Westmoreland Sermon Archive

Rev. LaVerne Gill – Interim Minister for Worship

Scripture: Luke 1:46b-55 and Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

I am excited about today’s scripture readings from Isaiah and from Luke. I am excited because it truly provides the essence of what we, as Christians, believe about the living God that we serve. I want to make a disclaimer before going further. This is not a political sermon, it is a religious one, and sometimes we can get confused about the politics of the day and the gospel. It seems popular to talk about the poor and about the rich or in contemporary parlance about the 99 percent and the one percent. But by looking at the in breaking of the reign of God through the birth of Jesus and by the promised Year of the Lord in the Hebrew text, we have a more durable foundation upon which to draw our understanding of humanity. It is not temporal, nor politically expedient. It is the Word of God.

I am also excited about this morning’s text because I get to relate to the expectations of the pregnant Mary. Thirty-four years ago, I was pregnant with my second son who was born on Christmas day. So I can relate to the excitement of Mary. Like most mothers I just knew that as with my other son that I was about to bring forth into the world someone who would change the course of history; transform the world for justice and do great things for a world in need. Read the rest of this entry »

Robert L. Maddox

Matthew 25:14-30

My first pastorate was in deep South Georgia. From 1964-1968 we lived in the delightful small town of Vienna, Georgia. The church building was a Norman Rockwell snapshot, located on a prominent corner one block off the main road which was also a main North-South highway. The parsonage was one step off the side porch of the church. We loved the town and the time and were well-treated despite our youth and the disturbing news we sometimes brought that the world outside Dooly County was rapidly ‘a changing.

A railroad track that ran north and south parallel to the highway divided the town. White people essentially lived on one side of the railroad track and black people lived on the other side of the railroad track. On our side of town one could find dozens of nice houses, many dating from the late 19th or early 20th century but largely well kept. Across the tracks stood dozens of tumble down shacks in which many of the town’s black people lived. Or, considering the status of the shacks, in which they tried to live. The shacks were built a few feet off the ground on crooked foundations of rocks. From ground level, under the houses you could see from one end of the house to the other. On hot days, the people kept the front door open and you could see all the way through the tiny house to the back door—shot-gun houses they were called. Neither the doors nor windows had screens.

I was a young minister but coming of age in the civil rights movement of the time. Read the rest of this entry »

Exodus 32:1-14

Michael Durst

We should pity the Israelites in the story of the golden calf. Earlier in the Book of Exodus, Moses went up on Mount Sinai to receive the law and bring it back to his people. But a lot of time has now passed, and Moses hasn’t returned. Moses has been up on the mountain forty days and forty nights. Maybe Moses has died, or maybe he’s just run away. The people are left waiting, with no leader, and no law. The people are disoriented. They’re restless, they’re frightened.

So the people call on Aaron, Moses’s older brother. They say to Aaron, please lead us – please give us direction, give us something we can believe in. And Aaron seems quite willing to accommodate them. Who knows, maybe Aaron has been sulking, ever since leaving Egypt, in the shadow of his more famous younger sibling.

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