Presby-Musings

Today we're going to continue the sermon series  "The Divine Storyteller."  This series is focused on a rethinking of some of the more challenging parables or stories that Jesus told.   The parable we are going to be exploring this week is the the Parable of the Rich Man & Lazarus.  But before we dig into the text today from Luke chapter 16, let me share a story of my own...   I had only been at my former church for a few months when I met James.  James was living in a patch of trees and brush behind our church at that point.  He had been kicked out of the latest place where he'd been staying because of a domestic dispute.  It was raining cats and dogs the night I met him the first time and he asked me for help.  I let him stay on the screened-in porch outside the church office that night, got him some food and scrounged some extra clothes for him to change into.  So began our seven year relationship, which was decidedly ...

Today we're going to continue the sermon series  "The Divine Storyteller."  This series is focused on a rethinking of some of the more challenging parables or stories that Jesus told.   Whether it was a city high on a hill, two women grinding grain or---as we'll see today--a man planting seeds in a field, Jesus knew how to draw his audience in to his stories by using everyday, common and ordinary things that he could see around him to teach deep and abiding spiritual truths about the kingdom of God.   This week we're going to be exploring a parable that is fairly well-known but in many ways underestimated in common Christian culture: The Parable of The Sower.  This parable truly causes us to have to confront the truth about who we really are.   In fact, before we dig into the text today, let me ask you a question.  How would you want to be remembered after you die?  As you think you are  or as you really are ?   Last week I rea...

A customs officer observes a truck pulling up at the border. Suspicious, he orders the driver out and searches the vehicle. He pulls off the panels, bumpers, and wheel cases but finds not a single scrap of contraband, whereupon, still suspicious but at a loss to know where else to search, he waves the driver through.  The next week, the same driver arrives. Again the official searches, and again finds nothing illicit. Over the years, the official tries full-body searches, X rays, and sonar, anything he can think of, and each week the same man drives up, but no mysterious cargo ever appears, and each time, reluctantly, the customs man waves the driver on. Finally, after many years, the officer is about to retire. The driver pulls up. "I know you're a smuggler," the customs officer says. "Don't bother denying it. But [darned] if I can figure out what you've been smuggling all these years. I'm leaving now. I swear to you I can do you no harm. Won...

I am going to share some of the most powerful words in the English language with you today.  Are you ready?  Here they are:   "Once upon a time..."   Those words are absolutely pregnant  with possibility aren't they?  Your mind is already racing right this very second to finish that sentence with a story of your own, or one that you remember...   Never underestimate the power of a good story.  Writer Matt Goins offers this description of how important stories are to human beings.  "Story is where we came from.  Story is where we are going. Story is what connects us and binds us together."   It's in the midst of storytelling that we discover ourselves, the meaning of things, our purpose and direction.   Jesus was a master storyteller.  In ancient Judaism, storytelling was an enormous part of the religious and spiritual life of the community.  Later, inspirational storytelling became a recognized hol...