When you go on vacation you have a chance to step back and look at things more objectively. I always find that to be the case when I go on vacation, and I always return with new and fresh ideas. One idea whose time has come, I believe, is that it’s time to set up some guidelines, some rules, about whom we should allow to worship here. First of all, I think we should only allow people who are truly interested in their faith and are willing to commit to being here every Sunday, unless for good cause prohibited. Second, only people who are tithers, or at least who are committed to working toward a tithe. I suppose we should also have a guideline having to do with a dress code: men, it’s time we wear coat and tie; and women, let’s go back to covering your heads, shoulders, and knees. Ushers will have the added duty of enforcing the dress code. We will also let you know how you are to vote if you want to worship here.

If you are horrified by this new idea I have had, good. Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 14 August, 2011/The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson’ »

Jesus asked Peter, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?” What is doubt and why do we doubt? Doubt, we are told in dictionaries is the lack of certainty of what was once perceived as truth. What makes us doubt? Frankly, lots of things can make us doubt. As Christians, unexpected situations happen, something with our jobs, something with our health, something with our families, and we begin to doubt the goodness or promises of God. Or perhaps people we know and trust say things and we begin to doubt what we have always believed. Frankly, it is easy to figure out why people doubt. But what about the other side of the coin, what helps us to grow in faith? What helps us stand firm in our faith? What can we do when we are, like Peter, suddenly attacked with doubt and fear? Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 7 August, 2011/The Rev. Lance Wallace’ »

WOUNDED IN STRUGGLE, BUT CHANGED AND STRENGTHENED IN HOPE

I never knew any man or woman worth their salt anywhere, who didn’t live through and face many struggles in life. Many times we have all wanted to quit, but amidst it all with God’s love, help from others and/or our faith, we have kept on going! In the end, with luck, we’ve emerged changed yet even stronger from the experiences. One inescapable truth is that there is no life anywhere without its struggles and more often than not the real key to any emergence and survival is our hope. I’ve known and seen many persons broken in the battles of their lives, but I have seen many of them survive and then emerge even stronger in the end. Thus, I’ve experienced and learned that it is not only the battle which defeats us, but often too our own inability or unwillingness to struggle which gradually yet steadily depletes our Spirits and then immobilizes us all. Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 31 July, 2011/The Rev. Richard Lampert’ »

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

What it is worth? How much will you give for it? Well, it all depends on what we are talking about right? A gallon of milk or a gallon of gasoline is worth between 3 and 4 dollars. A nice dinner for two may be worth $60 or $200 depending on what one eats and where it is. A new Buick Regal lists for $27K. An Infinity M35 starts at $46K, and one can get into a Mercedes Benz S-Class for $91K. Are they worth it? What about Audi R8 that lists for $168K? Is it worth it; or the Rolls Royce Ghost for a quarter million and the Bentley for a bit over that? Are they worth it? Obviously to some they are. To a fewer number even the Maybachs are worth spending a half to a full million on. Some people are not interested in spending money on cars. They would rather have real estate. The average size home in the U.S. this year is about 21 hundred square feet. The cost for an average size home in Sarasota varies quite a bit. Prices range from 180K over 2 million for a home of about 21 hundred square feet; as our real estate professionals would say, “Location, location, location.” Well, is it worth it?
Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. This merchant is one who knows for what he is looking. He knows the fakes, he knows quality. One day he finds a good pearl. Not just a good pearl though. This pearl is an outstanding pearl. It is the best pearl he has ever seen. It is better than even he could imagine a pearl to be. So what does he do? He sells all that he has to buy it. He sells all the other pearls he has. He sells all his other jewels. He sells his store. He sells his donkey. He sells liquidates all his stocks. He empties his savings account. He even sells his house. He has sold everything he owns. But now he has just enough cash to buy the pearl, this one magnificent pearl. So he buys it. Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 24 July, 2011/The Rev. Lance Wallace’ »

Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43

Fr. Murphy walks into a pub in Donegal and says to the first man he meets: Do you want to go to heaven?
The man said: I do, father.
The priest said: Then stand over there against the wall.
The the priest asked the second man: Do you want to go to heaven?
Certainly, father, was the man’s reply.
Then stand over there against the wall, said the priest.
Then Fr. Murphy walked up to O’Toole and said: Do you want to go to heaven?
O’Toole said: No, I don’t, father.
The priest said: I don’t believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don’t want to go to heaven? Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 17 July, 2011/The Rev. Richard C. Marsden’ »

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood…” these are the opening lines from Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken. It has to do with choosing and decision making. According to some psychologists, a person makes several thousand choices or decisions a day. The reading from Old Testament story with Jacob and Esau has to do with choices, in particular the choice that Esau makes. To paraphrase from an Indiana Jones movie, “Esau, you have NOT chosen wisely!” The passage in Romans has to do with choices, our choices, whether we choose to live according to the Spirit or to the flesh. And the Gospel has choices as a theme as well.
Now some would say the parable in Matthew 13 is really not about choices, but more about simply telling what happens when God’s word is spoken. And that is true if one looks at the parable from the perspective of the one sowing the seeds. But that is not the perspective I would like to look at this parable. Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday 10 July, 2011/The Rev. Lance Wallace’ »

I want to start off this morning with a little history quiz:

In 1754, what colonel of Virginia Militia surrendered Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania to the French? (George Washington.)

In 1775 what Virginian, appointed by the Continental Congress, took command of the continental army at Cambridge, MA? (George Washington.)

In 1863, this famous civil war battle culminated in a famously failed charge of confederate forces under the command of General George Picket. (Gettysburg.)

For sports fans, in 1962 this man became the first African-American to be inducted into the national baseball hall of fame. (Jackie Robinson.)

All these events happened on this very day, 3 July.

You did very well. You remember where we have been.

Where are you from? It is a simple question really. How many times have you been asked that by an acquaintance, or a friend?

Where are you from? It is actually a very significant question, a question that will reveal you to another, gives them a sense of who you are, what has shaped you and formed you.

How you answer that allows another to understand you better; it builds relationships, allows for greater intimacy of conversation. Or not!

When we first came to Florida and people would ask me: Where’re you from, I would say Connecticut because that is where I spent most of my early childhood. And immediately I would be classed as a Yankee which had a whole catalog of qualities and characteristics attached to it by polite southern folk.

Or to the less polite, I was a Yankee with an adjective preceding that would imply that either my origin or destiny was related to the infernal regions where the devil and Bill Sherman presided.

So I learned. When good southern folk ask me: Where are you from, I say Connecticut but southern Connecticut, and it seems to make a difference!

When I was a child there was a series on TV – whose name I cannot now remember – about a man who awoke one day and could not remember where he was from. He had amnesia. He was rootless and thus identity-less. He didn’t know who he was and how he fit in, and the show went on weekly with him trying discover his roots, who he was. Continue reading ‘Sermon preached Sunday July 3, 2011/The Rev. Richard C. Marsden’ »

A mother and father were having an argument, hot and heavy. Words were stabbing the air fast and furious. Junior came in unnoticed, jumped up on the table, held up his arms, and shouted, “Peace, be still.”

Astonished, the parents directed their gaze to the peacemaker and both burst out laughing. “Where did you hear that?” Mother asked. “I learned at Sunday School that our Lord spoke like that at the roaring of the waves and they kept still.”

The Gospel we heard today isn’t what we would expect to hear from our Lord. It isn’t what we want to hear. It isn’t what we think we need to hear. “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” What about the message of the angels, who proclaimed at Jesus’ birth: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men?” The song that Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, sang in anticipation of the coming of Christ, says that Jesus “will guide our feet into the way of peace.” In another place we read Jesus’ words to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my own peace I give to you.” And after his resurrection, as he met with his disciples, the first words he spoke were, “Peace be with you.”

Continue reading ‘Sermon – Sunday June 26, 2011/The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson’ »

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Today is one of the most awesome feasts in the Christian faith. It is the day we celebrate the reality I just affirmed in the opening prayer.

Isn’t that exciting? Can I get an alleluia! That’s not very enthusiastic!

Why is it that this feast day doesn’t get the same level of excitement and involvement as say Christmas, or Easter, or even Pentecost? This is one of those feast days that just sort of happens; we do it. There is no real excitement. Many of us really wonder why we do it. We wouldn’t miss it if we didn’t celebrate it.

In fact, this feast day is the foundation of every other feast day in the Christian calendar; it is the seed bed out of which the rest of our more well-known feast days spring to life. In fact, this day celebrates the bedrock of the Christian faith itself. It is the day we celebrate God in himself. We celebrate and acknowledge the very identity of God as he has revealed himself to us: one God, three persons, the Holy Trinity.
Continue reading ‘Trinity Sunday – June 19, 2011/The Rev. Richard Marsden’ »

Long, long ago there was nothing except God. God wasn’t lonely because he was within himself three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. His nature was such perfect love that he was love itself. God did not need an object for his love, for he was not only the One who loved, but also the One who was loved.

He was pure Spirit, but he wanted to make something tangible to express his love. He planned it well. It would be grand, with almost infinite facets. Continue reading ‘Sermon The Day of Pentecost, Sunday June 12, 2011/The Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson’ »