Emphasis Preaching Journal

Most of us are passionate in our young days. It is not a reasonable time. It is a time to be driven, consumed, ignited. None of these easily fit into categories of polite, considerate, or gentle -- let alone organizational. These are the moments in life that we easily get into trouble, make ridiculous decisions, and believe that we can not only reach for the stars, but touch them. Looking back on these times, we wince at the decisions we made and the fools we made of ourselves in the most awkward of all possible moments.

For his tenth birthday, Simon's uncle George gave him a pair of shoes. Simon was quite excited. He'd been wanting a pair of proper football boots for ages, and he felt sure uncle George would come up with the goods. Even if it wasn't football boots, Simon was happy to settle for a pair of designer trainers.

Moe wasn't always so nice. He used to be a shrewd businessman, calculating profit in every business move. He didn't care that his developments tore down long-standing neighborhoods. He didn't care that new tenants paid three times more than what they used to. He wanted money, power, and status. Moe wanted it all.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is often the "Bread Guy." Here he is different from the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John's Jesus makes long speeches about himself, and he puts himself squarely in the center of a scenario of salvation. We notice some of this in several images through which John's Jesus defines himself. He claims to be the true vine with his followers being the branches taking their life from him. Another time he says that he is the way, the truth, and the life, giving believers the secret of victorious living.

I was unprepared for the effect the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial would have on me. As we approached the low, polished black granite V-shaped wall, between the great memorials to Lincoln and Washington on the Mall. I felt the first wave of effect or shock and grief. I recognized a holy silence of all as we moved past the names, more than 58,000 of them, America's children whose lives were taken by the war in Vietnam. Our faces were reflected in the granite so as we begin to read the names Leroy Pierson, Jimmy Lee Plumley, Edmund Chester Polonski. We, the living, join with the dead.

One day several years ago, a pastor was called by a church member and asked to visit one of his neighbors in whose home a tragedy had just happened. The neighbor's teenage son had used a rifle from a family gun collection to end his own life. The family was distraught and they had asked to talk to a minister. The pastor arrived less than an hour after the suicide happened.