[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for October 3 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Excuses, Excuses
 
I have read that Dorothy Day, a co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement and an extraordinarily faithful laywoman, was often approached by people who said things to here like, “You are a saint,” “You are so special – a true gift of God as a person.” She hated that! She was quite gruff with those who suggested these things. She’d say, “No, I’m not!  I’m no different from you. If you value what I do, go do it yourself. You could, you know.” She detested any language that set her apart from others because she saw it as a cop-out, a way for people to rationalize why they were not more devoted to easing the suffering of the poorest. 
 
The disciples were this way – they saw before them what their faithfulness would require and declared that they didn’t have enough faith to consider such choices. “Excuses, excuses,” Jesus tells them. We say “I don’t have enough faith to be that kind of person, the kind of person who…” Jesus says, “Sure you do.”

Alison L. Boden 
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Daily Forgiveness
 
I once visited on online greeting card website to send an electronic anniversary card to some friends. As I was glancing through the website's menu of choices, I noticed they had a separate category of cards devoted to "Forgiveness." Most of these cards were humorous ones intended to be used for relatively minor hurts. "Forget about it," "Don't worry about it" were the sentiments of two cards. Another expressed forgiveness by saying, "Everybody is a work in progress."

Curiously, forgiveness cards were categorized right along with birthday and get well cards. That is, they were what could be called "occasional cards." You don't send a "Get Well" card just any old time, but occasionally you need such a sentiment and that's when you purchase and send just such a card. So also you may not need a forgiveness card very often, but once in a while such a thing may be handy.

Seen this way, forgiveness becomes a "now and then" matter. But it is precisely such an understanding of forgiveness that the New Testament calls us to resist. Forgiveness is an ongoing necessity, and so the church will never be done with needing it. Maybe that is why in that most famous of all prayers, the Lord's Prayer, Jesus puts the need to forgive hard on the heels of the request for daily bread. Have you ever thought of that? The request for bread and the plea for forgiveness are yoked with the word "and." "Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others." You say these two petitions in the same breath. Why is that important? Because perhaps it is Jesus' way of telling us that there is a connection between daily bread and forgiveness--we need both every day!

Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations
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Faith Needs Daily Exercise
 
One day my wife brought a jar and asked me to open it for her. I tried and tried to open that jar, but my hands just weren't strong enough to hold the jar tightly and turn the lid. It is a little embarrassing to a man when a woman asks him to open a jar and he can't do it, so I decided that I needed to increase the strength in my hands. I got this hand exerciser to help me. You have probably seen one of these. You just squeeze the two sides together, like this. If you don't have one of these, you can do the same type of exercise by squeezing a rubber ball. By exercising my hands every day, they will get stronger and stronger. Then maybe I won't be embarrassed the next time my wife asks me to open a jar for her. 
 
Faith is believing and trusting in God. Faith is like a muscle, you have to exercise it every day to make it strong. Sometimes we say that we have faith in God. We say that we believe that He can do anything, but then we act as if everything depends on us. That isn't a very strong faith, is it?

Jesus told his disciples that if they had as much faith as a tiny mustard seed, they could tell a tree to move from one place to another and the tree would obey them. Now, that is a strong faith, isn't it? I wish I had as much faith as a mustard seed. Maybe I will if I keep exercising it. I do know my faith will grow stronger if I exercise it by trusting in God each and every day. How strong is your faith? Does it need a little daily exercise? 
 
Charles Kirkpatrick, Exercising Your Faith
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How My Light Is Spent
 
One of the greatest poems in the English language was written by John Milton as he dealt with the onset of his blindness. “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” has eleven lines with seven subordinate clauses. When the dependent clauses are stripped away we are left with their sense:
 
        When I consider how my light is spent,
        I fondly ask (so he won’t scold me)
        If God demands day-labor light denied?
 
John Milton’s contention with himself as he thought on his blindness was not simply a complaint and a chastening. Clearly he was in anguish not only at his loss of sight but at his inability to serve God as he thought he should. But, Milton found through his loss not only the resignation to abide it but turned his mind with a startling clarity of thought and vision to writing his most memorable work: Paradise Lost.
 
Adapted from Miller Williams, “Touchstones, American Poets on a Favorite Poem” Robert Pack and Jay Parini, Editors, Middlebury College Press 1996.
 
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Ralph Waldo Emerson on Duty
 
There is a time in every mans education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his portion...
 
It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
 
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...
 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance," in Essays (First Series 1841).
 
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Seeing the New Reality
 
It was said that the great Michaelangelo attracted a crowd of spectators as he worked. One child in particular was fascinated by the sight of chips flying and the sound of mallet on chisel as the master shaped a large block of white marble. Unable to contain her curiosity, the little girl inquired, "What are you making?" Pausing, he replied, "There is an angel in there and I must set it free."
 
Faith is seeing the new reality and working to set it free. It is seeing the reality of God's kingdom and working with the Holy One to create the new heaven and earth.
 
W. Robert McClelland, Fire in the Hole, CSS Publishing Company 



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The Priorities of a Servant
 
A young boy by the name of James had a desire to be the most famous manufacturer and salesman of cheese in the world. He planned on becoming rich and famous by making and selling cheese and began with a little buggy pulled by a pony named Paddy. After making his cheese, he would load his wagon and he and Paddy would drive down the streets of Chicago to sell the cheese. As the months passed, the young boy began to despair because he was not making any money, in spite of his long hours and hard work.
 
One day he pulled his pony to a stop and began to talk to him. He said, "Paddy, there is something wrong…
 
The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations and sermons for the Proper 22 can be accessed at www.Sermons.com. 
 



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