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Illustrated Resources from the Archives
Transcending the Tribe
Many years ago in India, a group of men traveling through desolate country found a seriously wounded man lying beside the road. They carried him to the Christian mission hospital and asked the physician who met them at the door if a bed was available. The physician looked at the injured man and immediately saw that he was an Afghan, a member of the warring Patau tribe. "Bring him in," he said, "For him we have a bed." When the physician examined the man, he found that an attacker had seriously injured his eyes and the man's sight was imperiled. The man was desparate with fear and rage, pleading with the doctor to restore his sight so that he could find his attacker and extract retribution. "I want revenge," he screamed. "I want to kill him." The doctor told the man that he was in a Christian hospital, that Jesus had come to show us how to love and forgive even our enemies. The man listened unmoved. Revenge was his only goal, vengeance the only reality. The doctor rose, saying that he needed to attend to other patients. He promised to return to tell the man a story, a story about a person who took revenge...Sermon Starters (Proper 7C)(2022)
While obeying the law could never save anyone, it plays an important role in an orderly society. In his prologue to his book, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, Keith Law describes the breakdown of European society after 1945: “Law and order are virtually non-existent because there is no police force and judiciary. In some areas there no longer seems to be any clear sense of right and wrong. People help themselves to whatever they want without regard to ownership. “Goods belong only to those who are strong enough to hold onto them, and those who are willing to guard them with their lives. Men with weapons roam the streets, taking whatever they want and threatening anyone who gets in their way.”Sermon Starters (Christmas 1B)(2020)
A number of years ago even the bastion of religious orthodoxy that is The Washington Post, in an article entitled, “O Come, All Ye Advent Carols,” weighed in on the controversy over the appropriate time to begin singing Christmas carols. It pointed to the Christ Lutheran Church in Georgia whose pastor longs to sing Christmas carols before Christmas Day. During the four Sundays in Advent, however, his church sings only Advent hymns, not Christmas carols. It sometimes seems as if the debate over when to begin singing carols is between some church musicians and other church members. So, for instance, the Post reports how members of the Christ Lutheran Church were so desperate to sing Christmas music before Christmas that they held a carol service on a Saturday night. However, some church musicians insist it’s premature to sing songs about the birth of Christ before we actually celebrate his birth. One hymn writer compares it to sneaking into the closet and ruining the surprise by peeking at your Christmas presents. “It’s a bit of a letdown,” she opines. The music director at the National Cathedral agrees, asking, “Would you sing ‘Happy Birthday’ before someone’s birthday?”Sermon Starters (Proper 7C)(2019)
Imagine for a moment that you’re walking with someone out to the parking lot after a worship service. As you walk and talk, you notice a couple of people standing and talking together out in the lot. One of those people is a man, the other a woman. One is quite tall, the other relatively short. One is fairly heavy, the other fairly trim. One has brown hair, the other black. One’s hair is graying a bit, the other’s is not. One is wearing a stylish brown coat, the other a ragged green one. One is smiling, the other is not. And, oh yes, by the way, one’s skin color is darker than the other’s. Now imagine saying something like, “I think I know that person.” And your companion answers, “Which one?” How might you answer? How might any of us answer a similar question in a comparable setting? Of course, you might refer to the person’s comparative height or weight. You could point to the color of the person’s hair or coat. It’s possible you’d refer to the gender or relative age of the person I think I know. However, if you’re anything like me, you’re naturally most likely to identify the person by the color of his or her skin. By nature I would answer, “The black guy,” or “The white woman.”...Life in the Meantime
There is an old hymn that no longer appears in the current Presbyterian hymnal – you’ll probably be glad to know we aren’t going to attempt it today – but I have always appreciated its words. It truly captures the cost of Peter’s confession. It goes, They cast their nets in Galilee, just off the hills of brown; Such happy, simple fisherfolk, before the Lord came down. Contented, peaceful fishermen, before they ever knew The peace of God that filled their hearts brimful and broke them too. Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless in Patmos died. Peter, who hauled the teeming net, head down was crucified. The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod. Yet brethren pray for but one thing – the marvelous peace of God...Preaching Helps (Christmas 1B)(2017)
Some years ago many of us were riveted to the fine—but at times searing—movie 12 Years a Slave. In it we see the true story of Solomon Northrup, who had been a free black man living in the North in the years before the Civil War. Through a series of tragic circumstances, however, Northrup is abducted and sold into slavery where he remains for a dozen years before another series of (this time good) circumstances leads to his being freed. The nightmare scenario of the film is obvious enough: when you know what it is to be free, you never want to become a slave. And if for some reason you do, your life falls apart. You very nearly lose your own identity, and the dignity you once had as a free person can begin to feel like a distant dream...No Longer Slave or Free
I was heading home from work, needing to make a stop for something on the way. As I stepped out of my car, I saw her. Truth be told, my first thought was to turn my back, to pretend I didn’t see, to walk quickly to the front door of the store I was headed into. She was a ways off. Maybe she wouldn’t notice. Maybe I could get away with not actually seeing the one who was headed right in my direction then. I hesitated though. She called out to me. I took a deep breath and forced myself to stand still and wait. As she drew near, I could see some of the ways which already divided us, which set us apart from one another in this world now. As I stood and listened, I heard about the rest. She was a black woman, likely a number of years younger than I am. Her clothes appeared to be slept in and the purse she held close to her body apparently didn’t have much in it. She had no teeth, literally none at all. And as she talked, I heard much more...A Chevy Nova, Tea and the One in Which We Live and Move and Have Our Being
In his book, A New Harmony the Scottish mystic John Philip Newell tells a story about his first trip to India. “One day,†says Newell, “as I sat in the Lal Bagh Gardens in Bangalore, I was approached by an elderly Indian gentleman. He greeted us kindly and we entered into conversation. After a few pleasantries, in which I learned that he was a retired banker, he said with a gentle sideways wagging of his head, “I have one question for you. Who are you?â€Being Superior or Being Faithful
I find the writer, Carol Caretto, in her book entitled In Search of the Beyond, very helpful when she writes: “We are not happy because we are unforgiving, and we are unforgiving because we feel superior to others. Mercy is the fruit of the highest degree of love, because love creates equals...” You need to know that congregations will get arrogant and people will feel superior to other people. Here is how Rev. Rob Elder, First Presbyterian Church of Salem, OR puts it: “I remember a director of Christian education in the early days of my ministry whose byword was, "It's better to be kind than to be right." It took me a long time to begin to understand the wisdom of this. I was in the smarty-pants set in my high school, had graduated from a smarty-pants college, went to an arguably smarty-pants seminary, earned a smarty-pants D.Min degree. In the course of all this, it was easy to succumb to the idea that being a smarty-pants was about the best thing there is to be. Of course, the dark side for a lot of folks in the smarty-pants set is that there is a tendency to look down long noses at those who couldn't break into a smarty-pants circle even if they knew what it was. A self-satisfied, superior attitude isn’t a requirement for being a smarty-pants, but it seems often to accompany large doses of smarts...Proper 7C (2004)
Bob Stamps is a delightful man with a good sense of humor. He is also as bald as a cue ball. One night Bob and his wife decided to go out to dinner. So they hired a babysitter to take care of their little children. While they were gone, the babysitter got interested in a television program and wasn't watching the children very carefully. Their little boy Peter, got into his father's electric shaver and shaved a big landing strip right down the middle of his head. When Bob came home, he was furious. He said, "Peter! I told you never to play with my shaver. Now you are going to get a spanking that you will never forget!" He was just about to administer that spanking when Peter looked up at him and said, "Wait until you see sister!" Bob said that he and his wife were horrified when they went into the next room and saw their little four-year-old daughter with all of the hair shaved off of her head. She looked like a skinned rabbit. Now Bob was really furious. He grabbed Peter and said, "Now you are really going to get it." Just as he lifted his hand and started to bring it down, Peter looked up at him with tears in his eyes and said, "But Daddy! We were just trying to look like you!" There was one little boy who didn't get a spanking that night. Instead he got a hug...Proper 7C (2019)
Are we more concerned about being clothed with Christ or wearing the right clothes and adorning ourselves with the right accessories? The Christian school where my cousin teaches decided to put an end to the fights over whose clothing labels were superior and enacted a strict dress code. The goal of the school administration was to get the students as “equal” as possible in dress in hopes that they would begin to treat each other as equals rather than constantly comparing themselves to one another. Students were allowed to wear specific colors of shirts of a specific non-descript brand. But when it came to pants and skirts, they put parameters on colors and told the students that they could not wear anything that had a brand name on the article of clothing. My cousin reports that the first day of school, several of the middle-school girls were given the choice of going into the bathroom with a seam ripper to take the names Gap and Abercrombie and Fitch and Guess off of their pants and skirts, or to call their parents to come and pick them up from school and take them home to change. Despite the numerous letters home, most of them quoting somewhere the concept of being “clothed with Christ” and the school’s desire to make everyone feel as equal as possible, several of them just didn’t get it. It was more important to them to wear the label and stand out than it was to willingly give up some of their freedom in order to join a community...The Next Step in the Churches
A few weeks ago, a friend introduced me to an amazing fellow Baptist who had never made it onto my radar. Walter Nathan Johnson was a high level denominational official who left the Southern Baptist mainstream to focus on revitalization of congregations, and on how “church involvement” could involve one’s entire lifestyle (The Genealogy of Dissent, David Strickland). In the mid-1920’s he began to publish a newsletter on a shoestring budget from a little office in Mars Hill, NC. For the next 25 years (!!), he wrote and published “The Next Step in the Churches.”...Feminism and the Bible
Sayers wrote a wonderful little book called Are Women Human? And she talks about Jesus and women. She said, Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man - there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as “The women, God help us!” or “The ladies, God bless them”; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything “funny” about woman’s nature...Heirs According to the Promise
("A man I know grew up with two names. His mother divorced his father when he was nine months old. His real father chose to have nothing to do with him, so he didn't feel like he belonged to his father. His mother remarried and for the next fifteen years he went by his stepfather's name, not his father's name. He knew what his real name was. That was the name that appeared on his birth certificate...")Baptismal Identity, The Great Equalizer
A large crowd gathered on the steps of the Supreme Court building in the nation’s capital. They had come to express their opinions about abortion. One side shouted, “The first human right is the right to life.” The other side replied, “A woman’s body is a woman’s business.” One side waved placards with pictures of coat hangers and the words, “Never Again.” The other side waved placards with pictures of human fetuses and the words, “Adoption, Not Abortion.” As the day wore on, they directed their shouting more at each other than toward the court. Their voices became louder and more shrill. Then, with fists clenched and death in their eyes, the two sides faced off; they moved toward each other with banners waving and placards held high like crusaders of old, pitched for battle. Before any of them could strike a blow, a stranger appeared suddenly between the advancing lines. He held out his arms and shouted, “Peace! Be still!" Immediately the crowd is quiet. Both groups laid down their placards. He motions them to sit down, and they sit on the steps and wait, looking toward the stranger with hopeful, expectant eyes. He looked first to those who were sitting on his right. “I am told there is one among you who is married to one from the opposing side.” A man stood and said, “I am he. And there is my wife,” he said, pointing to a woman who was now standing among the protesters on the stranger’s left. “Come here,” the stranger said, motioning for both of them to step forward...