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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 Choose You

May 21, 2017 by Chad Herring Leave a Comment

May 21, 2017 – “I Choose You” from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

I Choose You.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on May 21, 2017.

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Acts 10:34-48
and John 15:9-17

I saw a puppy the other day.

Not just a young dog. A puppy.
Soft. Eager eyed. Maybe a week or two old.
Fur still had that brand new dog smell.

Such an adorable puppy.

It was a lot of fun to play with, even if it did want to gnaw on my fingers a bit.
She’ll make her forever family a great companion.

As I was playing with her, I remembered this story
That one of my favorite storytelling preacher types, Barbara Bundick
Used to tell. A story about puppies.[i]

Once upon a time,
a farmer in Wisconsin had some puppies he needed to sell.

So he painted a simple sign, advertising the pups
 and set about nailing the sign to a post on the edge of his yard.
It wasn’t way way outside of town.
It was a good spot with people passing by.
He hoped it would get noticed quickly.

And as he was driving the LAST nail into that post,
Wouldn’t you know it
 he felt a tug on his overalls.

He looked down, straight into the eyes of a little boy.

“Mister,” the boy said, matter-of-factly
“I want to buy one of your puppies.”

“Well,” said the farmer, as he rubbed the sweat off the back of his neck,
“These puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money.”

The boy dropped his head for a moment.
But just for a moment,
Then he started reaching deep into his pocket,
And pulled out a handful of change.

He held it up to the farmer with a big hopeful smile.
“Hey, I’ve got thirty-nine cents. Is that enough to take a look?”

“Sure” said the farmer. And with that he let out a whistle,
“Here, Dolly!” he called.

Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran Dolly,
 followed by four little balls of fur.
They scampered close, kinda jumping on top of each other.

The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence.
His eyes danced with delight.

As the dogs made their way to the fence,
the little boy noticed something else, though
 stirring, back there inside the doghouse.

Slowly, another little ball appeared;
 this one was noticeably…well, SMALLER.

Down the ramp it slid.
Then in a somewhat awkward manner,
the little pup began hobbling toward the others,
doing its best to catch up.

“I want that one! I want that one!” the little boy squealed, pointing to the runt.

The farmer sighed,
And kindly kneeled down to the boy’s side and said,
“Son, you don’t want that puppy.
He will never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would.
Take a look at the others…”

There was a brief pause.
And then the little boy stepped back from the fence.
He reached down,
and began rolling up one leg of his trousers,
 revealing to the farmer a steel brace
  running down both sides of his leg
  attaching itself to a specially made shoe.

Looking back up at him, the boy said,
  “You see, sir, I don’t run too well myself,
   and he will need someone who understands….
   I think he’ll be perfect…”

///
A bit sappy, I grant you,
But this story brings into clear relief the best aspects of
the two scripture passages before us this morning.

This Season of Easter,
The period between Easter Sunday and Pentecost
Which comes up in two weeks
Is designed to walk us through how everything has changed
Now that Christ is ALIVE and Death no longer reigns.

One way to do that is to look carefully at the story in the Acts of the Apostles.

After the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ,
these earliest disciples are TRANSFORMED
from FEAR to COURAGE
from DOUBT to HOPE
from CLOSED MINDS to OPEN HEARTS…
and ALL because of the work of the holy spirit in their midst.

The ACTS itself is a narrative of the early church wrestling with
the wild, unpredictable, unsettling movement of God in their midst.
[Read more…]

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Filed Under: Jesus, presbyterian church (usa), relationships, sermon, theology

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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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