Emphasis Preaching Journal

2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
Most Sunday school children know of David and Goliath. Fewer know of David’s adultery. Almost none, however, could correctly state that David, who wrote wonderful prayers and songs, was also a systematic, genocidal mass murderer (1 Samuel 27). For the sake of our Christian faith, students should learn all this.

How can people do terrible things and also be wonderfully artistic, even religiously so? Consider Pablo Picasso. He demonstrated and pioneered the great changes in twentieth-century art. However, as Paul Johnson points out, Picasso was unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood and between right and wrong. Yet Johnson also observes, as the Bible shows, creative genius and evil can exist within the same person. We teach our children best when we emphasize, as Luther did, that Christians are at the same time set right with God and sinners (who do sinful things!). Having been taught that, students might understand better that God only has people like us to work with.


2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
This Old Testament reading is a “sermon illustration” in itself, and yet there is an important theme within it that each of us can translate into our everyday experience. It is that every one of our actions has far-reaching effects, not only for ourselves but for every other person as well. The “consequences of our actions,” to use an AA phrase, may be positive or negative, but they are indeliby real.


2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
In the movie, Indecent Proposal, a rich man, who has everything, makes a proposal to a young couple. The proposal is quite simple, really. All he wants is one night with the wife. In return he will give the couple one million dollars. The sad part of this movie and today’s Bible passage is that no matter how much we have, how much we can have, we invariably want that which we cannot have or that which belongs to another.


2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
It’s often easier to fight for principles than to live up to them. On a high school newspaper staff, the editor of the news section was famously vicious in dealing with reporters who turned in late articles. “You missed your deadline,” Ayla would snap. “Guess you won’t be getting an A this quarter.” However, Ayla herself missed deadlines regularly, turning in second-rate stories days late and never quite finishing her page layouts in time — making it a crisis for the editors above her. “This has to stop, Ayla,” her editor-in-chief finally said. “The other editors pull their own weight and are understanding when someone misses a deadline. You aren’t doing your job, but seem to have a fine time making sure everyone else does his or hers. I’m sorry, Ayla, but we’re replacing you.”


2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
A woman appeared in court for a moving traffic violation. The judge asked what her occupation was, and she told him that she taught elementary school. “Wonderful,” the judge exclaimed. “I have been waiting a long time for this. I want you to take this notebook and pencil and go sit in the back corner of the courtroom. Then write 1,000 times, ‘I will never ever run another red light again for as long as I live.’ ”

From his gleeful demeanor, the judge must have waited a long time to hand down that sentence. I can’t help but wonder if this teacher is paying the price for the harsh teaching techniques of a teacher from the judge’s childhood. It was a strange punishment, especially considering the fact that running a red light could result in a tragic accident.

The punishment does not always fit the crime, even when we are remorseful. God forgives, but civilization demands that we pay for our sins. David had to pay for his sins, even considering his contrite heart. He lost his son as a result, but David does have a change of heart and a renewed relationship with God.


Ephesians 4:1-16
There’s an old story about a man who walked into a church that was under construction. He went up to one of the workers and asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m sawing a board,” the man replied.

He strolled up to a second worker and asked him what he was doing. “I’m building a pew,” was his answer.

Then the visitor walked over to a third worker and asked him the very same question. “I’m building a cathedral to the glory of God!” he replied.

The Christian notion of success is something very different from personal enrichment or edification. Spiritual gifts are given for the good of the whole body of Christ.


Ephesians 4:1-16
I recently attended a seminary class where a rabbi was one of the students. One of his favorite sayings was, “When a Jew sneezes in Pittsburgh, they say, ‘Gesundheit,’ in Tel Aviv.” By that he meant that Jews care about each other. Even if Jews live in different countries, they feel a bond between each other that is a result of their common faith. Christians are supposed to have that same kind of bond. We are to look to the unity that we share in Jesus Christ.


Ephesians 4:1-16
This Ephesians passage teaches us about the unity of the church. We have been given the gifts and graces to function effectively as the church. Yet, as Mark Twain reminds us, we don’t. In an effort to promote the harmony of creation, Twain told of having built a cage into which he put a dog and a cat. Once they learned to live together, he added a pig, a monkey, a bird, and some other creatures. He was so encouraged by the animals’ adjustment that he decided to try a similar experiment with humans of various kinds. He began with an Irish Catholic, a Scottish Presbyterian, a Buddhist, a Turk, and a Muslim. He added a Methodist, a Brahmin, and a few others and topped his collection off with a Baptist missionary. As you might expect, the humans did not fare as well as the animals. Twain returned to the cage of humans. There he found “not a specimen alive” (Biblical Preaching Journal, Summer 1994, p. 16). Isn’t this what the church calls sin?


Ephesians 4:1-16
Ann remembers feeling uncomfortable one Sunday when the pastor preached on the importance of loving one another. The pastor said something to the effect of, “Your ability to trust God will depend on your childhood relationship with your father.” Ann’s heart sank when she heard those words. She affirmed in her head that the pastor was correct, but her heart was another subject.

She recalled those painful times growing up when her father would burst into a fit of rage. She saw firsthand how her father’s behavior was destructive to their family. Ann feared her father. Since she did not trust her dad, how could she trust her heavenly Father? Ann admits wrestling with this for many years.

Then her mother became terminally ill, given only a couple of months to live. It was during this time that Ann saw a different side of her father. She watched as he gently cared for her mother. She wondered how this could be the same man who she feared. In conversation, her father admitted his failures as a father. “I saw how God loved me,” Ann states, “but so much more than my own dad.” God was at work in Ann’s life, healing her childhood wounds.

The apostle Paul was in prison when he penned these words, “to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” We live our lives in humility and gentleness pointing others to Jesus. It is not always easy but we show the love of Christ to everyone we meet.


Ephesians 4:1-16
When Jill made the women’s wrestling team at college, she and her teammates were given a handbook on expectations. It was a college-wide handbook that every person who represented the collage in sports, academics, music, or any other way, received. In it were guidelines about dress codes, expected behaviors, and consequences of breaking the rules. The message was clear: You represent your school. How you conduct yourselves will reflect on the school. Be worthy of the school you represent.

It really is the same as Paul’s plea to the Ephesians. Be worthy of the call that you have received. Only the Ephesians didn’t represent a school, they represented Jesus Christ. Thankfully, Paul gave them a mini-handbook of what was required of them.


John 6:24-35
Fifty years ago I read a story titled, “Clothes Make the Man.” One thief dressed up as a policeman to help other thieves get away with their crime. However, the man dressed as a policeman was simple minded and soon started to act like a policeman. At the end of the story the “policeman” helps apprehend his “friends” the criminals.

The story shows that we can act ourselves into a different way of life. Social psychologists note that we as often act ourselves into a way of believing as believe ourselves into a way of acting. Jesus in John 6 tells his inquirers to “work” for the food that endures for eternal life. They must work to believe in Jesus.

No human mind is truly simple, but each mind is part of a body. When Christian tenets (like the nature of communion) are difficult to believe, we can literally work at it, live within the Christian community, and do what is required of a Christian. We may find that in surprising ways our faith develops as a result.


John 6:24-35
“If you were to take the sum total of all the authoritative articles ever written by the most qualified of psychologists and psychiatrists on the subject of mental hygiene, if you were to combine them and refine them and leave out the excess verbiage, if you were to take the whole of the meat and none of the parsley, and if you were to have these unadulterated bits of pure scientific knowledge consciously expressed by the most capable of living poets, you would have an awkward and incomplete summation of the Sermon on the Mount.” So wrote Dr. James T. Fisher, psychiatrist. For too many people, life is either a deadly bore or a tedious treadmill, yet the gospel offers us the bread of life. Too often people assume that what was written 2,000 years ago has nothing to say to our own age, forgetting that most of the problems that afflict us are not limited to a particular time or place.


John 6:24-35
To work for food that perishes is to settle for the merely good instead of the truly inspired. God has greater plans for us than we may have for ourselves. John Constable, the British artist, once had a conversation with William Blake, a contemporary poet, artist, and mystic. Blake was generally considered Constable’s artistic superior. On this occasion, however, Blake admired a set of the other artist’s drawings and said to him, “Why, this is not drawing, but inspiration!” Replied Constable, “I never knew it before. I meant it for drawing.”


John 6:24-35
Few things, if any, in life are free. We apply the barter system to everything. Want to go to a friend’s house? First, clean your room. Want a back rub? Help me finish washing the dishes. Want $5 to go to the movies? Eat all your vegetables. We barter with our family, with our friends, with our coworkers. Sometimes we don’t even realize what we’re doing. “Yeah, I’ll help you study for your biology test. Want to get some ice cream before we start?” Even the people following Jesus do this. Jesus says “believe”; in their minds, it’s a ripoff to just give him their belief. In return, they want a sign. Tit for tat, belief for a sign. Jesus doesn’t always work that way — at least, not in ways we can easily understand.


John 6:24-35
If you can handle a crowd of excited people in the desert, armed with only a dozen dedicated followers, five loaves, and a couple of fish, you can hardly be surprised if the world is beating a path to your door. Jesus tells us not to become so obsessed with the extraordinary that we miss the true message. The feeding of a huge number of people is miraculous, but temporal. Giving people food for their souls is eternal.

An artist encouraged his students to allow their eyes to fall on any one thing within sight, then to close their eyes for five minutes. After that time, they were to open their eyes and focus again on the object, looking at it until they had a sense of the object’s returning their gaze, acknowledging that the object contained the riddle of life and death. Only then might they move from looking to seeing.

Once we learn the skill of moving beyond looking to seeing we can meet God anytime, anywhere. Miracles, wonders, and signs surround us. Look beyond them to the true message. Develop a new way of seeing.