Sermon illustrations for Epiphany 4 (OT 4) Cycle C (2013)
Illustration
Object:
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Let us both see and believe in the message of the triumph of God. Let us not be blinded by preconceived notions or be myopic that the only means for establishing justice is the triumph of one force greater than another. Real power lies in one whose path leads to Calvary Hill.
Mother Teresa, in her acceptance speech for the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, proclaimed the power of humility. She began by referencing Jesus' dictate "I was hungry -- I was naked -- I was homeless -- I was unwanted, unloved, uncared for -- and you did it to me." She followed: "And I think that we in our family don't need bombs and guns to destroy, to bring peace -- just get together, love one another, bring that peace, that joy, that presence of each other into the home. And we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world."
Mother Teresa understood the calling of Jeremiah and spoke as one whose mouth was touched by the hand of God.
Ron L.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
The 17th-century French intellectual Blaise Pascal powerfully describes our miserable condition on this side of the fall into sin: "Since nature makes us unhappy whatever our state, our desire[s] depict for us a happy state, because they link the state in which we are with the pleasures of that in which we are not. Even if we did attain these pleasures that would not make us happy, because we should have new desires appropriate to this new state" (Pensees, p. 238). We are never satisfied with life.
Jeremiah provides an antidote, in claiming that our whole lives are in God's hands and so discontent has no place. Nothing can happen to us that is not ultimately going to serve God's aims for our lives. John Calvin powerfully summarizes the comfort this word brings: "We hence see that due honor is then conceded to God, when being content with His defense we disregard the fury of man [or our yearnings] and haste not to contend with all the ungodly, yea, though they [and our blind yearnings for pleasure] may rise up in mass against us" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. IX/1, p. 42).
Mark E.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." Perhaps this final sentence from Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey understands some of what Paul means when he says that "the greatest of these is love." But better still is what paleontologist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote in his book Toward the Future: "The day will come when after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."
Mark M.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
This is almost everyone's favorite passage whether we live it or not, and it should be embroidered and hung in every home! That one word L-O-V-E is the most important word in the Bible. The law of God is summarized in the words, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus also says, "This is how they will know you are my disciples, that you have love for one another."
When a scientist tells me that he can't believe anything that he can't put in his lab and test, I have to point out that the most important thing in all the world can't be examined in a lab -- and that is love! With all that scientist's wisdom and knowledge, if his wife or children were killed, would he calmly replace them and go on? If love is not real, why do we want to choose our own mate to spend our lives with? Why do we want to choose our own friends? We don't choose our parents, but we would not survive without their love.
Compare love to wind. You can't see wind. You can only see what it does. You can see it move leaves and trees. It even has the power in storms to move cars and houses! You can measure the velocity of wind, but you can't put it in a bottle and take it into the lab. Yet it would be foolish to say it doesn't exist! That is true of love also!
The word for God's Spirit is also the word for breath or wind. Without love we can't say we have God's Spirit in us.
If you want to know if God's Spirit is in you, read that epistle chapter carefully, word for word, and then ask if there is that kind of love in you.
Jesus says that we have love for those who are our friends and family, but one great test for love is if we even love our enemies! The whole world would change if everyone had love at the center of his or her life! Let it begin in you and let your family and friends see it and even those who you may be upset with. Memorize that passage and let it be the center of your life. Remember that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. What else can we say?
Bob O.
Luke 4:21-30
How interesting that while apparently being rejected in his hometown, Jesus identifies the focus of his ministry with Elijah's and Elisha's care for people other than their countrymen, people not like the faithful. Jesus is effectively claiming that his ministry and those of his followers is to be for those on the outside. In our context this is a reminder that Jesus comes to care for the poor and disenfranchised.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation's most recent poverty rate was 15% up from 14.3% in 2009. Projections are that the results from 2011 to be reported this month will be even higher. Almost as disturbing is the finding of a Salvation Army survey in 2012 that 27% of Americans believe the poor are lazy. Obviously this is not Jesus' way. He seems to practice and encourage a "preferential option for the poor" as practiced by many Latin American liberation theologians (Gustavo Gutierrez, Frontiers of Theology in Latin America, pp. 8-9). This idea that God wants us to give preference to the poor and disenfranchised was articulated over 1,600 years ago by one of the greatest preachers in the history of the church, John Chrysostom. He wrote: "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and to deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs" (quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 2446).
Mark E.
Luke 4:21-30
Seeing what you believe is not always the same as believing what you see, and it took fifty years for that revelation. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched into space the first satellite. People across the globe stared into the night sky to watch the blinking man-made object arc overhead. They were awed by science, watching the celestial marvel streak across the heavens. It has now been revealed by the designer of the spacecraft, Sergei Korolyov, that what was being viewed was the second stage of the rocket, not the 184-pound sphere itself that was invisible to the naked eye. The satellite did no more than emit a repetitive beep, but it was enough to change the course of history. The race for space had begun.
We can become so transfixed by what we think is the truth that entertaining another borders on heresy. Preconceived notions are difficult to dissuade once entrenched in the psyche. Standing before the scribes was the messiah. Because of their preconceived notions, they could only ask, "Is not this Joseph's son?"
Ron L.
Let us both see and believe in the message of the triumph of God. Let us not be blinded by preconceived notions or be myopic that the only means for establishing justice is the triumph of one force greater than another. Real power lies in one whose path leads to Calvary Hill.
Mother Teresa, in her acceptance speech for the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, proclaimed the power of humility. She began by referencing Jesus' dictate "I was hungry -- I was naked -- I was homeless -- I was unwanted, unloved, uncared for -- and you did it to me." She followed: "And I think that we in our family don't need bombs and guns to destroy, to bring peace -- just get together, love one another, bring that peace, that joy, that presence of each other into the home. And we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world."
Mother Teresa understood the calling of Jeremiah and spoke as one whose mouth was touched by the hand of God.
Ron L.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
The 17th-century French intellectual Blaise Pascal powerfully describes our miserable condition on this side of the fall into sin: "Since nature makes us unhappy whatever our state, our desire[s] depict for us a happy state, because they link the state in which we are with the pleasures of that in which we are not. Even if we did attain these pleasures that would not make us happy, because we should have new desires appropriate to this new state" (Pensees, p. 238). We are never satisfied with life.
Jeremiah provides an antidote, in claiming that our whole lives are in God's hands and so discontent has no place. Nothing can happen to us that is not ultimately going to serve God's aims for our lives. John Calvin powerfully summarizes the comfort this word brings: "We hence see that due honor is then conceded to God, when being content with His defense we disregard the fury of man [or our yearnings] and haste not to contend with all the ungodly, yea, though they [and our blind yearnings for pleasure] may rise up in mass against us" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. IX/1, p. 42).
Mark E.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." Perhaps this final sentence from Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey understands some of what Paul means when he says that "the greatest of these is love." But better still is what paleontologist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote in his book Toward the Future: "The day will come when after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."
Mark M.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
This is almost everyone's favorite passage whether we live it or not, and it should be embroidered and hung in every home! That one word L-O-V-E is the most important word in the Bible. The law of God is summarized in the words, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus also says, "This is how they will know you are my disciples, that you have love for one another."
When a scientist tells me that he can't believe anything that he can't put in his lab and test, I have to point out that the most important thing in all the world can't be examined in a lab -- and that is love! With all that scientist's wisdom and knowledge, if his wife or children were killed, would he calmly replace them and go on? If love is not real, why do we want to choose our own mate to spend our lives with? Why do we want to choose our own friends? We don't choose our parents, but we would not survive without their love.
Compare love to wind. You can't see wind. You can only see what it does. You can see it move leaves and trees. It even has the power in storms to move cars and houses! You can measure the velocity of wind, but you can't put it in a bottle and take it into the lab. Yet it would be foolish to say it doesn't exist! That is true of love also!
The word for God's Spirit is also the word for breath or wind. Without love we can't say we have God's Spirit in us.
If you want to know if God's Spirit is in you, read that epistle chapter carefully, word for word, and then ask if there is that kind of love in you.
Jesus says that we have love for those who are our friends and family, but one great test for love is if we even love our enemies! The whole world would change if everyone had love at the center of his or her life! Let it begin in you and let your family and friends see it and even those who you may be upset with. Memorize that passage and let it be the center of your life. Remember that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. What else can we say?
Bob O.
Luke 4:21-30
How interesting that while apparently being rejected in his hometown, Jesus identifies the focus of his ministry with Elijah's and Elisha's care for people other than their countrymen, people not like the faithful. Jesus is effectively claiming that his ministry and those of his followers is to be for those on the outside. In our context this is a reminder that Jesus comes to care for the poor and disenfranchised.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation's most recent poverty rate was 15% up from 14.3% in 2009. Projections are that the results from 2011 to be reported this month will be even higher. Almost as disturbing is the finding of a Salvation Army survey in 2012 that 27% of Americans believe the poor are lazy. Obviously this is not Jesus' way. He seems to practice and encourage a "preferential option for the poor" as practiced by many Latin American liberation theologians (Gustavo Gutierrez, Frontiers of Theology in Latin America, pp. 8-9). This idea that God wants us to give preference to the poor and disenfranchised was articulated over 1,600 years ago by one of the greatest preachers in the history of the church, John Chrysostom. He wrote: "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and to deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs" (quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church, p. 2446).
Mark E.
Luke 4:21-30
Seeing what you believe is not always the same as believing what you see, and it took fifty years for that revelation. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched into space the first satellite. People across the globe stared into the night sky to watch the blinking man-made object arc overhead. They were awed by science, watching the celestial marvel streak across the heavens. It has now been revealed by the designer of the spacecraft, Sergei Korolyov, that what was being viewed was the second stage of the rocket, not the 184-pound sphere itself that was invisible to the naked eye. The satellite did no more than emit a repetitive beep, but it was enough to change the course of history. The race for space had begun.
We can become so transfixed by what we think is the truth that entertaining another borders on heresy. Preconceived notions are difficult to dissuade once entrenched in the psyche. Standing before the scribes was the messiah. Because of their preconceived notions, they could only ask, "Is not this Joseph's son?"
Ron L.
