SALT FOR SERMONS A Collection of Stories, Illustrations, Anecdotes and Quotations GARTH WEHRFRITZ-HANSON EDITOR Dear Reader I am “self-publishing” this ebook without a publisher, therefore it is offered to you free of charge. If you find this book helpful in some small way, I encourage you to “pay it forward.” I suggest that you could “pay it forward” in three ways. First, you can, by word of mouth, email, etc., recommend it to your friends and colleagues. Second, you can make a monetary contribution to a charity of your choice-for example, a seminary, a church or church benevolent organisation such as Canadian Lutheran World Relief. Third, I would appreciate your feedback, you can contact me by email here. The Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson, Holy Week, 2015 Copyright © 2015 by Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson Published on March 30, 2015 at https://dimlamp.wordpress.com/my-new-ebook/ Table of Contents Introduction Acceptance Action Advent Adversity Age Anger Antisemitism Appearances Appreciation Attitude Atonement Baptism Beatitudes Betrayal Bible Blessing Calling Change Children Christ Christian/Christianity Christmas Church Commitment Communication Community Confession Confidence Courage Cross Death Dialogue Discipleship Easter Empathy Encouragement Evil Faith Fear Forgiveness Friendship Generosity/Giving God Grace Guilt Healing/Health Hope Hospitality Humility Incarnation Jews, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations Joy Judging/Judgement Justice Justification Kindness Kingdom Law Lies/Lying Life Light Listening Love Marriage Materialism Mercy Mission Music Mystery Nature Neighbour New Year Obedience Pastors/Pastoral Care Peace Persecution The Poor/Poverty Prayer Questions Reconciliation Relationships Religion Remember Repentance Resurrection Sabbath Sacrifice Salvation Security Servanthood Sin Stewardship Suffering Temptation/Testing Thanksgiving/Thankfulness Time Truth Unity Values Waiting Weakness Wealth Witnessing Word/Words Worry Worship Introduction Ever since human beings were given the gift of speech there have been stories and storytellers. Holocaust survivor and author, Elie Wiesel once said that God created people because God loves stories. Created in God’s image, we human beings also love stories. Jesus loved to tell stories. Most Christians remember two stories in particular that Jesus told—the Good Samaritan and the prodigal son. Both stories capture and communicate the saving power of Christ’s love and grace. A sermon or public address of any kind without stories, illustrations, anecdotes or quotations is like a car running on only one of its four cylinders. Most conscientious clergy know that it requires much time and energy to find appropriate stories, illustrations, anecdotes or quotations for their sermons. However, who could possibly know or measure the value of such material? The Holy Spirit works wonders in the hearts, minds and lives of people through faithful preaching. Throughout my life as an active ordained pastor, I have been blessed by countless colleagues and the resources that they have so generously given to the community of faith around the globe. Now it is my turn to generously give to others what I have received, for as the Apostle Paul exhorts in Galatians 6:6: “Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher.” It is my hope and prayer that this book will serve clergy well in their sermon preparation. The book has been organized alphabetically into categories, which are numbered, and each entry under the categories is also numbered. Every attempt was made to acknowledge the source of each entry and to suggest at least one biblical reference. If no source is acknowledged, then it originated with the editor. Please forgive the imperfect layout of this ebook, as I am not proficient in ebook technology. For example, I do not have links to each category from the Table of Contents—nor did I include an index. Nonetheless, I do appreciate readers’ perseverance in scrolling down to locate the various categories. May God bless you richly as you “tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love,” which gives life, health and salvation to people of every time and place. ONE Acceptance 1. YOU ARE ACCEPTED, ROMANS 5:20 Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted.” PAUL TILLICH, The Shaking of the Foundations (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), pp. 161-162. 2. LOVE ONE ANOTHER—JEWS, CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS, LUKE 10:25-37 An act of terrorism doesn’t usually end up as a good-news story. But Canadians have made it into one, by standing together with Montreal’s Jewish community against a vicious act of hatred. From every province, from Muslims and Christians and Jews, from francophone and Anglophone, from adults and children, they have shown, by donating thousands of books to a burned-out Jewish library, that they will not permit the Jewish community or any other minority to be isolated by violence and prejudice. Last April, the library at the United Talmud Torah in Montreal, the country’s oldest Jewish day school, was firebombed. Its 10,000-book collection of English, French and Hebrew works was almost completely destroyed. A note was found linking the attack to events in the Middle East. “This is just a beginning,” it said. To burn a library of children’s books is to warn that the children who read those books should no longer be considered safe. From the burning of books to the burning of people is no great leap, as history has shown. “This is not our Canada,” Prime Minister Paul Martin said afterward. He called the firebombing an attack on all Canadians, and he was right. Canadians responded. They understood that hatred sears, and that the only balm is to demonstrate, by acts of solidarity, that they are one with the intended targets. The Muslim Schools of Montreal drew pictures and notes of support. A schoolchild from Montreal’s Holy Cross School wrote, “I hope your school won’t get another bomb.” Similar notes arrived from children around the country. A Roman Catholic elementary school whose new library received a boost three years ago from Talmud Torah raised money to return the favour. And the books poured in to the rebuilt library, 13,000 in all. From Thornhill, north of Toronto, a synagogue and a mosque that sit side by side made a joint donation. More than 50 Canadian writers, including children’s authors Robert Munsch, Paulette Bourgeois and Dennis Lee, sent along their books. The Yemeni consulate in Montreal sent a bound set of Harry Potter books, and Iceland’s consulate gave a complete set of Icelandic sagas. This newspaper helped organize donations from publishers and distributors. “Canadians really said what it is to be Canadian,” said the Jewish school’s librarian, Dan Holobow, the son of a Lutheran minister from Saskatchewan. This week, just in time for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, the library reopened. Each donated book might be said to represent a beam of light. Together they form a library illuminated by a radiant Canadian spirit. “Talmud Torah’s library,” The Globe And Mail, Thursday, December 9, 2004, p. A18. 3. ACCEPTANCE AND THE ELDERLY, REVELATION 21:1- 5 As a chaplain, I have observed over the years that those seniors who accept the changes in their lives are among the most content with their new circumstances and overall more healthy physically, mentally and spiritually. TWO Action 1. RIGHT ACTIONS AND TEACHING, PROVERBS 22:6; MATTHEW 7:21-29 Right action requires knowledge of the other’s nature, which means knowledge of its potentials and limits, of what it can and cannot do. Good farmers know the nature of their soil; they know enough not to deplete it. Good teachers know the nature of their students; they know enough not to discourage them. Good writers know the nature of words; they know enough not to stretch them out of shape. With such knowledge we can help the other fulfill its potentials, while respecting its limits, distorting neither the other nor ourselves as we act. When we violate the nature of the other, we violate ourselves as well. At the very least, we despoil the environment that we ourselves inhabit. When we build dams in the wrong places, we diminish our own lives by destroying beauty and damaging the ecology. When we force our values on our students or on our children, we create environments of hostility that corrode our own souls. Sadly, destructive actions such as these tend to perpetuate themselves through vicious circles. Adults who have grown up with hostility tend to be hostile towards the young. People who have been victimized by the violence of their own culture tend to victimize those of other cultures. People who do not feel at home on earth tend to abuse the earth itself. So the key to action that knows and cares for the other is to know and care for ourselves. For example, one reason that we sometimes have bad teaching in our schools is that teachers are sometimes paralyzed by unexamined fears.