Sermons & Messages
Psalm 145:10-18; John 6:1-21
The 8th Sunday after Pentecost
July 26, 2009
Pastor William S. Waxenberg
One of the great joys in my life—and there are many—but one of them is my early morning daily walk near our home. I usually take the same path: down our street, and then I turn right and follow a walking path that parallels a creek lined with trees on both sides. Walking this route over and over affords me the opportunity to see the same people, almost daily. Last Wednesday morning was cooler than it had been for weeks. There was a slight breeze coming out of the north, and it was pleasant enough for us to open our windows for a while. Thursday morning was just about as nice, and as I passed one of the couples I’d seen and spoken to the day before, she said, referring to the cooler weather two days in a row, “What did we do to deserve this?”
GOOD ENOUGH
Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38
Second Sunday in Lent
March 8, 2009
Pastor William S. Waxenberg
His name was David Goodenough. But if you broke apart David’s last name—Goodenough—it spelled ‘good enough.’ David ‘Good-enough.’ But, of course, his last name wasn’t pronounced that way. It was pronounced Goodenough. Which was a good thing, because David was never good enough.
Genesis 9:8-17; I Peter 3:1-18
First Sunday in Lent
March 1, 2009
Pastor William S. Waxenberg
The play. It was great! A couple of weeks ago, Carol and I went to the Dallas Theatre Center and saw the play, In the Beginning. It’s the story of the opening chapters of Genesis. The Scriptures were read aloud, actors portrayed the different characters—Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his family. There was music, commentary, and then, when the play ended, there was dialogue between the actors and the audience. It was a delightful evening. I hope some of you saw it.
HEALING IN THE MIDST OF OUR MESSINESS
2 Kings 5:1-14; Mark 1:40-45
The 6th Sunday after the Epiphany
February 15, 2009
Pastor William S. Waxenberg
Life can be messy, can’t it? I mean we can go along for quite some time when everything seems calm and collected, but then, in a heartbeat, the messiness of life, always lurking around the edges, seeps in.
That messiness, of course, takes different forms.
Sometimes it’s relationships that are messy. Last week I received a phone call from Eileen, an old friend. We grew up together, and, for a time, lived next door to each other. Eileen now lives in Chicago with her husband. They’re empty-nesters. That means their kids have moved out to be on their own and things supposedly calm down. But when Eileen called me last week, she was on her way home from Washington DC where she’d spent a couple of days with her two adult children. As we talked about her kids, she laughed and asked, “When do we get to stop being parents?” We don’t! Parents are always parents, from the womb to the grave. Oh, the parent/child relationship may well change over the years. We may become friends with our children. Instead of our relationship being adult-to-child, it becomes adult-to-adult. But, truth be told, when their lives get messy, their messiness overflows into our lives. Even when we’re 90 and our kids are 65, we’ll still be their parents. And life will still be messy.
IS THERE ANYTHING THAT ASTOUNDS US ANYMORE?
Mark 1: 21-28
The 4th Sunday after the Epiphany
February 1, 2009
Pastor William S. Waxenberg
What amazes you? What astounds you? Anything?
A story about Michael Rinehart. You don’t know Mike. I first met Mike when he was serving as an intern in Arlington and I was serving as a pastor in Grapevine. A couple of years later, when I was called to be the senior pastor of a church in Iowa, we called Mike to be our youth pastor. That was in 1988. Mike went on to serve congregations in Charlotte, North Carolina, and then down in Conroe, near Houston. In 2007, Mike was elected bishop of the Texas Gulf Coast Synod. From youth pastor to bishop in about eighteen, twenty years. Amazing!
Deuteronomy 8:7-18
Pastor William S. Waxenberg
(Click here to download this sermon as a PDF file)
What is it that saddens your heart? I suspect that for most of us, sadness finds us when we see pictures of children who are hungry, children who are without clothing or shelter, children who are abused. Or sadness may find us when we’re disappointed by certain events in life.
When I was about eight or nine years old, Cecil B. DeMille’s movie, The Ten Commandments, was released. You’ve probably seen it. It’s shown on TV each year on Easter Sunday, which always seems a bit odd to me, but that’s when it typically appears. Anyway, my mom and dad took me to see the movie and, at the end, I remember crying all the way home. When my parents asked me why I was crying, I told them that it was because Moses didn’t get to cross the Jordan River and enter the Promise Land. Instead, he dies atop Mt. Nebo.
It seemed so sad, so unfair! I mean, after all, here was Moses who had faced Pharaoh, the Egyptian king. Here was Moses who had lived through the Ten Plagues. Here was Moses who had led his people through the wilderness for forty years—and a cantankerous people at that! And now, here was God telling Moses that he wasn’t allowed to enter the Promise Land. It made me very sad indeed.
It also makes me sad when I run into people who have no idea whom to thank for all their blessings. People who haven’t a clue that all good gifts come from the hand of a loving and generous God. People who take and take and use and use and enjoy and enjoy, but who never give a thought to where these gifts come from.
