[Propertalk] Fw: Sermon Resources for August 30th

Tue Aug 25 09:13:55 EDT 2009

Sermon Resources for Proper 17:

    Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23  -  Creeds or Deeds
    James 1: 17-27  -  The "Gratitude Salute" 

                                       by Leonard Sweet

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Mark 7, the sermon titled "Creeds or Deeds" 

Rev. David Chadwell posed a rather interesting question: Which would you prefer for a next-door neighbor: a person of excellent habits or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a good friend: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a husband or a wife: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a child: a child with excellent habits, or a child with a good heart? 

It is wonderful to have a neighbor who conscientiously cares for his property while respecting your property. It is wonderful to have a friend who always treats you with consideration. It is wonderful to be married to a husband who always is thoughtful and courteous, or to a wife who always is gracious in her comments and deeds. It is wonderful to have a son or daughter who shows respect and uses good manners. 

As wonderful as those situations are, none of them compare to having a neighbor, a friend, a husband, a wife, a son, or a daughter with a good heart. 

When you discuss good behavior, you are discussing the quality of a person's self-control. When you discuss a good heart, you are discussing the quality of the person. 

This is the focus of today's Scripture. Pharisees and teachers have come down from Jerusalem and, interestingly, they are gathered around Jesus watching the disciples. The disciples, it seems, are eating lunch. They have come in from the day's work. Too tired and too hungry to care that their hands and faces were dirty, they immediately sat down to eat without washing.

The Pharisees cease upon this ceremonial oversight and question Jesus: Why don't your disciples live according to the traditions of the elders and clean their hands before they eat? This is all that Jesus needs to hear. He sticks up for his disciples, turns on these teachers and says in essence, "Why do you not live according to the traditions of God and clean your hearts?"

What mistake did these Pharisees make? What is Jesus trying to convey, not only to them, but to us as well. For you see, it is just as easy for us to fall into a good habit and leave behind a good heart. What is Jesus' warning to us?

1.    We prefer creeds rather than deeds.

2.    We look at the outside not the inside.

3.  But God requires good Creeds, Deeds, and Hearts.

The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining www.eSermons.com.

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Second Sermon by Len Sweet

James 1, the sermon entitled 'The "Gratitude Salute"' 

Why are you here? 

Why did you come to church this morning?

What made you voluntarily choose to spend the last summer Sunday -- before the too busy, too crowded Labor Day weekend -- inside a church? 

Why aren't you lolling on some beach? (Okay, okay--maybe you will be later this afternoon!) 

Maybe you are here out of habit. 

Maybe going to church is "what you do" on Sunday morning. 

Maybe you are here because your parents dragged you into the car, kicking and screaming, and you would rather be anywhere else. 

Maybe you are here because you are lonely.

Maybe you are here because you feel something is wrong or missing in your life. 

Maybe you are here hoping that something in here will make you different in here (point to heart).

None of these are bad reasons to be at church on a sunny August Sunday (nope, not even being brought by your parents). But here's the reason we Christians gather for worship week after week: We worship to wake up. We worship to come alive and take notice of the presence and power of God in the world, in our lives, in everything we see and do and touch and feel. 

The Latin "re-ligare" from which we get our word "religion" has the root "lig" - which scholars have traced back partly to meaning "pay attention." Any religious service, any religious act, should make us sit up, shake our heads, and focus in on the divine. When our lives adhere to a set schedule of work, when everyday routines can be acted out without even thinking about them, we loose consciousness to the wonders that surround us. 

The wonder of God's creation. 

The wonder of love. 

The wonder of family. 

The wonder of breathing in and out. The wonder of life. 

G. K. Chesterton, one of the most important writers of the last century, put it like this: "The world shall perish not for lack of wonders but for lack of wonder."

This week's epistle text is from the Letter of James, the letter Martin Luther famously pooh-poohed as "an epistle of straw." Luther's words gave a lot of us a "free pass" on James. James was seen as "weak sauce" - not worthy of much attention. But skipping James lets us slip by to our peril of slipping up and missing some of the most real life, faith-in-action admonishments in the New Testament. Could that be the real reason it is so tempting to keep James on the back burner? James won't let us get away with some things we like getting away with? 

The rest of Leonard Sweet's sermon can be obtained by joining www.eSermons.com.

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Melting Mountains of Ice

William Lloyd Garrison was the greatest abolitionist this country has ever known. He was a publisher of a newspaper called the Liberator, an antislavery publication. Garrison was an angry man, angry with indignation caused by the unbelievably inhumane treatment many of the slaves experienced. He hated slavery with everything that was in him. One day one of his best friends, Samuel May, tried to calm him down. He said to Garrison, "Oh, my friend, try to moderate your indignation and keep more cool. Why, you are all on fire." Garrison replied, "Brother May, I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice around me to melt." Well, the only way any of us can melt mountains of ice is to be on fire. 

The only way Christ can use any of us is when we are driven by a great passion, when we feel or hear his voice within our heart showing us a great cause that needs to be championed. Nothing is accomplished in this world by people who have no passion. That's one reason we need God in our hearts as well as on our lips. 

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Lip Service

According to the story, Queen Victoria was once at a diplomatic reception in London. The guest of honor was an African chieftain. All went well during the meal until, at the end, finger bowls were served. The guest of honor had never seen a British finger bowl, and no one had thought to brief him beforehand about its purpose. So he took the finger bowl in his two hands, lifted it to his mouth, and drank its contents--down to the very last drop!

For an instant there was breathless silence among the British upper crust and then they began to whisper to one another.

All that stopped in the next instant as the Queen, Victoria, silently took her finger bowl in her two hands, lifted it, and drank its contents!  A moment later 500 surprised British ladies and gentlemen simultaneously drank the contents of their own fingerbowls.

It was "against the rules" to drink from a fingerbowl, but on that particular evening Victoria changed the rules---because she was, after all, the Queen. It is "against the rules" not to wash your hands before you eat and on that the Pharisees called the hand of the disciples who follow Jesus. But Jesus recognizes their hypocrisy and he quotes from Isaiah, "These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me."

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com. Thanks to Winfield Casey Jones for this story.

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Seeing Only the Smoke, Never the Fire

In Luke 7:32, Jesus observed that this generation is like school children who pipe and their friends won't dance, who wail and their chums won't cry. "There is no pleasing you!" We simply find something wrong with everything. 

John Wesley pointed out that every gift God gives man is quickly sullied by human hands. He said every revival comes with defects. So he'd pray, "Lord, send revival without the defects." But then he told the Lord, "If you won't do it, then send the revival with the defects." 

Pharisees only see the smoke, never the fire. They complain about defects, never seeing the revival. Negative, critical persons, they are judgmental. 

Stephen M. Crotts, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing 

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Tradition Is a Powerful Thing

Years ago Harry Emerson Fosdick told about a church in Denmark where the worshipers bowed regularly before a certain spot on the wall. They had been doing that for three centuries -- bowing at that one spot in the sanctuary. Nobody could remember why. One day in renovating the church, they removed some of the whitewash on the walls. At the exact spot where the people bowed they found the image of the Madonna under the whitewash. People had become so accustomed to bowing before that image that even after it was covered up for three centuries, people still bowed. 

Tradition is a powerful thing. The Pharisees had learned to substitute tradition, custom, habit for the presence of the living God. Traditionalism rears its head in many ways, in many times and in many places. 

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Fault-Finding

Shakespeare said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? I'm sure it would. You see, the truth is that the thing is what it is, not what someone calls it. Names are assigned to us, based on our outward circumstances by ourselves and other people. "Sinner, Failure, Stupid, Dummy, Unclean" all are names which label us. But what we are called, either by others or by ourselves does not determine who we are. It might speak of those external circumstances, but it might be wholly inaccurate. You see, a failure is not someone who fails. In reality, the people who fail the most are the ones who succeed. You only get to success by taking risks and risk-taking brings many failures along the way. A failure is someone who simply doesn't try. No, names do not determine who you are. You are who you are on the inside.

So, the first important lesson is that we must cultivate the inner person.

The inner person is the person who counts. The apostle Paul desired that we

be strengthened in the inner man.

It boils down to relationship. We are only as strong as our personal relationship with Christ.

J. David Hoke, The Inside Story, Mark 7:14-23.

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The Shoeshine Boy

A certain downtown businessman became fond of the little boy who shined his shoes every day. He did such a good job that one day the businessman asked him, "Son, how come you are so conscientious about your work?" The boy felt complimented. He looked up to the man, and said, "Mister, I'm a Christian and I try to shine every pair of shoes as if Jesus Christ were wearing them."

The businessman saw something genuine in the shoeshine boy. Soon after that he began reading his Bible. When he decided to be a Christian himself, he credited his decision to the little boy who shined every pair of shoes "as if Jesus Christ were wearing them." That's a blessing.

Charles R. Leary, Mission Ready!, CSS Publishing Company.

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Which Flowers Are Real?

The queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon, and one day she put him to the test. She brought artificial flowers so perfectly formed that no human eye could detect them from real flowers. She put them in a vase on Solomon's table, in his throne room next to his flowers. As he came in, the queen of Sheba is reported to have said, "Solomon, you are the wisest man in the world. Tell me without touching these flowers, which are real and which are artificial." It is said that Solomon studied the flowers for a long time and spoke nothing, until finally he said, "Open the windows and let the bees come in." 

There are ways to tell the artificial from the real-let the bees come in; they will know where the real is. If we live with the authentic Jesus long enough, we will recognize the artificial when we see it. 

Brooks Ramsey, When Religion Becomes Real 

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Humor: A Tradition of Fighting

There is a story about a young, newly ordained minister who went to serve his first church. He noticed that on the first Sunday, when he said the prayers, the congregation on the left side of the church stood at the beginning of the prayers, and the congregation on the right side remained seated. The young minister thought this was a bit odd, but he kept going in the prayers-until he began to hear some murmuring between the two sides, then the murmuring turned into grumbling and then people yelling at each other, proclaiming that they were doing the right thing when came to the tradition of the church.

Distressed by what he had seen and all that was taking place, the young pastor went to seek the council of the former, now elderly pastor, who had served this congregation for years. He asked him, "So is it the tradition of the congregation to stand during the prayers?"

The older minister, whose memory was now failing, stroked his beard, replied, "No, that is not the tradition, as I recall."

"So, the tradition is that they remain seated during the prayers?"

To which the old minister responded, "No, that's not the tradition either."

The young pastor threw his hands in the air in exasperation, and said, "There must be some solution to this! The way things are now, half stand and half sit and all end up screaming at one another during the prayers."

The old pastor's face lit up in a smile.

The conclusion to this illustration and many additional illustrations and sermons for Proper 17 can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.

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