126 Fast Chestaut Street/ Chicago Mlinois 60611 (312) 787 4570

December 20, 1991

Dr, James W. Cox

Lester Professor of Preaching

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
2825 Lexington Rd.

Louisville, KY 40280

Dear Dr. Cox:

I am enclosing a copy of a sermon preached by John Buchanan, Pastor of
Fourth Presbyterian Church, on Sunday, December 15, 1991. In my opinion
this is one of the most outstanding sermons I have heard. I believe it is
worthy of consideration for annual Best Sermons competition.

If something further needs to be done to expedite this process, please let
me know,

Every good wish to you for a blessed Christmas and a prosperous .
New Year.

Yours sincerely,

Fiam Davies
Pastor Emeritus

Enclosure

126 East Chestnut Street/ Chicago Illinois 60611 (312) 787 4570

January 14, 1991

Best Sermons
FP. OG. Box 6029
Louisville, KY 40207

Judges for the Contest:
Enclosed is a copy of Getting Your Priorities Right, a sermon I preached

in 1990 and am submitting for consideration in "The Fifth Annual Best Sermons
Competition."

Thank you for this opportunity and for your consideration.

Yours sincerely,

WA (Scecteareaer

d¢fn M. Buchanan

MB:k

Enclosure

EE

A Division of Icchouse One—401 Telephone 415 477-4400
HarperCollins Publishers 151 Union Street Fax 415 421-5865

San Francisco, California

941) 17-1299

October 29, 1991

The Rev. John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church
126 E Chestnut

Chicago IL 60611

Dear Rev. Buchanan:

I am pleased to tell you that your sermon, GETTING YOUR
PRIORITIES RIGHT,has been selected by the judges as an
Honorable Mention in the Devotional category of the Best
Sermons 5 competition. Over 2000 sermons were entered in
the contest!

I ask you to sign both copies of the enclosed Best Sermons
agreement and return one copy to me. Also, please fill
out the Best Sermons Winner Biographical Information form
and return it with the signed agreement. Please return
these forms to me as soon as possible.

We would also like to have a quality photograph of you.
The photograph can be sent to me by separate mail,
sometime within the next month.

Winners of the Best Sermons 5 competition will be
announced to the public after April 1, 1992, when the book
Best Sermons 5 is published. We must ask you and your
immediate family, in the meantime, not to disclose to
anyone that you are a winner!

When we have received your signed agreement and the
completed biographical information form, we will send you
the packet of information for you to select your prize
books.

Thank you for your sermon and congratulations again on
being selected a winner.

Sincerely yours,

Jot B. —_—

Senior Editor

Devotional John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church
126 E. Chestnut
Chicago, I 60611

GETTING YOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT

Luke 316:160-13

In his memoir, The Good Times, Russel] Baker, New York Times

correspondent and columnist, begins with an amusing observation about his
mother who died years ago, but still roams free in his mind, and wakes him
Some mornings before daybreak. He hears her saying...
"Tf there's one thing I can't stand, it's a
quitter.' TIT have heard her say that all my life. Now,
lying in bed, coming awake in the dark, I feel the fury
of her energy fighting the good~far-nothing idler
within me who wants to go back to sleep instead of
tackling the brave new day.
“Silently I protest: I am not a child anymore.
fT have made something of myself. I am entitied to
sleep late,
“Russell, you've got no more gumption than a
bump on a Jog. Don't you want to amount to something?!
"She has heunded me with these same battle cries
Since I was a boy in short pants back in the
Depression,
“Amount to something?!
“Make something of yourself!'

“Don't be a quitter! "4

The book strikes a familiar chord with people whose values, hopes,
dreams and expectations have been shaped by the American experience in the
middle of the twentieth century, which means mast of us. We either lived
through the Great Depression, or were raised by parents who did, or at
least by parents whose values were very much shaped by that economic
trauma. Those values are frugality, responsibility, a suspicion of credit
and an aversion to indebtedness, most of all a sense that survival means
hard work, the willingness to delay gratification and to work very, very
hard. Russel] Baker's mother's litany - “make something of yourself, work
hard, dan't quit, get ahead" is familiar to all of us, I suspect, and still
drives many of us.

It may, in fact, define us more accurately than we suspect, or even
want to know about.

Each of us has a center of value, on the basis of which our lesser
values gain their meaning. That center of value, said the late H. Richard
“Niebuhr, is essentially theological, whether or not we are traditionally
religious. It is our god. Russell Baker is candid enough to identify his
mother's litanies as his center in a way that helps us identify eur own.
The point is that each of us has one - a center of value which forms our
other values, which shapes aur hopes and dreams and expectations for the
future, even our ultimate future. That is to say, each of us has a god,

And that is the point of what is arguably the most troublesome story
Jesus ever told: certainly one of the most intriguing. if the “charming
rascal" is ane of your favorite literary character types, you're going to
leve the man in this story. He's a steward, an estate Manager actually, in

the employ of a wealthy land owner. The land owner leases his property to

tenant farmers whose rent is a percentage of the produce they harvest from
the land. The steward's job is to manage the systems for the owner:
negotiate the percentages, keep the books, collect the produce at harvest
time. It is an important job. The owner depends on his steward's
effectiveness and mast of all, honesty,

This particular steward, said Jesus, was charged with wasting his
master's goods. The owner called him in, gave him notice, told him to
bring the books up to date, clear out his desk, move on. He was fired.

The man does not argue, explain or plead his case. TJnstead, without
wasting a moment, he goes to his office, summons the tenants one by one,
whe do not know apparently that he has been fired and announces that the
percent they owe has been reduced and the landlord has lowered the rent.
The implication is that he, the Steward, has been instrumental] in arranging
this happy surprise. The farmers are delighted. Nothing like this has
ever happened before.

When the land owner discovers what has happened he has only twa
options. He can jail the dishonest steward and reverse the damage done ~
but there's already a celebration gaing on in the town square. His tenant
farmers are, at the moment, perhaps at the pub, lifting their glasses toa
toast his generosity and his steward's kindness. He decides not to tell
them it is a mistake and that their good friend is under arrest.

The other aption is to absorb the loss, essentially to pay the price
himself for his steward's salvation. That is what he does. He shows
unustial mercy —- amazing grace - and then he commends the steward for his

shrewdness, his sense of priority.

io

It| is a subtie point... God's amazing and dependable graciousness,
God's itnexpected and always surprising willingness to love us and accept
us, This man is nat a moral model for anyone. But, to his everlasting
credit, he does know what the most important issue in life is and where to
take it. He knows somehow that he can depend, utterly and ultimately on
the generosity and grace of his master.”

And then, in case we miss the point, Luke reports an intriguing
saying of Jesus’:

“No servant can serve two masters,
you cannot serve God and mammon.”

Mammon — what a great Riblical word. [t's money, but it's more than
money. it's the mystique of money, the essence of wealth. It's money in
capital letters. It's the gorgeous ads in the Sunday stpplement... It's
trudging across an acre of lush Kentucky Blue Grass to borrow a cup of
Johnny Walker Black Label from your neighbor. It's a car you never quite
get to see because its name is Infiniti. It's a culture that invests its
most creative architecture no longer in cathedrals but vertical shopping
malls, Mammon is whatever shapes your dreams. It is your center of value
It is whatever you worship, It is whatever you expect to save you.

Mammon is defined by Russel] Baker and children of the Depression as
accomplishment, success, security. Comedian George Carlin, who would
probably be surprised to be used as a sermon illustration, defines it as
“stuff" - the accumulation of things for which we must provide space;
shelves and drawers and garages and walls and cabinets and boxes and
trunks. Mammon is defined for many of us, at least partially, by the word
comfort. Being comfortable is more important than we realize, therefore

more powerful in actually determining our values and our behavior.

Another contemporary variation on the ald theme of mammon might be
called “self-fulfiliment." "Pollster Dantel Yankelovich estimates that as
much as 80 percent of us are in some way involved in the quest for
fulfillment. 17 percent... spend much of their time assessing and
reassessing their personal lives, their jobs, and friends, and mates, from
the perspective of the needs and wants of the self.... They are the ones
most preoccupied with finding spiritual, mental, and physical wholeness
through diet, exercise, meditation, psychotherapy... and Many have stumbled
into... the 'falfitlment trap,' wanting more than they can have and putting
self ahead of social relationships."

Jesus would pnt it this way - "You cannot serve two masters,"
Thealogically, you can't serve God and mammon. It's not that mammon is
bad. Jesus has been consistently misunderstood on that point. He did nat
condemn wealth in and of itself. He did not condemn ambition or hard wark.
He told, one wealthy young man to seli all he had and give to the poor, but
that was a particular prescription, not a universal model. What he said
here is that wealth, or any form of mamman, doesn't work if we look to it
for our salvation. It's that simple, It doesn't work. And there is a
sense that people wha have it know it best.

Harvard professor Harvey Cox observes that there is a revival of
Eastern spirituality in Western culture precisely because materialism
doesn't work as a source of ultimate meaning or salvation. Professor Cox
notes that Young Urban Professionals are “victims of a painful overload of
contradiction” between the stated value systems of our society and the
actual values which operate in the marketplace. "They are pulled apart.

In family and religious life they have been taught to share and cooperate

an

and even to love, but the world of classroom and market requires them to
connive and campete if they wish to succeed.”

Cox says one of the appealing resolutions for many thoughtful young
adults is a vigorous, disciplined, cult-type religiosity which provides
",.a chance to test and stretch themselves as opposed to the debilitating
pursuit of comfort. that is the chief characteristic of consumer culture."4

Mammon doesn't work. The first rule of economics someone said is
that "you can't have everything.” You have te choose. Individuals and
nations. Priorities must be established. In theological terms, a pod must
be chosen and served.

Saying yes ta Ged, that is, means saying na to other gods. It is a
matter of very basic theology.

The treuble with us, the Bible concludes, is that we are always
getting our priorities confused. We are looking for the meaning of our
lives in the wrong places. In the Biblical idiom the trouble with mammon
is not that it is evil. The trouble is that it doesn't work. In fact, all
that mammon is good for is producing worry and anxiety. If your job is the
most important thing in the world to you, you're going to worry a let about
it. If it’s your house, your automobile, your position in the community,
your sex life, your children, you're probably worrying a Iot.

One of the basic insights of our faith is this: if you try to
squeeze something infinite out of something finite, you will not only be
unsuccessful and frustrated, you wil] very likely squeeze the life out as
well, One of the lessons in life that parents must Jearn is that if
children are expected to provide peace, happiness, contentment, the load
will be too heavy for the relationship to bear. Jf your ego, your sense of

self—worth, is dependent on your child's accomplishments, athletically,

academically, economically or socially, the child invalved is being asked
to earry a very heavy load. In fact, it won't work. dr if your happiness
is dependent on your apartment or automobile, you're in trouble
spiriteally. And the ultimate irony is that if you look to mammon, the
mystique of wealth, prosperity and security to provide happiness, peace and
salvation, you prebably will not ever enjoy very much af what you already
have,

The truth of the matter is that you and I only deeply enjoy what we
don't ultimately need. The truth is that it is net possible to enjoy that
which you depend on. Psychologists know that obsessive need — dependence -
is not a strong basis for a healthy relationship. The truth is that
children are far better off when parents do not need them for ega
fulfillment. And they are far more enjoyable ~ which may be one of the
reasons grandparents so absolutely enjoy their grandchildren.

The truth is that you cannot enjoy anything if you load it up with
expectations and demands and insist that it reward you with happiness,
peace and contentment. You can't enjoy anything that exerts that kind of
power over you. You can't enjoy your sexuality if you look to it to
demonstrate your masculinity or femininity or attractiveness or youth. You
won't enjoy romance or friendship or family affection if you need it to
provide something to yourself, And mammon as money... Frederick Buechner
quips that "There are people who use up their entire lives making money so
they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up."

Jesus told a story about a man who was as flawed as anyone in the
Bible and as human as anyone I know, but a man who knew at least where his
salvation would be found. He concluded it by teaching us that it is a

matter of very great importance that we get our priorities straight

If we give our hearts to manmon, whatever that might be for us, we
will not be happy and, in the process, we will miss the saving miracle of
God's unusual generosity, God's amazing grace, God's uncanditional love for
us which is, he taught, the only source of our salvation

The radical word of Christian faith, to would-be disciples in first
century Galilee and would-be disciples in the 20th century is that in order
ta experience salvation we must say "no" ta all the other gods who clamor
for our love and hope and faith and enthusiasm and passion, and say “yes"
to the God wha has loved us into being and came to be among us and to teach
us and to live and die with us and to rise again for us in Jesus Christ.

We are God's top priority it would seem. God has decided to love us,
to give us life and the capacity for love and joy and peace. God has
decided to give us life eternal, life in all its fullness, life blessed by
beauty, life with all its potential for creativity and accomplishment, life
with its wonderful capacity for love and Passion and intimacy and eestaay,
life - which in Jesus Christ is diminished by nothing, limited and hemmed
in ultimately by no thing, not even death. That's what God has decided
ahout us, we believe. And after all the deciding, God made one more
decision, namely to allow you the final one, the big one, the only one

actually. Who will you serve?... Who will be your God?...

NOTES

lRussell Raker, The Good Times {New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.,
1989}, 7.

2xenneth E. Railey, Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes (Grand Rapids:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983), 86 ff.

3 wade Clark Roof and William McKinney, American Mainline Religion (New
Brunswick and London: 1987), 47.

4arvey Cox, Many Mansions (Boston: Beacon Press), 189.

SFrederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark (San Francisco: Harper & Row,
Publishers), 80.

GETPING YOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT.

CHICAGO SUNDAY EVENING CLUR
RECORDING JANUARY 14, 1890

JOUN M. BUCHANAN, PASTOR
FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CHICAGO

Scripture
Luke 16:10-13

"No servank can serve two wasters;... You cannot serve Ged and mammon.”
--Luke 16:13 (RSV)

in his memoir, The Good Times, Russeli Baker, New York Times
correspondent and columnist, begins with an amusing observation about his
mother who died years ago, but still roams free in his mind, and wakes him
some mornings before daybreak. He hears her saying...

"Tf there's one thing I can't stand, it's a
quitter.’ I have heard her say that ail my life. Now,
lying in bed, coming awake in the dark, I feal the fury
of her energy fighting the good-for-nothing idler
within me who wants to go back to sleep instead of
tackling the brave new day...

"Silently T protest. I am not a child anymore,
I have made something of myself. I am entitled to
sleep late,

“Russell, you've got no more gumption than a
bump on a leg. Don't you want to amount to something?!

“She has hounded me with these same battle cries
since T was a boy in short pants back in the
Depression.

"Amount to something!

"Make something of yourself!

“Don't be a quitter!"

Baker tells how in i954, at the age of 29, he was assipned to cover
the White House - as close toe complete success as a correspondent could
get. He went home to Baltimore to tell his mother about it.

"T should have known better. ‘Well, Russ,' she said. ‘if you work

hard at this White House job you might be able to make something of
yourself.'" [p. 7-8]

The book strikes a familiar chord with people whose values, hopes,
dreams and expectalions have been shaped by the American experience in the
middle of the twentieth century, which means mosf of us. We either lived
through the Great Depression, or were raised by parents who did, or at
least by parents whose values were very much shaped by that economic
trauma. Those values are frugality, responsibility, a suspicion of credit
and an aversion to indebtedness, most of all a sense that survival means
hard work, the willingness te delay gratification and to work very, very
hard. Russeli Baker's mother's litany - "make something af yourself, work
hard, dan't quit, get ahead" is familiar to all of us, I suspect, and atill
drives many of us,

It may, in fact, define us more accurately than we suspect, or even
want toa know about.

Each of us has a center of value, on the basis of which our lesser
values pain their meaning. That center of value, said the late
professor, H. Richard Niebuhr, is essentially theological, whether or nat
we are traditionally religious. It is our god. Russell Baker is candid
enough to identify his mother's litanies as his center in a way that helps
us identify our own. The point is that each of us has one - a center of
value which forms our cther values, which shapes our hopes and dreams and
expectations for the fulure, even our ultimate future. That is to say,
each of us had a god.

And that is the point of what is arguably the mast troublesome story
Jesus ever told: certainiy one of Lhe most intriguing. If the "charming
rascal" is one of your favorite literary character types, you're going to
love the man in this story. He's a steward, an estale manager actually, in
the employ of a wealthy land owner, The land owner leases his property lo
tenant farmers whose rent is a percentage of the produce they harvest from
the land. ‘The steward's fob is to manage the systems for the owner:
negotiate the percentages, keep the hooks, callect the produce at harvest
time. Tt is an important job. The owner depends on his steward'’s
effectiveness and most of all, honesty.

This particular steward, said Jesus, was charged with wasting his
master's goods. The owner calied him in, gave him notice, told him to
bring the books up to date, clear out his desk, move on. He was fired.

The man does nat argue, explain or plead his case. Instead, without
wasting a moment, he goes to his office, summons the tenants one by one,
who do nol know apparently that he has been fired and anneunces that the
percent they owe has been reduced and the landlord has lowered the rent
The implication is that he, the steward, has been instrumental in arranging
this happy surprise. The farmers are delighted. Nothing like this has
ever happened before.

When the land owner discovers what has happened he has only two
options. He can jail the dishonest steward and reverse the damage done ~
but there's already a celebration going on in the town square. His tenant

farmers are, at the mument, perhaps at the pub, lifting their glasses tu
toast his generosity and his steward's kindness. He decides not to Lell
them it is a mistake and that their good friend is under arrest.

The other optjon is to absorb the loss, essentially to pay the price
himself for his steward's salvation. That is what he does. He shows
unusual mercy - amazing grace ~ and then he cammends the steward for his
shrewdness, his sense of priority.

Tt is a subtle point... God's amazing and dependable graciousness,
God's unexpected and always surprising willingness te leve us and accept
us. This man is not a moral model for anyone. But, to his everlasting
credil, he does know what the most important issue in life is and where ta
take it. He knows somehow that he can depend, utterly and ultimately on
the generosity and grace of his master. [See Poet and Peasant. Kenneth
Bailey, p. 86 ff}

ete}
And then, in case we miss the point, Luke reports @s, intriguing
saytag of Jesus':

“No servant can serve two masters,
you cannot serve God and mammon.”

Mammon - what a great Biblical word. It's money, but it's mere than
money. It's the mystique of money, the essence of wealth. It's money in
eapital letters. It's the gorgeous ads in the Sunday supplement... It's
trudging across an acre of lush Kentucky Blue Grass to borrow a cup of
Johnny Waiker Black Label from your neighbor. It's a car you never quite
pet. to see because its name is Jnfiniti. It's a culture that invests its
most crealive architecture no jonger in calhedrais but vertical shopping
maljs. Mammon is whatever shapes your dreams, It is your center of value.
It is whatever you worship. It is whatever you expect to save you

Mammon is defined by Russell Baker and children of the Depression as
accomplishment, success, security. Comedian George Carlin, who would
probably be surprised to be used as a sermon illustration, defines it as
"stuff" - the accumulation of things for which we must provide space:
Shelves and drawers and garages and walls and cabinets and boxes and
trunks. Mammon is defined for many of us, at least partially, by the word
comfort. Being comfortable is more important than we realize, therefore
more powerful in actually determining our values and our behavior.

Another contemporary variation on the old theme af mammon might he
called “se]f-fulfitlment." Pollster David Yankelovich reports thal 80% of
us are in some way involved in the "quest for Fulfillment." 17% "spend
much of their lives assessing and reassessing their personal lives, their
jabs, friends, mates, from the perspeclive of the needs and wants of the
self." They are the anes most preaceupied with finding spiritual, marital,
physical wholeness through diet, exercise, meditation, psychotherapy - and
many have stumbled into the ‘fulfillment trap’... wanting more than they
can have and putting self ahead of sovial relationships." [American
Mainline Rekigion, Roof and MacKinney, p. 47}

Jesus would put it this way - "You cannot serve two masters."
Theologically, you can't serve God and mammon. It's not that mammon is
bad. Jesus has been consistently misunderstood on that point. He did not
condemn wealth in and of itself. He did not condemn ambition or hard work.
fe told one wealthy young man to sell all he had and give to the poor, but
that was a particular prescription, not a universal model. What he said
here is that wealth, or any form of mammon, doesn't work if we look to it
for our salvation. It's that simple. It doesn't work. And there is a
sense that people who have it know it best,

Harvard professor, Harvey Cox observes that there is a revival of
Eastern spirituality in Western culture precisely because materialism
doesn't work as a source of ultimate meaning or salvation. Professor Cox
notes that Young Urban Professionals are "victims of a painful overload of
contradiction" between the stated value systems of our society and the
actual values which operate in the marketplace. "They are pulled apart.
In family and religious life they have been taught to share and cooperate
and even to love, but the world of classroom and market requires them to
connive and compete if they wish to succeed."

Cox says one of the appealing resolutions for many thoughtful young
adults is a vigorous, disciplined, cult-type religiosity which provides "a
chance to test and stretch themselves as opposed to the debilitating
pursuit of comfert that is the chief characteristic of consumer culture."

{Many Mansions, p. 188]

Mammon doesn't work. The first rule of economics someone said is
that "you can't have everything." You have to choose. Individuals and
nations. Priorities must be established. In theological terms, a god must
be chosen and served.

Saying yes to God, that is, means saying no to other gods. It is a
matter of very basic theology.
‘~The trouble with us, the Bible concludes is that we are always getting our
priorities confused. We are looking for the meaning of our lives in the
wrong places. [n the Biblical idiom the trouble with mammon is not that it
is evil. The trouble is that it doesn't work. In fact, all that mammon is
good for is producing worry and anxiety. If your job is the most important
thing in the world to you, you're going to worry a lot about it. If it's
your house, your automobile, your position in the community, your sex life,
your children, you're probably worrying a lot.

One of the most important lessons of life and one of the basic
insights of Judeo-Christian religion is this: if you try to squeeze
something infinite out of something finite, you will not only be
unsuccessful and frustrated, you will very likely squeeze the life out as
well. One of the lessons in life that parents must learn is that if
children are expected to provide peace, happiness, contentment, the load
will be too heavy for the relationship to bear. If your epo, your sense of
self-worth, is dependent on your child's accomplishments, athletically,
academically, economically or socially, the child involved is being asked
to carry a very heavy load. In fact, it won't work. Or if your happiness

nr

is dependent on your apartment or automobile, you're in trouble
spiritually. And the ultimate irany is that if you look to mammon, the
mystique of wealth, prosperity and security to provide happiness, peace and
salvation, you probably will not ever enjoy very much of what you already
have .

The truth of the matter is that yeu and I only deeply enjoy what we
don't ultimately need, The truth is that £t is not possible tu enjoy thal
which you depend on. Psychologists know that obsessive need - dependence —
is not a strong basis for a healthy relationship. The trath is that
children are far better off when parents do not need them for evo
fulfillment. And they are far more enjoyable - which may be one of the
reasons grandparents so absolutely enjoy their grandchiidren.

The truth is that you cannot enjoy anything if you lead it up with
expectations and demands and insist thal it reward you with happiness,
peace and conlentment. You can't enjoy anything that exerts that kiad of
power over you. You canit enjoy your sexuality if you look to it to
demonstrate your wnasculinity or femininity or attractiveness or youth, You
won't enjoy romance or friendship ar family affection if you need it to
provide something to yourself. And mammon as money... Frederick Buechner
quips that "There are peopie who use up their entire lives making money so
they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up.” [Whistling in the
Dark, p. 80]

Jesus told a story about a man who was as flawed as anyone in the
Bible and as human as anyone I know, but a man who knew at least where his
salvation would be found. Iie concluded it by teaching us that tt is a
matter of very preat importance that we get our priorities straight.

If we give our hearts to mammon, whatever that might be for us, we
will not be happy and, in the process, we will miss the saving miracle of
God's untisua] generosity, God's amazing grace, God's unconditional love for
us which is, he taught, the only source of our salvation.

The radical word of Christian faith, to would-be disciples in first
century Galilee and would-be disciples in the 26th century is that in arder
to experience salvation we must say “no” to all the other gods who clamor
for our love and hope and faith and enthusiasm and passion, and say “yes"
Lo the God whe has loved us into being and came to be among us and to teach
us and to live and die with us and to rise again for us in Jesus Christ.

We are God's top priority il would seem. God has decided to love us,
to give us Jife and the capacity for love and joy and peace. God has
decided to give us life eternal, life in ali its fullness, life blessed by
beauty, life with all its potential for creativity and accomplishment, life
with ils wonderful capacity for love and passion and intimacy and ecstasy,
life - which in Jesus Christ, is diminished by nothing, limited and hemmed
in ultimately by no thing, not even death. That's what God bas decided
about us, we believe. And after all the deciding, God made one more
decision - namely to allow you the final one ~ the big one - the only one
actually ~ Who will you serve?... Whe will be your Ged?...

a

Prechy ton
Uf

126 East Chestnut Street/ Chicago Illinois 60611 (312) 787 4570

January 9, 1992

Dr. James W. Cox —hm 1 SO2- 635-2964
Lester Professor of Preaching

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary — son 99°7~4oa7
2825 Lexington Rd.

Louisville, KY 40280

Dear Dr. Cox:

Greetings for the New Year!

i am enclosing a copy of a sermon preached by John Buchanan, Pastor of
Fourth Presbyterian Church, on Sunday, December 8, 1991. I believe
this is a sermon that you will wish to review because in my opinion it

is of excellent quality and worthy of consideration for annual Best
sermons competition.

If something further needs to be done to expedite this process, please contact
Ms. Jeanette Krenek, Administrative Assistant to Dr. Buchanan.

Every good wish.

Ph. |
Elam Davies eo
Pastor Emeritus

Enclosure