The Commons
A preaching blog with ideas and for interactive story sermon writing and image exegesis by Len Sweet.
Here, you can comment on any post to discuss its meaning and share your thoughts.
Second Coming
“Walker Percy captures this evasiveness in a chilling scene from his novel The Second Coming: ‘She spoke with the quietness of people after a storm which had drowned out their voices. What struck him was not sadness or remorse or pity but the wonder of it. How can it…
Beloved
“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. What did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the Earth.” The inscription from the tombstone of the US poet Raymond Carver (1938-1988) , who is buried at Ocean View Cemetery in…
A Prayer by Thomas Aquinas
Christ, Good Shepherd, bread Divine, show to us your mercy sign. Feed us still, still keep us thine That we may see your glory shine In the kingdom of the good. Source of all we have or know, Come and guide us here below, Make us, at your table…
Contemplating God
A rabbi was sitting in contemplation when a young student asked him what he was doing: “Contemplating God.” The young scholar ridiculed him and said, “Show me God. When I have seen God, then I will believe what I have seen.” The old rabbi said nothing, and the young scholar…
Wise Farmer
A Kentucky lawyer and a Kentucky farmer have a head-on collision on a country road. No one is badly hurt, but both men are shaken. The farmer goes to his car and brings out a flask of bourbon and offers it to the lawyer. “You look like you need a…
Henry Heimlich
On 29 May 2016 Dr. Henry Heimlich didn’t hesitate. When a fellow diner started choking, the 96-year-old was ready to perform the maneuver that he invented. This all happened Monday at an assisted-living facility in Cincinnati, The Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Resident Patty Ris, 87, had swallowed a piece of meat…
Incarnation
In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the centerpiece doctrine is incarnation. Perhaps the greatest text ever written on the incarnation was composed in the 4th century by Athanasius of Alexandria. His defense of the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople that Jesus was “fully human and fully divine” makes it one of…
Being
David Wells works for a Roman Catholic diocese promoting adult education, and teaches religious studies. When he meets new people, he is often asked “What do you do?” When he tells exactly what he does, “usually the only person to stick around to hear more was the person with unresolved…
Fire
For Pentecost, or anytime you are using the metaphor of “fire” in your preaching: This is the note Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), the French physicist, mathematician, and theologian recorded after having a vision at night in 1654: “Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers…
On Fire
For Pentecost, or anytime you are using the metaphor of “fire” in your preaching: This is the note Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), the French physicist, mathematician, and theologian recorded after having a vision at night in 1654: “Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers…