bible — Page 2

January 17, 2016 – "May Your Saucer Be Full" from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on January 17, 2016.

On Friday, Nora and Tessa and Brook
had the day off…a rare treat.
And they decided to make the treat a sweet one
by taking in an honest-to-goodness Afternoon Tea
at the Clock Tower Bakery in Overland Park.

I saw pictures, so I know its true.
There were savery treats. There were sweat treats.
And there was tea. It was oh so delicious. Lucky girls.
They had huge smiles on their faces. Lots of fun.

It reminded me that I heard once
about how some African-American faith communities
have a marvelous expression they like to share:
May your saucer always be full.[i]

You remember saucers, don’t you?
–Those little plates we use with a tea cup or a coffee cup?

Even though coffee these days, at least in my office,
is mostly consumed straight from a mug
or sometimes, worse, from cardboard cups with plastic sippy lids
and corrugated cup holders,
we can sometimes see saucers with cups of tea.

I even have a few in my cupboard.

Just in case there’s anyone here who is etiquette-challenged,
the whole point of a saucer is to catch whatever liquid happens to slosh over
the rim of the cup.

The fuller the cup, the more likely one is to slosh.
Hence the expression: May your saucer always be full.

May your cup always be full. So full, its OVERFLOWING.

///
This is an appropriate blessing to offer to a couple who is about to marry, I think.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on November 15, 2015.

Jeremiah 29:4-14
and 1 Corinthians 13

I remember it well.
It was sometime in June, 2007, and it was my first Summer mission trip
with the youth group of the last church I was serving,
Southminster Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village.

We packed up a couple of 12 passenger vans
with sleeping bags and gear and kids—including Meg Swagerty
and Hannah too, I think
and we drove from Kansas City to
John Calvin Presbyterian Church in Metarie, Louisiana,
a suburb of New Orleans
where we unloaded the sleeping bags and gear and kids
and got ready for a week of mucking out
and demolition in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

And we got there,
and we sat in a big circle for orientation
and they talked to us about the storm and its aftermath
the things we might expect to see as we drove through the city
not just the cleaned up parts prioritized for tourists
and business
but the lower wards, where there might just be one or two
residents who had stayed on an entire city block
and the FEMA trailers and the flood lines marking how high
the waters came.

They told us how to wear the special respirators to protect us from the mold
and how to avoid stepping through a nail and how to not be under a ceiling
when swinging a sledgehammer.

You know, good things to tell 7 through 12^th graders.
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Sermon: May Your Saucer Be Full

Sermon: The Future Kirk–Hopeful Loving