Sermons 2019 – Page 4 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Breath of Life

John 20:19-31 Do you remember that ad campaign from about twenty years ago? Somebody started taking out billboard ads that were meant to look like messages from God. They were usually kind of funny. One of them said, “Well, you did ask for a sign.” Some were cute and encouraging, like “Come on over, and bring the kids.” Or “Let’s meet at my house Sunday, before the game.” Or “Loved the wedding; invite me to the marriage.” Some were a little more ominous, although still funny, like, “You think it’s hot here?” “What part of ‘Thou shalt not’ didn’t you understand?” My favorite has always been, “Don’t make me come down there.” I love that one because, well, it reminds me of my parents. And yes, I have probably said it, or something like it, myself at some point in all my years of parenting. I love it for those […]

What the Lord Needs

Luke 19:28-40 As Jesus and his disciples are getting ready to enter Jerusalem, they are taking care of some of the details – as anyone would do before a parade. They pause some distance before reaching Jerusalem, near Bethany and Bethphage. Here, Jesus turns to two of his disciples to give them instructions. “Go ahead into the village. You will find a colt tied up. Untie it and bring it here.” And here you might be asking yourself: Is this really okay? That they should just go in and take a colt that clearly belongs to someone else? Might someone object to this? Jesus seems to think so, for he also tells them, “If anyone asks you what you are doing just tell them this: ‘the Lord needs it.’” So they went in and they found the colt. They untied it and someone asked them what they were doing. And […]

The Scent of Sacrifice

Philippians 3:4b-14 John 12:1-8 You may recall that this scene made it into the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. Judas, growing increasingly outraged at the direction things are going, just loses it here. He sings essentially the same words that are in the text. Meanwhile, Mary and a chorus of women are singing a soothing song to Jesus, urging him to relax: try not to get worried; don’t you know everything is alright now, everything’s fine. We want you to sleep well tonight. Let the world turn without you tonight. In the play, Jesus needs soothing because he has become overwhelmed by the masses coming to him for healing. But in the actual biblical text in John’s gospel, if he needs soothing, we can probably attribute that to what has happened just before this text. In the previous chapter, Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead. And for Lazarus and […]

Fathers and Sons

Luke 15:11-32 There was a father who had two sons. One son behaved respectfully, never disagreeing with his father, always deferential. When his father would say, “When you use the car, don’t leave an empty gas tank for the next person. Fill it up, please,” this son would say, “Sure dad, I will.” But he never did. The other son was just plain rude. He would say to his father, “That’s a stupid rule to have! It’s a ridiculously petty thing to care about, and I don’t know why it matters to you.” But he never left an empty tank. He always filled it. Which was the good son? Which son was better? There was a father who had two sons. When they were grown, one son stayed at home with his father and cared for him in his old age, took care of the house so his father could remain there. He possessed a sense of duty that served him and […]

The Season of Second Chances

Isaiah 55:1-9 ; Luke 13:1-9 I think that our problem, sometimes, is our wanting to find easy answers to our hard questions. We don’t care much for ambiguity, and neither did Jesus’ early followers. So when the news came to them about a disaster that befell some Galileans, they looked for answers in the wrong places. In September 2001, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell sat in front of a TV camera, musing together about why they thought the towers fell and nearly 3,000 people died. They seemed to like the theory that it was the feminists, pagans, and civil libertarians – in other words, people not like them – who were at fault, because they made God mad at America. The temptation of being able to say those people had it coming is a strong one. Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell didn’t invent this; it’s an old, old way of thinking. […]

When You’re in the Wilderness

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Luke 4:1-13 In the early 1990’s a young man named Chris McCandless left his home and family and friends to travel the United States. He shed himself of all his money and most of his material possessions. He lost his car. He eventually found his way to the wilderness of Alaska. He lived there for a few months alone in an abandoned bus. He died there after apparently eating toxic plants. Chris McCandless set off with dreams of discovery in the wild. But he discovered the wilderness is harsh. A few years later, a woman named Cheryl Strayed set off on a journey of self-discovery along the Pacific Crest Trail. She traveled alone, carrying only what she could fit in her backpack. She fared better than Chris did. She actually made out pretty well – aside from one or two encounters with unsavory characters, and a brush with […]

One Thing

Exodus 34:29-35 ; 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 We sometimes talk about “church business.” Which you might think is an oxymoron. I once heard a Presbyterian pastor describe the way we handle our business in church. This pastor said, “This is how we do church meetings. We sit down at the meeting table and we say, ‘Good Evening, God. Welcome to our business meeting. We are so glad to have you here. Would you be so kind as to bless this gathering?’ There is an opening prayer…perhaps a brief devotion on a passage of scripture…then everyone says, ‘Amen.’ Then we say, ‘God, thank you so much for your assistance. I am afraid we have to ask you to leave now because we have some important business to attend to, business that, frankly, we don’t think you would be interested in and most likely you don’t have anything to offer in this regard. So thanks again, and let me show you the door. Oh, […]

To Be Blessed

Jeremiah 17:5-10; Luke 6:17-26 Rachel Naomi Remen is a doctor – she was, perhaps, genetically disposed to be a doctor. She comes from a family tree full of doctors and nurses. But in addition to all the medical persons in her orbit there was, she says, one mystic – her grandfather the rabbi. Her grandfather taught her about blessing. For her fourth birthday, her grandfather gave her a story. He said, Rachel, this is the story of the birthday of the world. In the beginning there was only holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. Then, in the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. But then there was an accident, and the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. And the wholeness in the […]

Taking the Call

Isaiah 6:1-13; Luke 5:1-11 There’s a funny film called Galaxy Quest about some actors who used to star together in a science fiction TV show. The basis for the show was this seemingly endless journey through the galaxy. The actors played the members of the crew. The show was eventually cancelled, but not forgotten, and the cast members made a profitable living attending Galaxy Quest conventions. They would dress up as their characters and, for the benefit of fans, relive the glory days, sign autographs, do promotional stunts, and such. One day they are approached at one of these events by a group of people who call themselves Thermians. They are dressed strangely, but that’s not unusual for Galaxy Quest fans. They ask the cast members for help, which the cast assumes to mean that they want to hire them for some event. No problem. They agree to meet them the […]

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