Sermon for December 27, 2015

Sermon for the First Sunday after Christmas

December 27, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Colossians 3:12-17

Sermon Theme:  “Taking Back the Christmas Gift That Doesn’t Fit”

(Sources:  Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; Brokhoff Series C Preaching Workbook; Emphasis Online Illustrations; original ideas; Online Stories about Exchanging Christmas Gifs)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

It may be too soon after Christmas for any of you to have to deal with exchanging Christmas gifts that don’t fit.  It’s such a hassle that I’m inclined to want to give the oversized or undersized garment to Goodwill.  And it’s probably a toss-up as to which is more difficult to exchange, that which was purchased at a shopping mall or that bought online.

My bad experiences have been mostly with those purchased online, including a belt from Amazon that would have fit my thigh rather than my waist.  Eventually I was able to return it.

However, I read about a woman who bought a crocheted halter top for her daughter for Christmas from Amazon and had horrible time trying to exchange it.  It was a one size fits all garment, but when she got it, it was too small to fit any human creature; she asked to return it, and they said, ‘No, one size fits anybody.’

Well it didn’t, so to prove her point she put the crocheted halter top on her cat, and took a picture of the cat wearing it.  Then she sent a photo of the cat wearing it to Amazon with a note saying, “See, here’s my proof.”  Amazon was convinced and said she could return it for a refund.  However, the cat hated it and ripped it off.

Most of the time, one-size-fits-all does fit unless you’re excessively obese.  And it is especially true that one size fits all if you are referring to the spiritual clothing Paul describes in today’s sermon text.

Paul says, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.”  The NIV says, “Clothe yourselves,” a translation I like better, because the Greek verb rendered as “put on” can only refer to clothing (and not, for example, “put on a pot of soup”).

Mark Twain once quipped, “Clothes made the man.  Naked people have little or no influence on society.”  If that is true, and I believe it is, just imagine the influence a person dressed in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and love would have on society!

The problem is today’s world, based on newspaper headlines, neither possesses nor values such qualities as compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and love; if they did, the world would be transformed. Continue reading

Sermon for December 20, 2015

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent

December 20, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Micah 5:2-5a

Sermon Theme:  “Just another Little Town?”

 (Sources:  Emphasis Online Commentary; Emphasis Online Illustrations; “Do We Really Know Where Christ Was Born, CBN.com; original ideas and illustrations; “Bethlehem: Then and Now” by Mitri Raheb; Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; Harper’s Bible Dictionary; Introduction to Micah, CSS Bible.)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

           When I was a kid growing up in the small, rural town of Dime Box, I was ashamed to tell strangers where I was born, because experience taught me they would laugh when I told them.  I thought they were laughing because I was born and lived in a small, nowhere town, but it’s more likely they laughed because of the name “Dime Box.”

Jesus was born in a small, rural town also, a town in Judea named Bethlehem.  Historians and archeologists believe Bethlehem had a population of between 300 and 1,000 inhabitants at the time of Jesus’ birth.  If 300, it would have been the size of Dime Box at the time of my birth.  If 1,000, the size of Wallis when I was called to the church here in 1988, — the population of Wallis was exactly 1,001 in 1988.

A couple years after I was called to serve at Wallis, I was at a pastors’ workshop, and one of the pastors of a big city church asked me where my church was located.  When I told him “Wallis,” he wanted to know how big Wallis was, and I replied that the population was exactly 1,001.

“Are you the one?” he asked me.

“No, I live in East Bernard,” I answered. Continue reading

Sermon for December 13, 2015

 Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent

December 13, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Philippians 4:4-7

Sermon Theme:  “Rejoice!  Have No Anxiety about Anything!”

 (Sources:  Emphasis Online Illustrations; Anderson’s Cycle C Preaching Workbook; Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 26, Part 1, Series C; original ideas; Online Peanuts Comic Strips)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Happiness is an elusive thing.  Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be,” and several great thinkers have said something equivalent to, “Unless you carry happiness within you, you will never find it.”

Everybody has his or her own idea about what happiness is.  Snoopy says happiness is an ice cream cone.  Sally Brown says happiness is having your own library card.  But, in today’s sermon text from Philippians, Paul is talking about “joy” rather than “happiness,” and for many, joy is even more elusive than happiness.

I love the Peanuts cartoon strip which begins with Charlie Brown, head down, standing with his “hung dog” stance.  Charlie says to his girl friend, Peggy Jean, who is standing there looking at him, “This is my depressed stance.  When you are depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand.  The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high, because then you’ll start to feel better.  If you’re going to get any joy out of being depressed, you’ve got to stand like this.”    Peggy Jean says nothing, just looks at him bewildered. Continue reading

Sermon for December 06, 2015

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent

December 6, 2015, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wallis, Texas

Sermon Text:  Luke 3:1-14

Sermon Theme:  “The Color of Repentance”

(Sources:  Anderson, Cycle C, Preaching Workbook; What Luther Says, CPH Anthology; Emphasis Online Illustrations; Repent and Sin No More, Online Jokes; Repent and Be Saved Online Commentary; original ideas)

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

           Sin is not a joking matter, and confession and repentance must be taken seriously.  However, I want to share a joke about repentance that really makes a very good point.

Once there was a tradesman, a painter named Jack, who was very interested in making a dollar where he could.  So he often would thin down his paint to make it go a bit farther.  As it happened, he got away with this for some time.

Eventually, the local church decided to do a big restoration project.  Jack put in a painting bid, and, because his price was so competitive, he got the job.  And so he started, erecting the trestles and putting up the planks, and buying the paint and thinning it down with turpentine.

Jack was up on the scaffolding, painting away, the job nearly done, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder.  The sky opened and the rained poured down, washing away the thinned down paint from all over the church and knocking Jack off the scaffold to land on the lawn.

Jack was no fool.  He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he fell on his knees and cried, “Oh, God!  Forgive me!  What should I do?”

And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke, “Repaint!  Repaint!  And thin no more!”

Continue reading