Live Stream – Page 10 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Advent 1: Making Room

Jeremiah 33:14-16 Advent always gets here before I am ready for it. No matter how good my intentions, I am never quite prepared; I am surprised by the arrival of Advent, wishing time would slow down. But if the season of Advent is about making time and space to get ourselves ready, then maybe that’s as it should be. Maybe I don’t need to get ready to begin getting ready. However it may be, here we are…at this special time…Advent 2021. And like it does every year, Advent takes us as we are – where we each are personally, where we are as a congregation, where we are in the world. And where we are in the world is still kind of a hard place. We have been in this COVID season way too long for us to keep it in the forefront of our minds – and yet, even […]

Freedom

Genesis 2:4-7,15-18,21-25, 3:1-8 Several years ago, I saw a film about Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. He was a fascinating person, a bit of an enigma. What was it about Jobs that made him so successful? He was not especially kind or likeable. He was not a gifted programmer, like his partner Wozniak. He was not a businessman. What was he? What was his genius? He was a creator. There is one scene in the movie where he obsesses about the dimensions of his new computer, the Next. It was a black cube, but apparently the dimensions had to be off just a fraction of an inch for the human eye to perceive it as a cube. The production staff got it wrong, and Steve was not satisfied with the results. He actually had a million other problems more urgent than this, but this was the one he obsessed […]

The One Who Makes All Things New

Revelation 21:1-6a Frederick Buechner wrote an essay describing a dream he once had. In it, he was staying in a hotel. He was aware that he really, really, loved this room. Much more than you should, actually, love a hotel room. Somehow, in this room he felt happy and at peace. It seemed like everything in the room was exactly as it should be. And it felt as if he, himself, was exactly as he should be. At some point he wandered off to other places and did other things, the way it often happens in dreams. Eventually, he returned to the hotel, but this time he was in a different room and it was not a comfortable experience. He went to the front desk. He explained to the clerk that he would like to have his old room back, that everything about it was perfect and he would much rather be […]

Coming Home to You, Part 6: Choose Love

Mark 12:28-34 When I was a child I went to sleepover parties with my friends. The goal of sleepovers was to stay up all night, and the best way of doing that was to play at scaring ourselves silly. We played with a Ouija board and convinced ourselves that some spirit was moving the piece around the board, and we screamed. We played some kind of levitation game where one girl would lie on the floor and the others would kneel around her and place two fingers underneath the girl’s body. The girl would start to rise from the ground and we screamed. We played a game we called Mary Worth, where we had to look at ourselves in the mirror in a dark room, and repeat, I believe in Mary Worth, until the face of Mary Worth would appear in the mirror. No one had any idea who Mary Worth […]

Coming Home to You, Part 3: All In

Mark10:17-31 One of the favorite films in our family is The Princess Bride. We can watch it together over and over and always enjoy. It’s a story about a princess who has been kidnapped by some bad guys who hope to set off a war in the kingdom. Either that or it’s a story about true love. Or else it’s a story about a grandfather reading a fairy tale to his grandson. Whatever it is, it’s funny and sweet. The character Vizzini, a Sicilian mastermind criminal played by the actor Wallace Shawn, has kidnapped the princess Buttercup. Inigo Montoya, a Spanish swordsman and Fezzik, a giant, assist him in his criminal endeavors. They are all being pursued by a mysterious man in black. Vizzini tries to outwit the man in black, but every time they look back they discover he is still on their trail and gaining on them. Each […]

Coming Home to You, Part 2: Measuring Value

Mark 10:13-16 Patience is a virtue, without doubt. But in these verses, we have the evidence that even Jesus could lose his patience. As I have said before, we sometimes forget that he was fully human. And humans sometimes run out of patience. The evidence here is in the word indignant. Jesus was indignant. He’s in the middle of teaching, and he looks over to his leadership team and sees them standing in front of the little children blocking their way to the Lord. They seem to think they are the bouncers at the door of Jesus’ club. And he’s like, What part of “whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me” did you not understand? What part of “if you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck and […]

Coming Home to You, Part 1: Who We Are

James 3:13-4:3,7-8 Mark 9:30-37 In all the preparations for returning to our sanctuary for worship, I have had St. Augustine of Hippo on my mind. I’ll tell you why. Augustine was born in 354 in a Roman province that is now part of Algeria, in Africa. Important for us to know: Augustine was an African. His mother, Monica, was a Christian. Augustine was raised as a Christian, but like a lot of kids, he didn’t seem to be terribly serious about it. He was a smart, and probably cocky, little guy. He ran around with a rowdy bunch and got into plenty of trouble. In his teens, he became enthralled with philosophy and embraced a religion called Manicheism, which was very popular at the time. Just about killed his mom, but she never gave up on him. He was willful and wayward and at 17 began a relationship with a young […]

Do You Know Jesus?

Mark 8:27-38 Do you know what Jesus looks like? Would you recognize him if you saw him pushing a cart at the Food Lion or walking down Division Street? Do you know Jesus? I think I would recognize him – you know, from the pictures. If he hasn’t changed his hair, that is, his beautiful long wavy hair. And if he still wears those long flowing robes, definitely I would recognize him. If he hasn’t changed his style too much, I would know him. But even if he has I would know his blue eyes, his beautiful smooth skin. You all have seen the pictures, too, right? You know. Our Jesus is beautiful. The Warner Sallman painting, The Head of Christ, is the one. When Americans imagine the face of Jesus we are most likely to envision this face. A serene looking man gazing off into the distance, serious but not stern. More than 500 million copies of this painting have been sold […]

God’s Preferences

Mark 7:24-37 When our kids were little, Kim used to say to them, “Oh, you’re my favorite 8-year-old boy!” or “You’re my favorite 13-year-old daughter.” It would always surprise them, but then they would laugh. He wanted each one to know that they were his favorites. Each one of them. Kids spend a fair amount of time thinking about favorites. It’s a big word in a child’s vocabulary: favorite ice cream, favorite color, favorite animal, and so on. And they think, too, about whether their parents have a favorite child. In fact, even when we grow up, we still might think about who was our parents’ favorite child. Whether or not parents have a favorite among their children, or grandchildren, almost all parents do favor their own children over others. To us that seems not only normal but quite appropriate. We might judge harshly any parent who does not seem […]

Come Away

Song of Solomon 2:8-13 James1:17-27 I read a wonderful little story this past week, about something that has happened in the past and might possibly still be happening today. The story goes that when a Navy man served on board a submarine, his wife, if he had a wife, was permitted to send him messages – but only short messages. They were limited to eight words. That’s pretty short. And they were censored, if needed. You can just forget about privacy. But the Navy wives had a secret: The Song of Solomon. They would send messages like SOS 1:2, which counted as only one word. The husband knew that this meant Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 2, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine!” These wives were sending coded messages and some of them were pretty steamy. So, that’s one […]

1 2 3 … 7 8 9 10 11 12

Posts navigation