Preaching to the Choir

These are some sermons, but mostly lectionary discussions. It also has prayers for some Sundays.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Pentecost 2A/O8/Proper 3

Greetings on this bright Sunny Monday morning; How did Trinity Sunday go in your church? Now on to this week's lectionary;

Isaiah 49:8-16a Isaiah has some wonderful imagery here to work with. It is a image of hope and restoration. And yet as Safiya Fosua at Preaching Helps asks who is the "you" in the passage? Are we the you? Is Israel the you? But it also lifts up the imagery of Mother God, Mother Zion, and yes, Mother church. How do your people need this image today? How do we need to come out and show ourselves or how do we need to be inviting others to do so, and creating an environment to do so?
1 Corinthians 4:1-5 4:1 Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God's mysteries. What does it mean to be the servant of Christ and the steward of these mysteries? How do we live this out as the church? Have we been found trust worthy? How do we hold each other accountable without destructive criticism and judgmentalism getting in the picture? How do we encourage, challenge and affirm our servant hood and stewardship?
Matthew 6:24-34 "The Hippie/Flower Child/Godspell" passage. Actually its the " You can't serve two masters passage, cause if you do, you will be owned by one and will find yourself in a heap of anxiety passage." So how is one to live? How do we strive first for the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things will be added unto us? How does our recent oil/food crisis impact this? What about the issue of why 20 somethings aren't coming to church? And what about the recent article about how the young evangelicals are looking at elections this time around? How do your members need to hear this passage? It is important to know In the Greek text the verb “to worry” that Jesus uses repeatedly in this passage is merimnate which, as Ronald J. Allen points out in Volume 3 of The Lectionary Commentary (Eerdmans 2001) really carried more of the sense of “fear” in the first century—in particular what people “feared” was tribulations in the end time and also other insufficiencies of life. Worry and fear are first cousins in any event. (Taken from This week at Calvin Seminary)

So now, what passage will you be preaching on this Sunday and what direction?

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