[Propertalk] Fw: SermonWriter: Nov. 1 (Proper 26B) Mark 12:28-34 - Part 2 of 2

Wed Oct 28 15:28:18 EDT 2009

Fw: SermonWriter: Nov. 1 (Proper 26B) Mark 12:28-34 - Part 2 of 2

The Greek philosophers were the ones who talked most about the immortality of the soul, and they used a beautiful analogy to explain it. They saw the soul like a homing pigeon taking to a far land and when it is release, it always instinctively and unerringly returns to its true home. The soul they say is like that bird. In this life, we're living in a foreign land or in a cage, death, therefore, in this view is a release - freeing the soul to return instinctively and unerringly to its true home. Now that's beautiful, but it's not Christian. It's in much of our poetry and in much of our hymnody, you get some hints of it in the Bible, but that's not primarily the teaching of the Bible. The primary teaching of scripture is not the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the body and eternal life. The Bible does not affirm that immortality is part and parcel of what it means to be human, but the Bible rather talks about eternal life as gifts - the gift of God in Jesus Christ to those who respond in faith to him. 

If you're going to live beyond death, the Bible says, there must be a resurrection of the body. A resurrection of who we are as we are as persons, yet made new by Christ himself, who even now sitting upon the throne, keeps saying, behold I am making all things new. When Paul was confronted with what people felt to be the preposterousness of this idea of the resurrection of the body, when you consider what happens to the body in death - he said, we will have a resurrected new body. And just as the Greeks had an analogy to talk about the immortality of the soul, so Paul had an analogy to talk about the resurrection of the body. He said it's like a farmer, planting a seed in the ground, and the shell of the husk falls away and new life appears. So we die, to be born again into new life.

Maxie Dunnam, All This and Heaven, Too, www.Sermons.com

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A Time for Tears 

Stanton Delaplane, the columnist, often wrote a very gay column, but one time several years ago, he wrote in a different mood. He said:

"No life can run smoothly, but how can I tell this to a ten year old girl? The other night we came home and the Siamese kitten was dead. You could see what had happened. I had had some steaks delivered on top of the deep freeze. The boxer dog had managed to push the door. The cat had gotten up and torn off the paper. The dog had managed to jump up and pull the package down. He must have been into it when the cat came down and tried to get into it, too. Oh, they had eaten and played together for three months now, but this time he just grabbed her by the neck, gave one shake, and she was dead.

"And so, there is trouble in Paradise today. Though we must all grow up from ten years and realize that kittens must go, I keep thinking if only I had come home a half an hour earlier. If I had closed the door tight, or if I had put the steaks into the deep freeze. For this morning, the little girl is miserable, the boxer is miserable, and I am miserable - and there is nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, that I can do about it, nor anyone else can do about it."

No, Mr. Delaphane, there is nothing that anyone can do about it, except weep. I find that this world is that kind of place, and it fortifies my soul to know that Jesus found it that kind of place, also. In at least two places recorded in Scripture, our Lord is confronted by circumstances where the only appropriate reaction seemed to be to cry. To us, that is a fact of tremendous importance.

In the first place, if Jesus wept, then weeping is realism and not sentimentalism. If Christ, himself, was left, upon occasion, with no weapon for the warfare of life except a sob, then how ridiculous of me to think that I can go dry-eyed through the days of my years. How stupid of me to set a goal for myself to wink, supposedly gaily and bravely, at the experiences that caused the Lord of life to weep, and to weep bitterly.

A Time for Tears, Louis H. Valbracht

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Mercy and Empathy

There are people crying all around us, people approaching the point of desperation. But many of their cries go unheard. The noise of the self-oriented machinery of our culture is drowning them out and they are dying. The world needs the merciful. We all need someone who will identify with us. Someone who will hear our cry, listen, have empathy, and care. We all need to have an attitude of mercy and to be the recipients of such an attitude!  As Shakespeare said:

The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 

Upon the place beneath: it is

twice blest, It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

Wallace H. Kirby, Beatitudes: Programs and Promises, CSS Publishing 

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New Priorities of the Kingdom

A holy man was engaged in his morning meditation under a tree whose roots stretched out over the riverbank. During his meditation he noticed that the river was rising, and a scorpion caught in the roots was about to drown. He crawled out on the roots and reached down to free the scorpion, but every time he did so, the scorpion struck back at him. An observer came along and said to the holy man, 'Don't you know that's a scorpion, and it's in the nature of a scorpion to want to sting?' To which the holy man replied, 'That may well be, but it is my nature to save, and must I change my nature because the scorpion does not change his?'

Traditional

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A Religion Worth Nothing

A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.

Martin Luther

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Sometimes We Just Need a Blessing

The problem with our society is that we don't understand the power nor the dynamics of giving a blessing. We underestimate its power and we are not in the habit of giving empathy. Few people are tuned in to your feelings of rejection. Most ignore them completely. Many simply "stuff" them, hoping that they will go away. We are a people that want to fix or problem solve. 

We want answers and a rational explanation for everything that happens. Or, we believe that hard work and discipline will make everything turn out right. Do you think that the skier that crashed on the ski slope was not disciplined? Did he deserve to slip and fail because he didn't work hard enough?

I heard a story this past week that illustrates how our society treats personal rejection. A man with a critical illness was lying in a hospital bed, desperately wanting some word of encouragement. A nurse said to him, "you just need to work harder." This man had undergone multiple surgeries and is critically ill. What he needed was a "blessing." What the skier who crashed on the slope needed was a blessing.

Part 2 of 2:

Sermons for All Saints Day:

Keith Wagner, Overcoming Rejection

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We Belong to the Kingdom of God

The story is told of Frederick William IV of Prussia who once visited a school and quizzed the students. He held up a stone and asked the children: to what kingdom does this belong? They responded: mineral. He then, pointed to a flower and asked: to what kingdom does this belong? They answered: plant.  He then pointed to a bird flying by outside the window and asked: to what Kingdom does that belong? They replied: animal. Then he asked: now, to what kingdom do I belong. He had raised a profound theological question. To what kingdom do we belong?

On a literal sense, we are, off course, part and parcel of the animal kingdom. I belong to the same kingdom as my dog Ruff. He has many human traits.

The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations and sermons for All Saints and Proper 26 can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.

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