Community – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Isaiah 43:1-7 Luke 3:15-17,21-22 There is a pretty good chance you know the origin of the sermon title: “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.” It’s the theme song from the old TV show Cheers. Set in a Boston bar called Cheers. There was a crew of regulars who appeared in every episode. One of them, Norm Peterson, would always walk through the door and be greeted with a chorus saying, “Norm!” Then Norm would go sit down on his regular seat at the end of the bar. The place where everybody knows his name. It’s great to have a place like that. On some level, we all long for a place where everybody knows our name. Someplace where you feel comfortable, where you have friends. It might be a coffee shop, a bar, a barbershop, the YMCA. It is a place where […]

RE-INTEGRATE

1 Corinthians 12:12-19 Some years ago my sister gave me a gift of a beautiful hand-made clay pot. It has gingko leaves decorating the surface of it. I loved it immediately. But I didn’t know, immediately, what to do with it. So I set it on the kitchen counter. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, so I looked at it many times every day. I moved it around as needed while I worked. I wrote my sister a note to thank her for the gift. In the note I told her I was waiting for it to show me how it wants to be used. And eventually it did. It makes a wonderful napkin holder. To this day it remains in the kitchen (having lived in several kitchens by now), on a shelf, holding the napkins. It is beautiful. I get to look at it every day. […]

With Great Power: Dancing Together

1 John 1: 1-4 I know someone who likes to explain to me his philosophy of religion every chance he gets. This is how he looks at it, he says. It’s better to believe in God than not believe in God. If God is real, you win! And if it turns out there is no God, what have you lost? Nothing. On the other hand, if you choose not to believe and it turns out you should have, then God might be pretty ticked off at you somewhere down the road. So, you should believe in God, because – really, what have you got to lose? It’s as safe as a bet can be. My friend likes this argument and maybe even thinks he invented it. He didn’t. It’s called Pascal’s Wager, named after the 17th century philosopher. So it’s been around for a while. And it probably appeals to lots […]

Treasure

Matthew 8:1-4,16-17 A lot of the time you can keep your health issues to yourself. You don’t have to announce them to the world if you don’t want to. You can have as much privacy as you like. But it’s different with infectious diseases. And in a time of pandemic, it’s very different. People are hyper-alert to any signs of illness in themselves or the people around them. I know. Whenever I sneeze into my mask, I can feel people giving me the side eye and inching away. It was like this, but worse, in the ancient world with leprosy. Anyone who had leprosy was shunned. Leprosy was serious business. It meant potentially disfigurement, rotting skin, and loss of limbs; something highly contagious and incurable. People believed that merely touching a leper could cause you to become infected. And so the lepers in Biblical times were banned from community life. […]

We Need A Miracle

Acts 2:1-21 On the day of Pentecost the small band of disciples were hunkered down in their upper room. They were all together in one place. In one room. Everybody in that room had – not long before – been a part of the crowds who were gathered in the streets below. Not very long ago they had been a part of that community, the people who made pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Jewish festivals. That’s just what they had done, in fact, for the Passover festival. About seven weeks earlier. But a lot had changed since then. Now their community was much diminished. Now their community was comprised of a group small enough to fit into this upper room. And, sadly, the people in that room viewed many of those outside their room as enemies. It was kind of a low moment for the People of the Way. They […]