Today’s Sermon in a Nutshell:

 

Today’s Sermon in a Nutshell:

When I was very young, I loved to watch my father as he shaved. Then one day my dad asked, “Do you want to try?” to which I gleefully said yes. He took a stool, set me atop it so I could look in the mirror, put an ample amount of shaving cream in my hand and told me to put it all over my face, and then handed me his safety razor – but with the blade taken out. Then I proceeded to mimic my father by dragging this bladeless razor across my cheeks and rinsing off the foam in the sink.

What made this moment so memorable was not so much seeing mine and my fathers’ face in the mirror, but that I was mirroring my father’s actions. I was being like my dad.

In this morning’s epistle lesson, St Paul talks about the importance of giving. He uses an agricultural metaphor to illustrate that if we plant or “give” a little, we’ll get a little; but if we give a lot, we’ll get a lot. Paul goes on to instruct that giving should be practiced freely and with joy, done cheerfully and ungrudgingly, for “giving” is an act of love. In fact, giving is a “gift” from God. Because the greatest aspect of giving unto others is that we mirror the goodness, the greatness, and the graciousness of the ultimate Gift Giver: God – our Heavenly Father.

Fr. John