Thanksgiving Blessing 2009

Please join me this Sunday, November 29th, when I will be preaching at Church of the Master at 11am. (122nd & Morningside Avenue, Harlem)

The sermon topic will be: Nobody is a Nobody*

Please read these chapters in the Bible to prepare:
Old Testament Lesson: Psalm 42: 1-11
New Testament Lesson: Luke 19: 1-10

*Dr. Callender prepared this sermon initially for St. John Divine Episcopal Church, of New York City, which is the largest Protestant cathedral in the United States. The original presentation of this sermon was during the Vietnam War. He has since updated this sermon and this presentation represents his basic cardinal belief that "Everybody is a Somebody."
Dear Friends,

I heard from Dean Howards-Thurman about a professor who found himself in a faculty-split over a hard issue involving a colleague. Eventually, the Trustees became in involved. At last the faculty had to take positions--pro and con. This professor took a positive stand that made him become unpopular with his colleagues, and next fall he was teaching somewhere else. As Dr. Thurman was telling me this story, he said, "Gene for the first time in my life, I was a man. I could not hedge. I took sides according to my convicitons. I became a new person, way down deep."

When the French artist, Henry Matisse, was a young man, he went through a period where he painted still-lifes in an uninspired and academic style. He found a dealer who would buy those painting for 400 francs apiece. Matisse was married and had three children and this kind of work provided a livelihood. One day came a moment of decision. Matisses says, "I had just finished one of these pictures. It was as good as the previous one. I knew that on delivery, I would get the money I really needed. There was tempation to deliver it, but I knew that if I yielded, it would be my artistic death. Looking back, I realize that it required courage to destroy that picture, particularly since the hands of the butcher and the baker were outstretched for the money. But I did destroy it. I count my emancipation from that day."

When a person decides he will not subvert his talents for any foundation grant, or compromise his integrity to keep a job, or play it safe just to stay in the game, there comes a wonderful sense that he stands for something. That he is a somebody, not a nobody.


VIRTUAL MINISTRY: POSITIVELY EUGENE
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Remember...God Loves You! And I love you too!

-Reverend Eugene Callender
www.dreugenecallender.com


THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK:
"I give thanks for the realization that I am loved and supported by the universe."



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www.dreugenecallender.com
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