faith — Page 7

August 14, 2016 – “Fearless Faith – Weathering the Storms of Life” from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

Fearless Faith: Weathering the Storms of Life

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on August 14, 2016.
The first in a sermon series on Facing our Fears through a Life of Faith.

2 Corinthians 6:1-13
and Mark 4:35-41

The assignment was about memorization.

It was for an English class, sometime in middle school.
The Memorization was perhaps the main thing that worried me about it,
because I wasn’t then, and am not now, very good at reciting back.
Its one reason I work from manuscripts rather than memory:
I can capture dates and details,
I can analyze the forest or the trees, depending on what we need
but ask me to get the words right on a song I’ve heard a thousand times
or to relay the exact nuance of a voicemail message
well… not my strong suit.

But that middle-school assignment was to memorize a poem.
The Poem assigned to me: Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken.

So I took it home, and I worked on it
and read it, and read it again
and did some of those mnemonic exercises
of imagining myself at various stages of the composition
doing what it was doing, you know,
so I could remember how it worked its way along
and I got myself pretty worked up.

Not because I wasn’t trying. I was.
Not because I wasn’t succeeding. I was doing ok.
Maybe not as well as I wanted to
but I’d pass. One way or another, I’d be ok.

Not because I’d have to speak in front of class. That’s was all right.
But because I knew this was a particular weakness of mine,
and I’d be EXPOSED.

The date came,
and then third period I went to English class.

And I stood before the class and I recited the poem.
I didn’t get it all right, but most of it:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

///
Maybe the most beautiful thing about that whole experience
was how that poem has stuck with me
and sometimes I’ll pull it out,
butchered, of course, getting some detail wrong
since I can’t recite memorized things for the life of me
but the main points, the broad strokes, for sure..
the images, the texture of the poem
life as a journey—one we all have to take
there’s no stopping, not really
you’re on the road, not parked along side
and you’ve got to choose; you’ve got to take a path.

Thinking about the assignment: I think I got a B. Too long ago to remember. [Read more…]

July 31, 2016 – Summertime Fruit – The Whole Basket Full from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

Summertime Fruit: The Whole Basket Full

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on July 31, 2016.
The ninth in a sermon series on The Fruit of the Spirit.

Adapted from a previous sermon series at Southminster Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kansas
and inspired and using ideas and content from the Rev. Chris B. Herring
preached at Westminster Presbyterian Church of Saint Louis. Original citation lost.

2 Peter 1:1-8
and Galatians 5:16-25

I returned back home after another work trip recently
and sat down to read this poem called Daybreak.
It nurtured my soul and re-oriented me back to life:

Early Morning. Early spring.
Light comes to the earth’s lip, a taste of day’s dawn.
Coffee comes to my lips, a sip of brewed awakening.
This time alone—the furnace still asleep at its nighttime setting,
the dog unmoving among the muddy boots
piled in the pantry—
I sit in a chair that sighs as I settle.

Outside, a few crows caw plots of thievery.
They are like noisy shadows,
dark harbingers of tomorrow’s troubles.
Outside, thawed soil has recently endured the overturning blades.
It curls back upon itself row upon row, open and receptive.
I drain the cup and pause, struck by the fullness of gratitude within me.
In spirit I am myself a lengthening day, a land furrowed and ready.

And there is work to be done.[1]

///
Sometimes we know there is work to be done in our lives, I think
and we turn to God for help, for guidance,
for shaping what we are and what we can be.

One sort of place to look for inspiration
is the notion that God can work in us all sorts of wonderful things.

The Apostle Paul, when he sat down to do some work
and wrote the letter we now call Galatians
he thought about God’s working in us as a basket of fruit
juicy oranges
tart apples
succulent strawberries and melons and grapes
lemons for lemonade and limes for making your lips pucker
kiwis and mangos and bananas.

So so good.

Its meant to be inviting, this idea,
not just because we know it tastes so darn good
but because we know how good it is for us, right.

And so it is with these gifts of the spirit.

Now, we’ve covered a lot of ground since we started way back in May.
You’ve made it, hurrah,
all the way through Paul’s list of the Fruit of the Spirit
these qualities of human living made possible
not only because they are gifts from God
and also because we allow them to work in us and through us
as we aspire to be more deeply, more truly, more wholly God’s people.

Let us look at the fruit basket, and see what we’ve discovered: [Read more…]

Sermon: Fearless Faith–Weathering the Storms of Life

Sermon: Summertime Fruit–The Whole Basket Full