Occasional Sermons

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 and civic. The church which h

Christian Community Presbyterian Church Bowie, Maryland October 8, 2023 Jesus the Storyteller: Parable of the Two Sons Matthew 21:23-32 [Video can be found at  https://youtu.be/1lZppmfr3Wo? si=R3d34fMITdAYJMZe ] A pastor visited a parishioner who lived by herself in the family home where she had been born 97 years earlier. They had a pleasant talk about things she had experienced in her near century of life: births and deaths, disappointments and celebrations, leavings and returnings. The conversation turned to the church and its history. Seeking a sense of the woman’s faith, the pastor asked if she ever thought about the hereafter. She replied, “I think about it all the time. Every time I go into a room I ask myself, ‘What am I here after?’” I see heads nodding. She’s not alone, is she? I can remember details of things that happened decades ago. But if you were to ask me what I had for dinner Friday night or what I did on Thursday, I would be hard pressed to tell you. You’ve been the