1.13.13--Sermon on Luke 3:21-22

The night that James was born was by far the scariest night of my life.

We had already spent about twenty-two hours in the delivery room, and Jess’ water had broken about four hours before that. Now, I don’t know how much y’all know about pregnancy—though I am assuming most of the women here know it on a much more intimate level than I ever could—but when the mom-to-be’s water breaks, there is only supposed to be a twenty-four hour window for the baby to born. With the absence of the protective water sac, the risk of infection for the baby grows immensely.

And after 26 hours of labor, Jess was not progressing. We both already knew why the mid-wife was coming in to talk to us, but that did little to truly prepare either of us for what she had to say.

The baby had to come out, and he had to come out now. It was time for a caesarean section.

I was stunned, and did not know what to say or do. I have to give Jess a lot of credit, though, because even in the midst of this revelation, she stayed focused and stayed strong. The doctor came in and told us what would happen, and then they began preparations. I was given a set of paper scrubs to wear, and I was so nervous that I actually tore the shirt and one of the shoe-covers trying to get it on. It was basically a t-shirt and a sock for my shoe, but I was so freaked out that I couldn’t remember how to put either on.

Finally, it was time to go into the operating room. In what was easily the brightest and whitest room I have ever seen, the doctors and nurses were gathering around Jess. A partition had been set up at her neck, and I was moved to a stool next to her head. As the final preparations were being made, I talked to my wife and tried to comfort her. The surgeon began his work, and in what seemed both like mere moments and also an eternity, a cry erupted from behind the curtain. One of the nurses lowered the partition enough for the doctor to show us our son. He was crying as loud as his little lungs would allow him, and he was filthy with afterbirth, and he had the angriest look I’ve ever seen on that tiny little face.

And he was beautiful.

The nurses took him over, cleaned him up, and then brought him over to me. I held him close and just looked at him. After all of the stress and fright from the past 27 hours—not to mention the past nine months—he was here. I can honestly say I had never loved anyone as much as I did in that moment, and I have never been happier in my entire life.

Now, James did nothing to earn my love, and he did nothing to elicit those emotions from me. He did absolutely no work in the birthing process; all of that credit goes to Jessica and the medical staff. But when I looked at him that night, there in the OR, I knew that I would always love him, and that he would always be a source of joy in my life.

He didn’t have to earn it. He is my son, and it is his birthright to be loved by his father. 

12.30.12--Sermon on Luke 2:41-52

Have you ever read a book or watched a movie that was so good, you couldn’t help but go back and experience it again and again?  Jess makes fun of me because I have a half-shelf of books that I read constantly. Usually once a year, I make my way through all of them. Three of the books on it are a trilogy that I have read so many times in the past five years that I’m about to have to replace them because mine are falling apart. I also have a stack of movies that I love to watch. I’ve seen the new Muppets movie so many times that I know not only all of the songs but most of the dialogue too!

There are just some stories that are so good, you can’t help but revisit them often. Something about them, be it the narrative or character development or whatever else, is so complex and so rich that it makes you want to come back time and again to see what jumps out at you next time.

For Christmas this year, my brother-in-law, Josiah, gave me Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy on Bluray. Now, as many of you already know, I am a big Batman fan, and I love these movies. Since Christmas, we’ve already watched through all three of them, and I’ve had so much fun reliving these stories. After we finished the third movie, The Dark Knight Rises, Jessica and I had a discussion on how these stories are so well-told that we actually enjoy watching them over and over again. We catch new things every time, and there are even some plot sequences that we are pretty sure only make sense the second or third time watching them.

These movies are definitely on my favorite movie stack.

Do you have a book or movie that does this for you? Maybe it’s a short story or a poem or a printed copy of one of my old sermons :). What wonderful work of literature has sunk its hooks into your brain and refused to let go? What narrative keeps reeling you back in, always exciting and surprising you with new twists and depths that had not been revealed to you before?

What I've Been Doing these Past Two Weeks...

Hey Everyone,

So I haven't posted a sermon the last two weeks because we engaged in a more... experiential worship time for the last two weeks of Advent. It was going to be a four-week series, but when James came a little early, he kind of put a damper on my plans, as I hear children tend to do.

I am posting the PDF to the curriculum that I wrote for this Advent season. Like I said, we only ended up doing weeks three and four, but I thought all of my loyal followers--if there are any--might like a chance to look at the whole thing. Maybe next year, you might want to borrow all or part of it for your worship times.

Just click on the link to open it up: Advent through Art

God bless!


-wes

12.9.12--Sermon on Luke 3:1-18

In the summer of 2000, my family took a vacation to a beach house in Port Aransas. This was the first time that we had gone to the beach as a family since we had moved back to Texas from Hawaii, and I have to tell you, I was extremely excited about it. We had a large group of family and friends going with us, and I couldn’t wait to play in the waves, find amazing-looking seashells, and go snorkeling in the midst of all of the beautifully colored fish in the bays.

I kept telling everyone in the car with us how excited I was, talking about all I wanted to do and bragging about my expert-level boogie boarding skills.

I was a mean boogie boarder.

Everyone with us, though, kept looking at me funny, like they were not understanding what I was talking about. My cousins and friends—who had all been to Port A before—didn’t seem to share in my excitement about snorkeling in the clear blue ocean water or about the chance to dive in and out of eight foot waves. I could not understand why they weren’t jumping up and down like I was, how they were able to contain their pent-up excitement so well.

Then we arrived at the beach, and it all made sense.

You see, the Gulf of Mexico is not exactly known for its tubular waves or clear blue waters. It is not known for beautifully-shaped shells or brightly-colored tropical fish. Its waters are more of a brownish color, with breakers rarely peaking over a couple feet, and the most colorful fish you are likely to find are red fish, which are great for fishing, but lousy for snorkeling.

As beaches go, the Gulf is left wanting.

I was so disappointed! My hopes were dashed, and I felt betrayed. The beaches I had grown up around were the tropical paradises of Guam and Hawaii. In my head, all beaches are pristine, beautifully clear, just the perfect temperature, and surf-ready. Port Aransas had none of these things. How could I go from picture perfection to this?!

I spent the first few days that we were there complaining to anyone and everyone around me. While everyone else was enjoying themselves and soaking up as much sun and sand as possible, I was nostalgically and annoyingly reminiscing of the good old days of yore. Finally one of my uncles had enough of it. He called me over and told me stop moping around and go have fun. He said I was ruining the vacation for myself and others.

And he was right.

I had been so wrapped up in the past—so wrapped up in how great and amazing and beautiful things were—that I was missing out on the chance to enjoy and engage the wonderful time of fun and fellowship around me right then.

The beach at Port Aransas was not the white-sanded surf spot that I had grown up loving, but it was full of my friends and family, full of sunshine and water, and had the potential to be an amazing adventure. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was just as amazing for completely different reasons.

A Litany for Veteran's Day

(I did not write this, but I found it very moving. It is from "The Book of Worship for United States Forces," #625.)

Leader: Let us give thanks to God for the land of our birth with all its chartered liberties. For all the wonder of our country's story:

People: We give you thanks, O God.

Leader: For leaders in nation and state, and for those who in days past and in these present times have labored for the commonwealth:

People: We give you thanks, O God.

Leader: For those who in all times and places have been true and brave, and in the worlds common ways have lived upright lives and ministered to their fellows:

People: We give you thanks, O God.

Leader: For those who served their country in its hour of need, and especially for those who gave even their lives in that service:

People: We give you thanks, O God.

Leader: O almighty God and most merciful Father, as we remember these your servants, remembering with gratitude their courage and strength, we hold before you those who mourn them. Look upon your bereaved servants with your mercy. As this day brings them memories of those they have lost awhile, may it also bring your consolation and the assurance that their loved ones are alive now and forever in your living presence.

People: To you, O God, be the glory. Amen.

11.4.12--All Saints Sunday Sermon (John 11:1-7,14-44)

It was a rainy Saturday in the March of my junior year of high school, and I was at work. At the time, I was working as a tour guide at Longhorn Cavern State Park, and I was the even-hour tour guide. This meant that I was leading hour-and-a-half long tours through the cave that left at 10 am, 12 pm, 2 pm, and 4 pm. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon and I was walking back up to the visitor’s center from the cave entrance. Now, it wasn’t storming, but the rain was definitely coming down at more than a drizzle. I walked through the rain, wet and a little cold, and I looked up and saw my dad standing under the awning of the visitor’s center. He was watching me, and waiting for me to get up to him and out of the rain.

Dad coming to the cave while I worked was an uncommon occurrence, but every once and while he would drop by with lunch or with a soda from Sonic, so I didn’t think much of it. But as I drew closer to him, I could tell that something was wrong. He wasn’t smiling, and he didn’t look like himself. I asked what was wrong, and he drew me aside to tell me that Colin Clark, a freshman in our high school band and a good friend of my brother Korey, had just been in an accident. It was his first time to drive behind the wheel since he received his permit, and even though he had done nothing wrong, a driver on the other side of the road had overcorrected and caused a head-on collision with his car. His dad was in critical condition and his mom was bruised pretty badly but had suffered no major wounds.

Colin, though, had died almost instantly.

Now, Colin and I had not been very close friends, but we ran in the same circles. I was good friends with many of his good friends, and I had spent a good deal of time with him in band. But the one thing that I can say without a doubt about Colin was that he was a good soul. Everybody loved him, and I don’t think he met a person that he was not immediately friends with. Even though we were not extremely close, I liked him a lot, because he always let me play his base drum during football games.

He was a great person, and his absence in Burnet High School was a tragedy.

I got another tour guide to cover my shift for the rest of the day, and I went home to check on my brother and everyone else. Korey was with his friends, so I went to check on some of my friends from band. I found a number of them sitting on the porch of Colin’s house. Since Mr. Clark was in the ICU and Mrs. Clark was with him, the house was empty, and my friends were just sitting on the porch… not saying anything… just sitting.

So I pulled up and joined them, and we all just sat there together. Every once and while someone would say something, and we’d talk for a few minutes. But mostly, we just… sat. 

10.28.12--Sermon on Mark 10:46-52

How important is a name?

As many of you know, my first name is not Wes. My full name is Klinton Wesley Cain. For the first decade or so of my life, I answered to Klinton, Klint for short. Everyone called me that—my family, my friends, my teachers… everyone. Sometime in between moving from Hawaii to Texas and the start of my fifth grade year, I decided that I didn’t want to go by Klint or Klinton anymore. It just wasn’t… me.

So I started going by Wes. Now, this wasn’t that unheard of a transition in my family. My dad, James Wesley Cain, is also known by his middle name because he felt that James was too formal for him. His dad, James Alvin Cain, started going by Dewey when he was young in honor of Hewey, Dewey, and Louie. It seems to be a Cain family tradition for one of the guys to not go by your given first name.

Names are funny things. For most people, a person’s name is an integral part of his or her identity. They could not even fathom answering to any other name because it just wouldn’t be them. Kevin is Kevin, and he can be nothing else. Sarah is Sarah, and would not feel right if she was called anything different. Our names are a part of who we are. In the Cain household, my parents wanted our names to be more than just a word that got our attention. They wanted part of who their kids were to be wrapped up in our names. That’s why Korey, Katherine and I all have the same initials: KWC.

Names are important.