Why Do You Doubt?
Summer Sermon Series on the Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven and other lessons of Jesus. Part 5
This week I had the pleasure of sharing worship with a new-to-me congregation, but one where I have ties to through the Old Songs organization. Part five of this sermon series about the Parables of the Kingdom of Heaven and other lessons of Jesus took place at Rockwell Falls Presbyterian Church in Lake Luzerne, NY.
This is my first visit as a supply minister to this congregation, although I believe there was a presbytery meeting at Rockwell Falls several years ago. I will have to check records. Naturally, the first thing I did upon arrival was accidentally miss-name someone I have known for a long time! Thankfully, she was gracious about it, but I am still embarrassed for my gaff.
The church building is located in the town of Lake Luzerne, which is just within the boundaries of the Adirondack State Park, and west of the city of Glens Falls. I loved driving up to the town. After exiting the highway, I was on winding mountain roads, and after I passed through Corinth, I drove directly alongside the Hudson River. I appreciated the picturesque drive to the church, including the building itself.
I found the people of the Rockwell Falls Presbyterian church to be a welcoming and warm group, although with the humidity of the day, we all were warm! I enjoyed my time with these good folks; if you, my reader, ever find yourself in Lake Luzerne, I encourage you to look them up.
There is no recording of the sermon this time, so you will just have to imagine my inflections – or interject your own! The scripture is based on the story of Jesus walking on the water to the boat wherein the disciples panicked from a storm. I refer in the beginning of the sermon to a catchy song from a musical, but later in the text I interrupted the spoken word for verses from a hymn, as I will sometimes incorporate into sermons. The funny thing about this hymn was I could not find it in any of my hymnals, nor the ones I grew up with. I poured through indexes and finally did a search on hymnary.org to try to find this piece. That was when I realized that growing up in the choir meant I had exposure to a vastly wider range of music than the average. I always knew that was true for anthems and particularly good Christmas Carols. This is the first time I have experienced a strange disconnect with something I thought was a standard hymn!
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