Sermon Illustrations for Proper 13 | OT 18 (2018)
Illustration
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a and Psalm 51:1-12
In this passage of Samuel, David is challenged in his role in the death of Uriah and the affair he has had with Bathsheba. David comes face to face with the sin that he can no longer ignore. But he comes to this moment of confessing through the words of a prophet, through one who loves him enough to share a view of David’s behavior that David has been trying to ignore. The point isn’t that David has been proven to be human. We all know, David knew he was a human being. The point was surrendering to the fact that sin is a part of his life; better that than living a lie and separating himself from God.
David is still known as one of the great monarchs of the Jewish people. He was human, but still great. There is a lesson in this passage for us. No person is only their worst act, their sin. Human beings are complex beings in which wisdom and ignorance, compassion and prejudice, hate and love reside. We are each and all not one act. Perhaps in the age when everyone is judged on their last worst act, we need to remember confession and redemption. Who have you condemned? Who has condemned you? If God can offer forgiveness and grace, perhaps we should too.
Bonnie B.
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a and Psalm 51:1-12
Not to be too political here in church, but our country takes from the poorest and gives to the richest through taxes and benefits even if it is legal.
David waited until Uriah’s wife was a widow to marry her -- even though he had checked her out before. He was being legal in waiting for her husband to die, but God was still not happy. God was looking into David’s heart. Even though David was one of the best kings in the peoples’ eyes, he was still a sinner.
We have to look in our hearts and see if we have problems. (Our church can help us do that.) If we realize that we have not lived a perfect life we can only turn to God to clean us up. If we think we are perfect and sinless, then we really need our Lord to open our eyes. We each need a Nathan. Our church, our pastor, our family can be our Nathan. I don’t always know when I have sinned, so I can be patient and helpful to others as the Lord gives me the wisdom.
I tried to figure out how I could be sinful at birth. Is crying for my bottle when I was hungry, a sin? Is pooping in my diaper a sin? If God created us and adopted us before we were even born, did he put sin in our heart? Did we inherit it from our family? Chew on that a while.
God teaches us wisdom. No one is born with it. God may send us Nathan to teach us wisdom when we have grown old enough to understand.
At my old age I have a feeling that I am still learning. I am learning all my life. Only God can teach us and he does it in many ways: starting with our parents and continuing through our church. Don’t ever stop learning!
I was embarrassed as a pastor that I had been divorced -- regardless whose fault it was. I was not a good example. My only example was sorrow for my sin and my begging for forgiveness. That gave an example in my message to my people.
God will reveal your sin to you. Then it is up to you!
Bob O.
2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
David’s and Uriah’s infidelity is not unusual in our context. There is an infidelity epidemic in America today. Estimates as long ago as in 2012 were that from 30% to 60% of all married individuals will engage in infidelity in our hook-up culture. And more recently, 40.3% of births are reported to have been to unmarried women. About David’s sin, John Wesley writes:
Psalm 51:1-12
Commenting on the need for confession of sin which this psalm illustrates, John Calvin writes:
Ephesians 4:1-16
There’s an irony to this passage. Paul is a captive who is perhaps awaiting execution in Rome. Jesus was a captive who was executed by the governor appointed by Rome. Yet this scripture, acknowledging Paul’s captivity and Jesus’ death, ironically describes the victory parade of the cosmic Christ. It is Jesus who is the one, having conquered, who gives gifts as part of his largess, as any good conqueror would do. We are the recipients of the spoils when Jesus conquered through the cross.
Frank R.
Ephesians 4:1-16
Baseball fans might remember one of the best teams of recent history, the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates had 98 wins and 64 losses and captured the National League East Division title by two games over the Montreal Expos. The Pirates then beat the Cincinnati Reds to win their ninth National League title, and finally the Baltimore Orioles to win their fifth World Series title. One of the leaders of the team was first baseman Willie Stargell. His teammates called him “Pops” because of his leadership both on and off the baseball field. At his leading, the team was nicknamed “The Family” because of their close relationship. “We won, we lived, and we enjoyed as one,” Stargell said. “We molded together dozens of different individuals into one working force. We were products of different races, were raised in different income brackets, but in the clubhouse and on the field, we were one."
Paul challenges the believers to be one, as well. All of us have different gifts and all are for the building up of the body of Christ. Then, he makes his appeal; “until all of us come to the unity of faith.” Just as the Pirates at old Three Rivers Stadium had different skill sets and talents to contribute to the team, we all have different talents and gifts to bring to the church. Though the gifts may be different, we are one. As Sister Sledge once sang, “We are family.”
Bill T.
Ephesians 4:1-16
Roger Bannister was the first person to break the four-minute mile. At the time he was a medical student at Oxford. The closet anyone had come to breaking the four-minute mark was Sweden’s Gunder Hagg. In 1945 Hagg ran the mile in 4:01.4. Bannister realized that the barrier to breaking four minutes was not physical, but mental. Bannister said, “There was no logic in my mind that if you can run a mile in 4 minutes, 1 and 2/5ths, you can’t run it in 3:59. I knew enough medicine and physiology to know it wasn’t a physical barrier, but I think it had become a psychological barrier.” On Thursday, May 6, 1954, Bannister was ready to make a new track record. But as he looked up at the British flag whipping in the wind atop a church he figured he would have to call off his attempt. Then around 6 p.m., the wind suddenly subsided and the race was on. With two friends running with him as pacemakers he started around Oxford’s Iffley Road track. Bannister ran four laps around the cinder track in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. This was one of the defining sporting achievements of the twentieth century, but it lasted only for 46 days when John Landy of Australia ran the mile in 3:57.9.
Application: Paul writes about our need to mature in the faith. To mature in the faith is really for us an issue of our mental attitude.
Ron L.
John 6:24-25
Prove it. Prove the existence of the Holy. That seems to be the question asked of Jesus. That is often the question that is asked of believers. Prove there is a God, especially in a world so full of pain and want and violence and injustice. Where is God in all these things? The answer is pretty simple. God is not in things. God is in people. When pain and want and violence and injustice are perpetrated in the world, it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist. It means we haven’t allowed God to enter into us and through us into the world.
Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers of television fame, recounted a quotation from his mother. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”1 God is in the helpers. God is in us. Let’s be the helpers in the world that bring the presence, blessing, grace and love of God to the forefront, so people do not doubt God is here in our midst.
Bonnie B.
John 6:24-35
Some come to their churches because they can get a free meal. They almost always come back for more.
God performed miracles in my life, and it is often true that I look to him when I need another miracle -- or at least some help (major or minor). That should not be our only motive.
It is true that when God does something good for us, as he has done often for me, we come back to him for more since he is our main source.
We come to the altar on Sundays to receive him symbolically in communion. That is our bread of life. Do we see him through that bread or do we just see bread. We certainly don’t receive enough at the Lord’s Supper to feed us. Our food more likely comes through a good sermon, a good scripture and a good hymn. We don’t come just to receive bread and a bit of wine.
We find the work of God for us in our church. It is not just teaching Sunday school, or serving on the church council or being an usher. We do those things because, hopefully, we are doing the real work in our heart which God has given us at that moment: believing in him. When we do his will, we know that we must believe in him. His spirit motivates us.
That sounds so simple but it is only simple in that it is a gift from God. The only difficult thing is for us to open our heart to God to receive it!
At first our Nepali members came to church to eat or to get some benefit like a healing. After that they came back because their hearts and souls were being filled with God’s love. They were baptized as proof of God coming into their life. Most of them had to pay for their new faith by losing their Hindu families and friends and maybe their life or freedom, even without more food.
It was exciting to see the joy in their eyes from their new faith in Jesus. I could see that they had become believers. All Christians greeted each other wherever they were with the Nepali phrase, “jamasee”, which means Jesus is Lord! It made no difference if they attended a Catholic or Pentecost church, or even if they had not joined a church yet! Some believers were afraid of even letting their family know or they might be thrown out.
We can check the degree of our faith when we feel fulfilled without all other benefits including food.
Bob O.
John 6:24-35
Martin Luther further elaborates on the meaning Jesus has in mind in referring to himself as the Bread of Life (v.35):
1 Good Reads -- Fred Rogers
In this passage of Samuel, David is challenged in his role in the death of Uriah and the affair he has had with Bathsheba. David comes face to face with the sin that he can no longer ignore. But he comes to this moment of confessing through the words of a prophet, through one who loves him enough to share a view of David’s behavior that David has been trying to ignore. The point isn’t that David has been proven to be human. We all know, David knew he was a human being. The point was surrendering to the fact that sin is a part of his life; better that than living a lie and separating himself from God.
David is still known as one of the great monarchs of the Jewish people. He was human, but still great. There is a lesson in this passage for us. No person is only their worst act, their sin. Human beings are complex beings in which wisdom and ignorance, compassion and prejudice, hate and love reside. We are each and all not one act. Perhaps in the age when everyone is judged on their last worst act, we need to remember confession and redemption. Who have you condemned? Who has condemned you? If God can offer forgiveness and grace, perhaps we should too.
Bonnie B.
2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a and Psalm 51:1-12
Not to be too political here in church, but our country takes from the poorest and gives to the richest through taxes and benefits even if it is legal.
David waited until Uriah’s wife was a widow to marry her -- even though he had checked her out before. He was being legal in waiting for her husband to die, but God was still not happy. God was looking into David’s heart. Even though David was one of the best kings in the peoples’ eyes, he was still a sinner.
We have to look in our hearts and see if we have problems. (Our church can help us do that.) If we realize that we have not lived a perfect life we can only turn to God to clean us up. If we think we are perfect and sinless, then we really need our Lord to open our eyes. We each need a Nathan. Our church, our pastor, our family can be our Nathan. I don’t always know when I have sinned, so I can be patient and helpful to others as the Lord gives me the wisdom.
I tried to figure out how I could be sinful at birth. Is crying for my bottle when I was hungry, a sin? Is pooping in my diaper a sin? If God created us and adopted us before we were even born, did he put sin in our heart? Did we inherit it from our family? Chew on that a while.
God teaches us wisdom. No one is born with it. God may send us Nathan to teach us wisdom when we have grown old enough to understand.
At my old age I have a feeling that I am still learning. I am learning all my life. Only God can teach us and he does it in many ways: starting with our parents and continuing through our church. Don’t ever stop learning!
I was embarrassed as a pastor that I had been divorced -- regardless whose fault it was. I was not a good example. My only example was sorrow for my sin and my begging for forgiveness. That gave an example in my message to my people.
God will reveal your sin to you. Then it is up to you!
Bob O.
2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
David’s and Uriah’s infidelity is not unusual in our context. There is an infidelity epidemic in America today. Estimates as long ago as in 2012 were that from 30% to 60% of all married individuals will engage in infidelity in our hook-up culture. And more recently, 40.3% of births are reported to have been to unmarried women. About David’s sin, John Wesley writes:
“This an eminent example of the corruption of man’s nature, of the deceitfulness of sin...” (Commentary On the Bible, p.200)We certainly need forgiveness as a nation and as individuals for our behaviors and desire. But that forgiveness, a forgiveness that truly forgets how we have screwed up, can only be granted by God. Prominent 19th-century Congregational minister Henry Ward Beecher hit the nail on the head:
I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note -- torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.The lack of forgiveness of ourselves that we experience often comes when we are alone. Late medieval English mystic Julian of Norwich thoughtfully expresses how God’s forgiving love overcomes our sense of being alone:
And so it goes with all of us who are sinners. But though it is true that we do this frequently, His goodness never allows us to be alone, Continuously He is with us, tenderly He excuses us, and always He shields us from blame in His sight. (The Revelation of Divine Love, p.203)Mark E.
Psalm 51:1-12
Commenting on the need for confession of sin which this psalm illustrates, John Calvin writes:
And there is perhaps no better remedy against deception in the matter of our sins than to turn our thought inward upon ourselves, to concentrate them upon God, and lose every self-complacent imagination in a sharp sense of His displeasure. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.V/1, p.286)The Reformer also helps us understand why we continue to pray for forgiveness, though we already have it:
God’s pardon is full and complete; but our faith cannot take in His overflowing goodness, and it is necessary that it should distil to us drop by drop. It is owing to this infirmity of our faith, that we are often found repeating and repeating again the same petition, not with the view surely of gradually softening the heart of God to compassion, but because we advance by slow and difficult steps to the requisite fullness of assurance. (Ibid., p.297)We also need constantly to be reminded of our sinfulness and need for forgiveness, because deep down, Martin Luther claims, we like to think we are righteous, that God does us a disservice in making us so dependent on him. The first reformer is thinking of us when he writes:
But because they believe that they are justified by their own righteousness, they make God unrighteous, as though He were doing them an injustice by denying that they can be justified in themselves. (Luther’s Works, Vol.10, p.237)Mark E.
Ephesians 4:1-16
There’s an irony to this passage. Paul is a captive who is perhaps awaiting execution in Rome. Jesus was a captive who was executed by the governor appointed by Rome. Yet this scripture, acknowledging Paul’s captivity and Jesus’ death, ironically describes the victory parade of the cosmic Christ. It is Jesus who is the one, having conquered, who gives gifts as part of his largess, as any good conqueror would do. We are the recipients of the spoils when Jesus conquered through the cross.
Frank R.
Ephesians 4:1-16
Baseball fans might remember one of the best teams of recent history, the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates had 98 wins and 64 losses and captured the National League East Division title by two games over the Montreal Expos. The Pirates then beat the Cincinnati Reds to win their ninth National League title, and finally the Baltimore Orioles to win their fifth World Series title. One of the leaders of the team was first baseman Willie Stargell. His teammates called him “Pops” because of his leadership both on and off the baseball field. At his leading, the team was nicknamed “The Family” because of their close relationship. “We won, we lived, and we enjoyed as one,” Stargell said. “We molded together dozens of different individuals into one working force. We were products of different races, were raised in different income brackets, but in the clubhouse and on the field, we were one."
Paul challenges the believers to be one, as well. All of us have different gifts and all are for the building up of the body of Christ. Then, he makes his appeal; “until all of us come to the unity of faith.” Just as the Pirates at old Three Rivers Stadium had different skill sets and talents to contribute to the team, we all have different talents and gifts to bring to the church. Though the gifts may be different, we are one. As Sister Sledge once sang, “We are family.”
Bill T.
Ephesians 4:1-16
Roger Bannister was the first person to break the four-minute mile. At the time he was a medical student at Oxford. The closet anyone had come to breaking the four-minute mark was Sweden’s Gunder Hagg. In 1945 Hagg ran the mile in 4:01.4. Bannister realized that the barrier to breaking four minutes was not physical, but mental. Bannister said, “There was no logic in my mind that if you can run a mile in 4 minutes, 1 and 2/5ths, you can’t run it in 3:59. I knew enough medicine and physiology to know it wasn’t a physical barrier, but I think it had become a psychological barrier.” On Thursday, May 6, 1954, Bannister was ready to make a new track record. But as he looked up at the British flag whipping in the wind atop a church he figured he would have to call off his attempt. Then around 6 p.m., the wind suddenly subsided and the race was on. With two friends running with him as pacemakers he started around Oxford’s Iffley Road track. Bannister ran four laps around the cinder track in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. This was one of the defining sporting achievements of the twentieth century, but it lasted only for 46 days when John Landy of Australia ran the mile in 3:57.9.
Application: Paul writes about our need to mature in the faith. To mature in the faith is really for us an issue of our mental attitude.
Ron L.
John 6:24-25
Prove it. Prove the existence of the Holy. That seems to be the question asked of Jesus. That is often the question that is asked of believers. Prove there is a God, especially in a world so full of pain and want and violence and injustice. Where is God in all these things? The answer is pretty simple. God is not in things. God is in people. When pain and want and violence and injustice are perpetrated in the world, it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist. It means we haven’t allowed God to enter into us and through us into the world.
Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers of television fame, recounted a quotation from his mother. “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”1 God is in the helpers. God is in us. Let’s be the helpers in the world that bring the presence, blessing, grace and love of God to the forefront, so people do not doubt God is here in our midst.
Bonnie B.
John 6:24-35
Some come to their churches because they can get a free meal. They almost always come back for more.
God performed miracles in my life, and it is often true that I look to him when I need another miracle -- or at least some help (major or minor). That should not be our only motive.
It is true that when God does something good for us, as he has done often for me, we come back to him for more since he is our main source.
We come to the altar on Sundays to receive him symbolically in communion. That is our bread of life. Do we see him through that bread or do we just see bread. We certainly don’t receive enough at the Lord’s Supper to feed us. Our food more likely comes through a good sermon, a good scripture and a good hymn. We don’t come just to receive bread and a bit of wine.
We find the work of God for us in our church. It is not just teaching Sunday school, or serving on the church council or being an usher. We do those things because, hopefully, we are doing the real work in our heart which God has given us at that moment: believing in him. When we do his will, we know that we must believe in him. His spirit motivates us.
That sounds so simple but it is only simple in that it is a gift from God. The only difficult thing is for us to open our heart to God to receive it!
At first our Nepali members came to church to eat or to get some benefit like a healing. After that they came back because their hearts and souls were being filled with God’s love. They were baptized as proof of God coming into their life. Most of them had to pay for their new faith by losing their Hindu families and friends and maybe their life or freedom, even without more food.
It was exciting to see the joy in their eyes from their new faith in Jesus. I could see that they had become believers. All Christians greeted each other wherever they were with the Nepali phrase, “jamasee”, which means Jesus is Lord! It made no difference if they attended a Catholic or Pentecost church, or even if they had not joined a church yet! Some believers were afraid of even letting their family know or they might be thrown out.
We can check the degree of our faith when we feel fulfilled without all other benefits including food.
Bob O.
John 6:24-35
Martin Luther further elaborates on the meaning Jesus has in mind in referring to himself as the Bread of Life (v.35):
This bread is to be preservative against death. It is as if a physician or a pharmacist were to tell a patient: “I will give you a medicine, a potion or purgative, that will save you from death. You will no longer live in fear of death, since you are immune.(Luther’s Works, Vol.23, p.41)Regarding Jesus’ suspicions of the crowd’s motives (v.26), John Calvin writes:
“... they expect nothing greater from Him than to live happily at ease in this world. This is to rob Christ of His chief power...” (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVII/2, p.240)Martin Luther made a similar point:
“It is the lot of God’s Word in the world that to find that the learned and the works-righteous always know better.” (Luther’s Works, Vol.23, p.30)Receiving the Bread of Life does not mean that we will never have another care. There will be moments of doubt. And yet the bread which has been fed to us entails that Christ is always there, always giving us strength. Martin Luther made that clear:
Outwardly Christians stumble and fall from time to time. Only weakness and shame appear on the surface, revealing that the Christians are sinners who do that which displease the world. Then they are regarded as fools, as Cinderellas, as footmats for the world, as damned, impotent, and worthless people. But this does not matter. In their weakness, sin, folly, and frailty there abides inwardly and secretly a force and power unrecognizable by the world and hidden from its view, but on which for all that, carries off the victory; for Christ resides in them and manifests Himself to them. (Luther’s Works, Vol.23, p.146)Mark E.
1 Good Reads -- Fred Rogers
