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Sermon: When All You Can Do Is Weep

June 26, 2017 by Chad Herring Leave a Comment

When All You Can Do Is Weep.

June 25, 2017 – “When All You Can Do is Weep” from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on June 25, 2017.

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Revelation 21:1-6
and Genesis 21:8-21

John Buchanan tells this great story
About his failings when trying to preach about Hagar the Egyptian.

The last time I preached a sermon on the story of Hagar,
the Egyptian slave and her son Ishmael, I got in trouble.
I was invited to preach at the installation of a friend of mine
 [that’s when they formally make her the new pastor of a church]
and she asked me, specifically, to preach on THIS story. So I did.

It is a big church in the South,
the kind of southern Presbyterian institution
where on the wall of portraits of past session members
and clerks and pastors
you can find a few Confederate Generals.

It is also the kind of institution that reflects
the genuine hospitality and graciousness of its culture.

Now I know it’s a regional stereotype,
but it has been my experience
that Yankees are particularly receptive and responsive
and vulnerable to Southern graciousness. We love it.

After all, we’re not often told how wonderful we are
and how lovely it is that we came to the party
and how fascinating and interesting we are.

So I preached a Hagar and Ishmael sermon for my friend
and afterward I was utterly enjoying greeting the people
and being told how wonderful and fascinating
and interesting I was.

I noticed a woman who seemed to be waiting until the line was gone.
When she greeted me,
she took my hand in both of hers and smiled and said
with sweetness and sincerity,
“Mr. Buchanan, it was lovely of you to come
all the way down here from Chicago to be with us this morning.
I just wanted you to know that I hated your sermon.”

She squeezed my hand, smiled sweetly and walked away.
And I said, “Thank you very much.”

So I haven’t returned to the text for a decade.

That was his way of getting into to this text, once again,
after a bit of a break.

As he said: It’s hot—this story is—perhaps too hot to handle.[i]

And why is that?
Well: Everybody has to hate someone, it seems.
And we don’t like to think about that too often.

Anthropologists and sociologists will argue
that we need someone with whom to make
unflattering and derogatory comparisons
you know, in order to feel good about ourselves
and establish our own identity.

We need a ‘they’ who WE are not, in order to know who WE are.

We need someone to be an outsider so WE can be an insider.

THEY are lazy, immoral, undependable, can’t trust them,
they even smell funny.

That’s how Catholics and Protestants regarded each other
for centuries in Northern Ireland—
Greeks and Turks for generations,
Armenians and Azerbaijani,
Jews and Arabs, Hatfields and McCoys,
Royals and Cardinal fans (oh, I meant to take that one out).

I’ve been re-watching Game of Thrones
Getting ready for the launch of season 7 this July
And if there’s anything in that sordid, violent mess of a television show
That we relate to, it’s the vicious struggle of us-versus-them
That it taps into.
Targarians. Baratheons. Starks. Tullies.
Choose your banner and fight your foe.

While some claim that it is the primary cause of all of this,
There is no doubt that, often,
religion is brought into play to support the process of demonization.

The more we can make our enemies different, or strange
Or smelly. Or inhuman, the easier it is for us to do this. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: church life, Current Affairs, humanity, Jesus, relationships, sermon

Sermon: I Confess–Standing Where the Lord Stands

October 16, 2016 by Chad Herring Leave a Comment

October 16, 2016 ~ “I Confess – Standing Where the Lord Stands” from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

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I Confess: Standing Where the Lord Stands.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on October 16, 2016.

Amos 5:14-15, 22-24
and Luke 18:1-8

The Confession of Belhar

Then Jesus told them a parable
about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 
 
He said,
‘In a certain city there was a judge
a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 
And in that city there was a widow
who kept coming to the judge saying,
“Grant me justice against my opponent.” 

For a while he refused; but later he said to himself,
“Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 
yet because this widow keeps bothering me,
I will grant her justice,
so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” ’

And the Lord said,
‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 
And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones
who cry to him day and night?
Will he delay long in helping them? 

I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.
And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

And may God bless our reading
and our understanding
and our applying these words, to how we live our lives. Amen.

///
Jesus speaks most powerfully to us when he speaks in Parables
These quirky, pointed, imaginative stories that Jesus weaves.

These parables of Jesus are perhaps the best examples of
how Jesus is a teacher:
trying to help us learn about who God is and what God is doing.

You’ll note that Jesus rarely lectures.
He doesn’t offer three points and an illustration.

Instead, he chooses these little stories.

The parables are all about the Kingdom of God that Jesus gives witness to.
A reality where God’s values are our values
God’s concerns, are our concerns.

In this Kingdom,
we learn who are neighbor is, and that we’re asked to care for her
when she is wounded, when she is hurting
even when others cross the street
to avoid the shame or the blame of doing so.

In this Kingdom,
we learn that God keeps the light on,
even for the child who has left for another country, another Kingdom
squandering all the wealth of his inheritance
and that when the child returns, if the wayward child returns
that God, with such a wild, overflowing, prodigal love
runs to greet him and throws a party
and cries tears of joy for the lost one newly found.

In this Kingdom,
we learn that a widow presses her concerns for justice
and she presses
and she presses
and she presses….for she knows that righteousness is on her side
and unlike this realm
where judges may not care for justice
may not attend to truth
may only relent due to pressure or weariness or prudence
in God’s realm, says our text for the day
God will not delay
not in God’s new world.

///
Jesus speaks most powerfully to us when he speaks in Parables. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: ethics, God, humanity, Jesus, sermon

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Chad Andrew Herring

Chad Herring

kairos :: creature of dust :: child of God :: husband of 21 years :: father of 2 :: teaching elder/minister of word and sacrament in the presbyterian church (u.s.a.) :: exploring a progressive-reformed – emergent-christianity :: more

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