Sermon Tone Analysis

Thanksgiving

Giving honor to God!

Invitation: Chairman, Deacon William Nicks

Pulpit & Leaders (Spiritual Mother - Rev. Carmena Pyfrom)

Congregation, Family and Friends

Scripture

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

The converse of this is true; if we fail to do good and do not share what we have we are neglecting others.

Sharing what you have are the types of personal sacrifices that are pleasing to God.

When the Scriptures talk about pleasing God then we know it must be important.

This was part of the reason that the early church grew so rapidly as we read in “All the believers were together and had everything in common.

They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”

What we have been blessed with by God we should be a blessing to for others.

[1]

Looking on the Interests of Others

“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

The interests of others ought to be our interests too.

Certainly we look out for ourselves but how can we turn a blind eye when others have needs.

There is a certain genius in generosity because God gives back what we let pass through our hands but if we hold tight with clinched fists what we have, God cannot pour more into hands that are already clinging tightly to what they hold.

[1]

Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2014/09/30/top-7-bible-verses-about-helping-others-in-need/#TW7uVvueruUp3Hkq.99

Citations

[1] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2014/09/30/top-7-bible-verses-about-helping-others-in-need/#TW7uVvueruUp3Hkq.99

Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2014/09/30/top-7-bible-verses-about-helping-others-in-need/#TW7uVvueruUp3Hkq.99

But, truth be told we seem to be living a double standard.

We seem to be blind to trouble that surrounds us when its our people, hurting our people

We cant seem to find the voice speak, the feet to march, when we hear shots fired on our block, however, let a black child lose his or her life by someone don’t look like us.

We appear to be following the Word only when it fits our situation.

We celebrate Black History, during the month of Black History, instead of living it daily.

A dualism that is reminding!

A dualism that today is convicting!

A dualism that should be awakening!

In my research for this sermon I stumbled onto a note by authors Timothy R. Phillips, and Dennis L. Okholm regarding this dualism seen in the church.

More specifically this dualism seen in the eyes of African Americans.

Their research on dualism parallels our theme for today.

My challenge unapologetically is informed by the “African-American grain.”

This term has both descriptive and interpretive import.

As a descriptive term, it attempts to depict the contours of black life in America.

W. E. B. DuBois, one of the greatest American scholars of the twentieth century, more than any other thinker described accurately the identity crisis confronting African-Americans.

At the beginning of this century, in his now classic text The Souls of Black Folks, DuBois noted that the black American ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro, two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double-self into a better and truer self.

This DuBoisian double consciousness best describes the life-world of African-Americans.

To quote from black Christian thinker and social critic Cornel West: “The life worlds of Africans in the United States are conceptually and existentially neither solely African, European or American.

But more of the latter than any of the former.”

The term “African-American grain” is also being employed as an interpretive or conceptual framework.

African-Americans, like all other social and ethnic groups, have their own way of perceiving, knowing and construing reality.

This reality construction represents a kind of world and life view.

Ironically, this black perspective is more genuinely American than some forms of Anglo-American thought.

According to philosopher John McDermott, classic American thought has always been more pragmatic than speculative.

Indeed, it has traditionally been a mode of thought that sides with experience over reflection as the primary resource in formulating beliefs.

One can clearly recognize this tendency in the thought of such diverse thinkers as Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, John Dewey and Reinhold Niebuhr.

Theoretical thought in the African-American grain is fundamentally concerned about the social utility of an idea or concept.

If theoretical thought does not make a difference within the actual lived experience of African-Americans, then it must be jettisoned.