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It's the law! No one...

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Reformation Sunday - B
Romans 3:19-28
It's the law! No one seems to be getting as much bad press as police officers, not even attorneys! We want laws, and keeping up with the changing laws is a full-time job. Ripley's Believe It Or Not often lists ridiculous laws that are still on the books in towns and states, but they are technically still the law. We want people to enforce laws, too, but when they show up at our door, or behind our auto, we are not usually pleased. Not only that, we are annoyed because they have the right and the nerve to tell us where we fall short of the law. Those words are not words we want to hear.
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John Jamison
Object: A sheep or lamb stuffed animal.

Note: For the best experience, when you ask the questions, take the time to draw the children out a bit and help them come up with answers. Make it more of a conversation if you can.

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent! Let’s get started! (Hold the sheep in your lap as you continue.)

The Immediate Word

Dean Feldmeyer
Katy Stenta
Thomas Willadsen
Christopher Keating
George Reed
Mary Austin
For May 4, 2025:

StoryShare

John E. Sumwalt
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice… (vv. 11-12a)

Phillip Hasheider is a retired Wisconsin beef farmer and an award-winning author who was dead for six minutes and came back to tell about it. If you have ever thought about dying and wondered what it would be like, then Hasheider’s Six Minutes in Eternity is a book you will want to read.

Emphasis Preaching Journal

David Coffin
A medical worker is working long, hard, stress filled hours in an urban hospital setting. One day he or she is called into the administrator’s office to be terminated due to angering professionals in the upper echelon. The worker protests that it is, “My word against their word, why am I to be the scapegoat?” The administrator pulls rank! The worker is asked to turn in their badge and do not come into the premises again unless as a patient. The now unemployed medical worker still feels the calling to be a healer. So, they get a job at an alternative/natural health medicine store.
Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Bonnie Bates
Acts 9:1-6 (7-20)
Martin Luther believed that the story of Paul’s conversion demonstrates that there is no need for special revelation. The reformer commented:

Our Lord God does not purpose some special thing for each individual person, but gives to the whole world — one person like the next — his baptism and gospel. (Complete Sermons, Vol.7, p.271)

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
I've recently spent several hours by the lakeside, for I've been in retreat this past week in the little village of Hemingford Grey, in Huntingdonshire. A great delight for me was to walk to the flooded gravel pits, sit on a bench in glorious sunshine, and watch the water birds. For me, that's a wonderful way to become very aware of the presence of God through the beauty of his created world. And sitting like that for several hours, doing nothing but watching and waiting, I can't help but absorb the peace which passes all understanding.

SermonStudio

Constance Berg
When Beth was a teenager, she lived on the streets. She smoked cigarettes and drank beer and her parents had said that she had to choose: her friends or her family. Beth chose her friends and lived from house to house and eventually in homeless shelters. She barely avoided being raped at one point. About six months of shelter-hopping was all she could take, and she found a shelter that sponsored her until she took the GED. They told her she was brilliant: she was just bored and dissatisfied with the status quo. The shelter supervisors suggested she look into community college.
James Evans
(For alternative approaches, see Epiphany 6/Ordinary Time 6, Cycle B; and Proper 9/Pentecost 7/Ordinary Time 14, Cycle C.)

The main theme of this psalm is captured profoundly in the movement within a single verse: "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with morning" (v. 5). Casting life experiences between light and dark is not unique or novel, of course, but the poet's treatment of these themes offers some fertile ground for reflection.

Elizabeth Achtemeier
We have three different accounts of the conversion of Saul in the Gospel according to Luke (9:1-20; 22:6-16; 26:12-18). They differ in a few minor details, but essentially they are the same. In addition, Paul writes of his conversion in Galatians 1:11-16, and in 1 Corinthians 9:1 and 15:8-9, stating that at the time of his conversion on the road to Damascus, he saw the Lord. For Paul, that made him an apostle, equal to the twelve. An apostle, in Paul's thought, was one who had seen the risen Christ and had been sent to announce that good news.
Richard E. Gribble, CSC
Once in a far-off land, there was a great king whose dominion extended far and wide. His power and authority were absolute. One day, as events would happen, a young man, a commoner, committed a grave offense against the king. In response, the king and his counselors gathered together to determine what should be done. They decided that since the offense was so grave and had been committed by a commoner against someone so august as the king, the only punishment that would satisfy justice was death.

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