Discipling Life

Sermon: The Bread of Life – August 6, 2023 – Lebanon UMC Proper 13 Year A — Ninth Sunday after Pentecost See the video of the sermon preached here. Matthew 14:13-21 13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14  When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave the...

Sermon: Treasures New and Old  – July 30, 2023 – Lebanon UMC Proper 12 Year A — Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Romans 8:35-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 Video of sermon preached at Lebanon here . Introduction I don’t know what an average person looks like. Whenever I encounter someone, I think may be an average Jane or Joe, they quickly dispel that notion as I get to know them. We all have those characteristics, traits, and peculiarities that make us quite unique. One of my peculiarities is a fondness for old shaving equipment. This is one of the razors I use. It is called a safety razor (only because it is safer than a straight razor). I learned how to shave by watching my father shave. He would sometimes smear a bit of shaving cream on my face and give me a razor without a blade and let me ‘shave’ it off my face. This is a special razor, the one I used this morning, was made about the same time as I was born. I bought it over the Internet. Indeed, I buy my razor blades an...

Just a few remarks. If you have already watched the sermon on Facebook, you are probably thinking, "Wait, the manuscript is very different from the video!" Yes, that is true. Even as I prepare manuscripts for the week's sermon if really serves as a research or preparation document. It is rarely meant to be read from. I don't always have time to prepare a manuscript. On those occasions I prepare an outline. Oh! If you haven't seen the video of this sermon, you can do so here... https://www.facebook.com/1308738/videos/3369185506729801/ Sermon: Free to Live as a Disciple – July 23, 2023 – Lebanon UMC Proper 11 (16) Year A — Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43   Introduction Today’s texts deal with some of the pain and frustrations of living the life of the disciple. The Bible never says that the life of a disciple will be an easy one — to the contrary, the life is described as “denying ourselves and taking up our cross daily to f...

 Sermon: Holy Ground – July 16, 2023 – Horne Memorial UMC Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 Introduction [For me, the sermon preached is rarely the sermon written. But here is the manuscript that serves as the starting point for me on Sunday morning.] Working Through the Text Today we are looking at one of the parables that has the disadvantage of being too familiar to most of us. This is a disadvantage because we often internalize what this text means to us when we first hear it and hold onto that meaning. The familiarity of the parable is its weakness. It becomes difficult to hear that parable with the same freshness of hearing the story (Levine, pp. 20-21) . For example, consider the Parable of the Prodigal Son. For those of us who grew up in church and attended Sunday School as children, this story is probably the one we are most familiar with along with the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Chances are, you hear this story and immediately identify with the younger son. We are li...