A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen. The text for today is Matthew 21:5: “ Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’” Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! “Your king is coming to you.”   Those words can either warm your heart with comfort and joy, or bring the deep chill of fear and trepidation.   It all depends on your perspective.   It all depends on who the king is, and what your relationship is to him.   Take, for instance, King Herod and the Magi. Seeing the special star in the east, the Magi head to Jerusalem.   It is only natural for them to assume that a newborn king of the Jews would enter this world in the royal palace.   But wise as they are, their inquiry before King Herod shows little tact and even less understanding of who this man is.   For with this innocent question the paranoid king immediately suspec...

An adaptation of a short story by W.R. Evans I am an old church pew, an ordinary pew—like the ones you folks are sitting in now.   I belonged in a nice, ordinary church—something like your church.   My church was made up, for the most part, of ordinary, everyday people—people like you.   People who got together every Sunday for worship, who gathered with their families and friends for special holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. As some of you may have already discovered, one of the pleasures of old age is thinking back over one’s experiences and telling stories about people we have known.   I find it helps me remain more thankful for all of God’s blessings I have now, and it enables me to hold onto my hope for the future when I consider what He has already done in the past.   And since this is the evening before Thanksgiving Day—a time in which we reflect upon God’s blessings—I thought you might be interested in hearing my story. ...

Click here to listen to this sermon. An mp3 version is available upon request. "Cleansing of the Ten Lepers" by James Tissot The word of the Lord from Luke 17: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! What would it take to get you to beg?   What would it take for you to swallow your pride and ask for help from a total stranger, a passing acquaintance, even a close friend or family member?    Recently a friend of mine was on the news.   Perhaps you saw the story.   It was about the man in Rapid City who wanted to get his smile back.   A succession of health problems and limited finances had prevented him from fixing the teeth that troubled him for years.   Finally, he decided to do something about it—he set up an account on the internet to ask people to help.   “The hardest thing I've ever had to do is to do this, you know, to swallow my pride and ask for help," he sai...