[Propertalk] Fw: Sermon Resources for February 27 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

All Shall Be Well - Juliana of Norwich

The English mystic and Benedictine nun Juliana of Norwich (1342-1414) had reasons enough to worry. She lived during the Black Death that killed 75 million people in medieval Europe. Many people interpreted the bubonic plague as divine punishment, but not Juliana. In her unapologetically optimistic view of life, she believed that God loved every person and that he would redeem every tear. In her book of visions called Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love - by some accounts the first book published in English that was written by a woman - Juliana wrote one of the most well-known sentences in all of Christian history that's also the perfect antidote to worry.

In her thirteenth vision or "shewing," Juliana concluded that she was wrong to worry about the sins and sorrows of life. Jesus told her that these trials and tribulations were, in fact, "behovely" (from which we get our word "behoove"). Even our sins and anxieties are somehow incumbent upon us. They're part of our human story. Despite "all the pains that ever were, or ever shall be," Juliana believed that God longs to "comforteth readily and sweetly." He does so by reassuring us that, because of the certainty of his boundless love, "All shall be well, and all shall be
well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

Daniel B. Clendenin, Listening to the Birds, Looking at the Flowers 
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The Breakdown of Worries

Some years ago I read the following in a business magazine:

Stress management experts say that only two percent of our "worrying time" is spent on things that might actually be helped by worrying. The figures below illustrate how the other 98 percent of this time is spent:

40% on things that never happen
35% on things that can't be changed
15% on things that turn out better than expected
8% on useless, petty worries

Brian Stoffregen, Exegetical Notes
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When I Look Back

Sir Winston Churchill once said, "When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his death bed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened."

Sir Winston Churchill
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Unnecessary Worry

A bassoon player came up to his conductor, Arturo Toscanini, and nervously said that he could not reach the high E flat. Toscanini just smiled and replied, "Don't worry. There is no E flat in your music tonight." Many of our worries are like that-- unfounded and unnecessary.

David Beckett, Hakuna Matata
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Humor: She Was Talking to the Doctor

A man was seen fleeing down the hall of the hospital just before his operation. A security guard stopped him before he could leave the hospital and asked, "What's the matter?"

The man said, "I heard the nurse say, 'It's a very simple operation, don't worry, I'm sure it will be all right.'"

"She was just trying to comfort you," said the security guard. "What's so frightening about that?"

"She wasn't talking to me," exclaimed the man. "She was talking to the doctor!"

David Beckett, Hakuna Matata
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God's Days

Robert Burdette wrote this piece called God's Days:

"There are two days in the week upon which and about which I never worry -- two carefree days kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension. One of these days is Yesterday. Yesterday, with its cares and frets and pains and aches, all its faults, its mistakes and blunders, has passed forever beyond my recall. It was mine; it is God's.

"The other day that I do not worry about is Tomorrow. Tomorrow, with all its possible adversities, its burdens, its perils, its large promise and performance, its failures and mistakes, is as far beyond my mastery as its dead sister, Yesterday. Tomorrow is God's day; it will be mine.

"There is left, then, for myself but one day in the week - Today. Any man can fight the battles of today. Any woman can carry the burdens of just one day; any man can resist the temptation of today. It is only when we willfully add the burdens of these two awful eternities - Yesterday and Tomorrow - such burdens as only the Mighty God can sustain - that we break down.

"It isn't the experience of Today that drives people mad. It is the remorse of what happened Yesterday and fear of what Tomorrow might bring. These are God's Days ... Leave them to God."

Robert Burdette, God's Days
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I'll Go with You

During the Holocaust, when the Nazis put people in concentration camps, they would work the imprisoned until they could no longer do anything. Then, they would execute them. One family was composed of a father, a mother, and their two children, one of whom suffered from a physical disability. Every day, the mother and two children were taken to one work site and the father was shipped to another. And every night, the father checked on his family. One night though, the father found only his one son. "What happened?" he asked. The surviving child said that the brother with the disability had no longer been able to work. And so the guards had taken him to be executed. He clung to his mother's skirt, sobbing. She picked him up and, holding him close to her, said, "Don't be afraid. I'll go with you." And so she did. That's akin to the God we have through Jesus Christ. In Christ, God stands with us in the darkest and the worst of times--even in death--so that all who trust in Him will be ushered into eternity with Him! How can we worry when we have a God like that?

Mark Daniels, Do Not Worry!
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The Worry Tree

Once there was a man who had a "worry tree." He had a stressful executive position and every night, before he walked through the front door of his house, he touched a tree close to the porch and said, "God, all these worries I've been stewing over, I'm giving to you here now at the worry tree. I'll pick them up from You tomorrow if You seem to be telling me there's anything I can do about them. Otherwise, I'm turning them over to You...and thank You!"

Mark Daniels, Do Not Worry! 

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The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. 

C. S. Lewis
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With God's Help

A pastor was visiting with a church member one day. They sat together on the front porch of the man's home on a hot July afternoon. He was a recovering alcoholic who had been sober for over five years. That day he talked of his past -- of spending more adult years drunk than sober, of times when but for the grace of God he should have been killed in a fight or automobile accident, of the patience of his wife and the influence of the church and A.A. in turning things around. He spoke reverently of the role of prayer and the ever-present power of Christ. The pastor had not known him in those other years. He knew him only as a devoted member of his church, a hard worker and a good friend. So, the pastor remarked (perhaps too enthusiastically): "It must be satisfying after all those years to know that you've finally made it." The church member answered quickly: "I don't know that at all. Neither do you. All I know is that with God's help I will make it through today."

Michael B. Brown, Be All That You Can Be 
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The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations and sermons for the Epiphany 8 can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.
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