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Sermons

November 18, 2018

Labor Pains
Pentecost 26 – Proper 28
Becky Robbins-Penniman

 

Labor pains. Not a typical topic in church.
Also, they’re not something that we think of as something to look forward to. However, if you’ve ever been pregnant for months, and it seems like years since you could even see your toes, labor pains mean that the wait is coming to an end. Yay! The waiting MUST happen, however, to get a healthy baby.

Medical science has made remarkable strides in just the past 150 years but it still takes 9 months for a baby to fully develop. Diana Ross sang about how you can’t hurry love, and you can’t hurry babies, either. They come when they are ready. Getting to full term takes the same amount of time no matter how much money you have or how much you miss your toes. So, you might as well be patient about it.

How remarkable that both Jesus and Paul use the image of childbirth to talk about patiently waiting for the Reign of God to come to fruition. Each baby represents the culmination of eons of past human actions. Knit together slowly in the dark, it takes flesh and is born of a woman. When they emerge, they know nothing of that past; they’re are all about the future, full of potential. What will this one do?

Read the full sermon text HERE.

WORSHIP BULLETINS ADDITIONAL SERMONS