Sermons from October 2018

5 Items

Pentecost 23B: 10/28/2018

10/28/2018
Pentecost 23B

When I was in my late twenties I was on a Cursillo weekend team, and I gave one of the talks on Christian living. After my talk, an older man (70?) came up to me and started to cry. It took him a while to settle himself enough to tell me that he didn’t know how to thank me for what I had said. He had always attended church, but never understood what it meant to KNOW that Jesus is in his life.  It was not just my talk, but it is the focus of those weekends to help people have new Spiritual Sight.

Pentecost 22B: 10/21/2018

10/21/2018
Pentecost 22B

There are images of God that intimidate me. Forty days of rain, wiping out all but the animals and people on Noah’s arc. The burning bush and the divine voice coming from the cloud that told Moses; “Go to pharaoh and tell him to set my people free!” The sky filled with angels, singing praises and announcing the birth of Jesus.

Jesus taught about another personality of God.

Pentecost 20B: 10/7/2018 – 8:00 am

10/7/2018
Pentecost 20B

The Pharisees kept trying to trap Jesus. They were the experts in Jewish law, and they kept trying to either show that Jesus didn’t know the law (which they were never able to do), or to get him to take a side in some controversial issue that would polarize his followers, making them fall away from him. In this hot topic of divorce, they failed again to recognize who they were dealing with.

The Pharisees brought up the legal controversy over divorce. But Jesus changed the conversation to something even more important. For him, the issue was not human law, but rather God’s intention.

Pentecost 19B: 9/30/2018

9/30/2018
Pentecost 19B

From the Book of Numbers, Joshua wanted Moses to stop Eldad and Medad from prophesying, because they missed the prayer meeting. How dare they speak the Word of God!! But somehow God overlooked their absence, and shared His Spirit with them anyways.

In the Gospel lesson last week, Jesus’ disciples were arguing over who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus expected their time with him to change them from the inside out; to transform them. But their sights were on being the exclusive club who would sit with Jesus in the heavenly realm.