August 2022 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Stress Fractures

Luke 12:49-56 Some years ago, I was at a meeting for a national church committee on which I was serving, and during a break in our work I asked one of the other pastors what he was preaching on the next Sunday. That’s how pastors make small talk. He told me he was preaching on Luke 12:49-56, and he was none too happy about it. He told me that he had been avoiding this passage for 30 years. Whenever it came around in the lectionary, he would look for something else to preach on, because this one made him too uncomfortable. But he had reached the point where his avoidance of it was making him even more uncomfortable, so he was going in. He would gird his loins and dive in. It’s a good thing he finally did that, because this is one the church needs to hear, frequently. […]

Wedding Banquet People

Luke 12:32-40 Last week I told you a story about a family that was so caught up in the consumer culture that it just about destroyed them – until, mercifully, they realized they could intentionally back away from it. Disentangle themselves from the consumer treadmill. And one of the first things they did was to sell or give away some of their possessions. In last week’s gospel reading, Jesus told his listeners, “Your life does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.” And sometimes we need to get out from under the mountain of our possessions to begin to know that. He told them a parable about a man who was living his life, trying to take care of his stuff, and then out of the blue was told he was a fool for doing that. That his time was up. “Your life is being demanded of you this […]

The Good Life

Luke 12:13-21 Let me tell you a story. It’s a familiar story. Maybe you know it. A man and a woman fall in love. They realize they want to spend the rest of their lives with each other. They begin to talk about a possible future together and what that could look like. So the man begins to make a plan. Searching on Google, he finds “7 Tips for Planning the Perfect Proposal,” and he’s off. He enlists her best friend as his co-conspirator and he scouts out the perfect location to pop the question. He hires a professional photographer who will lurk just out of sight and be ready to capture the big moment. Everything will be shared on their social media accounts – Facebook, Instagram – with tons of “likes” and “Congratulations!” Once they are engaged, the couple begins planning their wedding. They know that the planning phase […]