God’s love – Wicomico Presbyterian Church

The Blessing Way

Micah 6:1-8 Matthew 5:1-12 There is a movie called Hashtag Blessed. It’s about a young woman who is miserable in her life for a variety of reasons, but one key cause is that she is trying to live her life through the lens of Instagram. And that is a lens that is almost guaranteed to make you feel like your life doesn’t measure up. She scrolls through and sees a picture from a friend who just got a new car! #blessedlife! Other friends looking fine in their fancy clothes, hanging out in elegant places, surrounded by dazzling, glittery things – #blessedlife! Real life just doesn’t measure up to that for most of us. Sometimes we are a little confused about what it means when we talk about blessing, being blessed. In the popular vernacular, to be blessed is about the same as being lucky. Or maybe being good – good […]

What the Lord Requires, Part 1: To Love Unconditionally

Luke 10:25-37 You have probably heard a dozen sermons on this parable. You know what it’s about, I don’t need to tell you. Maybe we should just skip ahead to our next hymn and get out of here early today. It’s one of the most familiar stories in the Bible. Everyone – whether or not they ever go to church – knows what a Good Samaritan is: a do-gooder; a helpful person. It’s the name of hospitals and counseling centers and homeless shelters and more. Never mind that it once was an oxymoron, as much as “jumbo shrimp” or “boneless ribs” or “entertaining sermon.” We all know that the point of Jesus’ story is that people should be like that – the Good Samaritan – helpful to those in need. It isn’t something I need to tell you today: you know this – and what’s more, the legal expert who approached Jesus knew it. […]

No Longer Strangers, Part 3: God’s Powerful Love

Ephesians 3:14-21 I have an app on my phone called Ceaseless. Every morning at 8:00 it pings me and asks me if I would like to pray. Sometimes I say, “later.” And that is okay, because it is always there for me. It gives me focus for my prayers. Each day this app randomly pulls three people in my contact files and suggests I pray for them. I never know whose name will pop up. So it happens, sometimes, that it is the name of a person I am angry with. Or it may be the name of someone I am deeply concerned about or anxious for. It could be someone I haven’t thought about in ages, someone I’ve lost touch with and I have no idea what is going on in their lives. And Ceaseless asks me to pray for them. Sometimes, though, I don’t know how to pray […]