[Propertalk] Fwd: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Proper 11B: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” or “A Polluted Temple!”

[Joe Parrish]

Forwarded: 


-----Original Message-----
From: Judy <judy_boli at ecunet.org>
To: Propertalk <propertalk.topic at ecunet.org>
Sent: Sat, Jul 21, 2018 8:59 pm
Subject: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Proper 11B: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” or “A Polluted Temple!”



DearFriends,
 
ThisSunday’s sermon is entitled “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” or “APolluted Temple!” and deals with all the lessons.  Here it is:  
 
This morning in the OldTestament lesson (2nd Samuel 7: 1-14a), we heard God tell King Davidthat he didn’t need a fancy temple.  Hewanted to live among his people.  Laterin the New Testament, Paul reminded the Corinthians (1st Corinthians6:19a): “You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives.”  We know this is a true statement.  God is inside us, as near to us as the air webreathe.  In fact, after we receive HolyCommunion this morning, holy God will literally be in every cell of ourbodies.  Does anyone remember the oldsong- “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.”  I think we sang it once in our St. Matthew’s EpiscopalChurch (Detroit) choir.  Have you everfelt like this?  Alone?  Empty? Frightened? Facing an evil world and wondering if you will make it tothe next day?  How is this possible,after all of God’s promises to us? Today’s Psalm (23rd) reminds us that the Lord is ourshepherd, and the God will provide peace and satisfy all our needs.  Why are we so often nervous wrecks,frustrated, and stressed out, yelling at those we love the most, tossing andturning at night, using pills or alcohol or whatever to calm our nerves and putus to sleep and then more pills, caffeine, or whatever to wake us up?  Been there? I think the Bible truth that our bodies are God’s temple holds the keyto letting us be enveloped in God’s peace.
 
You know what one ofour problems might be?  The temple of ourbody is so polluted that God is waiting for us to clean it out a bit.  Did you hear the story of the bachelor whowas always complaining about restaurant food? His friend finally asked why he didn’t cook some of his meals at home.“Surely you can cook simple things;” his friend commented, “and if you can’t-just get an easy recipe book.”  “It won’twork,” replied the bachelor.  “Everysingle recipe starts with, ‘Take out a clean pot.......’”  Maybe that’s how the temple of our lives isto God- POLLUTED!  He can’t find a cleanor uncluttered place to start.  What’scrowding God out?  
 
The Psalm points outone possible source of temple pollution: “The LORD is my shepherd.  Maybe Jesus isn’t number one in yourlife.  Maybe he’s just the last-minuteresource your run to when you’re desperate. Maybe most of the focus in your life is your money or your bills or yourlove life or your children or your house or job or your addiction.  If you’re not starting and ending each daywith prayer, if you’re not reading some devotional material each day, if you’renot thanking God for every bite of food you put in your mouth, in other words-if you’re not putting God first- you are your own worst enemy.  You’re truly like a “sheep without ashepherd” (Mark 6:34a) because you’ve squeezed the Lord right out of histemple, so don’t be surprised when you find yourself running around like achicken with it’s head cut off.  Step one:make the Lord your shepherd.  Try Jesus.
 
The epistle points outanother possible source of temple pollution: our attitudes- specifically our feelingsof inferiority. (In the old days, we’d be talking about an “inferioritycomplex.”)  How do I get this from theEphesians (2: 11-22) lesson?  If you’regetting to be a bit of a Bible scholar, you know that Jews hated Gentiles-considered them inferior to Jews.  As youknow, every Jewish baby boy was circumcised when he was about eight days old; Gentileswere not.  Jews thought uncircumcisedpeople were filthy- they scrubbed down if even the shadow of a Gentile fell onthem.  Should it surprise us that manyGentiles felt inferior to Jews?  Theyweren’t, obviously, but they felt inferior and the way Jews treated them surelydidn’t help!  Now we’ll add the lastsignificant fact- Paul’s church at Ephesus was a mostly Gentile church.  In today’s lesson, we hear Paul teaching thatwe are all one and unified in Christ.  Noone is inferior or superior to anyone. The ground is level at the foot of the cross.  What about you?  Is there something about yourself that makesyou feel not as acceptable as you might be? If you’re a man- maybe you are short; if you’re a woman- perhaps you’retall.  It might be your color- you’vebeen told you’re too dark or too light.  Itmight be some physical feature- for years I was ashamed of my high forehead-how silly, but how true!  Perhaps youconsider yourself too fat or too thin. Maybe you have a handicapping condition or trouble learning a specificsubject in school.  If so, stop thumbingyour nose at your Creator.  Give yourconcerns to God, love and accept yourself, and make room for Jesus in thetemple of your body. 
 
Maybe the pollution inyour temple, your heart, is your attitude toward other people.  In the Gospel, we heard how the disciples hadjust come back from a missionary trip. They were excited, but exhausted. When Jesus tried to take them to a private place to get some rest,people found them.  Their lives were oneinterruption after another, yet- instead of sending the crowds away, time aftertime Jesus ministered to them.  How doyou treat people when they interrupt you with their needs?  I don’t mean just the first interruption-what about the fourth or fifth or tenth interruption?  Yet Jesus reminds us in Matthew 25 that“Whatever you’ve done for the least of these my brothers or sisters, you’vedone for me?”  If you’ve turned needypeople away, you’ve sent Jesus away from his very own temple in your heart.
 
My brothers andsisters- we can wish for peace; we can desperately pray for calmness andsecurity, but until we clean out the pollution of false gods, inferiority, andself-centeredness from our hearts- there’s no room for Jesus, and thereforethere’s no room for God’s peace.  Let mefinish by retelling a story I told in February, 2015, about wishes.  Do you remember the story of the Oscar Meyerwiener?  It reminds us that wishing isn’tthe answer.  Before we start, does anyoneknow that old-time commercial “I Wish I Was an Oscar Mayer Weiner?”  How does it go?  (Get responses.)   Well, here’s the story.  A man was walking along the beach when hecame across this very old oil lamp. The man started to rub it to remove all theocean crud when "poof" a genie appeared.  This genie, like all genies, was so happy tobe freed of the lamp that he granted the man three wishes...  "I wish to be the richest man in theworld,” the man said.  "Man,"the genie replied, "It has already happened.”  The man’s wallet would hardly fit in hispocket because of all the hundred dollar bills. “Wait until you get your bank statement!” said the genie.  You won’t know what to do with all thatmoney!”  What's your secondwish?"  "Genie”, said the man,“I want a CAR!  In fact, I want the mostexpensive Porsche convertible made: Fire engine red, on board GPS and thefinest audio system ever installed in an automobile."  "That’ll work," said thegenie.  He waved his hand and the finestcar anybody had ever seen popped out of the lamp. The genie then asked the manfor his third wish.  He thought andthought, since he really wanted to choose wisely.  After all, this was his last wish, so it hadto be a good one.   Finally he said,“Genie, I can't think of anything now. May I save the third wish for later?"  "My, that’s unusual,” responded thegenie, “but of course you may wait.  Justcall me when you're ready.”  With that,whoosh, the genie disappeared.   The manleapt into his fire engine red Porsche convertible, turned on the radio withthe great audio system and pulled onto the highway.  He had the top down, so the wind waswhistling through his hair, the sun was shining, not another car was on theroad, and he was HAPPY- in fact so happy that he began to sing along with thegreat music on his great radio.  Up camea commercial, and he continued to sing the old familiar tune: “Oh, I wish I wasan Oscar-Mayer Wiener...."  Whoosh-what a wish!
 
Stop wishing and getrid of the heart-Temple pollution.  Whenyou come to the altar today, come with a plan. It’s late for spring-cleaning, but it’s never too late for life-cleaning;where there’s life, there’s time.  Whatpollution are you cleaning from your heart-Temple today by God’s grace? 
 
For anyone who is interested, this sermon and updatedAfrican-American wisdom statements are posted on our parish’s web site under“Sermons & Stuff”. The address is: http://www.stpaulsepisag.org.
 
Blessedpreaching,
JudyBoli
St.Paul's Episcopal Church
Saginaw,Michigan

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Propertalk" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to propertalk.topic+unsubscribe at ecunet.org.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20180721/2e55d390/attachment.htm>