A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ ! The story is told of a man and his son.   For the weeks and days before Christmas, the son kept pestering his father, saying, “Dad, what are you going to get me for Christmas?”   Hard to believe for you parents, I know.   “I want this” and “I want that” and “What are you going to get me?” Finally, the father said, “Son, stop saying that.   Christmas isn’t about getting .   It’s about giving .” The father was pleased when he saw his son quietly thinking about this.   Perhaps he was learning the real meaning of Christmas.   Then the boy asked quite seriously: “Dad, on Christmas, what are you going to give me?” Thanks to Old Adam, our sinful nature, we have a way of messing up the whole idea of gifts.   Gifts are, by definition, undeserved.   A paycheck is not a gift because you’ve done the work to earn it.    A b...

An audio version of this sermon is availabe at http://www.christsiouxfalls.org/media/sermons/2012-10-21.mp3 The Worship of Mammon by Evelyn De Morgan Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To their credit, Pastor Nix and lay leaders of this congregation have rightly made the point that Christian stewardship is not just about money or only about what happens in the Church, but that it is about the management of all of God’s resources in our whole lives.  So it’s somewhat unfortunate that today our message will be about money.   It could give the mistaken impression that regardless of what has been said, this stewardship emphasis is really about increasing offerings.      That’s one of the advantages of being a liturgical church.   None of us picked our readings.   They are part of a three-year lectionary, a collection of Scripture readings arranged according to the Church’s calendar and use...