Friday's thoughts on Sunday's sermon

"The Painful Past"

The sermon will have three parts or maybe two parts with a large transitional middle section.

I am looking at the dark chapter in every life. There is a time in everyone of us when we have done something we are not proud of doing. There are dark chapters in our lives and we may have arrived in high places but we are small people in high places because we know what we have done and we are ashamed of what we have become. We are like Zacchaeus up in a tree.

There are times in life when we are pulled back down to earth and we realize that there is something basically honorable and human in us. We may have committed errors and we may have said some things we wish we hadn't but we face who we are and we don't back away from that.

There comes a time when our dark chapter has a happy ending when we realize that our painful past doesn't need to dominate our furtive future. Jesus invited Zacchaeus to come down from the tree and then Jesus asked him to take him to his home and to serve him a meal. Jesus turned Zacchaeus' shame into service and restored the "Chief Tax Collector" to becoming a person of value and worth.

Have you ever had to work through the dark chapter of your life to discover the happy ending? Have you discovered that no matter what you have done that has brought you shame you have an opportunity to turn your life around?

If you have thoughts on this write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. If you would be willing to have others read your ideas click on the 'comments' box below.

If you would like me to send you a rough draft of the sermon today or early tomorrow let me know and I will send it. My email address is charlesschuster@fcfumc.net.

I look forward to hearing from you.


Charles Schuster