Podcast

Mothering Day

Rev. Diane M. Baldwin
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
May 12, 2013 – 7th Sunday of Easter – Mother’s Day
Psalm 97; John 17:20-26; Acts 1:1-11

I have been truly blessed to have many, many wonderful women in my life, and most of them are family members.  My Aunt Early: who took me to the TG&Y in Norman, Oklahoma every summer when I was growing up and let me buy my three favorite things in the world: a box of Band-Aids (you never know); a wrist watch (do you remember those wrist watches with the little elastic bands?) I always had to have one of those; and sunglasses that I used to put on like this, you know they were plastic and had the little earpieces.  My Aunt Ruth: who demonstrated to me how important it was to be a lady, not only in dress right down to matching shoes and purse and painted fingernails, but more importantly, in how you interact with others.  My Aunt Lillie: who tried to teach me how to make her sinfully-rich chocolate pie, but who taught me a greater lesson: the love of Christ.  My Grams, Dad’s mom, who taught me that you are never too old to move, change or love babies, and that “sticky” was right up there with cursing, bad, no excuses for it!  My Mamaw, Mom’s Mom, who is like a second mother, only better, left my sister and me with a legacy of unconditional love, cravings for homemade chicken and dumplings, and great tolerance and acceptance for others.

(…excerpt from podcast)

Mothering Day [ 20:43 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Will You Carry The Light?

Amy Hudson, Youth Leader
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
May 5, 2013 – Youth Sunday
John 14:23-29; Revelation 21:10, 22:1-22:5

What an honor it is to be here with you today on Youth Sunday.   I am so privileged to work with the youth.  I have seen them work very, very hard on the liturgy and on the prayers and it has been wonderful and exciting.

The first thing I want to tell you about me, if you don’t know me, is it is all about me!  If you don’t believe me you can ask any of the kids or anyone in handbells, they know that it is all about me.  But what you don’t know is the reason that it is all about me.  It is because that I want the light of Christ to shine through me; the light that God gives me.  Please don’t let my secret out to the kids because that will lose and ruin my entire credibility.

Have you ever seen the movie Patch Adams?  Robin Williams plays a depressed character, he tries to go get help and no one can help him.  So He goes back to school so that he can learn how to help people.  During that time he does some experiments.  He likes to experiment on people’s responses to how he says, “Hello!”  And there was an overwhelming response with joy every time he says, “Hello!”

(…excerpt from podcast)

Will You Carry The Light? [ 14:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The new heaven and the new earth

Rev. Diane M. Baldwin
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
April 28, 2013 – 5th Sunday of Easter
John 13:31-35

. . . In her blog for this week, entitled Easter Erosion, Easter Explosion, Alyce McKenzie (who is Cara’s homiletics professor at Perkins and was one of my professors as well) reminds us that today’s short reading from the gospel of John is like firm ground beneath our feet, “…a command to love one another amid the realities of violence and betrayal as a continuation of Jesus’ ministry in the world. These [few short] verses serve as an introduction to Jesus’ Last Discourse with his disciples in [the gospel of] John. They contain distinctive themes of John’s gospel: glorification, departure, and the command to love one another as a sign of [true] discipleship…”

(…excerpt from podcast)

The new heaven and the new earth [ 27:03 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hope-Filled Nourishment

Cara Goedecke, DCE & Teaching Elder Candidate
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
April 21, 2013 – 4th Sunday of Easter
Jeremiah 24:1-10; Romans 8:18-25

There are certain times when coming around a table is good – Thanksgiving, church pot-luck, holy communion – but there are also times when coming around a table brings feelings of hostility and anger.  Like at business meetings where your enemy is sitting right in front of you criticizing your every word.  Or maybe it is at a family dinner where you get in heated argument with your spouse, or your child or your friend, and you argue about who is right and who is wrong.

When we come to a table of hostility we are on dangerous ground.  We begin to think irrationally and act out of fear and anger.  We quickly forget about all the positive nourishment we have received, the uplifting words of praise, the vitamin-soaked actions of love, and instead we feel as if someone has heaped raw compost on us.  Listening to the harsh words of people naming us as “rotten fruit,” is challenging to hear.

(…excerpt from podcast)

Hope-Filled Nourishment [ 17:16 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What will you put on?

Cara Goedecke, D.C.E., Teaching Elder Candidate
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
April 14, 2013 – 3RD Sunday of Easter
Deuteronomy 5:1-21; Romans 13:8-14

Beep-beep-beep!  Beep-beep-beep!  Beep-beep-beep!  Beep-beep-beep! “Please stop!  I’m up, I’m up!  I can’t believe it’s already morning!  I just  want a few more minutes of sleep!”

Now I am guessing that this might be the traditional morning attitude for most of us here.  We may even throw our phones across the room when they start going off.  In fact probably some of you had the same reaction when you woke up for worship today – alarms waking us up from sleep, pushing us to begin another day.  But imagine if the beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep was missing from your morning routine, and it wasn’t because you didn’t have to go anywhere – you forgot to set the alarm.  In fact, when you finally do wake up it is two hours past the time you were supposed to have woken up.  And what’s worse, you were supposed to be at a meeting with your boss one hour ago!  How do your respond?  Do you say, “Well, I’m already late, so I might as well make the best of it?  Maybe I’ll have that nice cup of tea or coffee, and I’ll make some bacon and eggs to go with it and have a leisurely morning?”

Of course not!  You respond with your internal instinct of panic by jumping out of bed, running to your closet, grabbing and putting on the first outfit you see, and then you rush out the door to try to redeem yourself as quickly as possible.  You’re lucky if your socks match.  Okay, let’s be honest, you’re lucky if you remember to put on socks.  You are responding to the urgency of the moment.

(…excerpt from podcast)

What will you put on? [ 21:32 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I am the Alpha and Omega

Rev. Diane M. Baldwin
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
April 7, 2013 – 2nd Sunday of Easter
Psalm 118:14-29; Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31

Lent is a powerful season of transformation, forty days in the desert, stripped of our comforts, and buoyed by our commitment to daily practice, so that we might arrive at the celebration of Easter deepened and renewed.  But often we arrive at the glorious season of resurrection and celebrate for that one day, forgetting that it is a span of fifty days, even longer than the Lenten season through which we’ve just traveled.  Easter isn’t just the day when the tomb was discovered empty, but a span of time when days grow longer in the northern hemisphere, blossoms burst forth, and we are called to consider how we might practice this resurrection in our daily lives.

The gospel readings during the Easter season are about the resurrection appearances of Jesus.  Thomas doubts and needs to touch Jesus’ wounds, the nets are pulled ashore overflowing with fish, the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread, Jesus breathes on them the gift of the spirit, and of course there is the celebration of breath and fire at Pentecost.

(…excerpt from podcast)

I am the Alpha and Omega [ 21:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Easter: A time for rejoicing

Rev. Diane M. Baldwin
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
March 31, 2013 – Easter Sunday
John 20:1-18

When the doctor walks into the waiting room, the anxious couple stands.  They can tell from the look on his face that it’s bad news.  “I’m sorry, but the cancer has spread.  Your daughter doesn’t have much time left.  There’s nothing we can do.”  And with that, the doctor turns and leaves.  The mother and father fall lifelessly back into their chairs.  They don’t say anything. 

What do you hope for when you’ve been told there is no hope?  Where do you look when it’s so dark that you can’t see anything?

He’s 31, has been married for eight years and has two small children.  The marriage was shaky from the start but he’s been hanging on to a thread of wishful thinking.  Then another man came into the picture and now his wife says it’s over.  He has no place to go but back to his parents’ house.  Like years before he and his father sit on the porch.  “Dad, the strange thing is that in spite of all she’s done, I still love her.”

What do you do when you’ve been hanging by a thread and the thread breaks?  What do you do when things are too broken to mend?

(…excerpt from podcast)

Easter: A time for rejoicing [ 21:41 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lent: A time to be born, and a time to die

Rev. Diane M. Baldwin
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
March 24, 2013 – Palm Sunday
Luke 19:28-40

How many of you have already filed your 2012 Federal Income Tax Return? How many of you have received a refund or paid the taxes you owe by robbing Peter to pay Paul, asking your family for a loan, delaying paying other bills to pay your bill to Uncle Sam? Most of you know that I always file for an automatic extension and fight with myself to deliver them to the CPA before October 15. Why do I delay? It’s not that I don’t have all of the information readily at hand. It’s not that I don’t sort it into appropriate categories throughout the entire tax year into my trusty, accordion filing system. It’s not that I don’t believe that I should pay my fair share of taxes? Well, maybe that’s going a little too far. But that’s the way I’ve always done it.

We all approach tax season with a little trepidation, prayer, and perhaps superstitious behavior. My brother-in-law, Charles, who I adore and who has been a part of our family since 1972, has a very detailed system for preparing his taxes. I think he’s used it since he married my sister in 1977. He places all of his receipts into those big paper boxes, the ones that you buy reams of paper in. He labels the boxes. Around February or March he takes a box and a yellow, wide-ruled legal pad. Not college-ruled. Not letter sized. Not white paper. And one-by-one, hands copies the information from the receipt to the appropriate yellow, wide-ruled, legal pad.  One year I mistakenly asked my sister if Charles would like one of those Neat Scanners for Christmas. That’s the brand name, although they are really “neat.” That way he could scan the receipts during the year and wouldn’t have to drag out the boxes, legal pads, and other tax minutia and detritus.

My sister, who is a very wise woman, said “no, I don’t think so. Charles has a system and routine that works. He’s never been audited and he doesn’t want to do anything to break that streak.” So I think that Christmas I bought him more sweat pants to work in the yard.

(…excerpt from podcast)

Lent: A time to be born, and a time to die [ 23:02 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lent: A time for mourning

Rev. Diane M. Baldwin
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
March 17, 2013 – Fifth Sunday in Lent
John 12:1-8

Have you ever wondered what you smell when you ‘smell the roses’ in springtime?  What makes a smell is something that is too small to see with your eyeball alone.  It is even too small to be seen with a microscope.  What you smell are tiny things called odor particles.  Millions of them are floating around waiting to be sniffed by your nose.  You smell these odors through your nose, which is almost like a huge cave built to smell, moisten and filter the air you breathe.  As you breathe in the air enters through your nostrils which contain tiny little hairs that filter all kinds of things trying to enter your nose, even those horrible gnats.  These little hairs sweep all the dirt out of the nasal cavity which is the big place the air passes through on its way to our lungs.  After passing through the nasal cavity the air passes through a thick layer of mucous to the olfactory bulb.  There the smells are recognized because each smell molecule fits into a nerve cell like a lock and key.  Then the cell sends signals along your olfactory nerve to the brain.  At the brain they are interpreted as those sweet smelling flowers or that moldy cheese.

Our sense of smell is connected really well to our memory.  For instance, the smell of popcorn can remind you of being at the movies with a friend.  Or the smell of tar can remind you of riding in the car to the beach.

When my grandmother — my Mamaw — died almost twenty-five years ago, I remember one thing in particular of hers that I really wanted to keep.  It was her black, three-quarter length sleeve sweater.  She wore it just about all the time.  It really wasn’t my style or the fashion of most gals in their late 20s, but why did I want it?  Because it smelled like my Mamaw.  When I pressed my face into the soft folds of that fuzzy sweater, I felt, I saw, and I even heard, my Mamaw. Memories of my Mamaw would gush over me like a tidal wave.  It made me feel safe, unconditionally loved, and oh so very blessed.  I kept that sweater for several decades, and even after Mamaw’s scent faded the memories of her love didn’t.

Have you ever wondered what God’s love smells like?

(…excerpt from podcast)

Lent: A time for mourning [ 21:28 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lent: A time for embracing, and a time for avoiding embraces

Rev. Diane M. Baldwin
Woodhaven Presbyterian Church
March 10, 2013 - Fourth Sunday in Lent
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Have you ever heard something over and over and over and over, but never really paid attention?  I know my cat Calvin has. He thinks, “No Calvin” is his name. A few days ago I was driving somewhere in my car, probably to get a Diet Coke with extra ice, and I was listening to NPR’s Marketplace. By the way, as I was typing this sermon, “No Calvin,” attacked my books and papers and chewed several holes in one of my pristine reference books that I’ve had for more than a decade. Ugh!

Anyway, back to Marketplace. The host of the program was rattling on, well gushing, if you must know, about how well the Dow was doing. Dow hits new high, erasing crisis swoon. Dow record makes those not in the market itchy to act.

We were met at the closing bell that day by yet another record high on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Which might make you feel pretty good about things. But maybe it shouldn’t. “It’s a rough indicator of the health of the market,” says Kelly School of Business professor Scott Smart, “but there are some problems with the Dow as such an indicator.”

For one, the Dow is a very, very small sample. It’s 30 companies. And says Smart, “since it only looks at 30 stocks, there are obviously big portions of the market that the Dow doesn’t monitor or doesn’t capture.” Google isn’t there. Apple isn’t there. (I could keep this game going for a long time.)

(…excerpt from podcast)

Lent: A time for embracing, and a time for avoiding embraces [ 22:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download