Sermon Central
-
Lent 2024
Contributed by W Pat Cunningham on Jan 26, 2024 (message contributor)
-
1. Choose Life And Goodness
Contributed on Jan 26, 2024
The way of sin vs the way of life.
Thursday after Ash Wednesday 2024 Today we begin our solemn preparation for the Pasch–the annual commemoration of the Passover of Jesus. He gave Himself freely up to an unjust death for our redemption, and left us sacraments in His assembly–His Church–for all who would believe in Him. And the ...read more
-
2. Jesus Forgives Sin, But. . .
Contributed on Feb 13, 2024
Jesus remains focused on His mission. Note that He doesn’t say something like, “well, these guys are products of their environments.”
Saturday After Ash Wednesday 2024 Jesus was in conflict with the Jewish religious leaders of His time pretty much all the time. The other day we heard in Mark that Jesus told the disciples to “beware” of the “leaven” of the Pharisees and the Herodians. Today Jesus is having dinner with His new ...read more
-
3. Complete But Maybe Not Flawless?
Contributed on Feb 14, 2024
Ordinarily we think of anything “perfect” as being totally flawless.
First Sunday of Lent 2024 When we begin a project, it’s always helpful, even critical, to look forward to the end, to the moment when the project is complete. In the Latin, the word we want is perfectus. Ordinarily we think of anything “perfect” as being totally flawless. That is a ...read more
-
4. How We Can Be Called "blessed"
Contributed on Feb 20, 2024
The Law is good, but the command of Jesus makes it even better.
Saturday of First Week in Lent 2023 Today the psalmist declares: “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD! Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart.” These words begin the longest psalm in the Bible, psalm 119, which is a ...read more
-
5. Responsibility For Our Own Sins And Crimes
Contributed on Feb 23, 2024
We must learn from scripture that not only individuals, but whole societies, risk destruction and death when we/they ignore the Law of God.
Friday of the First Full Week in Lent 2024 “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” says the Lord GOD, “and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” Those are the words of God reported to us by the prophet Ezekiel, off in Babylonian exile with the elite of Israel. His ...read more
-
6. Who Were The People Liberated From Egypt?
Contributed on Feb 24, 2024
It’s not important to our eternal happiness just who our ancestors are, or what racial or ethnic group we belong to.
Who Were the People Liberated From Egypt? Lent 2024 In today’s Scripture reading from Matins, we read how Moses and the other Israelite leaders led their people out of Egypt. The numbers look staggering: “six hundred thousand on foot, not counting the children.” Now there was no roll call, but we ...read more
-
7. Just Whose Steadfast Love Does God Delight In?
Contributed on Feb 27, 2024
God has joy in that fidelity He enjoys within the Blessed Trinity of love and faithfulness.
Saturday of Second Week in Lent 2024 Our Scripture from the prophet Micah comes in the middle of a chapter that begins inauspiciously, “what misery is mine.” And it goes on to tell the tale of fruitless fields, uninhabited lands, roads populated by robbers and muggers, courts led by judges that ...read more
-
8. Return To The Jerusalem Temple
Contributed on Feb 28, 2024
Jesus was found by His parents in His "Father's house" at age twelve. Twenty years later, why has He returned?
Third Sunday in Lent 2024 This week marks the middle-point of our Lenten pilgrimage! We have been with Jesus in the desert, as He was tempted, and we were with Him last week on the Mount of Transfiguration, as He prepared Himself and His most trusted disciples for the passion by having a Passover ...read more
-
9. Joy And Sorrow And "fun"
Contributed on Mar 4, 2024
My boss said he wished he could expunge the word “fun” from our students’ working vocabulary. Now knowing what students at our all-boy high school could do outside supervision, I tended to agree.
Joy, Sorrow and “Fun” Some time ago, I listened to a sermon by the local pastor. He told us that the Ten Commandments were given to us by God so that we could all “enjoy” life. I’m sure there are many, even Christians, who would question that. After all, the Commandments are largely a list of ...read more
-
10. What God Really Wants For Easter
Contributed on Mar 5, 2024
The proud man standing in the front of that worship space seems to be praying to himself and patting himself on the back for his many good deeds.
Saturday of the Third Week in Lent 2024 Today’s psalm, titled the Miserere in Latin, is about one-third of the way through the number of psalms in that book. I recall that in some religious communities, it is the last prayer of the day, sung or recited after Compline as the monks or nuns retire ...read more
-
11. After Multiple Failed "experiments" What?
Contributed on Mar 6, 2024
God loves the world, and He does so contrary to His own benefit.
Fourth Sunday of Lent 2024 God does not give up on human beings. That’s true even when He doesn’t seem like that is what is going on. We can remember the story of Noah, who lived in such a dissolute age that God wiped out humanity by a great flood, yet He saved one just man and his family. Noah ...read more
-
12. God Plans A Surprise Party
Contributed on Mar 12, 2024
Jesus is telling all that He is about to fulfill the prophecy of Ezekiel.
Saturday of the Fourth Week in Lent 2024 So what words were those that convinced a number of Christ’s listeners that He was (and is) the prophet foretold by Moses and so many other of the early prophets? Our lectionary is not very helpful there, so we go right to chapter 7 of St. John’s Gospel and ...read more
-
13. Baking Bread And Becoming Perfect
Contributed on Mar 13, 2024
A glimpse into the Kingdom of God and the way we can get there.
Fifth Sunday of Lent 2024 Today the prophet Jeremiah, who is famous in all the world for his predictions of doom, not just for faithless Israel prior to its destruction by Babylon, has a cheery prediction. Actually, the Holy Spirit is allowing him kind of a glimpse into heaven after the general ...read more
-
14. Reuniting The Separated
Contributed on Mar 19, 2024
Look at what the kingdom of evil has done to our country.
Saturday of the Fifth Week in Lent 2024 Today the Church gives us powerful Scriptures that help us to prepare for the holiest week of the liturgical year, so much that we call it “Holy Week.” The psalm is part of the prophecy of Jeremiah, and is exceptionally optimistic: “He who scattered Israel ...read more
-
15. Who Holds The Key To Human Happiness?
Contributed on Mar 20, 2024
We are shocked and horrified, but we are no longer surprised.
Palm Sunday 1964 Growing up in the 1950s and sixties, and going to Catholic schools, our Boomer generation hardly ever heard of things that are common today, and nobody knew that the Rockefeller foundation was funding researchers to reduce the Catholic population by finding a “Catholic ...read more