Occasional Sermons

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...