Sermon Illustrations for Proper 16 | Ordinary Time 21 (2015)
Illustration
Object:
1 Kings 8:(1, 6, 10-11) 22-30, 41-43
This is a lesson about how God relates to us and to our world. Nearly half of the American public (four out of ten, according to a 2006 Pew Foundation poll) believe that God is distant from our everyday lives. The ancient Hebrews had a far healthier view of God’s presence among us. He dwelt in the temple! But how can we have such a view of God’s presence among us and not find him confined?
Famed modern Reformed theologian Karl Barth offers a suggestion: “God’s omnipresence, to speak in general terms, is the perfection in which he is present, and in which he, the one who is distinct from and pre-eminent over everything else, possesses a place, his own place, which is distinct from all other places and also pre-eminent over them all.... God actually dwells on earth in his own way, not in the way in which anyone else dwells on earth” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. II/1, pp. 468-469).
God relates to us like the American nation is part of who we are. We live in America; this is our place. But America is more than all of us collectively.
There is a new scientific theory which seeks to explain how the various particles of atoms hold together. Called string theory, it hypothesizes that these various particles form strings that hold the atoms together. But the theory only works mathematically if there are more than three dimensions. Here we have it. God is in the midst of the stuff of life and the earth, but in one of these dimensions other than height, width, and depth that we can’t see! That’s how God can be among us and yet be more than who we are.
Mark E.
Ephesians 6:10-20
The Language of Violence: These verses are clearly meant to challenge and encourage the church to courageous engagement with the powers that resist God’s peace. They have provided great encouragement and motivation for peacemakers (as illustrated repeatedly by e-mail dispatches from Christian Peacemaker Teams). Sadly, they have also provided encouragement for a crusade mentality that has left countless victims in its wake. The certainty of being right and of doing the work of God, when fused with a view of the other as enemy, has led to arrogance and blindness, often to great violence....
(Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, Ephesians: A Believers Church Bible Commentary, p. 312)
Frank R.
Ephesians 6:10-20
Not a peaceful message. All that armor. But it is not physical armor.
Someone once asked me if I was a veteran. I said yes -- but in the Lord’s army. We really needed that in Nepal and on many mission fields. We needed the weapons of offense and of defense, and we needed protection from attack. Satan likes to attack when there is not a well-trained army to stop him. We all had to stand together.
Now let me ask: how many in this congregation feel you need all that armor? Have you ever felt attacked by Satan?
What if Satan’s attack was not in an armed chariot? What if he came in the form of a gorgeous lady? What if he was offering you much money in a questionable career opportunity, with beautiful estates with swimming pools and yachts? Maybe we have all had some very tempting offers from the Lord’s enemy. In the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (old enough to remember that one?), Jefferson Smith (played by Jimmy Stewart) was offered a great future in government. All he had to do to get it, he was told, was bend a few rules, turn a few questionable corners, stretch the truth -- and make promises to those who were not worthy. But when he was elected, he was told, he would have great power to do all things. The trouble came when he was attacked with all the promises he made and lies he had to tell. He had taken off his armor.
I don’t think for a minute that God is arming us to kill all the Muslims and destroy them for their evil deeds. Look at this passage and you don’t see physical weapons named. God is not putting you against flesh and blood.
Your church is your boot camp, where you learn who your enemy is and how to beat him.
There is only one weapon of assault: the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. If that is your weapon, then your church is the place to sharpen that weapon. It is also helpful to know that you will not be alone in most cases. You will have a whole group of Christian soldiers with you in the pews.
We do have to remember that Satan is sneaky. He doesn’t often come head-on to our Christian troops. He likes to find our weakness -- the weakness of all God’s soldiers individually. So be on guard and keep your armor on at all times. Make sure you are well-trained in “boot camp.”
Bob O.
Ephesians 6:10-20
The tools you use or the equipment you have makes a difference. In The Sandlot (one of my favorite movies),the main character, Scotty Smalls, comes to the sandlot to play ball with the guys. He has a glove -- but it is a toy glove, flimsy and plastic. He gets by that afternoon by not catching anything. Later, when he is playing catch with his stepdad, he attempts for the first time to catch a ball. It smashes through his kiddie glove and gives him a black eye. I thought about that scene once again as I read through this familiar passage. Paul is urging the Ephesians to prepare themselves for battle, and to do so with the proper equipment. He is pretty explicit about what a Christian needs to have. He is also pretty clear about who Christians are facing and what they’re up against.
How many times, though, do Christians go into battle like Scotty went into playing catch? We have some plastic imitation of what we need, and we hope somehow that it will hold up. We kind of have truth. We sort of have righteousness in place. We have something of faith in place, we think. It will probably quench the flaming darts. The outcome for such a lack of preparation is far worse than a shiner.
Check your equipment. Get the right stuff. Know how to use it. That’s good advice for playing baseball, and it’s good for our walk with the Lord.
Bill T.
John 6:56-59
Robert Frost wrote a classic poem I have come to love over the years -- The Road Not Taken. The poem, in case you are not familiar with it, speaks of how “two roads diverged in a yellow wood” and of a traveler who could not take both paths but has to make a choice. It is a thoughtful and profound poem that underscores in a subtle but powerful way that we are a product of the choices we make. Looking back on our own lives, we see that. We choose whom we date and whom we marry. We choose our schooling and our career. We choose whether we will or won’t do something. It is a real temptation for the unhappy to go back to those forks in the road of life and wonder how things might have been if a different choice had been made. However, we don’t get to travel backward. We can only move ahead and choose the path that is in front of us.
Jesus, at the end of John 6, is speaking of choices too. There are two paths that he presents. One of them is to live forever. To do so, eat his flesh and drink his blood. The other option is to go back to what their forefathers had. They ate the manna and died. The manna had a purpose in its time, but it could not bring eternal life. So Jesus presented two paths. His listeners had a choice. So do you.
Bill T.
John 6:56-69
How to understand this image of Christ as the Bread of Life can be tough. Martin Luther offers a nice analogy of how Christ can be the Bread of Life and yet we can still talk about being in him, that he is bigger than us. Actually, the reality Jesus describes in calling himself Bread of Life is more like an intense friendship. Martin Luther put it this way: “The union so constituted by Christ is in us and is truly one body with us that he abides in us mightily with his strength and power, much more closely than any friend” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 23, p. 150).
Friendship is something that is in you, who you are, but is a lot more than you are.
Luther proceeds to add how receiving Christ as Bread of Life undercuts our need to perform works in order to please God, and yet this is the only way in which good works are possible: “When Christ comes, then you will do what the law prescribes and whatever else you are to do” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 23, p. 151). You don’t need to do works to keep a good friendship going. You are just friends.
Mark E.
This is a lesson about how God relates to us and to our world. Nearly half of the American public (four out of ten, according to a 2006 Pew Foundation poll) believe that God is distant from our everyday lives. The ancient Hebrews had a far healthier view of God’s presence among us. He dwelt in the temple! But how can we have such a view of God’s presence among us and not find him confined?
Famed modern Reformed theologian Karl Barth offers a suggestion: “God’s omnipresence, to speak in general terms, is the perfection in which he is present, and in which he, the one who is distinct from and pre-eminent over everything else, possesses a place, his own place, which is distinct from all other places and also pre-eminent over them all.... God actually dwells on earth in his own way, not in the way in which anyone else dwells on earth” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. II/1, pp. 468-469).
God relates to us like the American nation is part of who we are. We live in America; this is our place. But America is more than all of us collectively.
There is a new scientific theory which seeks to explain how the various particles of atoms hold together. Called string theory, it hypothesizes that these various particles form strings that hold the atoms together. But the theory only works mathematically if there are more than three dimensions. Here we have it. God is in the midst of the stuff of life and the earth, but in one of these dimensions other than height, width, and depth that we can’t see! That’s how God can be among us and yet be more than who we are.
Mark E.
Ephesians 6:10-20
The Language of Violence: These verses are clearly meant to challenge and encourage the church to courageous engagement with the powers that resist God’s peace. They have provided great encouragement and motivation for peacemakers (as illustrated repeatedly by e-mail dispatches from Christian Peacemaker Teams). Sadly, they have also provided encouragement for a crusade mentality that has left countless victims in its wake. The certainty of being right and of doing the work of God, when fused with a view of the other as enemy, has led to arrogance and blindness, often to great violence....
(Thomas R. Yoder Neufeld, Ephesians: A Believers Church Bible Commentary, p. 312)
Frank R.
Ephesians 6:10-20
Not a peaceful message. All that armor. But it is not physical armor.
Someone once asked me if I was a veteran. I said yes -- but in the Lord’s army. We really needed that in Nepal and on many mission fields. We needed the weapons of offense and of defense, and we needed protection from attack. Satan likes to attack when there is not a well-trained army to stop him. We all had to stand together.
Now let me ask: how many in this congregation feel you need all that armor? Have you ever felt attacked by Satan?
What if Satan’s attack was not in an armed chariot? What if he came in the form of a gorgeous lady? What if he was offering you much money in a questionable career opportunity, with beautiful estates with swimming pools and yachts? Maybe we have all had some very tempting offers from the Lord’s enemy. In the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (old enough to remember that one?), Jefferson Smith (played by Jimmy Stewart) was offered a great future in government. All he had to do to get it, he was told, was bend a few rules, turn a few questionable corners, stretch the truth -- and make promises to those who were not worthy. But when he was elected, he was told, he would have great power to do all things. The trouble came when he was attacked with all the promises he made and lies he had to tell. He had taken off his armor.
I don’t think for a minute that God is arming us to kill all the Muslims and destroy them for their evil deeds. Look at this passage and you don’t see physical weapons named. God is not putting you against flesh and blood.
Your church is your boot camp, where you learn who your enemy is and how to beat him.
There is only one weapon of assault: the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. If that is your weapon, then your church is the place to sharpen that weapon. It is also helpful to know that you will not be alone in most cases. You will have a whole group of Christian soldiers with you in the pews.
We do have to remember that Satan is sneaky. He doesn’t often come head-on to our Christian troops. He likes to find our weakness -- the weakness of all God’s soldiers individually. So be on guard and keep your armor on at all times. Make sure you are well-trained in “boot camp.”
Bob O.
Ephesians 6:10-20
The tools you use or the equipment you have makes a difference. In The Sandlot (one of my favorite movies),the main character, Scotty Smalls, comes to the sandlot to play ball with the guys. He has a glove -- but it is a toy glove, flimsy and plastic. He gets by that afternoon by not catching anything. Later, when he is playing catch with his stepdad, he attempts for the first time to catch a ball. It smashes through his kiddie glove and gives him a black eye. I thought about that scene once again as I read through this familiar passage. Paul is urging the Ephesians to prepare themselves for battle, and to do so with the proper equipment. He is pretty explicit about what a Christian needs to have. He is also pretty clear about who Christians are facing and what they’re up against.
How many times, though, do Christians go into battle like Scotty went into playing catch? We have some plastic imitation of what we need, and we hope somehow that it will hold up. We kind of have truth. We sort of have righteousness in place. We have something of faith in place, we think. It will probably quench the flaming darts. The outcome for such a lack of preparation is far worse than a shiner.
Check your equipment. Get the right stuff. Know how to use it. That’s good advice for playing baseball, and it’s good for our walk with the Lord.
Bill T.
John 6:56-59
Robert Frost wrote a classic poem I have come to love over the years -- The Road Not Taken. The poem, in case you are not familiar with it, speaks of how “two roads diverged in a yellow wood” and of a traveler who could not take both paths but has to make a choice. It is a thoughtful and profound poem that underscores in a subtle but powerful way that we are a product of the choices we make. Looking back on our own lives, we see that. We choose whom we date and whom we marry. We choose our schooling and our career. We choose whether we will or won’t do something. It is a real temptation for the unhappy to go back to those forks in the road of life and wonder how things might have been if a different choice had been made. However, we don’t get to travel backward. We can only move ahead and choose the path that is in front of us.
Jesus, at the end of John 6, is speaking of choices too. There are two paths that he presents. One of them is to live forever. To do so, eat his flesh and drink his blood. The other option is to go back to what their forefathers had. They ate the manna and died. The manna had a purpose in its time, but it could not bring eternal life. So Jesus presented two paths. His listeners had a choice. So do you.
Bill T.
John 6:56-69
How to understand this image of Christ as the Bread of Life can be tough. Martin Luther offers a nice analogy of how Christ can be the Bread of Life and yet we can still talk about being in him, that he is bigger than us. Actually, the reality Jesus describes in calling himself Bread of Life is more like an intense friendship. Martin Luther put it this way: “The union so constituted by Christ is in us and is truly one body with us that he abides in us mightily with his strength and power, much more closely than any friend” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 23, p. 150).
Friendship is something that is in you, who you are, but is a lot more than you are.
Luther proceeds to add how receiving Christ as Bread of Life undercuts our need to perform works in order to please God, and yet this is the only way in which good works are possible: “When Christ comes, then you will do what the law prescribes and whatever else you are to do” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 23, p. 151). You don’t need to do works to keep a good friendship going. You are just friends.
Mark E.
