Category: Sermons

Labels and Stereotypes 

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1.14.24       John 1:43-51     

            Can anything good come out of the little village of Nazareth? Apparently so.  A Messiah we call Jesus.

Can anything good come out of rural Hardin County, Kentucky? Apparently so.  A president–Abraham Lincoln.

Can anything good come out of tiny Oakville, Alabama?  Apparently so.  A multiple Olympic gold medal winner–Jesse Owens.

Let’s be truthful.  Stereotypes, positive and negative, exist in our heads and in our hearts.  They can be hard to get rid of.  Where do they come from? Often we grow up with them, unconsciously patterning our perceptions of others after those around us who use harmful labels for people—thug, white trash, the “N” word, geek, red neck, queer. We can adopt stereotypes through personal experiences, making assumptions about one person and then lumping together people like him by categories like well-educated or those with little schooling, poor, rich, brown, Black, white, politician, doctor, lawyer, minister. I notice that   when we start to refer to people we think are not like us as THEY, we have put them in a box, lumped a group of people together and separated ourselves from them.  Consciously or unconsciously, us and them becomes us vs. them on many levels.

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Living Generously

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Matthew 5:1-13                              1.7.23

            As we begin a new year, I would like to issue a challenge to us all.  Can we make a commitment to live generously this year? I define living generously as the kind of living that involves my whole self—my attention and focus, my relationship with God, my interactions with others and my care for this earth.  It involves careful stewardship of resources I have at my disposal:  bank accounts and tangible items like clothing and household items, as well as my body parts like eyes, legs, arms and mind. Living generously means living the kind of life God desires for us— sharing and serving, self-care and spiritual health.

            Last week at our brunch worship I shared that I prefer to set commitments rather than goals or resolutions at the beginning of a new year. For me, a commitment makes my intention clear to me and to God while at the same time recognizing that commitments or intentions are always a work in progress, part of the overall trajectory of my life. Use the word that makes the most sense to you—commitment, goal, resolution.

            Should you choose to accept my challenge, I suggest that you first define for yourself what living generously means in your context and stage of life. Then you might take some time to reflect on why living generously is important to you.  There may be something that catches your attention in this very familiar list of beatitudes found at the very beginning of Jesus’ sermon on the mount in the gospel of Matthew.  Let’s take a look!

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