December 13, 2009
Third Sunday of Advent
Zephaniah 3:14-20, Canticle 9, Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3:7-18
Nancy S. Streufert
“Turn from Fear and Live”
‘Come Holy Spirit and open our hearts to receive Your Word.’
Recently, I read a novel called ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ by Barbara Kingsolver. It’s about a Baptist minister and his family from Georgia who serve as missionaries in the Belgian Congo during the 1960’s. As I was preparing my sermon for today a passage from the novel spoken by the minister’s teenage daughter Leah caught my eye. Leah is speaking to one of the villagers about the Bible story Reverend Price has just preached on that Sunday: ‘Father has always stood firm on the Apocrypha,’ she says, ‘though most other preachers look down on him for it. They claim those books to be the work of fear-mongers who tagged them on to the Old Testament just to scare people. Yet Father always says, if the Lord can’t inspire you to leave off sinning any other way, why then, it’s His business to scare the dickens out of you.’ Read the rest of this entry »
