Leftover Pumpkins

Highlights from sermon by
Pastor Milbern Goetz
Sunday, November 5, 2023
St. John’s United Church of Christ

Pumpkin Humor

How do you fix a damaged jack-o’-lantern?
-You use a pumpkin patch.

What is a pumpkin’s circumference divided by a pumpkin’s diameter?
-Pumpkin pi.

What did the pumpkin say to a good looking person?
-You’re gourd-geous.

What do you get when you drop a pumpkin?
-Squash.

Did you know that apple pie in the Bahamas is $1.50? Pumpkin pie in Barbados is $1.75
-These are the pie rates of the Caribbean.

What does a one eyed pumpkin wear?
-A pumpkin patch.

In a farmers market, Farmer A sells pumpkins, Farmer B sells strawberries. What does Farmer C sell?
-Medicine.

Halloween is over but we may feel like Leftover pumpkins.

Whatever age we are….In our personal lives….& in our lives as a church.

In the circumstances of life we can feel it. In the world that we see day to day, in the war, politics, health, society, diminishment of ourselves and others, etc., we can feel it all around.

As Leftover pumpkins we might feel some or all of the following:

·        We might feel “In pieces,” where we have been Crushed, smashed, squashed.

·        We might feel we have been “Emptied,” Hollowed Out, depleted, used up & tossed aside.

·        We might feel “Frozen,” Stuck, Paralyzed, we don’t know what to do, we are unsure of our path or ourselves.

Remember though, we were “Carved” and designed by our Creator God. We will be “Used for pie,” a purpose, we are Christ in our world. And we are “Decorative,” we are the beauty in the moment, still here for what is ahead.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NRSV

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

…“So we do not lose heart!”