Fear-of-the-Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom

Sermon notes for the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost given at the United Church of Acworth on August 19, 2012.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

"God's Grandeur," Gerard Manley Hopkins

We are united in seeking the religious education of our children and the nurture of their social life.  

United Church of Acworth Faith and Covenant

Two questions are before us this morning.  Why should we seek the religious education of our children? And what does that look like?

In today’s reading from Proverbs we find that wisdom herself has prepared a feast for all those who are hungry.

“You that are simple, turn in here!”

To those without sense she says,

“Come, eat of my bread

and drink of the wine I have mixed.

Lay aside immaturity, and live,

and walk in the way of insight.”

Apparently all that’s required of those who want to become wise is to respond to the invitation and eat of the goods.
The apostle Paul gives us funny advice:

The Tourist and the Pilgrim

Notes for a sermon for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on August 12, 2012.

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Ephesians 5:1-2

“We are also united in our purpose to walk in the ways of the Lord that have and will be made known to us.”

United Church of Acworth Faith and Covenant

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The Tourist

“there is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue...”

“religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mindset.  religion is understood as a visit to an attractive site to be made when we have adequate leisure....  we go to see a new personality, to hear a new truth, to get a new experience and so somehow expand our otherwise humdrum lives.”

we have in the words of Gore Vidal, “passion for the immediate and the casual.”

people want religious “shortcuts”

Feed Me Till I Want No More

A sermon for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on August 5, 2012.

Exodus 16:2-15, John 6:24-35

One of my favorite hymns begins:

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
hold me with thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more.

In today’s gospel the focus is bread.  Particularly the bread of heaven.  I think we can all relate to the people who are talking with Jesus.  They long for a connection to God, they long for visible sign that would give them hope and satisfy their longing for meaning.  We may say it in different words but I think we all have in our hearts this longing expressed in the hymn:  “Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more.”
When the people ask for Jesus to give them manna just like Moses gave to the people of Israel, Jesus stops them right there.