Sermons

[Note: The following is not the sermon I preached on September 16, but a series of quotes inspired by the scripture text, that led me through a sermon that was unscripted and Spirit-led -- I hope! AVH]

Sunday, September 16, 2007
Luke 15:1-10
“A Part Of Me Is Missing”

Luke 15:1-10

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

15Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

3 So he told them this parable: ⁴‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

The Parable of the Lost Coin

8 ‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
- Edmund Burke, 18th Century Irish Statesman

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All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
- Thomas Jefferson (American 3rd US President (1801-1809) 1743-1836,

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
- James Madison (American 4th US President (1809-1817), 1751-1836)

“That the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the whole world”
- John Adams quotes (American 2nd US President (1797-1801), 1735-1826)

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Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
- Ayn Rand, 20th Century writer

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Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
- Martin Luther King, Jr., pastor and civil rights activist

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
- Alexander Pope (1688-1744), British poet

In the beautiful movie Chocolat (2000) Pere Henri's (the young priest) in his Easter Sermon, says, “I want to talk about Christ's humanity, I mean how he lived his life on earth: his kindness, his tolerance. We must measure our goodness, not by what we don't do, what we deny ourselves, what we resist, or who we exclude. Instead, we should measure ourselves by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.”

"Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too."
- Frederick Buechner, American author, b.1926

"The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you."
- Frederick Buechner, American author, b.1926

Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org