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Rene remembers the class she...

Illustration
Proper 16 | Ordinary Time 21 - A
Matthew 16:13-20
Rene remembers the class she had in early American literature. Much of the early writings made reference to God and divine providence. At the time, Rene was outspoken, telling others that while she might concede that there is a God there is no evidence of Jesus being the Son of God. When the class would break into discussion groups Rene would repeat that she did not believe that Jesus was divine.

While others in the class disagreed with her, they remained respectful of her opinions. In private, a classmate told Rene that she would pray for her which Rene rebuffed. As a
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For August 9, 2020:
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Wayne Brouwer

Refocus

Once when Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian playwright, was traveling in Rome, he noticed a crowd of people gathered around a large red poster. They were talking rather excitedly among themselves about the message it announced, so he reached into his coat pocket for his eyeglasses. Only then did he realize that he’d left them back at his hotel.

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Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic monk who considered that the Church of Rome was corrupt. On October 31, 1517, he posted his famous 95 theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, inviting a debate on the issues that concerned him. This led to the German Reformation, or better known to us as the Protestant Reformation.

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Call to Worship:
After he had been deep in prayer, Jesus was able to walk on the sea. In our worship today, let explore the relationship between prayer and God's response to us.

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Jesus, sometimes I dismiss prayer as not working, yet I know I've never really prayed as you prayed.
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The call came on a Sunday after church just as we were sitting down to lunch. "Eric's vital signs are dropping. We think this may be it. You'd better come." It was the Palliative Care Nurse, one of the dozens of hospital and hospice staff people who supported Eric and his family over the five years he lived with bone cancer. She met me as I came in the door of the hospice where Eric had lived for five months -- a much longer stay than most of their patients who usually died within weeks.

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Good morning, boys and girls. Do you know what a hard-boiled egg is? (Let them answer.) I brought two eggs with me this morning. One is hard-boiled. When I crack its shell I can eat it. The other is not hard-boiled. It's like Humpty-Dumpty. When I crack it, it will break. Sometimes your parents may give you a hard-boiled egg for lunch. When they do, you trust them that it is really hard-boiled. Your parents wouldn't give you an egg like Humpty-Dumpty, would they?

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