Sermons

I’m sort of allergic to buzzwords. You know what I mean: words or phrases that become sort of trendy, and they get thrown around to the point that they lose all their meaning. Things like “throw them under the bus.” Or “in harm’s way,” which I know started out as sort of a cute way to describe someone being in a dangerous situation; but it’s just gotten out of hand now.

It became popular about thirty years ago, and still is in some circles, to wear bracelets and other doodads with the initials “W.W.J.D.” on them. The letters, as I’m sure you know, stand for “What would Jesus do?” We are encouraged to consider how Jesus might act in any situation, as we decide how we should act.

Fred Craddock once visited a church’s prayer group.  While he was there, he saw the group’s little book where they kept record of the things they had prayed for.  If a request was granted, they would make a note of the date on which it happened.

Fred looked at the things the group had asked for, and was sort of flabbergasted:  luxury cars, furs, dates, that sort of thing.  And he wondered, “Is that what prayer is for?”

Many years ago Mike was flipping through the TV channels when he happened on a dramatization of the Gospel of Matthew. We tuned in during the Sermon on the Mount, just in time to see Jesus talking about judgment, and minding other people’s business.

A couple shape note singers I know used to be in a sort of punk-ish band called Cordelia’s Dad. I have one of their albums, on which there is a song called “Imaginary Trouble.”

One of the first things we learn when we begin to study the Psalms is how, in Hebrew poetry, what rhymes is ideas, not necessarily words. So you have parallelisms, generally synonymous or antithetical.

Awhile back I bought some books from a friend of mine who has a sort of continuing online garage sale going. These books had belonged to his grandmother, who passed away a couple years ago. They were mostly “how-to” books; one was intended to teach knitting, crocheting (which I already know how to do), and other handcrafts.

The Sermon on the Mount, as it’s presented in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, is pretty loosely organized. There’s a lot in there, too. We’re spending the summer in these three chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, and we will barely scratch the surface of it.

The Iowa caucuses, for my party, at least, are sort of fun. (The other party’s caucus, I’m told, is a whole lot more controlled, but ours tends to be quite a bit more free-wheeling and chaotic.) We gather at our designated place on the designated night, and the first thing that happens is some of the local party leaders make a few speeches, then give instructions on what we’re to do. Then supporters of candidate “A” go to one room, and candidate “B”’s supporters go to another one, and so on until all the candidates’ supporters are separated out into their places.

When non-Christians level criticisms at us, one of the main ones is that we tend to be legalistic. They might say we are much too focused on following rules, and especially on enforcing those rules on others.

The Beatitudes, our subject for last week, started out speaking in generalities. Then there was a transition in the middle of the last one. It started out with, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake…” and then Jesus turns and looks his listeners in the eye and says, “Blessed are you…”

What does it mean to be happy? It tends to be situational, doesn’t it? We’re happy when we’re having fun, when things are going our way, when people like us, when we’re healthy, when our worries and stresses about jobs and money and the like are at a minimum. Take any of those out of the equation, and would we be happy?