Sermon Illustrations for Epiphany 3 (2018)
Illustration
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
When we remember Jonah, we remember the whale -- or the big fish, as scripture says. We remember Jonah’s attempt to run away from the calling of God on his life. It’s not without calamity, this running away from what God is calling Jonah to do. In this reading we find Jonah proclaiming the upcoming destruction of Nineveh because they have failed to turn toward God. The three-day walk, the call of God on Jonah to proclaim, yields amazing results. The people turn away from evil, they call for a fast, and they put on sackcloth as a sign of their repentance. They heed the words of God coming out of Jonah’s mouth.
Yet that’s not even the important part of the story. The important part of the story is that God, seeing their repentance, decides to forgive them, to allow them to continue living and prospering. God loves and forgives, offers mercy and grace. So it is with us. We too can try to outrun God as Jonah did, or hide in the darkness of our sin and separation from God. Or we can open our eyes, seek the light of grace and forgiveness, and trust that God will love us and redeem us and be reconciled to us. That is the gift of grace and the love of God. We are never too far away for God to welcome us back. May it be so.
Bonnie B.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Help the flock recognize that Nineveh was located in modern-day Iraq. The Assyrian empire (whose capital was Nineveh) was a noted enemy of Israel. There are interesting parallels between Israeli-Assyrian relations and the hostilities between Israel and Iraq today. No wonder Jonah, the man of God and faithful Hebrew (2 Kings 14:23-27) did not want to help these enemies of his people. Recall that many members of ISIS live in Iraq. Ask the congregation if they want to help them. This is the way Jonah felt about being called to Nineveh. The story of Jonah is a reminder that God’s compelling love overcomes all our reservations about who deserves that love. John Calvin has a nice way of explaining the power of that love: “Hence the more anyone has found the kindness of God, the more courageously he ought to proceed in the discharge of his office, and confidently to commit to God his life and his safety, and resolutely to surmount all the perils of the world” (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. XIV/2, pp. 94-95).
Hang around this compelling love, what medieval mystic John of the Cross called “love’s urgent longings” (Ascent, Book One, Prologue), and it just begins to happen that you do God’s thing, like Jonah eventually did, without anyone telling you what to do. Martin Luther explained this dynamic well: “If faith in the heart is sincere, it does not have need for any teachers of good works; it knows in itself what must be done.... After a man has been justified by faith, it is inevitable that the fruits of justification follow, since a bad tree is not able to bear good fruits, and good tree bad fruits” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 19, p. 23).
Mark E.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
It is a great relief when the Lord’s message is received and obeyed by all people. It saved wars back then, and will save us today. How many have delivered the Lord’s message to others around the world who threaten us? It doesn’t seem like too many people believe and are saved from disaster. Either they have a different god or no god! This passage doesn’t say what Israel should or can do if God’s message is not received and accepted. That is up to them, and it also up the Lord what he shall do about it.
One problem we have is that we want God to answer right now! We don’t want to wait. It even took God two times to get Jonah to obey him. Think of North Korea and those missiles. Will they hear God’s warning? Do we have the patience to wait, or do we want to take it into our own hands and end the problem now? Are we worried that the Lord’s answer will not come in time? Can we wait those 40 days? Will countries like North Korea ever turn from their evil ways? Certainly they can see the destruction that awaits them if they don’t! Where is Jonah when we need him? It seems that he would be arrested, tortured, and killed if he were in North Korea today.
Is there a message here for us American people? Is the Lord giving us time to turn from ways that are evil? Is there a Jonah in your church? We need to send him out right away!
Bob O.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Unless you spend time in arcades or pizza places, “Pop-a-Shot” is a game that may not be familiar to you. It is a small version of basketball. The game is timed, usually for a minute, and the player must make as many baskets as he or she can. When the clock gets down to the last 15 seconds, the baskets are worth more points. I like to play it, I suppose, because it’s fun and it allows me to relieve a bit of my junior high glory days. It is interesting to watch others play it too. When the clock begins to wind down, the player usually gets much quicker and more frantic in his/her attempts to make baskets. His or her attention is on firing up shots to the goal. It’s as if you have to get as many shots up as possible before the clock runs out.
I was reminded of “Pop-a-Shot” when I spent some time with this text. These verses are in the context in which Paul is letting his readers know that the time to do the Lord’s work is short and coming to an end. He may have been thinking about the return of Christ, or he might have been anticipating some persecutions resulting in curtailing opportunities to witness. Either way, Paul is urging his readers not to get distracted by the material things of the world -- they won’t last. He doesn’t want their attention diverted. He wants them to focus on what matters, the Lord’s work, while they have time.
Bill T.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
In 1708 five men and three women were baptized in the River Eder near Schwarzenau in Germany, setting themselves apart from the official, established churches of their day. It was their intention to live strictly according to the teachings of the Bible. Despite the fact that it was illegal to engage in adult baptism or to study scriptures on your own outside of an official church, the group began to grow quickly.
Their means of determining what scripture taught was to study the word of God together and come to a consensus. It was not long before this group decided that scriptures like this chapter of 1 Corinthians called for married believers to live in celibacy. But this group was always ready to return to Bible study in a search for new life. Within ten years they decided as a group that the Bible did not call for celibacy, and they dropped the practice.
This probably had something to do with the fact that children were conceived and born during this period of celibacy with startling frequency. Whatever Paul meant in this passage, whatever they tried just didn’t work.
Frank R.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth, in a five-hour excursion on February 20, 1962. But before he could make that three-orbit expedition into outer space, his flight was delayed for two months due to mechanical problems and bad weather. On one occasion the mission was called off after Glenn sat fully suited for six hours in the cramped Friendship 7 capsule. Glenn, a former Marine pilot who flew combat missions in both the Vietnam War and the Korean War before becoming a test pilot, was an individual who always displayed confidence.
As Friendship 7 was about to return to earth, a faulty warning light signaled that the heat shield, designed to protect the capsule from its’ fiery descent through the earth’s atmosphere, might come off during re-entry. Ground controllers ordered that a retrorocket unit attached under the heat shield by metal straps not be jettisoned after firing. It was thought that the attached retrorocket would help prevent the premature detachment of the heat shield.
As Friendship 7 plunged through the earth’s atmosphere, one of the metal straps came lose and started banging against the side of the capsule. This created fear that the retrorocket would come off, followed by the heat shield, and the capsule would dissolve from the heat caused by the re-entry.
Of the experience Glenn said: “Right away, I could see flaming chunks flying by the window, and I thought the heat shield might be falling apart. This was a bad moment. But I knew if that was really happening, it would all be over shortly, and there was nothing I could do about it.”
The capsule did safely splash down in the Atlantic off the Bahamas, where a Navy destroyer was waiting. Upon splashdown Glenn radioed, “My condition is good, but that was a real fireball.”
Application: We know the appointed time for the Second Coming has grown short, but we do not fear it for we are prepared for the fiery moment.
Ron L.
Mark 1:14-20
Has God called you? Just as God called Jonah, have you been called? Just as Jesus calls to Peter and Andrew, James and John, has Jesus called you? Are you listening for that call?
Often we think that the only call God makes is the call to be a prophet or a minister. Yet God calls us all. You may be called to be a teacher or a nurse or an engineer or a newspaper reporter. You may be called to be a spouse, a parent, a friend. You may be called to offer your gifts in the social services arena or in government. Where is God calling you? What hunger in your heart to serve has God placed in your life?
We can listen to that call and follow, or we can choose to ignore the call and wander further from where God is calling us. In this morning’s gospel, Peter and Andrew drop everything and follow Jesus; James and John do the same. There is no hesitation in their response to the call. They leave their families, their workplaces, and follow to a place and with a man they do not yet know very well. It makes all the difference in their lives and in ours.
What call has God placed on your heart: working with the poor and homeless, caring for children, building a medical mission, preaching and teaching the gospel, or simply proclaiming the love of God to your neighbors (which, by the way, is not so simple)? Whatever the call on your life is, please respond. You will be so very glad you did.
Bonnie B.
Mark 1:14-20
Jesus began his ministry with an urgent call to discipleship. Sometimes you can wait too long to make things better -- wait too long to help a troubled kid, wait too long to get marriage counseling, wait too long to fix a problem like segregation or ending pollution. Introduce the congregation to Gerrard and Natalie, a couple (of the same social class and ethnicity as the congregation) whose marriage has had problems for years that they’ve not addressed and whose teenage son runs with a bad crowd. But they still say he’s a good kid and will come around in time.
Martin Luther King Jr. echoed the urgency of the present moment when he proclaimed: “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now” (A Call to Conscience, p. 162). American self-help author J. Jackson Brown has it right: “You must take action now that will move you toward your goal. Develop a sense of urgency in your life.” It really is as the great artist Leonardo da Vinci once put it: “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
Mark E.
Mark 1:14-20
Jesus took over after John (as John said he would) and his message was nearly the same -- calling people to repent and believe. His news was also good news and not a threat (as in Jonah’s case).
I have a good friend who was called to a mission in Liberia, Africa. He was excited about it, but his mother complained that he should not leave -- that his first duty was to take care of his mother! He went and she never forgave him -- even though she was a Christian and also a member of my church.
I had a motion picture business in Sacramento, California, and enjoyed it very much, but when I was offered a chance to make porno movies for an outfit in the San Francisco bay area, I had to ask God what he wanted me to do. He told me in a scripture passage -- the one where Satan offered Jesus great success, but he turned it down and went on to do the Lord’s work. So I went on to seminary even though I had another offer to be a partner in a large photography business. That was over 50 years ago, and I served the Lord until I retired recently.
I wonder what father Zebedee said to his boys when they left him! It sounds like they never even asked him.
Peter and Andrew just left their boat and followed. We have to ask ourselves what we would do. Could we be unfaithful to our job and to our parents who ran the family business?
Life is full of big decisions. Only God can help us make the right choices. Isn’t it a blessing to have a church with a pastor and fellow members that can help us with most of those decisions?
Your pastor should tell his story also.
There may be many other jobs the Lord may have for you. Not everyone is called to be a pastor or missionary. Have we prepared ourselves for God’s call to us?
Bob O.
When we remember Jonah, we remember the whale -- or the big fish, as scripture says. We remember Jonah’s attempt to run away from the calling of God on his life. It’s not without calamity, this running away from what God is calling Jonah to do. In this reading we find Jonah proclaiming the upcoming destruction of Nineveh because they have failed to turn toward God. The three-day walk, the call of God on Jonah to proclaim, yields amazing results. The people turn away from evil, they call for a fast, and they put on sackcloth as a sign of their repentance. They heed the words of God coming out of Jonah’s mouth.
Yet that’s not even the important part of the story. The important part of the story is that God, seeing their repentance, decides to forgive them, to allow them to continue living and prospering. God loves and forgives, offers mercy and grace. So it is with us. We too can try to outrun God as Jonah did, or hide in the darkness of our sin and separation from God. Or we can open our eyes, seek the light of grace and forgiveness, and trust that God will love us and redeem us and be reconciled to us. That is the gift of grace and the love of God. We are never too far away for God to welcome us back. May it be so.
Bonnie B.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Help the flock recognize that Nineveh was located in modern-day Iraq. The Assyrian empire (whose capital was Nineveh) was a noted enemy of Israel. There are interesting parallels between Israeli-Assyrian relations and the hostilities between Israel and Iraq today. No wonder Jonah, the man of God and faithful Hebrew (2 Kings 14:23-27) did not want to help these enemies of his people. Recall that many members of ISIS live in Iraq. Ask the congregation if they want to help them. This is the way Jonah felt about being called to Nineveh. The story of Jonah is a reminder that God’s compelling love overcomes all our reservations about who deserves that love. John Calvin has a nice way of explaining the power of that love: “Hence the more anyone has found the kindness of God, the more courageously he ought to proceed in the discharge of his office, and confidently to commit to God his life and his safety, and resolutely to surmount all the perils of the world” (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. XIV/2, pp. 94-95).
Hang around this compelling love, what medieval mystic John of the Cross called “love’s urgent longings” (Ascent, Book One, Prologue), and it just begins to happen that you do God’s thing, like Jonah eventually did, without anyone telling you what to do. Martin Luther explained this dynamic well: “If faith in the heart is sincere, it does not have need for any teachers of good works; it knows in itself what must be done.... After a man has been justified by faith, it is inevitable that the fruits of justification follow, since a bad tree is not able to bear good fruits, and good tree bad fruits” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 19, p. 23).
Mark E.
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
It is a great relief when the Lord’s message is received and obeyed by all people. It saved wars back then, and will save us today. How many have delivered the Lord’s message to others around the world who threaten us? It doesn’t seem like too many people believe and are saved from disaster. Either they have a different god or no god! This passage doesn’t say what Israel should or can do if God’s message is not received and accepted. That is up to them, and it also up the Lord what he shall do about it.
One problem we have is that we want God to answer right now! We don’t want to wait. It even took God two times to get Jonah to obey him. Think of North Korea and those missiles. Will they hear God’s warning? Do we have the patience to wait, or do we want to take it into our own hands and end the problem now? Are we worried that the Lord’s answer will not come in time? Can we wait those 40 days? Will countries like North Korea ever turn from their evil ways? Certainly they can see the destruction that awaits them if they don’t! Where is Jonah when we need him? It seems that he would be arrested, tortured, and killed if he were in North Korea today.
Is there a message here for us American people? Is the Lord giving us time to turn from ways that are evil? Is there a Jonah in your church? We need to send him out right away!
Bob O.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Unless you spend time in arcades or pizza places, “Pop-a-Shot” is a game that may not be familiar to you. It is a small version of basketball. The game is timed, usually for a minute, and the player must make as many baskets as he or she can. When the clock gets down to the last 15 seconds, the baskets are worth more points. I like to play it, I suppose, because it’s fun and it allows me to relieve a bit of my junior high glory days. It is interesting to watch others play it too. When the clock begins to wind down, the player usually gets much quicker and more frantic in his/her attempts to make baskets. His or her attention is on firing up shots to the goal. It’s as if you have to get as many shots up as possible before the clock runs out.
I was reminded of “Pop-a-Shot” when I spent some time with this text. These verses are in the context in which Paul is letting his readers know that the time to do the Lord’s work is short and coming to an end. He may have been thinking about the return of Christ, or he might have been anticipating some persecutions resulting in curtailing opportunities to witness. Either way, Paul is urging his readers not to get distracted by the material things of the world -- they won’t last. He doesn’t want their attention diverted. He wants them to focus on what matters, the Lord’s work, while they have time.
Bill T.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
In 1708 five men and three women were baptized in the River Eder near Schwarzenau in Germany, setting themselves apart from the official, established churches of their day. It was their intention to live strictly according to the teachings of the Bible. Despite the fact that it was illegal to engage in adult baptism or to study scriptures on your own outside of an official church, the group began to grow quickly.
Their means of determining what scripture taught was to study the word of God together and come to a consensus. It was not long before this group decided that scriptures like this chapter of 1 Corinthians called for married believers to live in celibacy. But this group was always ready to return to Bible study in a search for new life. Within ten years they decided as a group that the Bible did not call for celibacy, and they dropped the practice.
This probably had something to do with the fact that children were conceived and born during this period of celibacy with startling frequency. Whatever Paul meant in this passage, whatever they tried just didn’t work.
Frank R.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth, in a five-hour excursion on February 20, 1962. But before he could make that three-orbit expedition into outer space, his flight was delayed for two months due to mechanical problems and bad weather. On one occasion the mission was called off after Glenn sat fully suited for six hours in the cramped Friendship 7 capsule. Glenn, a former Marine pilot who flew combat missions in both the Vietnam War and the Korean War before becoming a test pilot, was an individual who always displayed confidence.
As Friendship 7 was about to return to earth, a faulty warning light signaled that the heat shield, designed to protect the capsule from its’ fiery descent through the earth’s atmosphere, might come off during re-entry. Ground controllers ordered that a retrorocket unit attached under the heat shield by metal straps not be jettisoned after firing. It was thought that the attached retrorocket would help prevent the premature detachment of the heat shield.
As Friendship 7 plunged through the earth’s atmosphere, one of the metal straps came lose and started banging against the side of the capsule. This created fear that the retrorocket would come off, followed by the heat shield, and the capsule would dissolve from the heat caused by the re-entry.
Of the experience Glenn said: “Right away, I could see flaming chunks flying by the window, and I thought the heat shield might be falling apart. This was a bad moment. But I knew if that was really happening, it would all be over shortly, and there was nothing I could do about it.”
The capsule did safely splash down in the Atlantic off the Bahamas, where a Navy destroyer was waiting. Upon splashdown Glenn radioed, “My condition is good, but that was a real fireball.”
Application: We know the appointed time for the Second Coming has grown short, but we do not fear it for we are prepared for the fiery moment.
Ron L.
Mark 1:14-20
Has God called you? Just as God called Jonah, have you been called? Just as Jesus calls to Peter and Andrew, James and John, has Jesus called you? Are you listening for that call?
Often we think that the only call God makes is the call to be a prophet or a minister. Yet God calls us all. You may be called to be a teacher or a nurse or an engineer or a newspaper reporter. You may be called to be a spouse, a parent, a friend. You may be called to offer your gifts in the social services arena or in government. Where is God calling you? What hunger in your heart to serve has God placed in your life?
We can listen to that call and follow, or we can choose to ignore the call and wander further from where God is calling us. In this morning’s gospel, Peter and Andrew drop everything and follow Jesus; James and John do the same. There is no hesitation in their response to the call. They leave their families, their workplaces, and follow to a place and with a man they do not yet know very well. It makes all the difference in their lives and in ours.
What call has God placed on your heart: working with the poor and homeless, caring for children, building a medical mission, preaching and teaching the gospel, or simply proclaiming the love of God to your neighbors (which, by the way, is not so simple)? Whatever the call on your life is, please respond. You will be so very glad you did.
Bonnie B.
Mark 1:14-20
Jesus began his ministry with an urgent call to discipleship. Sometimes you can wait too long to make things better -- wait too long to help a troubled kid, wait too long to get marriage counseling, wait too long to fix a problem like segregation or ending pollution. Introduce the congregation to Gerrard and Natalie, a couple (of the same social class and ethnicity as the congregation) whose marriage has had problems for years that they’ve not addressed and whose teenage son runs with a bad crowd. But they still say he’s a good kid and will come around in time.
Martin Luther King Jr. echoed the urgency of the present moment when he proclaimed: “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now” (A Call to Conscience, p. 162). American self-help author J. Jackson Brown has it right: “You must take action now that will move you toward your goal. Develop a sense of urgency in your life.” It really is as the great artist Leonardo da Vinci once put it: “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
Mark E.
Mark 1:14-20
Jesus took over after John (as John said he would) and his message was nearly the same -- calling people to repent and believe. His news was also good news and not a threat (as in Jonah’s case).
I have a good friend who was called to a mission in Liberia, Africa. He was excited about it, but his mother complained that he should not leave -- that his first duty was to take care of his mother! He went and she never forgave him -- even though she was a Christian and also a member of my church.
I had a motion picture business in Sacramento, California, and enjoyed it very much, but when I was offered a chance to make porno movies for an outfit in the San Francisco bay area, I had to ask God what he wanted me to do. He told me in a scripture passage -- the one where Satan offered Jesus great success, but he turned it down and went on to do the Lord’s work. So I went on to seminary even though I had another offer to be a partner in a large photography business. That was over 50 years ago, and I served the Lord until I retired recently.
I wonder what father Zebedee said to his boys when they left him! It sounds like they never even asked him.
Peter and Andrew just left their boat and followed. We have to ask ourselves what we would do. Could we be unfaithful to our job and to our parents who ran the family business?
Life is full of big decisions. Only God can help us make the right choices. Isn’t it a blessing to have a church with a pastor and fellow members that can help us with most of those decisions?
Your pastor should tell his story also.
There may be many other jobs the Lord may have for you. Not everyone is called to be a pastor or missionary. Have we prepared ourselves for God’s call to us?
Bob O.
