11/04/2025
The Lost Benediction
Depending on the length of the sermon, I try to add a little something extra in my benedictions. This week I wrote up a benediction but then realized we’d be singing and waving our umbrellas to some New Orleans jazz. As much as I loved the celebration we had, it meant that I wouldn’t be needing it. But I do quote one of my favorite authors, and as you know—I love to share quotes--so I’m going to prevent this benediction from getting lost in my sermon file, and share it with you here.
In his book, Beyond Words, Frederick Buechner writes:
“The feet of saints are as much of clay as everybody else’s, and their sainthood consists less of what they have done than of what God has for some reason chosen to do through them. When you consider that Saint Mary Magdalene was possessed by seven devils, that Saint
Saint Francis started out as a high-living young dude in downtown Assisi, you figure that maybe there’s nobody God can’t use as a means of grace, including even ourselves.”
He goes on to finish his thought:
"The Holy Spirit has been called “the Lord, the giver of life” and, drawing their power from that source, saints are essentially life-givers. To be with them is to become more alive.”
Let us be the life-givers to the next generation. May we be alive with Christ so clearly and passionately that those around us may one day honor us when our time comes to be with Jesus. Let us live now so that when our time comes Jesus will rise to his feet to welcome us home.
Let it be so—Amen.
Archived Posts
The Perfect Church
There is an old joke about the perfect church. We talked just a little about the perfect pastor, but turnabout is fair play. It goes like this:
The Clothes You Wear
Sunday I talked about Joshua the High Priest having his filthy clothing replaced by a cleaned and beautiful garments. I also used the illustration of a boy becomes a dragon—who ‘wears’ dragon scales—and is stripped of those scales in order to be restored to a boy. In fact, I could have done the whole sermon around all the clothing imagery in scripture.
What just missed the cut for Sunday’s Sermon
Naaman’s servants may actually become one of the hidden gems of the sermon. They say, essentially: “If the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it.”
One of the Longest Benedictions I Ran Out of Time to Share
Maybe you know the story of how Joseph and Mary accidentally left Jesus at the gas station on their way home from Jerusalem. Well, not the gas station bathroom in Jesus’ case. Joe and Mary are far down the road before they realize Jesus isn’t with them...
So many quips and quotes...
So little time to preach
I wonder what Mary and Martha’s phones might look like:
* Martha = the open browser with 27 tabs
* Mary = the single window that matters
* Psalm 46 = God saying, “Close the tabs.”
Quotable Outtakes That Didn’t Make the Sermon This Week
“When you try to control everything, you don’t just exhaust yourself—you quietly replace trust in God with trust in you.” & more
There is a challenge when it comes to preaching the Word of God.
Preachers are called to open up and interpret the word—inspired and written down thousands of years ago—and make it relevant to a very different world. On top of that there’s a degree of persuasion that goes along with the process.