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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

Sermon: Looking for Reasons

February 28, 2016 by Chad Herring Leave a Comment

February 28, 2016 – Looking for Reasons from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

A sermon preached at The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on February 28, 2016.

Isaiah 55:1-11
and Luke 13:1-9

12159375856_36973c77e0_o

I don’t mean to be a downer. Really, I don’t.
But just open the newspaper,
turn on the television,
glance at your twitter feed,
pull up your favorite news website any given week
and it probably bears some bad news for you.

It seems like the narrative is the same,
and only the locations change.

Tornados.
Floods.
Earthquakes and Tsunamis—
all of them wrecking havoc and altering lives.

Such are the stories that make the headlines,
because that’s what sells papers, perhaps,
but if our eyes are open even a little bit
we also might become aware of the less heralded
but no less dramatic or consequential
tragedies of our day
like the roughly 20,000 people who died this past Wednesday of hunger
many of them children
roughly the same number who died on Tuesday, and Thursday
and every other day too, every day of the year
according to the United Nations.

The difficult part is so much tragedy is all too real.

Millions around the world don’t have access to safe drinking water.
Or all the shootings.
This week close to here, at Excel Industries in Hesston, Kansas.

In every one of these situations,
families and loved ones grieved…in every one.
And at some level,
every one of those grieving people probably asked the same question
“Why?”

It just doesn’t seem fair.
Why would God let such a thing happen?
What had anyone done to deserve such tragedy?

///
In Jesus’ day, there was no question about fairness.

The assumption just was there that disease and violence
suffering and death bore a direct correlation with human sinfulness:
the greater the sin, the more likely the misfortune.

We call this Just Deserts: you get what you deserve.
[Read more…]

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Filed Under: faith, God, sermon, theology

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Chad Andrew Herring

Chad Herring

kairos :: creature of dust :: child of God :: husband of 19 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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