From the Pulpit

Excerpts from messages being presented at area places of worship this weekend.

Guest speaker Fredrick Zydek, Unity Church of Omaha

The calls to devotion and religious service are often dimmed by the everyday calls of living our lives. People are busy. We have jobs, families, pets that need attending, supermarkets to hunt in and malls to seek out our shiny-pretties. We have more responsibilities than time.

Yet without taking the time to refuel our spiritual consciousness and fulfill our natural urge to be of some help to others, we feel incomplete and often frustrated by the very process of our own lives.

When we come to understand that God ministers to the human family not just to and for us but also as us, we begin to understand that everything we do in the service of others can be seen as ministry. When we put our shoulder to the wheel with our time, talents and treasure, we are practicing the presence of God. It is in this way we become centered in God and co-create a world that works for all.

The Rev. Dan Delzell, Wellspring Lutheran Church, Papillion

“There are too many hypocrites in the church.” This is a common refrain in our society today. The more practical issue is this: Why let a hypocrite motivate me to get locked into a close-minded, anti-Christian mindset that prevents me from developing a personal friendship with the author of Christianity? Why should hypocrisy have that much control over my free will?

D.L. Moody said, “For every hypocrite in the church, I can show you 100 hypocrites in the world.”

I don’t know whether that is true or not, but I do know this: Any hypocrisy from someone claiming to be a Christian is not something that Jesus produced. It came from the sinful desires and decisions of that individual. A dark cloud in the sky does not diminish the power of the sun; it just blocks it from shining through for all to see.

What about the Jewish carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth? Is there any hypocrisy in Him? You and I will stand before Him on Judgment Day.

Will you be welcomed into heaven by a close friend in whom you trusted for salvation, or judged and sent away by a stranger that you rejected because of hypocrites in the church?

Are you really free and open-minded, or are “those unrighteous hypocrites” enslaving your mind and tragically convincing you to reject the Messiah? Why let a few dark clouds keep you from your loving your Creator when there is such a beautiful son to enjoy?

Msgr. James Gilg, St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church

Scripture passages about the end time never cease to fascinate us and we try to use the limited resources of our human minds to figure out all of the details.

We have been gifted, after all, with creative abilities of imagination and abstract thinking. So the passages provide us with a rich minefield of possibilities. We can’t help ourselves from experiencing satisfaction in the fact that there will be the righting of wrongs and the administration of final justice.

But our thoughts are brought up short when we hear the words, “But of that day or hour, no one knows.”

So we need to recognize that our speculations and dreams about the circumstances and timing of those final days, while entertaining, do not rest on solid ground.

In our journey of faith to those end times, our solid ground remains the here and now. The demands of daily life, the opportunities of the moment, our personal give and take with others around us, provide sufficient fodder for our mental and physical activity.

We are to recognize, and welcome, and nurture, and celebrate the presence of God in the light of today.

We must work, live, pray, as if that end time were to come in an instant. We know enough of the picture to respond to God’s graces with joy and an appreciation of the “now” time that is ours to embrace.

« Living

Share