This was one of the first sermons I scanned for this project. It is significant because of its place in history. My Dad preached this sermon at Bethlehem UCC Church in Chicago on April 7, 1968. A week earlier, on March 31, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson announced that he wouldn't seek reelection. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. On April 5, 1968, riots broke out on the west side of Chicago. The violence took eleven lives and gradually expanded to consume a 28-block stretch of West Madison Street.
This is the sermon my Dad gave on Easter Sunday, ten days after the assassination of Martin Luther King.
This is the earliest sermon in the archive. The pre-UCC, Evangelical and Reformed Dad. There is a limited sample size from this era, but he must have saved this for a reason. I was two months old when he gave this sermon, so I can't bear personal witness. The end sounds a little bit more like the Dad I knew.
"There is much more hope for the so-called pagans, then for thousands of so-called Christians, who have been inoculated with just enough Christianity to make them immune to it."
Word Dad.
2nd Sunday After Epiphany 01/15/1967
Any sermon that draws from the book of Romans, the Wedding at Cana, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Zorba the Greek has to be transcribed. A lot of my Dad's favorites are brought together here. The ordinary as extraordinary. My personal favorite.
11th Sunday After Pentecost 07/30/1967
My Dad gave this sermon the Sunday following the 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot or the 1967 Detroit rebellion. It began in the early morning hours of Sunday July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in the history of the United States. To help end the disturbance, Governor George W. Romney ordered the Michigan Army National Guard into Detroit, and President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The result was 43 dead, 1,189 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed.
When I first found this sermon and shared it with my siblings, my sister said, 'this is either a great sermon or a drug trip'. A good point about centering your life around the Christmas event, followed by long, indecipherable passages from W.H. Auden. I would love to see the faces of the congregation at Bethlehem Church as my Dad reads , "Imagination is redeemed with promiscuous fornication with her own images", on Christmas morning 1967.
Elmhurst College Baccalureate 05/27/1979
My Dad preached this sermon at the Baccalaureate Service for the 1979 Commencement at Elmhurst College. At the same Commencement, he received an Honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from his Alma mater. Groaning, groping and graced.
2nd Sunday After Epiphany 01/20/1985
Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss was a favorite story that my Dad used for children's sermons. On this occasion, he used Yertle the Turtle (and that plain little turtle whose name was just Mack) for the children's service and then used the story again for the non-children's sermon. This one is a little light on theology and a little extra on politics, but at least go here and reread Yertle.
Tracy and Fred Wedding 10/27/1991
This is the sermon that Dad preached at my wedding to Tracy. You know this one was going to make the cut. Ignore that 1981 date, I'm sure I got married in 1991. This is the last sermon in the archive.