Sermon Resources for February 17

Lectionary Reflections by Various Authors
Sermon Starter There Are Other Worlds to Sing In by James W. Moore
John 3: 1-17 His name was Paul. He lived in a small town in the Pacific Northwest some years ago. He was just a little boy when his family became the proud owners of one of the first telephones in the neighborhood. It was one of those wooden boxes attached to the wall with the shiny receiver hanging on the side of the box. and the mouthpiece attached to the front. Young Paul listened with fascination as his mom and dad used the phone. and he discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device called a telephone lived an amazing person. Her name was "Information Please" and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anybody's number. and the correct time! Paul's first personal experience with "Information Please" came one day when he was home alone and he whacked his finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible and he didn't know what to do. and then he thought of the telephone. Quickly, he pulled a footstool up to the phone, climbed up, unhooked the receiver, held it to his ear and said: "Information Please" into the mouthpiece. There was a click or two and then a small clear voice spoke: "Information." "I hurt my finger," Paul wailed into the phone. "Isn't your mother home?" "Nobody's home but me," Paul cried. "Are you bleeding?" "No," Paul said. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts." "Can you open your ice-box?" "Yes." "Then go get some ice and hold it to your finger." Paul did and it helped a lot. After that Paul called "Information Please" for everything. She helped him with his geography and his math. She taught him how to spell the word "fix". She told him what to feed his pet chipmunk. And then when Paul's pet canary died, she listened to his grief tenderly and then said: "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow that helped and Paul felt better. When Paul was nine years old, he moved with his family to Boston. and as the years passed he missed "Information Please" very much. Some years later as Paul was on his way out west to go to college, his plane landed in Seattle. He dialed his hometown operator and said, "Information Please." Miraculously, he heard that same small clear voice that he knew so well. "Information". Paul hadn't planned this, but suddenly he blurted out: "Could you please tell me how to spell the word "fix?" There was a long pause. Then came the soft answer: "I guess your finger must be all healed by now." Paul laughed. "So it's really still you. Do you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time when I was a little boy?" "I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me! I never had any children and I used to look forward to your calls so much." Paul told her how much he had missed her over the years and asked her if he could call her again when he was back in the area. "Please do," she said, "just ask for Sally." Three months later, Paul was back in Seattle. This time a different voice answered. He asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" the operator asked. "Yes, a very old friend." Paul answered. "Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you this," she said. "Sally had been working part time the last few years because she was sick. She died 5 weeks ago." Before he could hang up, the operator said: "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?" "Yes." "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you. It says: 'When Paul calls, tell him that I still say: there are other worlds to sing in.' He will know what I mean." Paul thanked her and hung up and he did know what Sally meant. "There are other worlds to sing in." Isn't that a beautiful and powerful thought? And that is precisely what John 3 is all about. "There are other worlds to sing in". in this life and, yes, even beyond this life. When Jesus said to Nicodemus that night: "You must be born again." "You must be born from above." That's what he meant. you don't have to stay the way you are. You can make a new start. You can have a new life. You can become a new person. There are other worlds to sing in. First of all.. 1. To Be Born from Above Means to Come Alive to the Bible. 2. To Be Born from Above Means to Come Alive to Love. 3. To Be Born from Above Means to Come Alive to Eternal Life.
Sermon Starter What Is Eternal Life? by Leonard Sweet
John 3: 1-17 On Super Tuesday in Lafayette, Tennessee, James Kruger was watching the election results. Suddenly a warning appeared on his tv screen: A tornado was headed toward Lafayette, Tennessee. As soon as he read those words, the lights went out. [You can Google an image of James Kruger, who appears disheveled, confused, and with a huge shiner.] He put on sweat pants, grabbed a flashlight, "and then I heard this noise," Kruger said. He headed for a door, "and all of a sudden I heard the glass breaking and it was sucking," he said. "When I tried to shut the door, [it] seemed like the door was lifting up. So I just dove and I lay flat on the floor." Lying there, time stood still as everything in the house flew over him, scraping and banging his back, Kruger said. Then the chaos stopped. "I was laying in the dirt. There was no floor. No nothing." The house was gone. But Kruger says he knows why he survived. "I think God was holding my leg, teaching me that I hadn't been doing everything he wanted me to do," he said. There is an old saying that declares, "Nothing concentrates the mind quite like a hanging at dawn" (Often attributed to Samuel Johnson). In other words, when faced with the very real possibility of death, our typical multi-tasking, "scatter brain" consciousness both "zooms in" and "zones out." We "zoom in" to a finely tuned focus on what is most important, what our lives have meant, whom we truly love, and what we ultimately believe in. We "zone out" of the temporal count-down we usually inhabit. The life threatening experience-whether it is a tornado landing on your house, your car careening off a cliff, or a bullet piercing your body--is not experienced in "real time." We can review and relive thousands of events as the crisis whirls about us. Seconds and minutes are no longer part of the count-down when we are accounting the meaning of our life. Just as the few moments that make up a crisis situation can seem to move in slow motion, so also hours and hours can pass without our noticing them when we get "in the zone." Surgeons performing lengthy, complex procedures, athletes focused on the game, musicians practicing and composing, all regularly experience a surprising "time war" feeling that occurs when they finally step back outside "the zone." A twelve hour heart surgery, a three hour contest, a six hour jam session--none are recalled as a passage of minutes or hours. They are recalled instead as whole events, experiences in which mind, body, and spirit were working together so seamlessly, so harmoniously, that there was no real separate cognizance of "time." Even if you are not a heart surgeon you know the feeling. Its also the same "out of time" togetherness that makes vacation days both stretch out forever, yet slip away so fast. Two days spent working, running errands, keeping up with "life as usual" move at a completely different pace than two days spent climbing a mountain, or two days relaxing at a seaside resort with your spouse, or two days spent entirely alone. All these experiences are momentary glimpses of what today's gospel reading defines as "eternal life".
Sermon Starter Nicodemus
For years, the opening of The Wide World of Sports television program illustrated "the agony of defeat" with a painful ending to an attempted ski jump. The skier appeared in good form as he headed down the jump, but then, for no apparent reason, he tumbled head over heels off the side of the jump, bouncing off the supporting structure down to the snow below. What viewers didn't know was that he chose to fall rather than finish the jump. Why? As he explained later, the jump surface had become too fast, and midway down the ramp, he realized if he completed the jump, he would land on the level ground, beyond the safe sloping landing area, which could have been fatal. Surprisingly, the skier suffered no more than a headache from the tumble. To change one's course in life can be a dramatic and sometimes painful undertaking, but change is better than a fatal landing at the end. This is the problem Nicodemus is having. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he is facing a fatal landing if he does not change directions. But Nicodemus knows only one way and that is the way of earth. It is the only way that any of us knows. Suddenly Jesus appears on the scene and begins speaking of Heaven, of being Born Again. Nicodemus hears the words "You must be born again," but he is confused. So he asks, "How can a person go back into his mother's womb and come out again?" It is surprising to us that Nicodemus is so confused. He's a religious leader and should understand spiritual lessons but somehow he feels he has missed some crucial truth. And, there is a reason he is going to Jesus. He has an inkling that Jesus might be able to provide that missing important detail. Nicodemus has somehow been headed in the wrong direction and now he must change his course. This he knows but Nicodemus seems hesitant. He seems uncertain about making such a drastic change. Why? What makes this remarkable man slow to take Jesus at his word? What is confusing him?
  1. Nicodemus was a religious man.
  2. Nicodemus was a powerful person.
  3. Nicodemus was a man of pedigree.
  4. Nicodemus was an educated man.

On March 28th, 2014, Paramount Pictures will release the movie, Noah, starring Russell Crowe. This movie is based on the story from Genesis, but even weeks before its release, this film is generating a great deal of discussion. This video explores some of the ways the creators of this movie used specific measurements and details from the Bible to create the Ark. See the video here.
Transforming Love
We need to be able to look into a mirror and not only see, but fully believe, that the reflection we view is a child of God. We need to believe in ourselves and we can with the assistance of another. A good example of such transformation is found in the story of Dulcinea, one of the principal characters in the popular Broadway musical, Man of la Mancha. The audience learns that Don Quixote, the chief protagonist, lives with many illusions, most especially his idea that he is a knight errant who battles dragons in the form of windmills. At the end of the play as he lays dying, Don Quixote has at his side a prostitute, Aldonza, whom he has called throughout the play Dulcinea - Sweet One - much to the laughter of the local townsfolk. But Don Quixote has loved her in a way unlike she has ever experienced. When Quixote breathes his last Aldonza begins to sing "The Impossible Dream." As the echo of the song dies away, someone shouts to her, "Aldonza!" But she pulls away proudly and responds, "My name is Dulcinea." The crazy's knight's love had transformed her. (by Richard E. Gribble from Sermons for Sundays: In Lent And Easter: Building Our Foundation On God, CSS Publishing Company)
The Wind Blows Where It Will
William Willimon, the Chaplain at Duke University, tells of a woman who, with her family had begun to attend his church. Quoting him, he says, "She attended our church when her family vacationed at the coast. She said she had begun attending our church a number of years before because it was the only church on the beach where a black person could feel welcomed. This pleased me. She had had a difficult life and had experienced first hand oppression, tragedy, and hate. One summer she arrived with her family and, when I visited her, she told me the previous year had been tough. Her beloved husband of many years had died a terrible and painful death. Her only son had been incarcerated after a sleazy banking deal went bad. Now she had taken in her two little grandchildren as her sole responsibility, even though she was now getting on in years. As I visited her, I felt this overwhelming sense of futility. What would become of her now? How could she hope to overcome her difficulties? Yet she, expressing faith born no doubt out of years of struggle and pain, said to me, "I know God will make a way for us. I've found that when I've reached out, he'll be there. Not always when I wanted him, but always when I absolutely needed him. He doesn't always come on time, but he always comes. I'll make it, with his help, yes I will." Without thinking I exclaimed, "How can this be? You've got these two children, huge financial problems, your health isn't great. After all you've been through?" How can this be? It was my learned, "Tish, tish, old lady. You've got to face facts, be realistic." But how did I know? How could I be so sure that that woman's calm, confident trust, trust affirmed in so many places in scripture, was stupidity? Maybe she is right. Maybe God's life-giving abilities can't be contained in my little box labeled "POSSIBLE" next to the big one called "IMPOSSIBLE"? Maybe she is right. The wind blows where it will." (by William Willimon)
Always Ready
The great baseball manager Leo Durocher was once asked who was the all-time favorite player he had coached. Lots of people were shocked when he named Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes was a little known pinch hitter, not a really big name player. Durocher was asked, "What was so special about Dusty Rhodes?" He replied, "In a tight game when I looked down the bench for a pinch hitter, some players would avert their gaze and refuse to look in my direction. But Dusty Rhodes would look me right in the eye, smile, and tap on his bat." He was always available. New birth is more likely to happen to persons who make themselves available to God. (by Bill Bouknight from Collected Sermons)
Taking Risks
Nicodemus took a huge risk in his secret night time visit to see the Teacher Jesus, but risks are sometimes necessary for growth and change. Alex Haley, the author of "Roots," said this about taking risks, "Nothing is more important. Too often we are taught how not to take risks. When we are children in school.we are told to respect our heroes.. What we are not told is that these leaders.were in fact rule-breakers. They were risk-takers in the best sense of the word; they dared to be different" (Alex Haley quote is taken from Walter Anderson, The Greatest Risk of All). (by Brett Blair www.eSermons.com)
The Gift of the Breeze
I remember growing up in the South, in cotton country, in the summer, before air conditioning became something almost every home had. Several of those summers I spent working on my uncle's cotton farm, down in the Mississippi delta, just outside of my birthplace, Cleveland, Mississippi. It was hot work, hard work, bringing in a cotton crop. It still is, but technology has made it a lot easier than it was back then. When the crop had been tended for another day, the weeds chopped from between the cotton plants, in the evening everyone would gather on the front porch. We would rock and talk and laugh in a futile attempt to escape the ever-present heat and humidity. And sometimes, on a really good day, the leaves of the trees would begin to rustle. And the conversation would die down, and everyone would just sit back and enjoy the summer breeze, the gift of the breeze. We didn't know where it came from. We didn't know where it was going. But we knew it was there, because we could feel it. (by Johnny Dean www.eSermons.com)
The Language of Heaven
This is the problem Nicodemous is having. Nicodemus knows only one language. And that is the language of earth. It is the only language that any of us knows. Suddenly Jesus appears on the scene and begins speaking the language of Heaven. Nicodemus hears the words "You must be born again," and he is confused. So he asks, "How can a person go back into his mother's womb and come out again?"
The Wind Blows Where It Chooses
Since Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, we may have been wrestling with what to "give up" or what to "take on" during this season of penitence. Whatever we decide to do or not to do, this is a time of change, of movement, of going from what we are to the place or condition where we want to be. In the Old Testament lesson, Abram heard the call of God to move to a new land, and we can only wonder at the strength of that call. What would it take to get us to move to a new land? Moving from an old place to a new place in our spiritual lives may be what we are called to do, and such a move will require an act of will, too. What will it take to get us to make that move? Jesus says to Nicodemus, "The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Abram must have heard the "sound of the Spirit", and he picked up all his family and possessions and went where that sound led him. The Gospel of John doesn't tell us what happened to Nicodemus at that point in time, but he, too, must have moved to new places, because he appears again to help with preparations when Jesus is lifted down from the cross. As we move deeper into Lent, it is time to begin our journey, and who knows where it will lead? (by Nan Stokes)
Strangely Warmed
Methodism's John Wesley was already 35 years old when he brought himself into contact with the Moravian missionaries in London. Many years earlier he had finished his studies. He had long ago learned history and philosophy and many languages. He had been ordained a priest years earlier. But now, at age 35, he first discovered his spirit-being "strangely warmed." The message of God's love had penetrated his mind in such a way that - with a third of his earthly life already over - he was now a changed person. That personal experience shaped the remaining two-thirds of his years upon this earth. That is what Jesus was talking about when he met with Nicodemus. (by Leonard H. Budd from Path to a New Life, The Spirit's Tether, CSS Publishing Company)
Ascribing Greatness to God
Martin Luther summarized the nature of Christian life, what it is like to be born again, very well in one of his lectures in 1535. He reported that his teacher, John von Staupitz, said to him: " 'It pleases me very much that this doctrine of ours gives glory and everything else solely to God and nothing at all to men; for it is as clear as day that it is impossible to ascribe too much glory, goodness, etc., to God.' ... And it is true that the doctrine of the gospel takes away all glory, wisdom, righteousness, etc., from men and gives it solely to the Creator, who makes all things out of nothing. Furthermore, it is far safer to ascribe too much to God than to man." (by Mark Ellingsen from Preparation and Manifestation, CSS Publishing)
Experiencing Salvation
Noted evangelist Billy Graham says that he can point back to a definite time in his life when he experienced conversion. But his wife, Ruth, says that she grew gradually into the faith and can point to no definite starting point. Her experience is similar to the testimony of Count Von Zinzendorf to John Wesley. When Wesley asked him if he knew when he was saved, he replied, "I have always been saved!" A very famous churchman's reply to the same question was, "I was saved nearly two thousand years ago, on a hill called Golgotha, outside the city of Jerusalem." And this is the main point of the biblical witness: Our Salvation was accomplished nearly two thousand years ago in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the one true Son of God. The meaning that this past event has for us today, our response to that event, and our willingness to believe is crucial for us. It doesn't matter so much when we come to believe as it does that we believe. (by Robert V. Dodd from "Remember That You Are Not Alone," Faith is for Sharing, CSS Publishing.)
Folks on the street struggle with drugs and alcohol and mental illness, and often all three. There is a man in my street church congregation who can tell you the exact moment he was "born again" - it's when he fell on his knees and cried out to God, begging for relief from his alcohol/drug addiction. Michael told us that he fell to the floor of his flophouse room and wept for hours. "When I stumbled out of that room and headed for an AA meeting, I knew that I was a different person." He just celebrated his 10th year of being clean and sober, his marriage survived the hardtimes and is now thriving, his two kids grew up and are the light of his life, and the family is the proud new owner of a coffee/ice cream shop. He has a strong, vibrant faith in Jesus and grace and he shares that with everyone he meets. Once when a guy showed up at our service drunk and wasted on meth, my friend Michael said, "He hasn't fallen far enough to want to really live." I guess that's what I think of these days when I consider the expression of being born again or "born from above" for that matter. It's when you are tired of being dead and more than anything, you desperately want to live, really live. That's when the miracles happen -- you discover that the whole time, Jesus has been waiting there, ready to "midwife" you out of whatever darkness you're caught in and into the light where he will bathe you in the grace that has the power to give new life where you might have thought none was possible. Our darkness may not be the same as that guy who finally stood there at my communion table weeping, holding out his hands to receive the bread of heaven, but we've all known darkness and we've all yearned for the light.
You've got to be dead in order to become alive. But then that's a part of so many Biblical stories and so many of our own stories. That birth into life comes from some kind of death experience. I describe that as the experience of "nothingness." The early writing of Michael Novak were helpful for me in beginning to grasp this concept in his "The Experience of Nothingness" (New York: Harper and Row, 1970). Novak claimed that the first philosophical problem of our time is how to interpret the experience of nothingness, how to plunge deeper into it and wrest from it a humanistic, revolutionary ethic. The experience of nothingness arises only under certain conditions. To notice them, to reinforce them, and to build one’s life upon them is a choice which does not falsify the experience of nothingness. The experience of nothingness arises when we consciously become aware of – and appropriate – our own actual horizons. What seemed certain, necessary, and stable suddenly seems arbitrary and unfounded. We do not know who we are. Yet we continue to throw up symbols against the dark. We cannot remove, cover over, or alleviate the experience of nothingness. We all have the experience of nothingness, what shall we do with it?
I am struggling to pin the Abram text and the Nicodemus text together, which may be homiletical suicide, but it seems to me that the "snap" may be at the point of "conversion." If the Genesis text lends itself to "pilgrimage" imagery, the corruption of that imagery will focus more on Abram's response that God's call and the resultant "journey we all take" with God. But God is calling Abram to a radical reordering of his life and world--and Abram's response has the character of radical obedience, not romantic "followinng." Likewise, the Nicodemus story has about it an air of radical summons, I think. Nicodemus comes to Jesus, of course, but it is clear that Jesus is speaking a different language than the teacher of Israel understands. Nicodemus is trying to manage Jesus, so to speak, to incorporate Jesus into his world view (we know you are a Teacher come from God), when in fact Nicodemus knows nothing at all. Which is to say both Genesis and John are conversion stories...at least as they read to me.
68 (b) The New Birth: Baptism (3:1-36). The theme begun in the Baptist’s testimony (1:26, 33) is taken up in episodes that underline ways in which Christ has replaced the institutions of Judaism. (i) Nicodemus (3:1-21). 1. Nicodemus is mentioned only in Jn (also in 7:50; 19:39); however, the name was a common one. Though the Sanhedrin, the governing body of the Jews recognized by the Romans, was mainly composed of the Sadducean element, it also counted Pharisees among its members (cf. Acts 5:34). As a Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, and a rabbi (v. 10), Nicodemus represents the quintessence of Judaism. John has scarcely contrived this conversation as a sequel to 7:52 (a theory recently revived by S. Mendner JBL 77 [1958] 293-323) (from the Jerome Bible Commentary)
The Rewards of Risk
A temporary office-help agency in Washington DC recently began offering a $100 bonus to the employee who makes the biggest mistake of the month. He doesn't get a reprimand. He doesn't get demoted. He gets a $100 bonus. I read about an executive for a company called Sara Lee Direct who thought he was getting a great deal on a shipment of belts, so he acted quickly and bought a whole warehouse full. Only later did he discover that what he bought was not manufacturing belts for the conveyor system at the factory, but a bunch of those three-inch-wide paisley belts from the 1960's. Instead of getting fired, he was awarded a bronze plaque that proudly commemorated the "Worst Buy of the Year." When I read these stories, I had two reactions. My first was: Are these businesses nuts? Have they gone crazy, or what? And then my second thought was that maybe I could talk the church council into adopting a similar policy. Maybe there could be a bonus for the worst sermon of the month. I could use some extra cash! Seriously though, there's a strategy behind rewarding mistakes. The president of that temporary help company explained it this way: "The object is to get people to take risks." An official at Sara Lee Direct where the employee got promoted instead of fired for making that terrible purchase put it this way, "If you don't go up to the plate and swing hard, you're never going to hit a home run. If you're not willing to make a mistake, you're not really trying." The bottom-line is that risk-taking is the only road to success. And companies are finding that it's worth rewarding a few mistakes along the way if it encourages their people to take the kind of risks that can bring huge rewards. And the same is true for people of faith. How much faith does it take to follow? How much risk are we willing to take? That's the crux of the discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus. That's what Jesus meant when he said you must be reborn. (by Lee Griess from Return to The Lord, Your God, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.)
Always Ready
The great baseball manager Leo Durocher was once asked who was the all-time favorite player he had coached. Lots of people were shocked when he named Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes was a little known pinch hitter, not a really big name player. Durocher was asked, "What was so special about Dusty Rhodes?" He replied, "In a tight game when I looked down the bench for a pinch hitter, some players would avert their gaze and refuse to look in my direction. But Dusty Rhodes would look me right in the eye, smile, and tap on his bat." He was always available. New birth is more likely to happen to persons who make themselves available to God. (by Bill Bouknight from Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com)
Taking Risks
Nicodemus took a huge risk in his secret night time visit to see the Teacher Jesus, but risks are sometimes necessary for growth and change. Alex Haley, the author of Roots, said this about taking risks, "Nothing is more important. Too often we are taught how not to take risks. When we are children in school...we are told to respect our heroes.... What we are not told is that these leaders...were in fact rule-breakers. They were risk-takers in the best sense of the word; they dared to be different" (Alex Haley quote is taken from Walter Anderson, The Greatest Risk of All). (by Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com)
The Gift of the Breeze
I remember growing up in the South, in cotton country, in the summer, before air conditioning became something almost every home had. Several of those summers I spent working on my uncle's cotton farm, down in the Mississippi delta, just outside of my birthplace, Cleveland, Mississippi. It was hot work, hard work, bringing in a cotton crop. It still is, but technology has made it a lot easier than it was back then. When the crop had been tended for another day, the weeds chopped from between the cotton plants, in the evening everyone would gather on the front porch. We would rock and talk and laugh in a futile attempt to escape the ever-present heat and humidity. And sometimes, on a really good day, the leaves of the trees would begin to rustle. And the conversation would die down, and everyone would just sit back and enjoy the summer breeze, the gift of the breeze. We didn't know where it came from. We didn't know where it was going. But we knew it was there, because we could feel it. (by Johnny Dean, www.eSermons.com )
Playing It Safe
Once there was a small jazz club in New Orleans. In a corner of that club sat an old dilapidated piano. All of the jazz artists complained about this antiquated instrument. The piano players dreaded playing on it. The vocalists dreaded singing with it. And all of the combos that played the club wished that they could bring in their own piano - just like they could a saxophone or a trumpet. Finally, after years of listening to these jazz musicians complain about his piano, the owner of the club decided to do something about it. He had the piano painted. Henri Nouwen, reflecting on the story of Nicodemas, writes, "I love Jesus but want to hold on to my own friends even when they do not lead me closer to Jesus. I love Jesus but want to hold on to my own independence even when that independence brings me no real freedom. I love Jesus but do not want to lose the respect of my professional colleagues, even though I know that their respect does not make me grow spiritually. I love Jesus but do not want to give up my writing plans, travel plans, and speaking plans, even when these plans are often more to my glory that to the glory of God." Upon reflection Father Nouwen realizes that he isn't all that different from Nicodemus. He writes, "So I am like Nicodemus, who came by night, and said safe things about Jesus to his colleagues." Even a great Christian like Father Henri Nouwen is sometimes content to paint the old piano. There's an element of Nicodemus in all of us. It's always easier to play it safe and keep Jesus off in the distance than to call him the Lord of our life. We need to know, however, hat we cannot always put him off. (by King Duncan from Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com)