ." And Fred Craddock was stunned. She had remembered something he had said in one of his sermons?! It was proof enough to him that you can never tell how the seed will fall or where it might take root.

Jim Somerville, The Reckless Sower
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An Extravagant Gesture of Grace
 
This past week I visited an old friend dying of cancer. The hospice nurse said he had 3-5 days to live. I went to remind him of all the things he had taught me in life as an artist. Once I viewed one of his works and I said, “Tell me what that means.” He said, “If I tell you, that’s all you will ever see there.” I never forgot this truth and have employed it in zillions of ways over the years. What struck me as a tight-fisted approach on his part, at first, actually became an extravagant gesture of grace, because it has encouraged a “good soil” part of me to look creatively at art, literature, music, people, ideas, etc., in open and receptive ways. There is now a part of me that regularly asks what may be seeking me there, calling me to understand, to respond. Good soil is that part of us that seeks to let God do his thing with us & mdash; affirm us and stimulate us to produce the kind of caring and generous spirits which only a prodigiously extravagant God, a God almost wasteful with his grace, can produce.

David Zersen 
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Top Ten Things I Have Learned from Gardening
 
10. We really do "reap what we sow". Good seeds bear good fruit.
9. Without rains and storms there is no growth - no fruit is produced.
8. When weeding, be careful! We can't always tell the difference between a nasty weed and a beautiful flower.
7. Deep roots are a good thing. Without them, we'll wither and die.
6. Pruning and trimming, as painful as it seems, actually works to our advantage.
5. In gardening, as in life, cheating does not work. Short-cuts, slipshod efforts, and neglect always show up in the quality of our garden.
4. Like anything worthwhile, beautiful gardens require attention, hard work, and commitment.
3. We cannot rush the harvest. Bearing fruit takes time and patience. Premature fruit is almost always sour.
2. Gardening and growing is a lifetime experience. We can experience growth and beauty until the day we die.
1. Fertilizer happens! In fact, nothing much grows without it.
 
Allen R. Rumble, Growing Things
 
 
Many additional illustrations, sermons, commentary, and worship aids for this Sunday and for each week of the year can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.



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