Sermon - 10-8-23

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style= "font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"> In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus is telling yet another parable. I wonder if Jesus doesn’t think that his crowd, which included church leaders, chief priests and Pharisees, were not getting his point. Or maybe Jesus knew they understood what he was saying but they were not willing to admit it. Here Jesus was telling another story that was really about his audience, especially the church leaders.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style= "font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"> I can’t directly recall anyone or myself fully using this approach to get a point across. But what does come to mind is an Old Testament character that listened to a story told by a prophet, and he recognized himself in the story. That character being David.</span></p> <p class="first-line-none" style="background: white;"><span style= "font-size: 14.0pt; color: black; mso-color-alt: windowtext;">So the <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">Lord</span> sent Nathan the prophet to tell David this story: “There were two men in a certain town. One was rich, and one was poor.<strong></strong>The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle.<strong></strong>The poor man owned nothing but one little lamb he had bought. He raised that little lamb, and it grew up with his children. It ate from the man’s own plate and drank from his cup. He cuddled it in his arms like a baby daughter.  One day a guest arrived at the home of the rich man. But instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor man’s lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guest.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style= "mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; line-height: normal; background: white;"> <span style= "font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; col