John 1: 29-34 (links validated 1/2/23)

If you remember the story of the Exodus, the Passover lamb had a bunch of functions. The blood of the lamb on the door post marked the people as belonging to God, just as our baptism into Christ marks us. The meat of the lamb consumed before the great journey nourished the people for the ordeal they were about to have, just as the words of Jesus nourish and sustain us for the journey through the messier parts of our human life. The sign of the lamb protected the people, just as we lean on God for safety through this insane world. Finally, the blood of the lamb saved the people from bondage, just as faith in Christ and adherence to his love, forgiveness, and compassion has the power to rescue us from depression, despair, anger, addiction, bitterness, and so many of the things which trap us in slavery to sin...

In Streams of Living Water: Essential Practices from the Six Great Traditions of Christian Faith, Richard Foster uses missionary Frank Laubach (1884-1970) as an example of the “Contemplative: Prayer-Filled” life with God. Or, what we might call the “abide” or “remain with” life. Among the prayer-filled ways Laubach explored staying in communion with God throughout the day, was to focus on the person of Christ being present with him, even if unseen. He’d place an empty chair at the table during meal times, he’d read the newspaper out loud and verbalize his prayers. Drawn to the refrain of the hymn, “Moment by Moment,” Laubach reflected, It is exactly that ‘moment by moment,’ every waking moment, surrender, responsiveness, obedience, sensitiveness, pliability, ‘lost in His Love,’ that I now have the mind-bent to explore with all my might. It means two burning passions: First, to be like Jesus. Second, to respond to God as a violin to the bow of the master. Open your soul and entertain the glory of God and after a while that glory will be reflected in the world about you and in the very clouds above your head.

In the interview the Rabbi also referred to a meeting he had a number of years ago with Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire, the Canadian who worked to try and prevent the Rwandan Genocide which occurred in 1994. During his time in Rwanda, Dallaire went to a Tutsi village that had almost been totally annihilated by the rival Hutus and he found a crying and battered child. He looked into the eyes of that child and saw the eyes of his own children, thousands of miles away in Canada and he realized that this child was just as much in need of and deserving of love, protection, dignity, respect and nurturing. Dallaire asked his superiors for the personnel and the mandate to intervene and prevent more bloodshed but his requests were denied. In just 100 days Hutu extremists killed well over 500,000 Tutsis - men, women and children. He returned to Canada with severe PTSD which eventually forced him into early retirement. As a civilian, his life’s goal is to work to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers. He has seen first hand the damage done to people and communities where child soldiers are recruited and utilized. He went and saw and now his life is dedicated to doing something to make the world a better place. With respect to the Holocaust and to the Rwandan genocide the roots lie in division and in resentment. If we live in a world of “us and them” ; a world without feeling a human connection to the other, we may well fall into a situation where a similar horror could happen again. If we cannot look at the other and see our own reflection, something is wrong!...

A tourist visited a Church in Werner, Germany and was surprised to see the carved figure of a lamb carved on the bell tower of the church. He asked why it was there and was told that when the bell tower of the church was being built, a workman fell from a high scaffold. His co-workers rushed down, expecting to find him dead. But to their surprise and joy, he was alive and only slightly injured. How did he survive? A flock of sheep was passing beneath the tower at the time, and he landed on top of a lamb. The lamb broke his fall and was crushed to death, but the man was saved. To commemorate that miraculous escape, a fellow stone artist carved a lamb on the tower at the exact height from which the workman had fallen. — This statue of the lamb expresses a tiny bit of what John the Baptist means when he introduces Jesus to his disciples saying, “Behold, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.” Much deeper and more meaningful must be our gratitude to Jesus the Lamb of God for saving us from the eternally fatal fall from grace...

Albert Camus wrote the most incisive account, I believe, of what our “fallen nature” would be without the Lamb of God that John the Baptist announced. The Fall is a monologue-novel narrated by one Jean-Baptiste Clamence ruminating in an Amsterdam bar about a civilization of empty silhouettes interested only in fornication and entertainment. Clamence is a fictional John the Baptist, “clamoring” in a wilderness stripped of love and hope. “When all is said and done, that’s really what I am ... an empty prophet for a shabby time, an Elijah without a Messiah.” As opposed to John the Baptist who saw the Spirit descend like a dove to rest on Jesus, Clamence beholds some doves that seem unable to find a place to land. The title of the book refers to the “fall of man,” which is that moment of succumbing to the lie, that victory of the great deceiver, the snake of seduction. But since there is no messiah to be found, seduction rules the earth, lies control our minds. “Truth,” Clamence says, “is a colossal bore.”...

We normally narrate a life story from beginning to end, from birth to death, but for our purposes we should take up Debbie’s story on the day that everything turned. Young Debbie had been married just eight years and her baby son was only a few months old when a car ran a traffic light and collided straight into her side of the vehicle. Debbie would have died that day in central Kansas, but a Denver emergency room physician, far from home, happened upon the accident. He saved her life on the side of the road, by performing an emergency tracheotomy. Now, let’s go back to the beginning of Debbie’s life. She was one of four small-town sisters, all of them musically gifted. Debbie could play anything on the piano by ear. Bright and effervescent, she led her sisters in a musical ensemble that toured Kansas in the sixties. They were called “The Teen Timers and Debbie.” Debbie’s beauty and personality had served up the world to her. Graduating from high school, the hometown cheerleader went off to study at the University of Kansas before deciding that cosmetology should be her career...

includes lots of Greek exegesis

Day by day, year by year, Father Tim gave himself over to something greater than himself, and that’s the deepest meaning of what it means to be a human. We can’t be ourselves, be what God intended, without going out of ourselves in service to others. A man or woman, who simply sucks the world into his or her own self, shrivels the soul, no matter how much of the world it swallows. It is when the self is poured out that it grows. Our deepest identities are found in our call to service. We serve the Lord by serving others, and, in doing so, we find ourselves.

(always good insights!)

(excellent exegesis)

We have a budding reader in our home, and so we are shifting from books wonderful in their simplicity (goodbye for a time, Cat in the Hat!) to books that have more detail and narrative depth. So, after a fall trip west from Wisconsin to South Dakota, we tackled Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It took far more interpretation—indeed, translation—than I first expected. Whoever said the past is a foreign country is right, because the world of a little girl of 19th century Wisconsin was not an easy connection to the world of a little girl in 21st century North Carolina. But as we read together, the necessities and the joys of that world began to shine through, and the 21st century girl found connection with her 18th century friend. As the story of one long-ago year in the life of the Ingalls family unfolded, my daughter grew more impressed with how the small community in the midst of a vast forest cared for each other and taught one another. Indeed, she grew alarmed as she read Charles Ingalls’ reasoning for leaving the Big Woods—that the land felt too full of people. “It’s not good for them to be alone,” she solemnly intoned, echoing her Heavenly Father’s word of wisdom in another long-ago time and place...

When Michael May was three years old, he lost his sight in a chemical explosion. He lost one eye entirely and the other was completely blind. But then, 40 years later, with advances in medical technology, he agreed to an experimental procedure to try to restore sight to his remaining eye. It worked. He could see the color of flowers. He could see the mountains where he had learned to ski without using his eyes. But what he couldn’t do was recognize complex shapes and objects, like the faces of his children, his wife and friends. He described a cube as a square with extra lines. He could not translate a picture on paper into an object with 3-dimensions. The neuroscientists that treated him concluded that vision is something that has to be learned. Vision is more than sight, because what is seen has to be interpreted before it makes sense. Discussing his own amazing recovery, Michael May said, “I will never be fluent visually, but I get better the more I work at it.” [2] I suggest that when Jesus invited people to “come and see”, he was inviting them to learn visual fluency...

no single field has an array of awards like the entertainment industry: the Golden Globe Awards, the People’s Choice Awards, the New York Film Critics Awards, the Emmy Awards, the Cannes Film Festival Awards, the Tony Awards, the Grammy Awards, the American Film Institute Awards, the Los Angeles Film Critics Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and of course the Academy Awards. You are probably familiar with what often happens before these ceremonies begin. Outside the theater hosting the show, they literally roll out the red carpet. Velvet ropes cordon off the walkway leading to the entrance, and sometimes a few tiers of bleachers are erected for spectators. Hours, and sometimes even days, before the show begins, crowds gather hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars. Then, as the limos begin pulling up and depositing their precious celebrity cargo, cheers and screams emanate from the spectators as the likes of Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep begin their high-profile trek down the red carpet, stopping frequently to speak into the microphones being shoved their way by eager reporters. It’s amazing how much excitement can be generated by having the right kind of person simply walk past you. That’s why there is a kind of delicious contrast provided by John 1...

Albert Camus wrote, I believe, the most incisive account of what our “fallen nature” would be without the Lamb of God that John the Baptist announced. The Fall is a monologue-novel narrated by one Jean-Baptiste Clamence ruminating in an Amsterdam bar about a civilization of empty silhouettes interested only in fornication and entertainment. Clamence is a fictional John the Baptist, “clamoring” in a wilderness stripped of love and hope. “When all is said and done, that’s really what I am ... an empty prophet for a shabby time, an Elijah without a Messiah.”...

“Domestic work is the work that makes all other work possible.” These are the words that are found on the front page of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), and “the nation’s leading voice or dignity and fairness for the millions of domestic workers in the United States, most of whom are women.”

Sister Helen Prejean is a good stand-in for Jesus in Dead Man Walking as she slowly leads condemned prisoner Matthew Poncelet into the truth. Condemned to die for participating in the murder of a young couple in a lover’s lane, the killer shows little remorse at first, and no sense of responsibility. Refusing to accept his excuses, Sister Prejean, who has accepted the task of being Matthew’s spiritual advisor, keeps making him face the facts. As they become better acquainted, he weakens, but tries to get her to believe that his newfound faith has “squared him with God.” The nun will not accept that, hammering away at his religiosity. It is only on the last night, a short while before his death, that Matthew breaks down into tears and admits his guilt. The nun then, and only then, declares to him God’s grace, calling him a “son of God.” He has come to know the Truth, and the Truth sets him free, even at the hour of death.

“It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.” What is up with that? This is a tough one if you know anything about John. The importance of light and darkness, what light and dark represent. But four o'clock in the afternoon? Is it still light? Getting dark? What time of the year is this again? If the meaning isn’t something about being in the light or being in the dark, believing or not believing, why mention the time of day when these first disciples get to hang out with Jesus?

I was reminded of another set of brothers: Vincent and Theo van Gogh. Most people, even those with a minimal knowledge of art history, are familiar with Vincent's name. His paintings, a couple of events in his life. People know that. Many have never heard of Theo van Gogh. But without Theo, the world probably would not know Vincent.

Kehinde Wiley translates famous historical paintings into contemporary language. New people are introduced to these classics, and those who know the classics are invited to ask new questions about them. Below, Wiley translates Jacques Louis David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps." The older painting is about power and leadership, about dynamism and masculinity, which is translated...Sometimes, though, you come to understand that the "original" is actually a translation. David's painting shows Napoleon pointing to the top of the Alps as the Army crosses the Saint- Bernard Pass. Around him, his cloak and his horse's mane and tail are whipped by the wind. At the feet of his rearing horse are three stones with names carved in them: Karolus Magnus (Charlemagne), Hannibal and Bonaparte. Bonaparte's name is highest on the path and carved in larger, deeper letters...

And all of this makes me think of the Wizard of Oz, in that scene where Dorothy pulls back the curtain and unmasks him as an ordinary man using smoke and mirrors to make something big of himself. Remember that? And Dorothy cries out in alarm: You are a very bad man! And the wizard cries out, No, I am a very good man, but I am a very bad wizard! And then the Wizard-No-More proves he is a good man by tending to the needs of the Scarecrow, the Lion and the Tin Man. Despondent, they grieve the loss of their magic healing.

These days our problems in the US seem endemic and intractable: the scars of war, trillions of dollars in deficits, violence in our cities, struggling schools, families falling apart, looming environmental catastrophe. But, like clockwork, every four years, The Great One comes to us like a gift from heaven. Next week we inaugurate a new president.

in 1963 Martin Luther King was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for leading a non-violent protest against the direct order of city officials. While in jail, King learned that many people, including pastors, had labeled him an “extremist” for defying the authority of government representatives. In response to that label, on April 16, 1963, King wrote a letter to those pastors and the quote below became famous. Dr. King wrote: But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

When I was a senior in high school, I volunteered with the mentally handicapped class and became very close with my fellow classmates who were not always accepted by others. Out of all the kids in the class, the one that I became closest to was Chris. Chris had multiple developmental and mental handicaps, but that did not stop him from being a warm and exciting presence no matter what room he walked into. No matter how many times I would walk into the west-wing classroom, Chris would come flying out of his chair knocking it over, would come running over to me with his 5-foot-one self, weighing in at 180 lbs. He would grab me and squeeze me, and then would take my hand saying loudly, "Come and see, Kelvin! Come and see what found me!" Every time, even if it were for the fifth time in an hour, I would say, "Chris, show me what found you!"...

("This week we will let Paul David Hewson (aka Bono) be our exegete. Bono, the frontman for the Dublin-based band U2, wrote two songs that intersect with today's lectionary passages. Our texts for this reflection will be Psalm 40 and John 1:29-42, and alongside the Biblical text will be 40 (How Long) and 'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For'...")

("The Pimpernel is a wealthy English aristocrat who rescues those sentenced to death by guillotine in revolutionary France. The Pimpernel is a master of disguise, and when not being the rescuing hero, allows himself to be seen as something of a foppish dim-wit. Every time he completes a rescue, this formidable fighter leaves behind him a small card with a picture of the tiny scarlet pimpernel flower on it...")

("Although this is a Baptism narrative, no actual Baptism of Jesus by John occurs. Why? The answer is that part of the point of today's reading is to continue the narrative of John the Baptist as witness to Jesus[3]. Having already told the crowds and the Temple authorities that he is neither the Messiah nor one of the prophets returned, John is given the task in today's reading of pointing out Jesus to other people...")

("It must have been in fourth grade. My friend Lee Cohen had called me on a Saturday afternoon to say his father was going to Burger King and wanted to know if I could come with them because they needed my help. Couldn't imagine at first what was so daunting of a task about going to Burger King that they would need my help - but I don't think I asked any further questions as I was already screaming 'Mom can I go with Lee and his Dad to Burger King?'...")

("To find and be found, we all need a John the Baptist, an Andrew, a preacher, a teacher, a friend, a brother or sister; maybe all of the above and more – to point us in the right direction and to keep us on the trail. And when we find and are found, we will be changed, transformed, renamed in recognition of the fact that our true nature has been revealed – not only to us but to the world...")

("Here's Annie Dillard in her essay An Expedition to the Pole: 'Week after week I was moved by the pitiableness of the bare linoleum-floored sacristy which no flowers could cheer or soften, by the terrible singing I so loved, by the fatigued Bible readings, the lagging emptiness and dilution of the liturgy, the horrifying vacuity of the sermon, and by the fog of dreary senselessness pervading the whole...")

("I was a chaplain intern at the VA hospital in Sacramento, California. It was the very first time I went to visit someone in a hospital room. The man in the room had just gotten a very serious diagnosis. I identified myself and he said: 'Well, I did ask for you to come, but I have to tell you I don't believe in God. I'm not a religious person at all. I don't want to offend you, or waste your time, but I need to be honest with you'...")

(includes good discussion of qualities of sheep)

Dostoyevsky is probably, at least in my understanding is, the best novel writer that the world has ever known in any language. But one of his favourite and best books is, “The Brothers Karamazov” about three brothers. And the third brother was Father Zosima’s favourite, Alyosha. And Alyosha is sort of the saintly brother. in the first chapter, Father Zosima, this sacred, sacred Russian priest and mystic, was dying, and Alyosha was by him and waiting for his final words. What is the holy man going to say at the end of his life? And he looks into Alyosha’s eyes, and he loves Alyosha, and he says to Alyosha, “All are responsible to all for all.” All of us are responsible to each other for everything. Father Zosima uses an example. He says if you take a little pebble and you’re standing by the side of a limpid pool and you throw that pebble into the centre of the pool, the waves that that stone begins, as it sinks into the pool, the waves reach further and further and further until they reach the end of the pool itself. This is a very important concept because it means, as Zosima says to Alyosha, “Everything you say, everything you do, everything you think is not yours alone. It’s throwing pebbles into a pool and they form their rings and have their effect until the very end of the pool is finished.”...

It only takes a spark to get a fire going, And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing; That's how it is with God's Love, Once you've experienced it, Your spread the love to everyone You want to pass it on...

("The folks in Hollywood love to shower themselves with awards. There are, of course, awards presented in other fields: journalism and literature have the Pulitzer, the sciences and related fields have the Nobel Prize, and even religious folks get in on the action through things like Christianity Today's Book of the Year Award and the lucrative Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion....")

("I found myself thinking of Pastor Antti Lepisto who was my pastor and mentor and friend. How he allowed me to tag along on all sorts of pastoral errands: those day to day pieces of ministry which most people never see. For it is so that some things can't be explained with words or even fully understood with our minds alone. Sometimes we truly need to see and experience things first hand...")

("Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all...")

An old Black woman, weary of her rural surroundings, decided to travel overseas to see what the rest of the world was like. One Sunday morning, being a good religious person, she thought she might get a taste of the local church fare. Since she was in London at the time, she naturally headed for St. Paul’s Cathedral. “How splendid this place is!” she thought. It was simply far beyond anything she had ever imagined a church could look like after all those years in her old back-woods wood-frame church at home. She moved as close to the front of the nave as she could, not wanting to miss anything, and planted herself right smack in front of the pulpit. Everything went smoothly enough for her as the service began, so caught up in the wonder of it all as she was; until the sermon started. Now she was used to a style of preaching that allowed for audience participation. You can guess what happened. The sermon was being delivered by the Dean of the Cathedral. Starched and proper as he was, he still managed to say something that sounded right to this woman, so she quite naturally called out loudly, “Amen!” This High Anglican priest had heard many sounds from the congregation before, but this was a new one. He startled, then caught himself and resumed preaching. Soon he said something else that struck this woman right, and she called out even louder than before, “That’s right!” The Dean was so startled this time that he nearly jumped out of the pulpit, but again he regained his composure and with great effort continued on. The old woman, seeing the contorted look on that priest’s face, determined from her experience with such things, that he must be working himself up for a big finish. So she called out as loud as she could, “Preach it, Brother!” The Dean gasped and collapsed as his notes scattered into the air. Heads everywhere turned watching as the usher came down toward the woman. “Madam, you must be quiet,” he said. “But, I have the Spirit!” she said. “Yes Ma’am,” he replied, “but you didn’t get it here!” That’s a lot the way it happened for Peter in our lesson from the Gospel according to John this morning. Peter’s brother, Andrew, excited in his new faith in Jesus, ran to tell Peter what he had found...

("In John's text, we find the Greek word - enblepo. It's only used 12 times in the whole New Testament, and only twice in John's gospel, both times in this very text. And John says twice - I myself did not know himIn the NRSV, the word is translated as looked in once instance, and watched in the other instance. But in the Jerusalem Bible, they are both translated as looked hard at...")

("I'll bet it was fifth grade when I renamed a classmate. He was pudgy and shy (so was I, but he was a smidgen more of both than me). We usually did school stuff with the same group of friends. His last name was Repp, which led me to dub him . . . Reptile. Everybody thought it was funny, for a week or two...")

("I have more backpacking stories than you can shake a bent hiking stick at, but here's another one. Two or three days into a hike I had about ten people following me, slouching down a trail, when the path we were on petered out. We looked behind us. Yup, there was the trail we'd been on for miles...")

("When Martin Luther King, Jr., emerged from the milling crowd around Rosa Parks and stepped out as the teacher and preacher to the US, a population groaning and straining in a river of dark dreams, what unfolded seems so amazing as to have been destined, so unparalleled as to have been a fullness of time. In hindsight, his years among us seem so brief as to be a life well worth studying,....")

("In a marvelous little book entitled The Music of Silence, David Steindl-Rast highlights how each hour of the day has its own special light and its own particular mood and how we are more attentive to the present moment when we recognize and honor these 'special angels' lurking inside each hour. He's right. Every hour of the day and every season of the year have something special to give us, but often times we cannot make ourselves present to meet that gift...")

("I listened to a broadcast about Baboons. If the chief baboon is to keep his place in the order of things, he has to continually fight off other males for dominance in the group. One day he will lose that position to another. He will either continue to plummet down the chain until he finally has to leave the troop and face probable death or he has to find a way to stay with the group. Those who were brutal in their times of leadership are the ones who are most badly treated once they lose their position...")

("Once upon a time there were a group of young men who idolized the quarter back on the local NFL team. He was a great passer, a gutsy runner, he played despite pain...")

("In Speaking of Sin, Barbara Brown Taylor laments the loss of the language of sin and salvation within the mainline church. 'Abandoning the language of sin will not make sin go away...")

Charlotte Elliott was a just a young woman the night she went to some friends' home for dinner. The year was 1835. The home was in the West End of London. There she met a brash young minister named César Malan. During the course of the meal, he asked her if she were a Christian. She took offense and said she'd rather not discuss the matter. He apologized and the conversation moved on. Three weeks later, their paths crossed again. This time it was she who brought it up. She said ever since he'd asked the question she'd been trying to find the Savior, but to no avail. "So, you tell me," she said, "How does one come to Christ?" He said simply, "Just come to him as you are." That, she did. Not long after, she wrote this hymn: Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidst me come to Thee; O Lamb of God, I come, I come...

("The poet Kathleen Norris moved to the plains of South Dakota, where her family had lived and had deep roots. One day she had a conversation in a tavern with an old cowboy, who sought her out because she was from 'one of the old families'...")

("Jack Woodard said that he had been invited to preach on a Sunday in a parish in Long Island. In the 'glad-hand-line' after the service, this young man said to him 'Father Woodard, I'd like to talk to you sometime in the coming week. I have a problem'..." and other quotes)

("In 1755 a young colonel, only 23 years old, was in the midst of running for a seat in the Virginia assembly. Unfortunately he made an insulting remark as part of a campaign speech. The remark was addressed to a hot-tempered man named Payne, who responded by knocking the colonel down with a hickory stick..." and another illustration)

("A friend of mine serves as a missionary in a restricted access country. For many years the government of this country has taught the people that there is no God. My friend had the opportunity to interact on a regular basis with a nonbeliever of that country who is a highly educated professional...")

("Nome, Alaska, on the edge of the Bering Sea, is like many villages of the Arctic. The ground on which the community sits is frozen, sponge-like tundra. Burying the dead is a real challenge. Sanitation landfills are unheard of. Garbage trucks do not haul off the kind of refuse we leave curbside in the 'lower 48'..." and several more)

("After his baptism by his cousin John in the Jordan we find him adding the first four Apostles to his membership roll. We could say that these four came to Jesus at the invitation of a: Friend, Relative, Associate or Neighbor. Or, as our simple friendship evangelism process calls them, FRANs...")

("What is the difference between a loss and a sacrifice? We use terms so loosely these days! Some big business advertises that they are sacrificing their prices. What do they mean? Are they really running at a loss on those items?...")

("She was one of the finest Christian writers of the twentieth century, but, for over three decades, Dorothy L. Sayers kept a painful secret. At age 30 she had given birth to an illegitimate son...")

("When members of my family introduce someone, they always give that person an automatic promotion. If she's a doctor, they will exaggerate, introducing her as a brilliant surgeon...")

("Few things are more irritating than being pulled over by the police for a traffic violation. This happened to me recently. Prior to a busy intersection I entered the lane with an arrow painted on the road which also read 'right turn only'...")

("There is a story about a man, a prospector who is mining for gold, and suddenly discovers the mother lode - a thick, rich vein of almost pure gold. He digs out a big chunk and cashes it in for thousands and thousands of dollars...")

("A tourist visited a church in Germany and was surprised to see the carved figure of a lamb near the top of the church's tower. He asked why it was there and was told that when the church was being built, a workman fell from a high scaffold....")

("Two months before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke to his congregation at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta about his death in what would oddly enough become his eulogy. 'Every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral,' Dr. King told his congregation. 'If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don't want a long funeral..." and other illustrations)

("One upon a time there were a group of young men who idolized the quarter back on the local NFL team. He was a great passer, a gutsy runner, he played despite pain, he was modest at media interviews, generous with volunteer work, kind to kids, and signed autographs till all had been accommodated...")

("Once upon a time a family moved into a new house. It was a very nice house with a lot more room than in their old house. However, it was also strange and when it came time to go to bed, the three children were very sleepy. They didn't like their rooms because they were unfamiliar...")

("Most of us have had our refrigerators decorated with children's drawings. The really wonderful ones are the family pictures where the sun is shining, mom and dad are twice as big as the house and the family dog 'Rover' has a great big smile on his face...")

("A group of prospectors set out from Bannock Montana in search of gold. They went through many hardships and several of their company died en route. One day they were overtaken by a group of outlaws who took their good horses and they were left with only a few old and limping ponies. ..." and another illustration)

A man loaded down with fishing gear was chiselling a small hole in a patch of ice, when he heard a deep, booming voice say, "There are NO fish down there!" He looked around, and seeing no one, went back to his chiselling and chopping. "I told you," the voice boomed again, "there ARE NO FISH down there." The man looked everywhere but couldn't see anyone. Nervously, he moved to another spot on the ice and started chiselling again. "There are no fish THERE, either!" came the voice. By now the man was quite terrified, as he could see no one around, so he scurried off to another spot on the ice and began chiselling again. This time the voice came from right behind him. "I'm not going to tell you again. There ARE NO FISH down there!" The man whirled around to see a huge figure standing over him. "A-are you G-God???" "No. I'm the rink manager."...

("The problem with humility is that some folks just don't get what it really is. Ben Franklin, however, did understand it: He devised a week-by-week plan to improve his character by working on thirteen virtues. Franklin's sharp focus, meticulous record-keeping, and diligent work yielded improvements in the first twelve virtues...")

("I am thinking of a seventh grade confirmation student and her name is Carley Marchitto. Carley brought these three new friends to confirmation. These three friends did not belong to the church nor did their parents....")

("There was a man who coveted his neighbors' silver lamp. One day he went to them, asked to borrow an earthen mug, and was given it. The next day he returned it with a little mug inside....")

Von Passo’s book on the rise of the Third Reich, describes a day when a group of Nazi Brown Shirts captured a rabbi in his study as he was preparing his sabbath sermon. They mocked and humiliated him; they stripped him and they flogged him. As they did they laughed and said, “This lash is for Abraham; this one is for Jacob; this one is for Isaac.” When he was numbed with the whipping, they took out scissors and they sheared his locks and his beard and mocked him, “Say something to us; say something in Hebrew; yes, say something in Hebrew.” Standing there shivering the rabbi said in Hebrew, “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart and mind and soul.” But he didn’t even finish before they interrupted him with more mocking, “You were preparing your sermon, weren’t you? Preach us your sermon. ...Weren’t you preparing your sermon. “Yes,” said the rabbi. “Well then preach it to us; you won’t preach it in your synagogue; we burned your synagogue, preach it to us now.” “Give me my hat,” said the rabbi. “You can’t preach without your hat,” they howled with laughter. “Give him his hat.” They gave him his hat; he put it on and they laughed all the harder…the sight of a naked man wearing a rabbi’s hat. “God created us in the image of God,” said the rabbi “In the image of God we are created. That is the text for my sermon this Sabbath.”...

("The other day I was watching a show about the creation of animation. It began with stick figures flipped on cards to show movement as one of the earliest examples. One of the earliest characters was Mickey Mouse. It was very interesting to se how Mickey changed as time changed...")

About six years ago there was a major traffic jam on 1-40 between Greensboro and Winston-Salem at rush hour. Traffic was backed up in both directions for miles. In fact, traffic had come to a standstill. Cars were barely creeping along. We all know what we expect to see when we are in a traffic jam of that magnitude. If we are in the traffic we expect to see blue flashing lights on police cars. We expect to see emergency vehicles, ambulances, and fire trucks. We expect to see the twisted metal and wreckage of cars. We expect to see evidence of someone who has been seriously injured. We know we will see everyone slowing down to take a look at the wreck. The drivers will slow down and stare at the scene trying to record every image. They want to be able to tell someone what they saw at the scene. They want to be able to say, I saw the accident or I saw the person being loaded into the ambulance. I saw the damage to the vehicles. They want to be an eyewitness to the event. Well, this particular day there was no accident...

("I will never forget the story my Uncle Worth tells of his witness to a baptism in the mountains of North Carolina. Now the Brethren church baptized a little differently from us Baptists in that they put the candidate under the water three times. Seems that this young man that my Uncle Worth knew was a bit like I use to be - wanting to eat all the time. ...")

("One day my Grandpa Shepherd and I went for a walk through his fields of tobacco. We walked down through the rows looking at the plants as we went. He point to what we called a “sucker,” which basically is a little plant growing from one of the leaves on the main plant, and he’d reach over and break it off. Grandpa Shepherd didn’t say a great deal, but when he did speak there was something...")

("Moses was commanded to build a tabernacle in the desert so that sacrifices could be made. God then ordered an elaborate system of daily, weekly, monthly, annual and occasional offerings. It included five main types of offering - the burnt, cereal, peace, sin and guilt....")

("Church bells chime. Two muscle-bound men stand arms-crossed in front of a Gothic cathedral. A gay couple approaches holding hands. 'Step aside, please,' say the muscle-bound guards. They speak similar words to an African-American girl, a Hispanic man, a young man in a wheelchair. Then, just as we realize that the two large men are 'church bouncers'...")

("Wes is sitting at a desk with a computer, typing on the keyboard. WES--Ah! I got it! I am going to make this campaign a huge success for the church. I’ve got all the data I need. This new program I wrote, it works like a charm...")

("But then, one hot August day in 1963, a prophetic voice rose up in the midst of all this chaos and dared to say 'I have a dream'. But what you may not know is that Dr. King’s speech that August day in 1963 was not just a speech. It was a sermon – a sermon based upon Isaiah 40 – a sermon about the coming of a Messiah who will transform nations and societies...")

("I read a story about a woman who went to a pet store to purchase a parrot to keep her company. She picked out a beautiful bird that was supposed to be the smartest type of parrot alive. This parrot was guaranteed to be easy to train to talk. She bought a book on training parrots that claimed the technique taught would have her parrot talking within a week..." and several other illustrations)

("In the beginning of the movie Spider-Man, Peter Parker undergoes a transformation. Bitten by a spider that's been subjected to genetic experimentation, Peter develops superpowers and becomes a hero who nightly swings between the skyscrapers, looking for some endangered soul to rescue..." and other illustrations)

("I want to start this morning with a poem from Shel Silverstein's book Falling Up. It's entitled HELP!. I walked through the wildwood, and what did I see But a unicorn with his horn stuck in a tree, Cryin', 'Someone please help me before it's too late.'..." and other illustrations)

("There was an interesting song on the country charts a few years ago called Out Among the Stars, about a boy who robs a store and he lets the storekeeper escape, and he knows that the police will come with guns ablazing..." and another quote)

("Edward Salisbury told me that in the early 1980s, it was his habit to say goodnight to some of the patients who insisted that he not leave before doing so. One woman became very close to him and often questioned him about his belief in forgiveness..." and other quotes)

("As a young struggling attorney, Abraham Lincoln got a chance to work with some famous big-city lawyers on a local case. One of the outsiders, upon seeing Lincoln, gasped, "What is that gawky ape doing here? Get him out of here...")

("In A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul, there is a story about a student who was unlike most students. One day in the 11th grade he went into a classroom to wait for a friend. The teacher appeared and asked him to go to the blackboard...")

("At bedtime I sometimes read to my five-year-old daughter the Dr. Seuss classic The Lorax. The story takes place in a bucolic setting of heavily fruited Truffula Trees, Swomee-Swans, and Brown Bear Bar-ba-loots; it is a place where 'from the rippulous pond[s] / comes the comforting sounds / of the Humming-fish humming / while splashing around...")

(includes extended discussion of Greek word "meno" or "abide") (see more at "Abide" (mone and meno) in the Johannine Tradition)

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("In order to build the boat you still need to gather wood and assign tasks, but in doing so it's important to keep your eyes on your true calling. It's important to be reminded of your true purpose. It's vital that we ask ourselves every now and again if what we are doing is just keeping us busy, or if what we are doing is fostering within each and everyone of us a longing for that endless immensity...")