Sermon Illustrations for Proper 12 | Ordinary Time 17 (2014)
Illustration
Object:
Genesis 29:15-28
Philipp Melanchthon was a German reformer who became a strong advocate and supporter of Martin Luther. When Luther was sequestered for his own safety in Wartburg Castle, Melanchthon became the temporary leader of the Reformation movement. Yet, Melanchthon was much more conciliatory than Luther. Melanchthon tried to keep the Lutherans and the Zwinglians in unity. He also did not fervently denounce the Pope as Luther did, but was willing to recognize the Pope as the leader in the temporal affairs of the church.
Application: As Jacob found himself deceived and in disharmony with Laban, he still worked for reconciliation.
Ron L.
Genesis 29:15-28
Americans are a lot like Laban, willing to do whatever it takes to make more money. But such activities are ultimately meaningless, Martin Luther contended:
When people have devoted all their care and effort to scraping together possessions and great wealth, what have they accomplished in the end? You will find that they have wasted their effort and toil... They themselves never found happiness in their wealth, nor did it last to the third generation.
(The Book of Concord [2000 ed.], p. 391)
In view of the fact that Laban held all the cards (much like how those with wealth in America hold most of the power), Jacob realized he had no chance just asserting his desire to marry Rachel. He would have to compromise get what he wanted, to get what would serve God's aims. Famed 20th-century social commentator Reinhold Niebuhr profoundly described why such compromise is necessary for Christians:
We know, however, that business and politics are not governed by unselfishness.
All the justice we have is a justice which has transmuted the sense of responsibility in various balances of power in order to prevent the strong from taking advantage of the weak, but making the weak a little stronger but not too strong.
(Justice & Mercy, p. 36)
In an imperfect world, marred by selfishness and an imbalance of power, you will not get precisely what you want. And it's best that God does not allow that to happen, because selfish as we are, what we want is not good for us or for society. God's Will quite likely lies between what we and what those with whom we contend want, just like God balanced Jacob's love agenda with what was good for Rachel's sister, through the maneuverings of Laban. This Bible Lesson teaches us to say with Benjamin Franklin to "Love your enemies; for they will tell you all your faults." Living with the gift of faith, the freedom to compromise, and with this sort of realism about our flaws, makes life a little nicer and us too.
Mark E.
Romans 8:26-39
When I went on a retreat to a monastery once, I sat looking out a window wondering what I should pray for. How many good Christians I have talked to who weren't sure what to pray for. Sometimes just a few minutes seems too long after we have made OUR list of requests, and then we quit. In other words, just stop and listen to what God is saying! It is not OUR minds that we are opening to the Lord. It is the mind of the Spirit that God has put within our heart. There is no course offered in our churches that can TEACH us how to pray in the Spirit. God is the only teacher. He talks to us through His word, but also can come to us in ways that go beyond logic and can't be explained like Jacob's experience in last week's lessons.
But when He does put those heart-felt yearnings in us, we can feel the Spirit interceding for us. We know that when He does intercede in His good time it will be according to His will.
What a comforting passage that assures us that God will work for our good if we love Him! Haven't we all felt a call to serve God in some way? When we see someone in our family or on the streets suffering and in need, don't we feel a call inside ourselves to help them? Sometimes it is just a picture of a suffering child in a magazine. It is true that it can be overwhelming when we see so many that we just give up. My mailbox is flooded with appeals for gifts to help the starving here or in some other country, but if we open our hearts to God's Spirit, He will lead us to a responsibility small and specific enough for us to handle. Our church can often help.
The more we look at what Jesus did for us in His life on earth, the more we feel that He will guide us to repay Him in some small way.
That word predestined has been misunderstood to mean that God has already determined where we will end up. I think of it as God "foreknowing" what decisions we will make. He has left it in OUR hands! He has called each one of us to some task for Him, but He knows which one of us will accept our assignment and claim our reward.
It is comforting to know that God will forgive us, even if we fail in our assignment.
The most comforting sentence for me is: "Who will separate us from the Love of Christ --?" NOTHING! It says, "We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us!" Love is the key elements in our faith that separates us from all other faiths!
As we love our children, He loves us even more. It is our reason for praying!
Bob O.
Romans 8:26-39
Paul realized that the people he is communicating with would be facing a difficult world. They would be despised, hunted down and persecuted. Just over a hundred years later Cyprian (200-258 AD) wrote to a friend, Donatus. In his letter he says that it is an incredible bad world. But in the midst of it he had discovered a quiet and good people who had learned the great secret of life. He told Donatus that they had found a joy and a wisdom which in his mind was a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of the sinful life. These people, he said, were despised and persecuted, but they didn't seem to care. They had become masters of their own souls and had overcome the world. He wrote, "These people, Donatus, are Christians…and I am one of them."
(Jan Karon, Patches of Godlight (NY: Penguin Books, 2001), npn.)
Derl K.
Romans 8:26-39
If you were to draw a line on a whiteboard, right down the middle from top to bottom, and then draw a dot on either side of the line, you would find that you could not move your marker from one dot to the other without crossing the line. That simple inky stripe would separate one from the other and effectively keep the two dots from ever being joined together.
Unless you erased part of the line.
Or lifted the marker off of the whiteboard.
Or erased one of the dots and redrew it on the other side of the line.
Or...
Scott B.
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Growing the Kingdom of God and our churches does not come easy. But a 2006 Associated Press poll indicated that Americans want instant gratification, as our impatience waiting in lines or delayed holds during phone calls kicks in after the first five minutes. But Jesus' Parables teach patience. Essentially they say, "Chill out! It's gonna be all right." Or as Aesop noted in his fable "The Hare and the Toroise": "Slow and steady wins the race." In the same spirit a wise adage in the black church warrants attention: [When it comes to witnessing for Christ and doing ministry, like most things in life], "God may not come when you want him. But he's always on time."
John Calvin taught us that we need these warnings: "We are great in need of such a warning; for we are so captivated by the allurements of the world that eternal life fades from our view" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVI/2, p. 131).
It is good to be patient with the things of God. For as, Jesse Jackson once said, "God is not finished with me [us] yet."
Mark E.
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Corrie ten Boom was transferred to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. The internment of this Hollander resulted from her hiding people of the Jewish faith in her Christian home. As the women entered the camp they were taken to a shower room where they were ordered to undress. Their clothes and all their personal belongings were to be confiscated. Corrie had a Bible with her, without which she knew she could not survive the coming ordeal. Disrobing, she received a prison dress, under which she hid her Bible. Two guards stood at the exit from the shower room, frisking each woman as she left. Desperate, helpless, Corrie prayed, "Lord, cause your angels to surround me; the guards must not see me." A sense of peace came over Corrie. She walked relaxed and with ease past the guards, almost as if she was invisible. With the assurance that comes from prayer, Corrie ten Boom knew the steadfast love and faithfulness of God.
Application: However small or taxed or faith may be, it shall always be sufficient enough to sustain us.
Ron L.
Philipp Melanchthon was a German reformer who became a strong advocate and supporter of Martin Luther. When Luther was sequestered for his own safety in Wartburg Castle, Melanchthon became the temporary leader of the Reformation movement. Yet, Melanchthon was much more conciliatory than Luther. Melanchthon tried to keep the Lutherans and the Zwinglians in unity. He also did not fervently denounce the Pope as Luther did, but was willing to recognize the Pope as the leader in the temporal affairs of the church.
Application: As Jacob found himself deceived and in disharmony with Laban, he still worked for reconciliation.
Ron L.
Genesis 29:15-28
Americans are a lot like Laban, willing to do whatever it takes to make more money. But such activities are ultimately meaningless, Martin Luther contended:
When people have devoted all their care and effort to scraping together possessions and great wealth, what have they accomplished in the end? You will find that they have wasted their effort and toil... They themselves never found happiness in their wealth, nor did it last to the third generation.
(The Book of Concord [2000 ed.], p. 391)
In view of the fact that Laban held all the cards (much like how those with wealth in America hold most of the power), Jacob realized he had no chance just asserting his desire to marry Rachel. He would have to compromise get what he wanted, to get what would serve God's aims. Famed 20th-century social commentator Reinhold Niebuhr profoundly described why such compromise is necessary for Christians:
We know, however, that business and politics are not governed by unselfishness.
All the justice we have is a justice which has transmuted the sense of responsibility in various balances of power in order to prevent the strong from taking advantage of the weak, but making the weak a little stronger but not too strong.
(Justice & Mercy, p. 36)
In an imperfect world, marred by selfishness and an imbalance of power, you will not get precisely what you want. And it's best that God does not allow that to happen, because selfish as we are, what we want is not good for us or for society. God's Will quite likely lies between what we and what those with whom we contend want, just like God balanced Jacob's love agenda with what was good for Rachel's sister, through the maneuverings of Laban. This Bible Lesson teaches us to say with Benjamin Franklin to "Love your enemies; for they will tell you all your faults." Living with the gift of faith, the freedom to compromise, and with this sort of realism about our flaws, makes life a little nicer and us too.
Mark E.
Romans 8:26-39
When I went on a retreat to a monastery once, I sat looking out a window wondering what I should pray for. How many good Christians I have talked to who weren't sure what to pray for. Sometimes just a few minutes seems too long after we have made OUR list of requests, and then we quit. In other words, just stop and listen to what God is saying! It is not OUR minds that we are opening to the Lord. It is the mind of the Spirit that God has put within our heart. There is no course offered in our churches that can TEACH us how to pray in the Spirit. God is the only teacher. He talks to us through His word, but also can come to us in ways that go beyond logic and can't be explained like Jacob's experience in last week's lessons.
But when He does put those heart-felt yearnings in us, we can feel the Spirit interceding for us. We know that when He does intercede in His good time it will be according to His will.
What a comforting passage that assures us that God will work for our good if we love Him! Haven't we all felt a call to serve God in some way? When we see someone in our family or on the streets suffering and in need, don't we feel a call inside ourselves to help them? Sometimes it is just a picture of a suffering child in a magazine. It is true that it can be overwhelming when we see so many that we just give up. My mailbox is flooded with appeals for gifts to help the starving here or in some other country, but if we open our hearts to God's Spirit, He will lead us to a responsibility small and specific enough for us to handle. Our church can often help.
The more we look at what Jesus did for us in His life on earth, the more we feel that He will guide us to repay Him in some small way.
That word predestined has been misunderstood to mean that God has already determined where we will end up. I think of it as God "foreknowing" what decisions we will make. He has left it in OUR hands! He has called each one of us to some task for Him, but He knows which one of us will accept our assignment and claim our reward.
It is comforting to know that God will forgive us, even if we fail in our assignment.
The most comforting sentence for me is: "Who will separate us from the Love of Christ --?" NOTHING! It says, "We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us!" Love is the key elements in our faith that separates us from all other faiths!
As we love our children, He loves us even more. It is our reason for praying!
Bob O.
Romans 8:26-39
Paul realized that the people he is communicating with would be facing a difficult world. They would be despised, hunted down and persecuted. Just over a hundred years later Cyprian (200-258 AD) wrote to a friend, Donatus. In his letter he says that it is an incredible bad world. But in the midst of it he had discovered a quiet and good people who had learned the great secret of life. He told Donatus that they had found a joy and a wisdom which in his mind was a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of the sinful life. These people, he said, were despised and persecuted, but they didn't seem to care. They had become masters of their own souls and had overcome the world. He wrote, "These people, Donatus, are Christians…and I am one of them."
(Jan Karon, Patches of Godlight (NY: Penguin Books, 2001), npn.)
Derl K.
Romans 8:26-39
If you were to draw a line on a whiteboard, right down the middle from top to bottom, and then draw a dot on either side of the line, you would find that you could not move your marker from one dot to the other without crossing the line. That simple inky stripe would separate one from the other and effectively keep the two dots from ever being joined together.
Unless you erased part of the line.
Or lifted the marker off of the whiteboard.
Or erased one of the dots and redrew it on the other side of the line.
Or...
Scott B.
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Growing the Kingdom of God and our churches does not come easy. But a 2006 Associated Press poll indicated that Americans want instant gratification, as our impatience waiting in lines or delayed holds during phone calls kicks in after the first five minutes. But Jesus' Parables teach patience. Essentially they say, "Chill out! It's gonna be all right." Or as Aesop noted in his fable "The Hare and the Toroise": "Slow and steady wins the race." In the same spirit a wise adage in the black church warrants attention: [When it comes to witnessing for Christ and doing ministry, like most things in life], "God may not come when you want him. But he's always on time."
John Calvin taught us that we need these warnings: "We are great in need of such a warning; for we are so captivated by the allurements of the world that eternal life fades from our view" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVI/2, p. 131).
It is good to be patient with the things of God. For as, Jesse Jackson once said, "God is not finished with me [us] yet."
Mark E.
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Corrie ten Boom was transferred to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. The internment of this Hollander resulted from her hiding people of the Jewish faith in her Christian home. As the women entered the camp they were taken to a shower room where they were ordered to undress. Their clothes and all their personal belongings were to be confiscated. Corrie had a Bible with her, without which she knew she could not survive the coming ordeal. Disrobing, she received a prison dress, under which she hid her Bible. Two guards stood at the exit from the shower room, frisking each woman as she left. Desperate, helpless, Corrie prayed, "Lord, cause your angels to surround me; the guards must not see me." A sense of peace came over Corrie. She walked relaxed and with ease past the guards, almost as if she was invisible. With the assurance that comes from prayer, Corrie ten Boom knew the steadfast love and faithfulness of God.
Application: However small or taxed or faith may be, it shall always be sufficient enough to sustain us.
Ron L.
