Sermons and Talks at Myers Park Baptist Church

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Luke 7:1-23Churches could learn much from reflecting on a jazz band. Here are a group of people who work very hard at listening, yet give up nothing of themselves in that process, but in fact only gain a true sense of themselves in the common task of making music, producing sound that makes a central statement that exists only through the constitutive performances of each musician. ~ Willie James JenningsWe all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It’s our basic human right. ~ Aretha Franklin

Lin Story-Bunce: Isaiah 60:1-9 – One day the sun admitted, I am just a shadow. I wish I could show you the Infinite Incandescence that has cast my brilliant image!I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness,the Astonishing Light of your own Being!– Hafiz

Rev. Dr. Bill Leonard: 1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14 – Why all this intolerance? Because while the unknown is the mind’s greatest need, uncertainty is one of the heart’s greatest fears. So fearful, in fact, is uncertainty that many insecure people engage in what psychiatrists call “premature closure.” They are those who prefer certainty to truth, those in the church who put purity of dogma ahead of the integrity of love. And what a distortion of the Gospel it is to have limited sympathies and unlimited certainties, when the very reverse — to have limited certainties but unlimited sympathies — is not only more tolerant but far more Christian. – William Sloan Coffin, The Heart is a Little to the Left

Rev. Dr. Bill Leonard: Ephesians 4:24 – 5:2 – The Church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men [and women] of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others. In particular, our own Church will have to take the field against the vices of hubris, power-worship, envy, and humbug, as the roots of all evil. It will have to speak of moderation, purity, trust, loyalty, constancy, patience, discipline, humility, contentment, and moderation. It must not underestimate the importance of human example; . . . it is not abstract argument, but example, that gives its word emphasis and power. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Ephesians 4:17-24, 5:6-20 – Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God’s will and God’s love—outside of reality and outside of life. And such a self cannot help but be an illusion. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves. To be a saint means to be my true self. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I truly am and of discovering my true self, my essence or core. Trees and animals have no problem. God makes them what they are without consulting them, and they are perfectly satisfied. With us it is different. God leaves us free to be whatever we like. We can be ourselves or not, as we please. We are at liberty to be real, or to be unreal. We may be true or false, the choice is ours. We may wear now one mask and now another, and never, if we so desire, appear with our own true face. But we cannot make these choices with impunity. Causes have effects, and if we lie to ourselves and to others, then we cannot expect to find truth and reality whenever we happen to want them. If we have chosen the way of falsity we must not be surprised that truth eludes us when we finally come to need it and that confusion reigns.  Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Ephesians 4:1-16We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond. ~  Gwendolyn BrooksThe essence of the beautiful is unity in variety. ~ W. Somerset MaughamI offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love. ~ Mahatma GandhiEven if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is. ~ Hans Urs von Balthasar

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Ephesians 2:11-22 – We look forward to the time when the power of love will overcome the love of power. Then our world will know the blessings of peace. ~ William Ewart Gladstone

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Ephesians 1:1-19– Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly and wants to rip to shreds all your erroneous notions of the truth that make you fight within yourself, dear one, and with others, causing the world to weep on too many fine days. Sometimes The Beloved wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out. ~ Hafez, 13th century Persian poet

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Mark 5:21-43No one has interpreted Jesus Christ’s teaching more incorrectly than Christians. I’m fine with whatever religion you want to have, but you can’t tell anybody it’s OK to kill people, and you can’t abuse children systematically for God knows how many years. – Tom PettyYou’re never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there’s always that one little piece inside you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter and hotter, and if you don’t speak it out one day it will just up and punch you in the mouth from the inside. – Audre Lorde

Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell: Mark 4:35 – 5:20 – How would it change the shape of our social struggle if we understood that we wrestle not just against flesh and blood but also against principalities, against powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavens? How would it change the nature of our wrestling if we did so in the context of continuous Bible study and singing and worship? This is the way increasing numbers of others throughout history] have learned they must live, in order to keep on struggling against the Beast without being made bestial. – Walter Wink