Live Stream – Page 6 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Some Kind of Order

Luke 13:10-17 One day years ago, over coffee, a friend and I came up with a youth ministry program that we thought might be great. It would use music as a means of gathering kids together, but the method would be to let them self-organize. We were thinking about all the kids we knew who were in bands, or who aspired to be in a band, and would love to have a place where they could gather together and play around with their music. These kids were at a vulnerable stage, trying to figure out who they were. A safe, stable, and caring community that encouraged and affirmed them in their creative endeavors was what they needed, we firmly believed. Neither my friend nor I was a musician, but we were hoping we could just provide the safe place to gather and the freedom to play and learn from each […]

Stress Fractures

Luke 12:49-56 Some years ago, I was at a meeting for a national church committee on which I was serving, and during a break in our work I asked one of the other pastors what he was preaching on the next Sunday. That’s how pastors make small talk. He told me he was preaching on Luke 12:49-56, and he was none too happy about it. He told me that he had been avoiding this passage for 30 years. Whenever it came around in the lectionary, he would look for something else to preach on, because this one made him too uncomfortable. But he had reached the point where his avoidance of it was making him even more uncomfortable, so he was going in. He would gird his loins and dive in. It’s a good thing he finally did that, because this is one the church needs to hear, frequently. […]

Wedding Banquet People

Luke 12:32-40 Last week I told you a story about a family that was so caught up in the consumer culture that it just about destroyed them – until, mercifully, they realized they could intentionally back away from it. Disentangle themselves from the consumer treadmill. And one of the first things they did was to sell or give away some of their possessions. In last week’s gospel reading, Jesus told his listeners, “Your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.” And sometimes we need to get out from under the mountain of our possessions to begin to know that. He told them a parable about a man who was living his life, trying to take care of his stuff, and then out of the blue was told he was a fool for doing that. That his time was up. “Your life is being demanded of you this […]

The Good Life

Luke 12:13-21 Let me tell you a story. It’s a familiar story. Maybe you know it. A man and a woman fall in love. They realize they want to spend the rest of their lives with each other. They begin to talk about a possible future together and what that could look like. So the man begins to make a plan. Searching on Google, he finds “7 Tips for Planning the Perfect Proposal,” and he’s off. He enlists her best friend as his co-conspirator and he scouts out the perfect location to pop the question. He hires a professional photographer who will lurk just out of sight and be ready to capture the big moment. Everything will be shared on their social media accounts – Facebook, Instagram – with tons of “likes” and “Congratulations!” Once they are engaged, the couple begins planning their wedding. They know that the planning phase […]

What Is Needed

Luke 10:38-42 I served a church that had a board of deacons made up entirely of women. And so the first year I worked with the nominating committee I strongly encouraged them to consider some men who might be called to serve as a deacon. Not too long after that I got a visit to my office from Doreen, the moderator of the Deacons. She was in a fit. She said, “I heard you all nominated Ty for deacon. Just tell me: what am I supposed to do with him? He can’t bake!” I tried to argue that there was really much more to the ministry of the deacons than baking cookies, but Doreen was still doubtful. “Well, besides,” I said, “How do you know he can’t bake?” I had no idea at all if Ty could bake a batch of cookies, but mostly I wanted to get beyond the […]

A Plumb Line

Amos7:1-17 Luke 10:25-37 Kim told me recently that I am about due for a lighthearted sermon. I told him I would certainly keep that in mind. Honestly, I would like nothing more than to make you smile and even laugh. Even though the world keeps lobbing grenades at us. There is a film I love called Four Weddings and a Funeral. It is a comedy that follows a group of friends as they attend weddings together. Hilarious things happen – disastrous best man speech, lost wedding rings, a very nervous and stuttering priest, and so on. Then at one of the weddings they attend, someone dies, which is not funny at all. The funeral follows, a very tender scene. Then the comedy resumes, but now they are all, somehow, changed. Life does that to a person. We wear the hardships in our bodies. All of us do. You don’t […]

Those Who Pick Up the Mantle

2 Kings 2:1-2,6-14 Last week we were with Elijah on Mount Horeb listening to the Lord in the silence…when Elijah came to know that he was not actually alone as he had thought. There were thousands more doing the same work he was doing. He heard from the Lord that he should find a man called Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel-mehola, and anoint him prophet. Elisha would be the one to take Elijah’s place. So Elijah went off in search of Elisha. He found him out plowing a field. Elijah walked by the other man and threw his mantle over him. Elisha stepped away from the plow and followed him. And from that point on they were a pair – teacher and disciple. Until the day when Elijah’s time was up. It seems they both knew it. In fact, it seems like everyone knew; the company of prophets […]

The One Who Fills Us

1 Kings19:1-15a If you only knew this particular episode in the prophet’s life, then you would imagine Elijah must have had a pretty lousy run to get so far down in the dumps. But it is really just the opposite. Before this chapter, Elijah had just come off the greatest success imaginable. It’s one of the highlights of the Old Testament, in fact. Israel has been in a drought for three years. King Ahab would, of course, love to see the drought end because it’s eating away at his approval ratings. But Ahab has another problem too, which involves his wife – Queen Jezebel. She is not an Israelite. When she married Ahab and came to Israel she brought her gods with her – the Baals, as they are called. Baal is not a proper name, but a title, like lord. The Baals are idols of other cultures, and we know from the scriptures that the people of Israel were prone to dabbling in Baal worship. […]

Blessed Trinity

Romans 5:1-5 John 16:12-15 Today is Trinity Sunday, which is a thing that is hard to get excited about, I have to admit. It just feels very abstract. The doctrine of the trinity is hard. In fact, the first thing you need to say about it is that it is not a thing we can really comprehend, so we shouldn’t even try. But we do try. We are continually making all kinds of creative analogies in order to make sense of it. The Trinity is like water, we say, which can take three forms: ice, liquid, and steam. Or the Trinity is like a man, who can be at the same time father, son, and uncle. St. Patrick said the Trinity is like a shamrock, one object with three distinct leaves. And none of these analogies work. Because there is nothing that is like the Trinity. But we continue to try. […]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Posts navigation