Proper 7
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VI, Cycle A
COMMENTARY ON THE LESSONS
Lesson 1: Genesis 21:8-21 (C)
If we needed evidence that those Old Testament folks had some strange ideas about God, we have it here. First, we see that Abraham was the father of "the son of Hagar," even though he was married to Sarah, which doesn't seem to have bothered anyone, least of all God. Then we see Hagar being "cast out" so that her son would not receive any inheritance. Then, most disturbing of all, we are told that God tells Abraham to send "your slave woman" away. No questions about the appropriateness of slave holding. God, in this report, seems not even to know Hagar's name. And when the boy is dying of thirst, his mother "lifted up her voice and wept," and it was the boy's voice which God heard, not hers. Little wonder women today have problems with the Bible. Except, of course, this is not an accurate representation of God but is, in fact, an ancient view of God, one which is a long way from the God we know through the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus.
I would only preach on this passage if someone made me do it. In that case, I'd deal with what I have just said, with the fact that in these Old Testament stories we have not historical reports, but ancient traditions designed to establish grounds for the later Jewish nation's solidarity.
Lesson 1: Jeremiah 20:10-13 (RC); Jeremiah 20:7-13 (E)
This is one outraged man. But Jeremiah is strong in his faith that God will empower him in his mission, that God will see to it that the bad guys are punished. The Babylonian threat hovers over the nation. Jeremiah has gone through a period of discouragement, convinced that God has not sustained him, but when he vows to remain silent, he feels "something like a burning fire" shut up in his bones. He must speak, and Jeremiah throws it right smack in the face of Pash'hur, his most immediate tormentor, but for all to hear. This all took place around 650 B.C.
Lesson 2: Romans 6:1b-11 (C); Romans 5:12-15 (RC); Romans 5:15b-19 (E)
This gets a little complicated for the average parishioner on Sunday (and for the average preacher, like me, who has to read this over several times to follow just what Paul is saying). The word "sin" itself is a bit unfamiliar to most mainline congregations. It needs some defining in order to make this passage clear. One good definition is that sin is doing something you believe to be wrong. That works for preaching, since complicated reasoning about such things is quickly lost to those good folks who don't need much to turn their thoughts to beating the Baptists to the local after-church restaurant. Sin is opposition to God, self-centeredness, unlovingness -- there are other definitions. What is important here is that sin can be a powerfully destructive force in our lives, a cancer of the spirit if you will, which Christ died to overcome. When we accept Christ as Lord and Savior, we, in a sense, die with him (as symbolized in baptism). Thus, since Christ was resurrected, we are promised new life, both here and hereafter. Since we will still go on sinning, we remain in perpetual need of forgiveness and renewal of our vows of faith and faithfulness.
Gospel: Matthew 10:24-39 (C); Matthew 10:26-33 (RC); Matthew 10:(16-23) 24-33 (E)
This is another of those brief passages rich in preaching possibilities. One, Jesus' warning that there is "nothing secret that will not be known." Remember the Collect for Purity of Heart: "... from whom no secrets are hid." We may have our private little failings which are known to few or none. But they are known to God.
A second preaching possibility is this line: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This is probably a reference to the powers of evil, a possible sermon in itself. Also, this passage applies whenever we find ourselves faced with a sore temptation to do wrong, or with pressure from others to do so.
Yet a third preaching possibility immediately follows in one of my favorite phrases: "Not one of them (sparrows) will fall to the ground apart from your Father." How intimately God understands our needs, our fears, our hopes. If God cares about a sparrow, he must surely care when you and I are faced with a frightening problem. And it would seem meaningless to say God cares were it not that we also believe he will assist in some way.
We could, of course, use the passage: "Whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven." I have a feeling Jesus didn't just mean "deny" in the sense of religious argumentation. He meant by the way we live, by how we treat others, by our faithfulness to our life's mission.
It really gets deep when we tackle the passage: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword." He goes on to warn that we are not to love those dearest to us more than we love him. I think Jesus did come to bring peace on earth, but here is warning that some surgery will be necessary first. And I don't think Jesus wants us running off to church so much that we neglect our loved ones. He only meant to use a hyperbole, an exaggeration to emphasize that we must not allow any sentiments to prevent us from wholehearted fidelity to the values and teachings of our faith.
That's not all. There is another excellent preaching opportunity in the closing words of this passage: "Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "The Things That You're Liable To Read In The Bible"
Text: Genesis 21:8-21
Theme: As I see it there are two possibilities here. It might be useful to explore the fact that Old Testament theology must be viewed through the prism of the New Testament. Women were hardly better than slaves in the ancient value systems, and slaves were literally nearly non-people, God not even able to think of Hagar's name, according to the fellow who wrote this passage. I did note that Abraham, who was said to be 75 when he started all of this and was referred to by Paul as nearly 100, has now fathered at least two children, only one with his wife Sarah. I'll let someone else deal with that one.
We could go to the end of the passage where God hears the baby's cry and rescues Hagar and her son by leading her to water. That's a good sermon possibility, but I think in these somewhat unrestful times as regards the church and feminism, it might be well to deal with the former idea.
1. Ancient people treated women differently than we today in Western culture. They weren't insensitive nor inhumane. They were living by the values they were taught, just as we do. Those who wrote the books of the Old Testament imputed to God values of their own, yet to their credit they had some lofty ethical standards and felt called to uphold them. They did, after all, give us monotheism, and they laid the groundwork for the advent of Jesus. What we are dealing with here is the evolution of humanity, and the evolution of humanity's understanding of God.
2. Jesus taught a better way. Many of his best friends were women, and he clearly related to them as equals, not inferiors. Even Paul, probably a first century chauvinist, still observed that "there is neither male nor female" in God's eyes, and he set the stage for a later era of enlightenment, though the time was not right to do much more in his day.
3. Today we are to carry out the progress initiated by all of this. So, the frustrating (to many) process of changing sexist language in Bible, prayer, and song is part of this. We old guys (and many gals) will suffer some frustration, but it must take place so that a younger generation can understand the feminine in God. When I was in seminary, women were not fully ordained in the Methodist Church. Today, somewhere around half of all seminary students are women. Congregations must be prepared for the changes this will bring to mainstream Protestantism.
Title: "What Do We Mean By Sin?"
Text: Romans 6:1b-11
Theme: Paul held out little hope for any of us apart from the salvation to be found in Jesus. Elsewhere in Romans, he wrote: "Everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence" (3:23). Personally, I always struggled with the thought that God created me like this, put me in a family situation which programmed me in certain ways while I was too young to question, surrounded me with all kinds of temptations, then gets mad at me when I act the way I do. Except that's not how it really works. I think God understands me better than that, and is sympathetic with my (and your) plight. It's just that he wants the best for me, as I do for my kids. He is patient, long-suffering, giving me the benefit of the doubt. He leaves me free to make my way, always near when needed, makes allowances for some of my intellectual and spiritual disadvantages, and in a word, loves me. Paul was right, of course, but his main point, that by joining myself to Christ I can have a better life, is where my hope lies, as it does for all of us. For one thing, because of Paul and the Bible, I know where I stand. I know I'm to resist those temptations, try to be better than I am, make restitution and apology when I'm wrong, and understand there are certain prices to pay for wrongdoing. But I'm not worried about hell and eternal punishments and all of that. As long as I'm trying to be what I think God wants me to be it will "be well with my soul."
Title: "Does Jesus Bring Peace?"
Text: Matthew 10:34
Theme: Having discovered a number of preaching possibilities in this passage, I would probably choose to deal with Jesus' rather startling statement that "I did not come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword." I'm tempted by several of the other possibilities, especially the one about the sparrow. But people who read the Bible and come across this passage may be troubled and confused by it, whereas the others are a little more understandable.
1. Jesus did, in fact, wish to bring peace. Consider some of Jesus' other statements. "If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall have it" (John 15:7). "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me" (John 12:32). "How glad and happy you will be" (Luke 1:14). "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom" (Luke 12:32). "Whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:16).
2. The "sword" is a surgical instrument, not a weapon, as Jesus uses the word here. Jesus never used military analogies in his teaching. Never. What he meant was to be seen in the context of his other controversial (until understood) statement that whoever loves close family members more than he is not worthy of him. It was an emphatic statement delivered to people at a time when what we think of as Christianity was a new interpretation of Jewish beliefs. It often required that a convert deny certain teachings of his or her own traditions and faith in order to embrace this new faith. Even today, we see the pain in families when a member embraces a faith different from that of the family. This summer I'm to perform a wedding of a church member to a young man whose family is Jewish. Both families, wonderful in their affirmation of the couple, are still grieving as they watch their children marry outside their faith. Jesus was, I believe, warning that in the early going there would be some inevitable misunderstanding, some pain within families, as young men and women decided to follow him.
3. We may find painful consequences of a true faith also. I don't think Jesus meant to wield a sword. He meant there will be consequences which will hurt. I once had an Indiana University student come to me for counseling because his roommate was selling drugs and he could not remain silent, yet knew there would be unhappy consequences if he told. I once had a star football player on a Big Ten team come to ask help in struggling with the temptation of sexual promiscuity while firmly believing in his family's strong Christian beliefs. It isn't easy. That was Jesus' point. To be a faithfully practicing Christian will inevitably place us in conflict with other cultural values, and whichever way we go, there will be some pain.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
John Rosemond, a child psychologist in South Carolina, writing in June of 1997 in response to a reader's question as to whether being a teenager is tougher today, wrote this: "I think you're right. The 'wrong crowd' is indeed more of a problem today than it was 30-something years ago.
"Part of the problem is one can no longer easily tell which teens are 'bad news' and which ones aren't. When you and I were teenagers, the kids in the wrong crowd generally stood out. Today, however, the wrong crowd has kids from all walks of life, and a 'bad reputation' is no longer necessarily bad in the eyes of other teens.
"Furthermore, this assessment is supported by the facts; namely, over the past 30 years, every indicator of positive mental health in teenagers has been going in the wrong direction. Drug and alcohol use, teen suicide, teen pregnancy, and delinquency have increased dramatically across the spectrum. There's absolutely no doubt about it: today's teenager is more prone to serious problems than was the typical teen in generations past."
____________
J. Wallace Hamilton told a delightful story of the time his little boy, still barely more than a toddler, was vacationing with the family at a favorite lake place. It bordered a small forest, and when Mother went to town on a shopping expedition, leaving the son with Dad, Hamilton said he instructed his son to stay close by, then settled in for a nap. However, the boy left to go exploring. Still awake, Hamilton saw the boy leave and instead of calling him back, followed him. The child had a great time, watching animals, seeing new sights, feeling independent, an explorer. But eventually, the little fellow became tired and looked around for the way home. Hamilton had remained just out of sight, and the boy, alone, lost, sat down on a log. At this point, his dad stepped out and Hamilton reported that the boy was not particularly surprised. He more or less assumed that if he got lost, his Dad would soon find him. So home they went. And Dr. Hamilton observed that here was a perfect illustration of the part God often plays in our lives.
____________
A friend once concealed a tape recorder in some flowers on the coffee table, and had invited many friends for the evening. It seemed a fun idea at the time. However, when the tape was played, one woman was horrified to hear herself discussed in most unflattering terms by another woman, the subject having not yet arrived for the party when the words were spoken. A friendship was ruined, a party broken up. I always remember this when I read Jesus' promise that what we say in private will be made public.
____________
A friend and church member came to me a few years ago, facing a serious vocational problem. He had discovered some very unsavory business practices on the part of his boss. My friend was a man of high moral character, having seriously considered the ministry as a profession when a younger man. Now, with a child in college and another to follow, and without a college degree, the man was in a quandary as to what he should do. Only one or two other companies did the same kind of work in our city, and the owners were all golfing buddies (my friend suspected they all did the same thing anyway). Entering middle age, he was at a loss as to where he could turn. It was the only kind of work he knew how to do. What would you have told him, do you think?
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17 (C) -- I am poor and needy. Preserve my life.
Psalm 69:1-18 (RC, E) -- I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched.
Prayer Of The Day
It isn't easy for us, O Lord, this business of being faithful in life's stressful arena. Sometimes we are not. Yet when night falls, and we look back across our day, we sometimes sicken at our failing and our guilt. Help us, O God, to renew our commitment, to find deep courage, that we may be more faithful. Forgive us, then, as we try yet again to be the people you called us to be. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Lesson 1: Genesis 21:8-21 (C)
If we needed evidence that those Old Testament folks had some strange ideas about God, we have it here. First, we see that Abraham was the father of "the son of Hagar," even though he was married to Sarah, which doesn't seem to have bothered anyone, least of all God. Then we see Hagar being "cast out" so that her son would not receive any inheritance. Then, most disturbing of all, we are told that God tells Abraham to send "your slave woman" away. No questions about the appropriateness of slave holding. God, in this report, seems not even to know Hagar's name. And when the boy is dying of thirst, his mother "lifted up her voice and wept," and it was the boy's voice which God heard, not hers. Little wonder women today have problems with the Bible. Except, of course, this is not an accurate representation of God but is, in fact, an ancient view of God, one which is a long way from the God we know through the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus.
I would only preach on this passage if someone made me do it. In that case, I'd deal with what I have just said, with the fact that in these Old Testament stories we have not historical reports, but ancient traditions designed to establish grounds for the later Jewish nation's solidarity.
Lesson 1: Jeremiah 20:10-13 (RC); Jeremiah 20:7-13 (E)
This is one outraged man. But Jeremiah is strong in his faith that God will empower him in his mission, that God will see to it that the bad guys are punished. The Babylonian threat hovers over the nation. Jeremiah has gone through a period of discouragement, convinced that God has not sustained him, but when he vows to remain silent, he feels "something like a burning fire" shut up in his bones. He must speak, and Jeremiah throws it right smack in the face of Pash'hur, his most immediate tormentor, but for all to hear. This all took place around 650 B.C.
Lesson 2: Romans 6:1b-11 (C); Romans 5:12-15 (RC); Romans 5:15b-19 (E)
This gets a little complicated for the average parishioner on Sunday (and for the average preacher, like me, who has to read this over several times to follow just what Paul is saying). The word "sin" itself is a bit unfamiliar to most mainline congregations. It needs some defining in order to make this passage clear. One good definition is that sin is doing something you believe to be wrong. That works for preaching, since complicated reasoning about such things is quickly lost to those good folks who don't need much to turn their thoughts to beating the Baptists to the local after-church restaurant. Sin is opposition to God, self-centeredness, unlovingness -- there are other definitions. What is important here is that sin can be a powerfully destructive force in our lives, a cancer of the spirit if you will, which Christ died to overcome. When we accept Christ as Lord and Savior, we, in a sense, die with him (as symbolized in baptism). Thus, since Christ was resurrected, we are promised new life, both here and hereafter. Since we will still go on sinning, we remain in perpetual need of forgiveness and renewal of our vows of faith and faithfulness.
Gospel: Matthew 10:24-39 (C); Matthew 10:26-33 (RC); Matthew 10:(16-23) 24-33 (E)
This is another of those brief passages rich in preaching possibilities. One, Jesus' warning that there is "nothing secret that will not be known." Remember the Collect for Purity of Heart: "... from whom no secrets are hid." We may have our private little failings which are known to few or none. But they are known to God.
A second preaching possibility is this line: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This is probably a reference to the powers of evil, a possible sermon in itself. Also, this passage applies whenever we find ourselves faced with a sore temptation to do wrong, or with pressure from others to do so.
Yet a third preaching possibility immediately follows in one of my favorite phrases: "Not one of them (sparrows) will fall to the ground apart from your Father." How intimately God understands our needs, our fears, our hopes. If God cares about a sparrow, he must surely care when you and I are faced with a frightening problem. And it would seem meaningless to say God cares were it not that we also believe he will assist in some way.
We could, of course, use the passage: "Whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven." I have a feeling Jesus didn't just mean "deny" in the sense of religious argumentation. He meant by the way we live, by how we treat others, by our faithfulness to our life's mission.
It really gets deep when we tackle the passage: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword." He goes on to warn that we are not to love those dearest to us more than we love him. I think Jesus did come to bring peace on earth, but here is warning that some surgery will be necessary first. And I don't think Jesus wants us running off to church so much that we neglect our loved ones. He only meant to use a hyperbole, an exaggeration to emphasize that we must not allow any sentiments to prevent us from wholehearted fidelity to the values and teachings of our faith.
That's not all. There is another excellent preaching opportunity in the closing words of this passage: "Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "The Things That You're Liable To Read In The Bible"
Text: Genesis 21:8-21
Theme: As I see it there are two possibilities here. It might be useful to explore the fact that Old Testament theology must be viewed through the prism of the New Testament. Women were hardly better than slaves in the ancient value systems, and slaves were literally nearly non-people, God not even able to think of Hagar's name, according to the fellow who wrote this passage. I did note that Abraham, who was said to be 75 when he started all of this and was referred to by Paul as nearly 100, has now fathered at least two children, only one with his wife Sarah. I'll let someone else deal with that one.
We could go to the end of the passage where God hears the baby's cry and rescues Hagar and her son by leading her to water. That's a good sermon possibility, but I think in these somewhat unrestful times as regards the church and feminism, it might be well to deal with the former idea.
1. Ancient people treated women differently than we today in Western culture. They weren't insensitive nor inhumane. They were living by the values they were taught, just as we do. Those who wrote the books of the Old Testament imputed to God values of their own, yet to their credit they had some lofty ethical standards and felt called to uphold them. They did, after all, give us monotheism, and they laid the groundwork for the advent of Jesus. What we are dealing with here is the evolution of humanity, and the evolution of humanity's understanding of God.
2. Jesus taught a better way. Many of his best friends were women, and he clearly related to them as equals, not inferiors. Even Paul, probably a first century chauvinist, still observed that "there is neither male nor female" in God's eyes, and he set the stage for a later era of enlightenment, though the time was not right to do much more in his day.
3. Today we are to carry out the progress initiated by all of this. So, the frustrating (to many) process of changing sexist language in Bible, prayer, and song is part of this. We old guys (and many gals) will suffer some frustration, but it must take place so that a younger generation can understand the feminine in God. When I was in seminary, women were not fully ordained in the Methodist Church. Today, somewhere around half of all seminary students are women. Congregations must be prepared for the changes this will bring to mainstream Protestantism.
Title: "What Do We Mean By Sin?"
Text: Romans 6:1b-11
Theme: Paul held out little hope for any of us apart from the salvation to be found in Jesus. Elsewhere in Romans, he wrote: "Everyone has sinned and is far away from God's saving presence" (3:23). Personally, I always struggled with the thought that God created me like this, put me in a family situation which programmed me in certain ways while I was too young to question, surrounded me with all kinds of temptations, then gets mad at me when I act the way I do. Except that's not how it really works. I think God understands me better than that, and is sympathetic with my (and your) plight. It's just that he wants the best for me, as I do for my kids. He is patient, long-suffering, giving me the benefit of the doubt. He leaves me free to make my way, always near when needed, makes allowances for some of my intellectual and spiritual disadvantages, and in a word, loves me. Paul was right, of course, but his main point, that by joining myself to Christ I can have a better life, is where my hope lies, as it does for all of us. For one thing, because of Paul and the Bible, I know where I stand. I know I'm to resist those temptations, try to be better than I am, make restitution and apology when I'm wrong, and understand there are certain prices to pay for wrongdoing. But I'm not worried about hell and eternal punishments and all of that. As long as I'm trying to be what I think God wants me to be it will "be well with my soul."
Title: "Does Jesus Bring Peace?"
Text: Matthew 10:34
Theme: Having discovered a number of preaching possibilities in this passage, I would probably choose to deal with Jesus' rather startling statement that "I did not come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword." I'm tempted by several of the other possibilities, especially the one about the sparrow. But people who read the Bible and come across this passage may be troubled and confused by it, whereas the others are a little more understandable.
1. Jesus did, in fact, wish to bring peace. Consider some of Jesus' other statements. "If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall have it" (John 15:7). "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me" (John 12:32). "How glad and happy you will be" (Luke 1:14). "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom" (Luke 12:32). "Whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:16).
2. The "sword" is a surgical instrument, not a weapon, as Jesus uses the word here. Jesus never used military analogies in his teaching. Never. What he meant was to be seen in the context of his other controversial (until understood) statement that whoever loves close family members more than he is not worthy of him. It was an emphatic statement delivered to people at a time when what we think of as Christianity was a new interpretation of Jewish beliefs. It often required that a convert deny certain teachings of his or her own traditions and faith in order to embrace this new faith. Even today, we see the pain in families when a member embraces a faith different from that of the family. This summer I'm to perform a wedding of a church member to a young man whose family is Jewish. Both families, wonderful in their affirmation of the couple, are still grieving as they watch their children marry outside their faith. Jesus was, I believe, warning that in the early going there would be some inevitable misunderstanding, some pain within families, as young men and women decided to follow him.
3. We may find painful consequences of a true faith also. I don't think Jesus meant to wield a sword. He meant there will be consequences which will hurt. I once had an Indiana University student come to me for counseling because his roommate was selling drugs and he could not remain silent, yet knew there would be unhappy consequences if he told. I once had a star football player on a Big Ten team come to ask help in struggling with the temptation of sexual promiscuity while firmly believing in his family's strong Christian beliefs. It isn't easy. That was Jesus' point. To be a faithfully practicing Christian will inevitably place us in conflict with other cultural values, and whichever way we go, there will be some pain.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
John Rosemond, a child psychologist in South Carolina, writing in June of 1997 in response to a reader's question as to whether being a teenager is tougher today, wrote this: "I think you're right. The 'wrong crowd' is indeed more of a problem today than it was 30-something years ago.
"Part of the problem is one can no longer easily tell which teens are 'bad news' and which ones aren't. When you and I were teenagers, the kids in the wrong crowd generally stood out. Today, however, the wrong crowd has kids from all walks of life, and a 'bad reputation' is no longer necessarily bad in the eyes of other teens.
"Furthermore, this assessment is supported by the facts; namely, over the past 30 years, every indicator of positive mental health in teenagers has been going in the wrong direction. Drug and alcohol use, teen suicide, teen pregnancy, and delinquency have increased dramatically across the spectrum. There's absolutely no doubt about it: today's teenager is more prone to serious problems than was the typical teen in generations past."
____________
J. Wallace Hamilton told a delightful story of the time his little boy, still barely more than a toddler, was vacationing with the family at a favorite lake place. It bordered a small forest, and when Mother went to town on a shopping expedition, leaving the son with Dad, Hamilton said he instructed his son to stay close by, then settled in for a nap. However, the boy left to go exploring. Still awake, Hamilton saw the boy leave and instead of calling him back, followed him. The child had a great time, watching animals, seeing new sights, feeling independent, an explorer. But eventually, the little fellow became tired and looked around for the way home. Hamilton had remained just out of sight, and the boy, alone, lost, sat down on a log. At this point, his dad stepped out and Hamilton reported that the boy was not particularly surprised. He more or less assumed that if he got lost, his Dad would soon find him. So home they went. And Dr. Hamilton observed that here was a perfect illustration of the part God often plays in our lives.
____________
A friend once concealed a tape recorder in some flowers on the coffee table, and had invited many friends for the evening. It seemed a fun idea at the time. However, when the tape was played, one woman was horrified to hear herself discussed in most unflattering terms by another woman, the subject having not yet arrived for the party when the words were spoken. A friendship was ruined, a party broken up. I always remember this when I read Jesus' promise that what we say in private will be made public.
____________
A friend and church member came to me a few years ago, facing a serious vocational problem. He had discovered some very unsavory business practices on the part of his boss. My friend was a man of high moral character, having seriously considered the ministry as a profession when a younger man. Now, with a child in college and another to follow, and without a college degree, the man was in a quandary as to what he should do. Only one or two other companies did the same kind of work in our city, and the owners were all golfing buddies (my friend suspected they all did the same thing anyway). Entering middle age, he was at a loss as to where he could turn. It was the only kind of work he knew how to do. What would you have told him, do you think?
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17 (C) -- I am poor and needy. Preserve my life.
Psalm 69:1-18 (RC, E) -- I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched.
Prayer Of The Day
It isn't easy for us, O Lord, this business of being faithful in life's stressful arena. Sometimes we are not. Yet when night falls, and we look back across our day, we sometimes sicken at our failing and our guilt. Help us, O God, to renew our commitment, to find deep courage, that we may be more faithful. Forgive us, then, as we try yet again to be the people you called us to be. In Jesus' name. Amen.
