Sermons 2018 – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Searching for Him

Luke 2:39-52 I think most parents know what it feels like to lose a child. Or, if you have been careful enough to never lose track of one of your children, then maybe you are familiar with the fear of losing a child. I am one of the many mothers of the world who has lost a child in a public place. I have had the mall on lock-down more than once. I know that feeling of panic that comes the moment you realize your child is not with you. But I cannot imagine what it would be like to feel this way for three days. Three days they searched in Jerusalem, a city packed with Jews from all over the diaspora, on pilgrimage for the festival of the Passover. Three days he was on his own in a city that was not his home, an unfamiliar place. Three days Mary and […]

Will We Sing with Them?

Luke 1:39-55 In the midst of everything else about this Christmas season, the secular attachments and the religious meanings; at the very center of it this is a story about women having babies. It’s about pregnancy and childbirth. And today we rest our minds on that. In Luke’s gospel, it is a story about two women – Elizabeth and Mary – both finding themselves pregnant in the most unexpected circumstances. Elizabeth, older cousin to Mary and wife of the temple priest Zechariah, is too old for having babies. For Elizabeth, those years have passed and left her empty. She is barren, like other women we have seen in the scriptures: Sarah, the wife of Abraham; Rachel, the wife of Jacob; Hannah, the wife of Elkanah. All these women waited for their turn to come, while they watched their peers’ swelling bellies and glowing faces; they waited, while month after month […]

What Then Should We Do?

Zephaniah 3:14-20 Luke 3:7-18 Does anyone know if the war on Christmas is still going on? I’m just wondering. I haven’t been paying much attention to it, so I’m not really up to speed on it. I would feel bad about that – except that I don’t. I am tired of this particular war. I can’t work up any enthusiasm for it, frankly, because if you want to know the truth I am more concerned about the war on Advent. You don’t hear much about that one –probably because it has been so successful. Seriously, when was the last time you had anyone wish you a Happy Advent? How often do you see Advent decorations or get visited by Advent carolers? Never? It’s all “Christmas this” and “Christmas that” – Christmas trees, Christmas carols, Christmas movies. Even here in the church. The struggle is real, my friends. The war on […]

He Is Coming; Prepare the Way

Malachi 3:1-4 ; Luke 3:1-6 Our youngest child, Henry, had some interesting ways of saying things when he was little. He soaked up information like a sponge, but sometimes his brain got a little ahead of his mouth and things came out funny. For example, he would tell you that our town of Bloomsburg sat along the banks of the Sexy-Hanna River. Also known as the Susquehanna River. One day he and I were in the car driving along a road that was known locally as The Narrows, because it was a narrow, winding road with railroad tracks on one side and a straight, jagged rock wall on the other. Henry pointed toward the rocky wall and said to me, “You know why it’s like that? It’s because they daminated the mountain to make this road.” It took me a second to translate what he said from daminated to dynamited. For a […]

Looking for the Fig Tree

Jeremiah 33:14-16 Luke 21:25-36 Years ago, Kim and I visited the Muir Woods, north of San Francisco, to see the giant redwoods. They are truly magnificent trees, thick and tall, ancient and glorious as they soar up to the sky. They have existed on this earth for hundreds of thousands of years; each one can live to be hundreds of years old. They seem to live forever. But eventually they die, just like every living thing dies. We saw some fallen redwoods in the forest, and that was the most interesting thing. Some of these long dead trunks had trees growing out of them, long straight new trunks reaching up to the sky. Even in death, these amazing trees gave birth to new life. I learned later these are called nurse logs, or nursers. In the forest environment, these fallen trees are able to provide a suitable ecosystem for new […]

Some Kind of Power

John 18:33-37 Although it might seem like forever-ago, it’s been just a few weeks since we had a very contentious midterm election in this country. It dominated the news for weeks beforehand, and even after. Many Americans needed to take anti-anxiety meds or practice their yoga breathing just to get through it – especially on election night while we watched the odds-makers continually revising their predictions about who would win. Mid-term elections have become more like presidential year elections, in that they have taken on a national tone. People don’t just care about their local and state representatives – they care deeply about everyone else’s representatives. People make donations to high profile candidates in states far away from their own, all because governing this country has become, for a great many of us, a cosmic showdown between the forces of good and evil. Our guys are good, while the opponents […]

Love and Happiness

Mark 1:4-11 There are a few passages from scripture that are so well known and loved that they almost become etched on our hearts. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” is one of them. “For God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son,” is another. These are special; no one should mess with these. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” is also one of these, I think. But when I read this story of the baptism of Jesus in the Common English Bible translation, it had me in a whole new way. “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.” What beautiful language. Maybe not poetic in the way that the King James Bible is poetic, but clear and direct and beautiful in its message to us. You are my Son, whom I dearly love. In you I […]

Go and See

Mark 6:30-44 Recently, I came across this list of the top ten things you never hear in church. Hey – it’s my turn to sit in the front row! Pastor, I was so enthralled, I never noticed your sermon ran 25 minutes over. Personally, I find witnessing much more enjoyable than golf. How long is the waiting list to serve on session? I’ll be the permanent nursery volunteer. Isn’t it great to have the children running around the church making a joyful noise? I LOVE it when we sing songs I’ve never heard before! No, don’t ask someone else. Let me do it. Pastor, we’d like to send you to this Bible seminar in Hawaii. Nothing inspires me and strengthens my commitment like our annual stewardship drive![1] We always hear a few groans when stewardship time comes around. It seems, to many folks, like a necessary evil. We wish we […]

Living Through Our Tears

Isaiah 25:6-9 John 11:32-44 Not long ago in our Tuesday Bible Study we discussed a text from the book of Ezra in which the people of Israel are gathering at the site of the new temple. The young ones cheer for joy and the old ones cry. And the cheers were loud and the weeping was loud, and you couldn’t make out the crying from the shouting because it was all mixed up together. Sort of like a school playground during kindergarten recess. And we mused about why the old ones were crying. Possibly because they felt a fresh wave of grief over the loss of the old temple, and all the loss that had gone with it. But it’s also possible their tears were expressions of joy and gratitude, because they were given a chance to begin again. Tears can have many meanings. Quite likely, these tears were a mixture […]

The Benefits of Membership

Mark 10:35-45 I was thinking of my old friend Bill this past week. He died a couple of years ago at the age of 82. I first met him when he invited me to join him and his wife to a dinner theatre performance of The Sound of Music. He picked me up in his Buick. We talked about cars. Bill was an avid member of the Buick Club of America. I never knew there was a Buick Club until I met Bill. He was very enthusiastic about it. He went to Buick meets, joined in with Buick Club tours whenever he could. Bill had a barn on his property which held a variety of Buicks, so part of the fun was deciding which one to drive when he went to Buick Club events. The Buick Club was not his whole life, though. He was also a Free Mason, and […]

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