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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Be Careful Who You Judge</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">A
young minister graduated from seminary just before World War I and he
was appointed to a church in a very small town. He had been there only a
couple of weeks when he received the call every new minister dreads --
the call to do his first funeral. The person who had died was not a
member of his church. She was, in fact, a woman with a very bad
reputation. Her husband was a railroad engineer who was away from home
much of the time. She had rented rooms in their house to men who worked
on the railroad and rumor had it that she rented more than just rooms
when her husband was away. The young preacher, faced with his first
funeral, found no one who had a good word to say about this woman, until
he entered the small old-fashioned grocery store on the day before the
funeral. He began to talk to the store owner about his sadness that the
first person he would bury would be someone about which nothi
ng good
could be said. The store owner didn't reply at first and then, in his
silence, he appeared to make a decision. He took out his store ledger
and laid it on the counter between him and the preacher. He opened the
ledger at random and, covering the names in the left-hand column, he
pointed to grocery bills written in red – groceries that people had
bought on credit -- and then the column that showed the bill had been
paid.<br>
<br>
He said, "Every month, that woman would come in and ask me who was
behind in their grocery bills. It was usually some family who had
sickness or death -- or some poor woman trying to feed her kids when her
husband drank up the money. She would pay their bill and she made me
swear never to tell. But, I figure now that she is dead, people ought to
know -- especially those who benefited from her charity who have been
most critical of her."<br>
<br>
"Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."<br>
<br>
Roger G. Talbott, Good News for the Hard of Hearing, CSS Publishing Company <br>
_________________________________</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">If the House Is Messy, Clean It Up </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">My
wife had a second-grader who once drew a picture of a fierce rhinoceros
with a disturbing and unvarnished admission as a caption: "I'm as angry
as a rhino!" Similarly, in her book, Amazing Grace; A Vocabulary of
Faith, Kathleen Norris writes about a little boy who wrote a poem called
"The Monster Who Was Sorry." In the poem the boy explodes about how he
hated it when his father yelled at him. In anger he threw his sister
down the stairs, wrecked his room, then destroyed an entire town. His
poem concludes: "Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, 'I
shouldn't have done all that.'" </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Commenting
on the boy's poem, Norris writes, "'My messy house' says it all; with
more honesty than most adults could have mustered, the boy made a
metaphor for himself that admitted the depth of his rage and also gave
him a way out. If that boy had been a novice in a fourth century
monastic desert, his elders might have told him that he was well on the
way toward repentance, not such a monster after all, but only human. If
the house is messy, they might have said, why not clean it up, why not
make it into a place where God might wish to dwell." </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Dan Clendenin, The Monster Who Was Sorry</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">___________________________________</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Availability</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">A man applied for a job as a handyman. The prospective employer asked, "Can you do carpentry?" The man answered in the negative.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">"How about bricklaying?" Again the man answered, "No."</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The
employer asked, "Well, what about electrical work?" The man said "No, I
don't know anything about that either." Finally the employer said,
"Well, tell me then what is handy about you." The man replied, "I live
just around the corner."</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Sometimes
the greatest ability we can have is availability. To be where God can
call us, to be within whisper range of his summons, that is the
beginning of a life of meaningful discipleship.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">King Duncan, Time for Action</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">___________________________</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">It Isn’t How the Journey Starts, It Is How It Ends</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The
great wit, C. S. Lewis, started out a doubter. He saw British
Christianity a pale and bloodless business. It did not excite him. In
fact, to his reasoned, calculating way of thinking, Christianity made
very little sense. It smelled of superstition and made promises about
the future he was sure it could not make good on.<br>
<br>
But C. S. Lewis came to see that he was missing something. He began to
slide into a cynicism about life that frightened him. He wanted
something to believe in. Someone who was on the Christian pilgrimage
helped him to see that there was room for him in the parade. Not
suddenly, but rather quietly, unspectacularly, Lewis came into the
Christian camp. We know the<br>
rest of the story: He became a great intellectual apologist for
Christianity, writing and speaking to confound the critics of the Faith.
He was the reverse of Ralph Vaughan Williams, taking on the critics of
the Christian faith in Britain in a series of radio broadcasts which
became enormously popular among a population growing steadily more
indifferent to Christ.<br>
<br>
A similar story can be told of Malcolm Muggeridge, a British thinker who
in later life came to see that the Christian Faith made far more sense
to him than clinging to agnosticism. He, like Lewis, became an apologist
for Christianity. He said "yes" to the invitation, after he first had
said "no."<br>
<br>
It isn't how the journey starts that counts. It's how it ends that matters.<br>
<br>
Michael A. Sherer, And God Said Yes!, CSS Publishing Company</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">______________________________<br>
<br>
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Fathers and Sons</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">A
father once tried to talk to his son about how college was going: The
father said, "How are things going?" The son said, "Good." The father
said, "And the dormitory?" He said, "Good." The father said, "How are
your studies going?" He said, "Good." The father said, "Have you decided
on a major yet?" He said, "Yes." "Well, what is it?" asked the father.
The son said, "Communication."</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">So it goes as parents and children try to talk to each other. So it was for the two sons in Jesus’ story.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">William J. Carl III, Church People Beware!, CSS Publishing Company</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">_________________________</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Getting All the Facts</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">A
little boy was standing on the sidewalk in the middle of a city block.
He was obviously waiting for something. An older man approached him and
asked for what he was waiting. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The
little boy confidently told the older man that he was waiting for the
bus. The man laughed and said the bus stop was in the next block. The
boy acknowledged that fact but insisted the bus would stop for him right
here.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The
older man became annoyed at what he thought was insolence. He raised
his voice and told the little boy that he'd better start walking if he
hoped to ride that bus. The boy politely turned down the suggestion and
said he would wait for the bus right where he stood.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The
man fumed at the little boy and started walking off. But before he was
too far away, he heard the screeching of brakes. He turned around and
couldn't believe his eyes. The bus was actually stopping for the little
boy. The bus door opened and the boy started climb aboard. But just
before he did, he turned toward the man down the street and yelled, "My
daddy is the bus driver."</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Billy D. Strayhorn, Seeing Is Believing</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">_____________________________</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Fire on One End, Fool on the Other</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">I
remember in High School a physician who came to talk to us about the
dangers of smoking. He scared us with his grim pictures of smokers'
lungs and tales of death from lung cancer. The doctor finished his
speech by saying, "Remember, fire on one end, fool on the other."</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">We
were all impressed, especially those boys who would sneak out behind
the shop building at lunch to light one up. But a couple of the guys saw
the doctor himself lighting up when he got back in his car after the
lecture. And his credibility was shot. He was the talk of the campus. It
would have been better for the no-smoking campaign if he had never come
to speak. Saying one thing and doing another is something nobody
respects.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Julian Gordy, Didn't You Hear What I Said?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">_____________________________</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Which Coaching Is Better?</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Bonnie
St. John Deane in her book, Succeeding Sane, tells about the movie,
Hoop Dreams, a true story. For four years a documentary film team takes
cameras and follows the lives of two talented young basketball players
from one of the poorest neighborhoods in Chicago. The young man with
more natural talent gets a high school scholarship, a posh summer job,
and a coach from hell. However, the constant badgering, pressure, and
demeaning style of the coach slowly destroys any fun the kid ever felt
in the game. Once the desire to play begins to crumble, he begins to
sabotage his own success. He becomes more vulnerable to injuries, his
grades drop, and he acts up socially with drugs and sex. His cry for
help goes unheard.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, the kid with less talent gets less help and less pressure. He
is left to struggle in worse schools combating pressure from gangs…</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The conclusion to this list and for many additional illustrations and sermons for Proper 21 can be accessed at <a target="_blank" href="http://mail.churchmail.com/lists/lt.php?id=Kk8AAAcHDwdbRAMNAEsDAABWWg%3D%3D">www.Sermons.com</a>.</span></div>
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