Help With A Sermon

SUN., FEB. 24, 1991, 5:30 AM
FARM, STUDY

This morning you assist with the service, which is always a pleasure for you. However, it basically is a liturgical task, which requires only clear, expressive reading. The real challenge looms a week from today, when you shall have the opportunity of preaching the sermon. I approve of what you intend to do, and I again offer assistance in this exciting task. Hear, o son.

The title seems appropriate, but perhaps it needs a little honing. I’ll leave that to you. Your intent is to contrast the Walk to Emmaus experience with the Cuba experience, in terms of how each is an approach to being a Christian. Then, finally, you shall contrast these with the more middle-of-the-road Presbyterian path. That’s quite an assignment for 20 minutes in the pulpit, so you’ll have to work on the presentation. You feel the logic of writing it out so that you say only what is important. And then you feel the clash with your own preference (and Mine) for a sermon being preached, rather than read. You will preach it, from notes, but you’ll have to practice so that you stay within a reasonable time.

The Emmaus experience, which you shall participate in yet again this afternoon, is one of commitment to Christ, crucified. It is the emotional experience of Christ in your life, of compelling songs and tearful testimonies and supplications. It is the experience of the disciples gathered together as a “special” group. It is the reenactment of that story of the two men on the road to Emmaus, being joined and taught by the risen Christ… who made Himself known to them in the breaking of the bread. It is the experience of Pentecost, with Me touching lives in real and sometimes dramatic ways.

There is emphasis on service beyond the conversion experience, but there is no… or little… sense that the form of service is of much consequence. You are to be a Christian… Christ in you… in the world where you work and live. But your main task is to bring others to this experience. You shall be urged to encourage others from your congregation to take this Walk, and they, then, shall bring others… and soon every knee, of consequence, shall bow to Jesus Christ. The earth shall naturally be better.

The Cuba experience is one of commitment to Jesus the lover of the downtrodden… the man of Galilee. Jesus was not orthodox and He wasn’t super spiritual. He urged service to the poor, the handicapped, widows, and those in prison. He fed the hungry. He cured the sick, the lame, and the blind. He was a man of action… a revolutionary in His religious tradition. People were more important than the sabbath. Feeding hungry people was more important than hewing to a religious practice, even a commandment.

Thus, to be Christ-like is to work for equality and for justice. It is to give yourself in service to the downtrodden of the world, working even in revolutionary ways for a better life for these many in the earth. Inasmuch as you do for them, you are serving the true Lord in the way He desires most.

You come back from these experiences to remain a Presbyterian. Why do I call you to this “position,” somewhere between these desirable alternatives? (For I do love both extremes.) You have this close walk with Me, which is also not normative Presbyterian, and you know that life is an eternal growing and developing process toward selflessness, which can rarely be accomplished in one human lifetime. So I call you to this manifestation of faith just because I do. I call on you to give, with a more generous spirit, to those in need, rather than being more comfortably affluent. I call on you to generate spirit within your congregation, for they are My people, too.