Sloth Versus Those Who Mourn

 Here is my message from Sunday. The text was John 11:17-27, 32-44:

Just a little over two year ago, the bookkeeper at the church I was serving literally dropped dead one morning. He was sitting on the couch reading and his wife walked into their bedroom to grab something, and when she came out a few minutes later Don was on the floor without a pulse. It was one of those reminders of the fragility of life. But we had already had a reminder of that at the church because just a few months before that, the head of our praise band came down with the flu, which rapidly turned into double pneumonia, and four days later she died. And then on top of that, two weeks after Don died, Elizabeth was born, and she spent the first four days of her life in the NICU and came home on continuous oxygen. I think I definitely could have managed one of these events in my life, and perhaps two of them, but three were just too taxing to me in every way possible. And so while I was still working, I was only focusing on what I considered the most important things, trying to take care of the fires, and everything else fell to the side.

We didn’t buy pumpkins that year, and I spent Halloween day trying to find some for the girls to carve, which we couldn’t find. and those of you who saw the parsonage last year lit up with Christmas lights now how much I love Christmas, but I didn’t put up a single light that year. We did get a Christmas tree, and to be honest, if we didn’t have children, I doubt we would have even done that. The grief and exhaustion were just too much; and as much as people wanted me or needed me to do things, I just couldn’t get anything done. I know that many of you have been in a similar space after a loss. The mourning and the grief are just too much to be able to live as normal. And in fact in some cases we just shut down. And so as we are thinking about the Beatitudes and the seven deadly sins,  and looking at Jesus’ blessing of those who mourn  it seemed natural to link it with sloth because they seem to have similar behaviors. But they are not the same.

The Richest Man In Town

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Mark 10:35-45 and based on the movie It's a Wonderful Life:

Today we conclude our Christmas in July worship series by looking at what many people consider to be the best Christmas move of all time It’s a Wonderful Life.  But, if you may have noticed in all the films we covered up to this point, and this is true about most Christmas stories, none of them are actually about faith or religion or God. But, It’s a Wonderful Life is different, because it does actually involve all of these things as being a part of the story, and it’s also the darkest of all the movies we have seen.

It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by the marvelous Frank Capra, was released in December of 1946, to only tepid reviews and performance. Although it was nominated for five academy awards, it lost money, and the only award it won was a technical one for the creation of a new way to produce snow on a movie set, which was also done during shooting in what was then one of the warmest summers in California history. The release of the movie was pushed up so that it would qualify for the 46 awards cycle, but it was widely trounced by The Best Years of Our Lives, which went on to win nine academy awards. And since everyone if gung-ho to remake films these days rather than coming up with original ideas, The Best Years of Our Lives is probably a film that deserves to be remade in a modern telling about soldiers returning home from war who have a hard time readjusting to society, especially those who were injured physically and mentally. So, if any of you know some big Hollywood producers, you should mention that to them.