Preach a Story: A Collection of Sermons in Story Form

By John E. Huegel

About this Book
In this work, the author offers readers a selection of his sermons during his long ministry. Huegel is retired and lives with his wife of fifty years in the state of Texas. His three sons and one daughter serve in the Bethel Lutheran Church of Lyford, Texas, in different capacities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493180714

John E. Huegel

John E. Huegel was born in the city of Aguascalientes, Mexico, the son of missionary parents. He also served as a missionary of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Mexico for forty-two years. During that time, he was the pastor of various Protestant churches, professor and president of the Union Evangelical Seminary in Mexico City, and director of the Center for Theological Studies in the city of San Luis Potosí. After he retired in 1996, he moved to Texas, where he served briefly as professor of pastoral theology in the Edinburg Theological Seminary and was interim pastor of three congregations. He has written various books in Spanish and English. He is married to Yvonne West, and they live in New Braunfels, Texas. They have four adult children who all serve the church in different ministries, and eleven grandchildren.

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1- Shame Turned Into Blessing

2- Sorrow Turned Into Joy

3- Despair Turned Into Hope

4- Christmas Today

5- Bigotry Breeds Violence

6- A Follower Of Jesus

7- Things Made Right Again

8- Living Water For A Thirsty Community

9- Good News At One O’clock

10- Deleted From The Hard Drive

11- Thanks From The Lips Of A Stranger

12- Extraordinary Faith

13- Who Is Blind?

14- Two Men And Their Money

15- Free From The Fear Of Death

16- Show Us The Father

17- Abide In Me

18- A Grieving Woman Finds Relief

19- The Day Is Far Spent

20- New Year’s Eve In Geneva

Dedicated to

the members of

Bethel Lutheran Church of Lyford, Texas,

and First Presbyterian Church of Raymondville, Texas,

who first listened to my sermons in story form,

and to the members of

St. John’s United Church of Christ of Rosenberg, Texas,

whose warm reception of these sermons prompted me

to gather them up in a book.

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Bethel Lutheran Church, Lyford, Texas

(Photograph taken by Paul Greenhill)

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First Presbyterian Church, Raymondville, Texas.

(Photograph taken by Paul Greenhill)

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St. John’s United Church of Christ, Rosenberg, Texas.

(Photograph taken by Stan Kubelka)

INTRODUCTION

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One Sunday evening in the spring of 1949, I attended a service at the Evangelical Free Church on the East Side of Madison, Wisconsin, and heard a young man from Moody Bible Institute preach. After the service, I crossed the street and walked to the corner to wait for the Nakoma bus which would take me back to my room. Suddenly a thought knocked on the door of my mind, entered, took a comfortable seat and said, You could preach like that young man. When the bus arrived, I boarded, and as it continued west down Atwood Avenue, I started a conversation with that thought which continued for a couple of weeks, until I concluded that it had been sent by God and he was calling me into the ministry.

Fast forward to a Sunday morning in February of 2002. It was a rare, cloudy day in South Texas, and I was driving north on Highway 77 between the towns of Lyford and Raymondville. I had just experienced a beautiful worship service at Bethel Lutheran Church in Lyford where I was serving as interim minister, with inspiring hymns and Holy Communion. I had preached on one of my favorite texts, 1 Peter 5:10: And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. I pronounced the benediction, jumped in my car, drove across the tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad, and turned north to drive the five miles to Raymondville and preach at First Presbyterian Church. Halfway up the road a thought drove up beside me and demanded my attention. It was the same thought that had knocked on the door of my mind in the spring of 1949, only this time, as I engaged it in conversation, I joyously exclaimed in response, For this I was born, to be a pastor and serve the Lord! And tears of joy streamed down my face. (See Apacentad la Grey de Dios, pgs. 161, 162)

How did I get from Madison, Wisconsin, in the spring of 1949, to South Texas in the winter of 2002, by way of Mexico?

After graduating from the American High School in Mexico City, where my parents were missionaries of The Christian Church, I went to the University of Wisconsin, in Madison. I patiently endured my first year of studies, but during my second year (1949-50), I was miserable. I had no friends, was extremely lonely and terribly homesick, and found the cold winter unbearable. The atmosphere of the large state university was as cold as the weather and I could generate little enthusiasm for my required courses.

Lurking in the background of my troubled mind was the uncertainty regarding my vocation. I had harbored the desire to play professional baseball, but came to the conclusion that because of my limited ability, baseball was not in my future. However, I still caressed dreams of working for the railroad and could not see how a college education would contribute to that.

Furthermore, war had broken out in Korea, and the army officers who taught the two year required Military Science Courses (Reserved Officers Training Corps, ROTC courses) were counseling us that instead of going to Korea as foot-soldiers, we should sign up for the third and fourth years, and thus be deferred until we finished our studies, and then receive a commission in the army. As the deadline for signing up drew near, I was in agony for I did not know what to do. I did not care to be drafted, but if I signed up for advanced ROTC I would be obligated to stay two more years at the university which I did not want to do.

In my loneliness and despair I began to seriously study the Scriptures and engage in prayer, seeking God’s guidance for my life. I was slowly waking from my spiritual slumber and began to desire fellowship with the Lord Jesus whom I had received as a child. On April 20, 1949, in my journal I recorded my prayer and comment: Lord, that I may not miss thy calling. How necessary it is that I do what the Lord wills. By doing so, then I will be happy . . . I am sure that He will show me soon what my field of operation is. It may be the business world or maybe the mission field.

Since I grew up in a family where my father was a preacher and missionary, many of his close friends and colleagues assumed that I would follow in his steps and become a minister/missionary. I was always bothered by this assumption for I had other plans. I knew that this was what my father earnestly desired but he never openly expressed it. Once, Dr. Clark Buckner, the pastor of First Christian Church in Hannibal, Missouri, gave me a book to read which contained the testimonies of men who had chosen the ministry as a life vocation and I deeply resented being asked to read the book.

Some weeks after my experience on the bus, late in the afternoon of Friday, May 20, 1949, an hour and a half before the deadline to sign up for advanced ROTC, I was reading a passage in the book of Proverbs, which had nothing to do with the matter at hand, when suddenly I sensed that I was to continue on the path towards the ministry and was not to sign up for advanced ROTC. A quiet peace came over me.

I wrote my father to tell him of my decision and he was elated, but when my mother heard the news she wept tears of disappointment, for she had dreamed of my studying to be a doctor, like her brother Charles, whom she greatly admired.

Some years later (1966-67), because of some strange inner tensions I was experiencing, I decided to go a psychotherapist for help. I began to deal with the tensions but in the process made an alarming discovery, the secret motive which had led me to decide on the ministry was the desire to gain the approval of my father. As I wrestled with this discovery, I realized that I faced three options: 1) I could acquiesce to this and, since at that time there were no other possibilities of gainful employment, I could simply continue in the ministry; 2) I could rebel at the discovery, renounce the ministry, and go off and find something else I might want to do that would give me the opportunity to find fulfillment in life; or 3) I could accept the fact that through my desire to please my father God had called me to serve Him in the ministry, and make an adult decision to reaffirm God’s call upon my life. I was happy in what I was doing, found fulfillment in the ministry and never really doubted that God had called me to serve Him, so this is the decision I took and have never regretted it.

After graduating from the university, I was admitted to Princeton Theological Seminary and after graduating in 1954, went to Mexico, where I served as a missionary of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I served in various capacities: as mission administrator, director of evangelism, professor at the Union Seminary in Mexico City, director of the Center for Theological Studies in San Luis Potosí, and pastor of various congregations. In 1996, after 42 years of service in Mexico, I retired and moved to Raymondville, Texas.

Up to this time all my ministry had been in Spanish and I harbored a secret wish to experience the ministry in English, but did not dream this would be possible after my retirement.

On a Tuesday in February 2000, the Rev. K.W. Wehrmeister, pastor of Bethel Lutheran Church in Lyford, Texas, and I had just attended our regular Tuesday morning men’s prayer group. He was driving me back to Raymondville when he suddenly turned to me and said:

"I have been thinking of retiring soon. Would you be interested in being the interim pastor of Bethel for a few months?

When I recovered from my surprise, I answered, But I am not Lutheran, and I don’t know if they would accept me.

Let me see what I can do, he said.

A couple of weeks later a representative of the Bishop of the Southwest Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America interviewed me in Harlingen, Texas. I presume he submitted a positive report to the Bishop, for on April 2, I was authorized to start an interim ministry at Bethel Lutheran. In November of 2001, we established a yoked ministry with the First Presbyterian Church of Raymondville, Texas, and I served both congregations until the end of November of 2008.

In April of 2010, my wife and I moved to Richmond, Texas, to be closer to our son David and his family, and in August of 2013, the Rev. Fred Banda, who was concluding an interim ministry at St. John’s United Church of Christ in the neighboring community of Rosenberg, suggested to the Church Council they invite me to fill in until they got a permanent pastor, and so once again I found myself preaching.

It is now apparent that after my retirement from missionary service in Mexico, God opened a whole new chapter in my life for my years at Bethel and First Presbyterian, and my short time of service at St. John’s UCC in Rosenberg, have proved to be some of the happiest years of my life. God has abundantly fulfilled his promise to me in Psalm 37:4, Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

In an entry in my journal for November 12, 1993, I lamented the fact that during the previous 10 to 12 years I had had little opportunity to preach because of my academic