Sermon Illustrations for Epiphany 4 (OT 4) Cycle C (2022)
Illustration
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost for His Highest, wrote, “'I have chosen you!' Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God but that He has got you.” These words are powerful and, I think, reflect well the call of Jeremiah that we see in this passage. From before the time he was born, God had a plan for Jeremiah. He would be God’s prophet to the nations.
As we see in this text, God called Jeremiah and equipped him to do what needed to be done. Similar to Moses, who balked initially when called by the Lord, Jeremiah answers God’s call with hesitation. The Lord, however, is resolute, saying in verses 7 and 8, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” Then, he touches Jeremiah’s mouth, symbolic of giving him the words to say.
Jeremiah would serve the Lord and his people faithfully. The words of A.W. Tozer, I think, apply here. “God is looking for people through whom he can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.”
Bill T.
* * *
Jeremiah 1:4-10
God tells Jeremiah he was appointed by God in the womb to be a prophet. That’s almost as if he was genetically destined to call out nations and to bring the word of the Lord.
For me this brings up the question of nature versus nurture. What roles do genetics and free will have to play in who we are? Whenever there’s a question about genetics, I turn to one of my favorite books, Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived. He addresses this question after defining a word which might confuse us - heritability. It sounds like ‘inherited,’ but he defines it as “a measure of how much of the differences we see in a population can be accounted for by genetics, and how much is determined by the environment. Simple enough to say, but baffling once we look under the hood.”
One example he gives is language. We all speak a language, which suggests the capacity to do so is determined by genetics, but the language you speak is determined by where you’re born or raised, “and so its heritability is zero.”
The problem he suggests comes from the combative term “nature versus nurture,” like it’s one or the other. He prefers a word he borrows from another author. “Nature via nurture,” he writes, “is a much better way of phrasing it.”
The two are intertwined. So, in the case of Jeremiah 1:4-10, the talents and abilities that go with prophecy may be genetic, but despite his protests (“I am only a boy.”) Jeremiah has a choice. And so do we when it comes to the talents we might bring to God’s church.
Frank R.
* * *
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
For this famous text on love, famed theologian of the last century Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers a compelling comment:
A life has meaning and value only in so far as love is in it. Furthermore, life is nothing, nothing at all, and has not meaning and value if love is not it in. (A Testament of Hope, p.254)
John Wesley associates love with humility, as he observed:
Nothing humbles the soul so deeply as love... It abases us both before God and man; makes us will to be the least of all, and the servants of all... (Works, Vol.7, p.48)
Wesley hints that our love is rooted in God’s love. In fact, the love described in this lesson, much to the surprise of many, is not human love, which sinners are not capable of achieving, but God’s agape love. The famed medieval mystic Catherine of Siena makes that clear:
In love... Such conformity joins the soul in marriage to the word... When love comes into the soul it changes everything else into itself and takes the affections captive. The soul therefore that loves, loves and knows nothing else... They are bride and bridegroom... But this bridegroom, remember, is not only loving. He is love itself. (Varieties of Mystic Experience, p.103)
Martin Luther makes a profound point about how if we want to think about love God is the one we are describing:
God Himself is love, and his being is nothing but pure love. Therefore, if anyone wanted to draw and picture God in a telling way, he would have to draw a picture that showed nothing but love, as though the divine nature were nothing but an intense fire and fervor of a love that has filled heaven and earth. (What Luther Says, p.819)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 4:21-30
Jill Morgan, the daughter-in-law of G. Campbell Morgan, wrote in her book, A Man of the Word, “In 1888 my father-in-law was rejected for the ministry. He wired to his father the one word, “Rejected,” and sat down to write in his diary: “Very dark everything seems. Still, he knoweth best.” Quickly came the reply: “Rejected on earth. Accepted in heaven. Dad.”
Jesus also knew the sting of rejection. He was rejected in his hometown by those who knew him best for just that reason. They knew him…or thought they did. When Jesus read and spoke in their synagogue, they angrily rejected him and wanted to kill him. Jesus, however, slipped away from them.
We, too, likely know what it’s like to be rejected. Charles Swindoll summarized well what I think is a good outlook on it. “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” May we respond as Jesus did.
Bill T.
* * *
Luke 4:21-30
Ben Witherington III and Amy-Jill Levine, who in the introduction to their joint New Cambridge Bible Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, describe themselves as, respectively, “a Methodist evangelical New Testament scholar” and “a Jewish feminist agnostic New Testament scholar.” This makes for an engaging commentary, to say the least!
In their comments on this section of scripture they note that in this passage Jesus quotes Isaiah’s promise that the blind will see, and the captives will be released. Jesus indeed gives sight to the blind. (He says as much to John the Baptist in prison, see 7:22). But “ironically,” as they put it, “Jesus does not release anyone from literal captivity, including John the Baptizer…(p.116).” However, “The reference does, however, foreshadow the release of Barabbas, the three prison break scenes in Acts, and perhaps the releasing of people from demonic possession, as the next scene in the gospel depicts.” (p.116)
I hadn’t thought of that.
Frank R.
Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost for His Highest, wrote, “'I have chosen you!' Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God but that He has got you.” These words are powerful and, I think, reflect well the call of Jeremiah that we see in this passage. From before the time he was born, God had a plan for Jeremiah. He would be God’s prophet to the nations.
As we see in this text, God called Jeremiah and equipped him to do what needed to be done. Similar to Moses, who balked initially when called by the Lord, Jeremiah answers God’s call with hesitation. The Lord, however, is resolute, saying in verses 7 and 8, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” Then, he touches Jeremiah’s mouth, symbolic of giving him the words to say.
Jeremiah would serve the Lord and his people faithfully. The words of A.W. Tozer, I think, apply here. “God is looking for people through whom he can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.”
Bill T.
* * *
Jeremiah 1:4-10
God tells Jeremiah he was appointed by God in the womb to be a prophet. That’s almost as if he was genetically destined to call out nations and to bring the word of the Lord.
For me this brings up the question of nature versus nurture. What roles do genetics and free will have to play in who we are? Whenever there’s a question about genetics, I turn to one of my favorite books, Adam Rutherford’s A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived. He addresses this question after defining a word which might confuse us - heritability. It sounds like ‘inherited,’ but he defines it as “a measure of how much of the differences we see in a population can be accounted for by genetics, and how much is determined by the environment. Simple enough to say, but baffling once we look under the hood.”
One example he gives is language. We all speak a language, which suggests the capacity to do so is determined by genetics, but the language you speak is determined by where you’re born or raised, “and so its heritability is zero.”
The problem he suggests comes from the combative term “nature versus nurture,” like it’s one or the other. He prefers a word he borrows from another author. “Nature via nurture,” he writes, “is a much better way of phrasing it.”
The two are intertwined. So, in the case of Jeremiah 1:4-10, the talents and abilities that go with prophecy may be genetic, but despite his protests (“I am only a boy.”) Jeremiah has a choice. And so do we when it comes to the talents we might bring to God’s church.
Frank R.
* * *
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
For this famous text on love, famed theologian of the last century Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers a compelling comment:
A life has meaning and value only in so far as love is in it. Furthermore, life is nothing, nothing at all, and has not meaning and value if love is not it in. (A Testament of Hope, p.254)
John Wesley associates love with humility, as he observed:
Nothing humbles the soul so deeply as love... It abases us both before God and man; makes us will to be the least of all, and the servants of all... (Works, Vol.7, p.48)
Wesley hints that our love is rooted in God’s love. In fact, the love described in this lesson, much to the surprise of many, is not human love, which sinners are not capable of achieving, but God’s agape love. The famed medieval mystic Catherine of Siena makes that clear:
In love... Such conformity joins the soul in marriage to the word... When love comes into the soul it changes everything else into itself and takes the affections captive. The soul therefore that loves, loves and knows nothing else... They are bride and bridegroom... But this bridegroom, remember, is not only loving. He is love itself. (Varieties of Mystic Experience, p.103)
Martin Luther makes a profound point about how if we want to think about love God is the one we are describing:
God Himself is love, and his being is nothing but pure love. Therefore, if anyone wanted to draw and picture God in a telling way, he would have to draw a picture that showed nothing but love, as though the divine nature were nothing but an intense fire and fervor of a love that has filled heaven and earth. (What Luther Says, p.819)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 4:21-30
Jill Morgan, the daughter-in-law of G. Campbell Morgan, wrote in her book, A Man of the Word, “In 1888 my father-in-law was rejected for the ministry. He wired to his father the one word, “Rejected,” and sat down to write in his diary: “Very dark everything seems. Still, he knoweth best.” Quickly came the reply: “Rejected on earth. Accepted in heaven. Dad.”
Jesus also knew the sting of rejection. He was rejected in his hometown by those who knew him best for just that reason. They knew him…or thought they did. When Jesus read and spoke in their synagogue, they angrily rejected him and wanted to kill him. Jesus, however, slipped away from them.
We, too, likely know what it’s like to be rejected. Charles Swindoll summarized well what I think is a good outlook on it. “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” May we respond as Jesus did.
Bill T.
* * *
Luke 4:21-30
Ben Witherington III and Amy-Jill Levine, who in the introduction to their joint New Cambridge Bible Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, describe themselves as, respectively, “a Methodist evangelical New Testament scholar” and “a Jewish feminist agnostic New Testament scholar.” This makes for an engaging commentary, to say the least!
In their comments on this section of scripture they note that in this passage Jesus quotes Isaiah’s promise that the blind will see, and the captives will be released. Jesus indeed gives sight to the blind. (He says as much to John the Baptist in prison, see 7:22). But “ironically,” as they put it, “Jesus does not release anyone from literal captivity, including John the Baptizer…(p.116).” However, “The reference does, however, foreshadow the release of Barabbas, the three prison break scenes in Acts, and perhaps the releasing of people from demonic possession, as the next scene in the gospel depicts.” (p.116)
I hadn’t thought of that.
Frank R.
