Ascension Written Sermons

The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C July 25, 2010 Relying Upon the Kindness of Strangers The Reverend Dr. Howard J. Hess I. Introduction: Today in our Gospel reading, Luke writes about our Lord’s effort to teach his disciples to pray. He begins, “When you pray say: Father, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come . . . ” Then to make his teaching crystal clear, he told his disciples a story about a man whose friend from out of town arrived unexpectedly in the middle of the night. He had insufficient food for his guest and thus he went out into the night to find fresh bead. A critical Middle Eastern value was at stake here -- hospitality. The honor of the host and even of the whole village was on the line. How would they respond to the sojourner who had come among them? The guest in this story was in part reliant upon the kindness of strangers. Out of desperation, the host goes out into the night to find the food he needed and knocked on a nei...

The Rev. Robert P. Travis Seventh Sunday after the Pentecost – 8:00 and 10:30am Church of the Ascension, Knoxville TN RCL Proper 10 Year C 7/11/2010 Amos 7:7-17, Psalm 82, Colossians 1:1-14, Luke 10:25-37 Sermon Text: The story of the Good Samaritan seems so familiar because we use the term Good Samaritan all the time. We think we all know this story by heart, and so it can seem difficult to find the good news in it. But as I was looking at the text to prepare for this morning I found that it is much deeper than I expected, and offers much to those who are willing to listen to it. If we're honest with ourselves, it is much easier for most of us to identify with the priest and the Levite in the story. In fact, being a priest standing before you today it is pretty embarrassing to see how Jesus portrays the two religious characters in the story. If we want to take their side we could say “hey, maybe the priest was on his way to the temple to perform some righteous acts, or maybe the ...

The Rev. Amy Hodges Morehous Proper 9, Year C July 4, 2010 Church of the Ascension 2 Kings :1-14 Psalm 30 Galatians 6:1-16 Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 “Oh, say can you see….” How odd, today, of all days, to begin with the reading about Naaman – that conquering general, and famous leper. On this day, the day when we celebrate our freedoms – at least, our political ones – our unalienable rights in this country, rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – we hear a story about a famous, successful, wealthy and powerful man, a man who had everything one might think would make him happy in life, but who was on a desperate quest to find the one thing that would make him whole. Naaman is a general in the Syrian army, and an enemy of Israel – a man who commanded armies, who defeated his enemies…and a man who was defeated by his own body. If you’ve ever had any sort of chronic illness, you know exactly how frustrating it is to be at the mercy of your own immune system. Such was Naaman’s ...