INTRODUCTION

Good afternoon and welcome everyone to Good News at Noon from Good Samaritan Lutheran Church. It’s just after 3pm. here in Spencertown, NY and just after 2pm. in Fox Hill, Wisconsin, my hometown. Eventually, I hope to make sense out of that for you.

I’m Pastor Jim Slater, a snowbird at Good Sam. Many of you may know my wife, Christa, and I from our winters with you in Las Vegas. I offered to relieve Pastor Don and Pastor Scott of having to be responsible for every day of the Good News at Noon. So, since I was already helping out on Thursdays, Tommi Garza made me an administrator for the church’s Facebook page and now I can broadcast directly from New York and the pastors are free to do other pastoral duties.

I also offered to share my collection of preaching stories for every Thursday edition of the Good News at Noon. The series will be known at The Good News at 2 from Fox Hill. Today, I’ll take the time to explain that.

My first call as a pastor, over 40 years ago, was to two small congregations two hours North of Syracuse, NY in the Thousand Islands region. At that time and at that remote location, you only got TV by antenna and with that, only three stations: CBS, PBS (so my two daughters grew up on Bert & Ernie), and CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (so I became a fan of curling)! Needless to say, entertainment was limited.

On Saturday nights, Christa and I would actually listen to a radio show on National Public Radio. Garrison Keillor was the host of a radio program called “A Prairie Home Companion” and my favorite part of the show was his monologue entitled “The News from Lake Wobegon.” Maybe some of you from the upper Midwest will remember that.

I was always so impressed with his mesmerizing delivery, his story telling skills and often I found it downright inspirational.

The last Sunday of the church year liturgical calendar is called Christ the King Sunday, usually at the end of November. I’ll share with you an assigned Bible text for that day.

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:15-23

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

In this passage, God is praised for revealing ultimate divine power in raising Jesus from the dead as the king of the world. The resurrected, exalted Christ is Lord of both the church and the entire universe, now and in the age to come.

Now, I was finding that particular Sunday especially difficult to preach on. After 3 years of ministry I had used up all my king illustrations and people found the concept of king a hard one to identify with. So I had struggled all week with a sermon for that Sunday and was not at all pleased with what I had written. But by Saturday night, that was the best I could do. I hate preaching a sermon that even I don’t like!

That Saturday night, during the Good News from Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor told the story of a teen aged boy from Lake Wobegon who was kind of an outcast; no friends at school, mean and uncaring parents at home. His favorite dream was to wish that he were royalty and that all people would have to respect him and do whatever he said. But every morning he would wake up in the same decrepit house and be bullied at school by the same kids and nothing had changed.

But one day, he received a letter in the mail with odd looking stamps on it. He opened it up to find that it was official correspondence from Scotland that he had been traced as a direct descendent of the lost kings of Scotland. Now it did not include any estate or kingdom. There was no financial value to it. There was only a document that he was officially of royal descent. And that was all it took to completely change his outlook on life. His life now had value and meaning that no thing and no body would be able to deny.

I went to bed that night with my horrible sermon and that wonderful story in my head.

The next morning I hurried to shower and get dressed for church. The first service was at the smaller church out in the country, about seven miles from the town church and parsonage. When I arrived at the little church I realized that I had left my sermon sitting on my office desk back in town. I was going to have to “wing” it.

So, when it was time for the sermon, I began, “Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown…” and retold Keillor’s story from the point of view that, by virtue of our baptism, we are all descendants of royalty, sons and daughters of our Lord and Savior, Jesus, Christ the King. Well, the sermon was so well received that when I got back for the second service at the town church, I left that lousy sermon on my desk and told the Lake Wobegon story instead.

That was the beginning of 40 years of occasional Lake Wobegon sermons whenever the inspiration would hit me, maybe two or three times a year. I’ve collected them all and had my own dream of being able to share them in retirement. I always called them “the book I would never write.” I thought Good News at Noon from Good Sam might be the perfect opportunity to share them, and Pastors Don and Scott agreed.

Now, for copyright legalities and publishing on Facebook, I’m going to have to change some names and places and famous phrases, but I hope to give full honor and respect to the story-telling of Garrison Keillor and the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I trust you will be able to catch a glimpse of that and maybe even enjoy the stories.

So, please join me for the Good News at 2pm. from Fox Hill, Wisconsin as I broadcast at 3pm. from Spencertown, NY for all the friends of Good Samaritan to be able to see and hear on the Good News at Noon from Good Sam.

I hope that makes sense. Let us pray.