A lot of folks don’t like buffets, but I do, especially, if the restaurant has a reputation for good food. As a child, about once every other month, we’d go to eat as a family at a restaurant inside a Mom and Pop Store owned by a dear friend of my Mom. The owner, “Miss Ann” as we called her, was a great cook and always had a terrific buffet. When we got to the restaurant Mama would also say to us, “don’t let your eyes overload your stomach.” It was her warning not to waste food by filling our plates with more food than we would eat. But it seemed like I just couldn’t help myself. No matter how hard I tried, my eyes always overloaded my stomach because there was just so much from which to choose.
I sort of felt that way reading the lectionary scriptures assigned for this Seventh Sunday After the Epiphany. As I read them, I took a little time with each to absorb the message in it trying to decide on a preaching angle for the sermon this Sunday. These passages seemed like a scriptural buffet to me. Not that they were any of my favorites scriptures, they are not! However, they do offer a plethora of preaching options.
Finally, I looked for the common thread in the four assigned passages and found it in Matthew 5 (A part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.) It takes us back to the basics of our Christian faith; our Judeo – Christian tradition of compelling us to love. And not just those that love you, you like or those that treat you well. In verses 43-44, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You should love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” That’s a very difficult teaching by Jesus and a bitter pill for most of us to swallow; but it does bring us back to the basics of the Christian Faith – Learning to Love!
Join us at Covenant this Sunday morning for worship, I will preach from that buffet of assigned lectionary scriptures for this week. The sermon is called “BACK TO BASICS – LEARNING TO LOVE” based on “Matthew 5:38-48.”
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