Sunday Sermons

If you're spiritually alive, you're going to love this!

If you're spiritually dead, you won't want to read it.

If you're spiritually curious, there is still hope!

A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that

it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. “I've gone for 30 years now,” he wrote, “and in that  time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons, but for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them so, I think I'm wasting my time and the priests, Ministers or rabbis are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the “Letters to the Editor” column. Much to the delight of the editor, it went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

'I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this...They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!”

When you are DOWN to nothing....God is UP to something!

Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible!

Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!

 

IF YOU CANNOT SEE GOD IN ALL, YOU CANNOT SEE GOD AT ALL!

Obligation or Opportunity

Another gem from my parish’s Deacon Ken

Obligation or Opportunity

A father in northern Wisconsin, the day after a major snowstorm once quipped, “Aw, nuts!” He grumbled to no one in particular as he looked out the picture window upon 14 inches of new fallen snow. “Fourteen inches of obligation!” His kids looked out the same window. “Yippee!” they shouted, and rushed to put on their snow clothes. For them it was 14 inches of opportunity! Same snow - two completely different perspectives. I wish we could think more like kids. I wish our first response to winter would be snow angels rather than shovels. When severe adulthood squeezes out childish play, the snow becomes an unpleasant burden. He muttered something about “bleak midwinter” to his wife. She rebuked him gently. “It's not so bleak, honey. In fact, it's like a beautiful post card out there! Just look, the snow sparkles like diamonds!” I suppose beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

Bishop Desmond Tutu observed that each day is a gift, and that is why it is called the present. Whatever the day brings is part of the gift, and that includes snow. As winter approaches, it would do us well to focus on the opportunity, rather than the obligation. Otherwise, it will be a long winter of discontent. Whether you look for the positive or the negative - either way - you'll find it. Joy comes with gratitude. Misery accompanies grumbling and complaint. “In everything”, the Bible says, “give thanks.” That includes the bleak midwinter! Christmas is just around the corner. I think I'll make a snow angel!