"Needing One Another"
A Sermon on 1 Corinthians 12:14-26 and Isaiah 43:16-21 by David Bartlett, for the Atlanta Regional Conference, April 19, 2013: "... there may be just a little danger as you in your church and I in mine face the possibility of schism and the fights over property and budgets and pensions – there may be just a little danger that we will move beyond what we have every right to say: “I disagree with you entirely” – to what we have no place in Christ’s body to say: “Good riddance; we have no need of you.”Is there some way that we can stand fast for justice and still work toward reconciliation?"
“Beyond Welcome and into God’s Freedom”
A Sermon on Isaiah 61:1-4 and Galatians 3:26-29 by Deborah Krause, for the Regional Conference at Second Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, MO, February 16, 2013: '...What does it mean to say “We Invite All?” Just who do “we” think we are? Who are these all we think we invite? Do they really want to come? If so, where the heck are they? And more seriously, just where do “we” imagine we are – to do this inviting of these “all” we welcome?...'
The Way Toward Birth - Dawning Light
A Sermon on Isaiah 11: 1-10 & Luke 1: 67-79 by the Rev. Ken Kovacs: "...the incarnation is not a one-time occurrence but something that has fundamentally changed and is changing the very structure of our existence. In the incarnation we discover a “demonstration” that God is forever “risking spirit” by being active in the world and our lives. The Spirit enters and for all it’s worth charges into earth – where? Yes, in Jesus, but in birth after birth, ever fresh and fresh. In your birth and my birth ever fresh and fresh, doing something new."
Forgetting Reinhold Niebuhr
A Sermon on Isaiah 58:9-14 and Galatians 5:13-15 by Chris Henry at Shallowford Presbyterian Church, November 4, 2012: "...So, remembering Reinhold Niebuhr calls the church back to its God-given prophetic task in the community and in the world. When people are suffering in our nation and around the world, the church is called to respond. When injustice and hatred deny to some the abundant life God offers to all, the demands of the gospel compel us to speak and to act. Niebuhr was right: the church must never shrink from its call to be the body of Christ beyond the walls of the sanctuary. But there is a difference between Niebuhr’s Christian Realism and the idealistic activism of the Social Gospel movement that he finally dismissed. The difference is Niebuhr’s emphatic insistence on humility and his awareness of the ubiquity of sin. If we were able to ask Reinhold Niebuhr which aspect of the current political climate most exasperated him, my guess would be this: the self-righteousness of all sides..."
Ordination Sermon for Scott Anderson
John Knox Presbytery ordained Scott Anderson to the ordered ministry of Teaching Elder on Saturday, October 8. Here's the sermon by the Rev. Dr. Mark Achtemeier.