Occasional Sermons

Christian Community Presbyterian Church Bowie, Maryland April 12, 2026 More Than a Name Acts2:14a, 22-32 F aith is a mental activity for many Christians. As we tend the intellectual side of our faith we often squelch its emotional aspects. Our heads and hearts get out of balance. We don’t come to church as half people, leaving either our brains or our hearts in the parking lot. God calls us to use all the gifts, talents, and capabilities of our minds and hearts. We also often wall up our faith behind sealed lips. We go to church, but guard our faith like we do our computer passwords. Where’s the “Forgot Password” link for church? Christian spirituality ranges from faith that erupts like a volcano to faith that glows gently. In between are many kinds of faith experiences that are practiced privately or shared publicly. Our Quaker sisters and brothers have a spiritual practice of sharing accountability for each other’s faith. Several will sit with one who is trying to in the midst of dis...

Christian Community Presbyterian Church Bowie, Maryland August 17, 2025 The Great Divider Luke 12:49-56   (Video may be viewed at  SERMON—The Great Divider—Rev. Hays ) J esus, the “Great Divider.” That’s not an image that comes immediately to our minds. But it is the reality that was Jesus. Either a person loved him or hated him. Either a person believed in him or failed to believe in him. Either a person was for him or against him. No one could not be indifferent about Jesus. We are comfortable with a meek and mild Jesus, a compassionate Jesus, a Jesus who feeds and heals and comforts, a gentle Jesus. In today’s reading we get a Jesus with an in-your-face attitude. Jesus says he came to bring fire to the earth—and he wishes it were already kindled. You and I like fire when it is under our pans on the stove, in our furnaces and hot water heaters, in our outdoor grills. We love candles at dinner. We can control this kind of fire; it can serve us. But otherwise, we want to a...

Christian Community Presbyterian Church Bowie, Maryland August 10, 2025 Cultivate Surprise Luke 12:22-40 (Video may be viewed at  SERMON—Cultivate Surprise—Rev. Richard S. Hays ) I t’s so annoying. Just when you think you know what the Bible says, it trips you up. We are not addled in our thinking or roiled in a sea of conspiratorial misinformation by some devilish enemy. It’s holy writ—God’s word itself—which strikes the devastating blow. No wonder the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says that God’s word is sharper than any two-edged sword. Reading scripture is like working bare-handed with barbed wire.      The last piece of advice from today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel would have us constantly on red alert, 24-7, clutching our phones waiting for the doorbell camera app to chime with the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, knocking at our door.      That would stress out the saintliest of the saints. That kind of stress we don’t need in our lives. Jesus d...

Christian Community Presbyterian Church Bowie, Maryland September 22, 2024 Outlining a People Exodus 20:1-5a, 7-10a, 12-17 (Video may be viewed at  https://youtu.be/H7cD6shs0xA ) I am an avid reader of comic strips. One of my favorites, alas not in the Washington Post, is “The Born Loser” In one strip the title character, Brutus Thornapple, is sitting in his chair reading the Bible. One of his nemeses, his wife’s mother, Mother Gargle, walks up and says, “Well, look who’s reading the Bible! Har-de-har-har!” “I’ll have you know, you old barracuda,” Brutus replies, “that I’ve followed the Ten Commandments all my life!” She walks away saying, “Too bad you never managed to catch up with them!”      We have heard of the Ten Commandments all our lives, but do we really “catch up with them”? Do we understand what they are and why God has given them?      The Law was part of the ongoing blessing with which God embraced the people of Israel. Remember that God...

Christian Community Presbyterian Church  Bowie, Maryland  April 28, 2024  Seriously Seeking Something Acts 8:26-40 [Video may be viewed at  https://youtu.be/mRoICo24omQ ] A fter briefly flirting with church attendance, one television sitcom character chalked up her experience as generally beneficial because “I finally learned what that guy in the end zone is talking about when he holds up the big sign that says ‘John 3:16’!            Long-time churchgoers know what ‘John 3:16’ is about. We are accustomed to religious words and symbols. It’s our operating system, to use a computer term. That’s why we are shocked to find out that church affiliation in the United States is approaching less than half the population. There are more people who have no clue what the end zone sign means than those who do. Some scholars of religion and society call our culture ‘post-Christian.’ Others call it ‘pre-Christian’ because our world...

Christian Community Presbyterian Church  Bowie, Maryland  October 29, 2023  Charge to the Congregation on the Installation of Dr. Kori Phillips McMurtry as Pastor   P resbyterians have spent a lot of time determining the qualifications for pastors. Yet we have not spent an equal amount of time describing the qualifications of congregations.  Father Victor Pax, my Roman Catholic colleague during my first pastorate, said that he had a lot of parishioners whom he saw three times during his ministry and every time he saw them he threw something at them: water at their baptisms, rice at their weddings, and dirt at their burials.  Often the average church member sees a pastor as the in-house religious professional. By that I mean that pastors are seen as surrogates: they are supposed to “do church” for everyone else. They are the designated students of scripture, proclaimers of the Word, prayer-makers for people and events, and blessers of rituals ecclesiastical ...