Woodhaven Presbyterian Podcast

Rev. Michael Thompson
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
March 28, 2010 — Palm Sunday
Mark 11: 1-11

A minister friend was telling me about one of the customs that his church has, as do many other churches, and that is that historically on Palm Sunday they do a parade through the neighborhood with the children marching down the streets waving palms and serenading the community.  He said one year there was a seven- or eight-year old who got the word Hosanna right but somehow confused the music and the meaning.  So all during the parade Jesse entertained his friends by singing in full voice, “O Hosanna, don’t you cry for me, I’m going to Alabama with a banjo on my knee!”  My friend said, “I confess that every Palm Sunday I think about that,” and now he’s got me thinking about it, too.  O Hosanna, don’t you cry for me.  It was only just the day before yesterday that I really heard those words, and they really are appropriate, are they not?  Hosanna, don’t you cry for me.

(…excerpt from podcast)

 

 The Two Processions [18:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Rev. Michael Thompson
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
March 21, 2010 — Fifth Sunday in Lent
Luke 18: 1-8

We don’t need a commentary off of the shelf to understand Luke’s gospel lesson for the morning.  You just need to take a part of your own life and put it into his story somewhere in the mix of all of it. It’s a clear parable, although it gets a bit complicated, because Luke says it is primarily about prayer.  So apparently if you’re just reading on the surface of the text what it says to us is that we should plead, beg, nudge God continually until we get God to give us what we want, so we’ll shut up. For me it is a little bit of a reminder of what it was like taking one of my five year old children with me to go shopping in the grocery store.  You parents know how that works.  They are little angels til they get into the store and see what they want, and then when they see it they throw a fit.  You can’t reason with them, you can’t talk to them.  So what are your choices?  Are you going to spank them in front of everybody?  Are you going to turn around and walk out and leave them there alone?  Or do you give them what they want?

(…excerpt from podcast)

 

 The Woman with Bloody Knuckles [14:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Rev. Julie Riley
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
March 14, 2010 — Fourth Sunday in Lent

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the hobbits had an unusual birthday tradition.  Do you remember?  On ones birthday in Middle-earth, instead of receiving gifts from family and friends, one celebrates the occasion of his or her birth by giving presents to all their family and friends.  Sometimes they even throw large parties for everyone to come and celebrate.  Ask any child, and they will tell you that birthdays are all about presents, lots and lots of presents.  Even some of the adults I know relish in the idea of one day where everything is about me.  The hobbits’ way of thinking about birthdays is backwards here in regular earth, but when you think about it, it’s not a bad concept, especially to those who like presents, after all, your birthday comes only once a year, but in the course of a year in middle earth, you can celebrate many, many birthdays, as many as you have loved ones.  Perhaps this birthday tradition suggests that the hobbits may understand the story of the Prodigal Son very well.

(…excerpt from podcast)

 

 More [17:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Rev. Michael Thompson
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
March 7, 2010 — Third Sunday in Lent
Mark 1: 29-39

I was going through my files this last week and I came across a wonderful article that was written by Adam Gopnik who writes sometimes for the New Yorker and sometimes for the New York Times, but this article appeared in the New Yorker and it was entitled Bumping Into Charlie Ravioli.  “Who was Charlie Ravioli?” you might wonder.  Well, when Gopnik’s daughter, Olivia, was three years old she had an imaginary friend named Charlie Ravioli.  And it seems that one day the father walked into her room and she had her play cell phone open and she was talking into it and she said, “Ravioli, Ravioli, are you there?  Can you come out and play? This is Olivia!”  “Well,” she said, “call me.”  And then she snapped the phone shut and said to her dad, “I always get his voice mail!”

(…excerpt from podcast)
 

 

 Getting A Lift [15:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download