Sermon Illustrations for Proper 17 | Ordinary Time 22 (2021)
Illustration
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Martin Luther believed that this lesson was a word of great sweetness, giving sure confidence to the believer (Luther’s Works, Vol.15, p.218). The great medieval mystic Bernard of Clairvaux sang a winsome song about this love of God:
When God loves, he seeks nothing but love in return... The mind is drawn along by the ineffable sweetness of the word and, as it were, it is stolen from itself or, better, it is rapt and remains out of itself there to enjoy the word... (Elmer O’Brien, ed., Varieties of Mystic Experience, pp.104,106)
Mark E.
* * *
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
“…for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” How many of us are familiar with this verse? We have heard it often and for many of us it is the message of hope, no matter the challenges of our lives. 2020 and parts of 2021 have been fraught with more challenges than many of us expected: the pandemic, loss of jobs, loss of homes, and more importantly, the illness and sometimes death of family members and friends. It seems sometimes like the winter of 2020 is continuing and spring will never come – the rain of our tears will never be able to end. Yet, we know that to be untrue. We know that God walks with us, embraces us, upholds us. There is hope – there is always hope in God.
Bonnie B.
* * *
James 1:17-27
I came across this story on Bible.org. Pastor Stuart Briscoe was teaching the principles of Bible study. He showed how to pick out the promises and the commands in scripture, and what to do with them. Finally, as he reviewed the lesson, he asked, “Now, what do you do with the commands?” A little old lady raised her hand and said, “I underline them in blue.”
Underlining the Bible’s commands in blue might make for a colorful Bible, but the point of the commands is that we obey them. That’s the point that James is making, too. James writes, in verse 22, “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” Are we doing the things we know the Bible tells us to do?
I am a fan of Charles Schultz and his comic strip, “Peanuts.” In one comic strip, Charlie Brown asked his sister Sally about her memory verse from Sunday School. Sally struggled to recall it, trying to figure out what book it is was in. Finally, she blurted out, “Maybe it was something from the book of Reevaluation.”
Sally got the book wrong, but the idea of reevaluation may be just right. We need to be doers of the word.
Bill T.
* * *
James 1:17-27
“Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17)
The lights referred in God’s title are the stars. Although the word parangage can be used in other senses, as an astronomical term it refers to the periodic changes in the procession of the skies, how the stars move in their seasons, reflected in the use of the word tropes, or solstice. The winter and summer solstice represent the widest variations in the procession of the skies. There’s also the word aposkiasma, which means shadows, but which can refer specifically to eclipses, which are of course the shadows the moon occasionally casts over the sun, causing a huge variation in the brightness of the sun. That word was also used by Democritus, who referred to shadows cast by the higher elevations on the moon. The arrangement of the three words, parangage, tropes, aposkiasma, is a little confusing grammatically but the poetic use of these terms is mean to draw attention to the true author of the heavenly lights, which despite their seeming perfection have flaws. God has no such flaws!
Frank R.
* * *
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
In my role as a judicatory leader in the United Church of Christ, I often encounter people who worship church buildings, church traditions, orders of worship, particular translations of the bible or hymns and church music. They have become more attached to the trappings of being faithful, than they are to faith and God. Sometimes celebrating and worshipping our history is idolatry that keeps us from the living faith. Our intentions may be to preserve that which has always existed rather than moving into the world God has laid before us, the new moments of love of God and love of neighbor. Shall we instead focus on the Spirit of God rather than our traditions, our buildings, our orders of worship? Shall we become the living faith in the world, following the call of God? That is my hope.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
John Calvin offers an interesting insight on this lesson regarding who really abides by the laws:
Whenever we are so eager to keep the laws of men as to bestow less care and attention on keeping the law of God itself, we are held to be transgressing it. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVI/2, p.251)
The ways of the world are not God’s ways most of the time. Christianity is a religion which goes against the grain of society, and can be downright offensive to the world’s sense of propriety. The forefather of existentialism Søren Kierkegaard put it this way:
But observe what a poor service one renders Christianity by doing away with the possibility of offence and making it an amiable, sentimental paganism... And verily the eighteen centuries, which have not contributed an iota to prove the truth of Christianity, have on the contrary contributed with steadily increasing power to do away Christianity... it is rather true (though it certainly sounds like a satire...) that just in proportion as the proof supposedly has increased in cogency — fewer and fewer persons are convinced. (Training In Christianity, pp.143-144)
Mark E.
Martin Luther believed that this lesson was a word of great sweetness, giving sure confidence to the believer (Luther’s Works, Vol.15, p.218). The great medieval mystic Bernard of Clairvaux sang a winsome song about this love of God:
When God loves, he seeks nothing but love in return... The mind is drawn along by the ineffable sweetness of the word and, as it were, it is stolen from itself or, better, it is rapt and remains out of itself there to enjoy the word... (Elmer O’Brien, ed., Varieties of Mystic Experience, pp.104,106)
Mark E.
* * *
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
“…for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.” How many of us are familiar with this verse? We have heard it often and for many of us it is the message of hope, no matter the challenges of our lives. 2020 and parts of 2021 have been fraught with more challenges than many of us expected: the pandemic, loss of jobs, loss of homes, and more importantly, the illness and sometimes death of family members and friends. It seems sometimes like the winter of 2020 is continuing and spring will never come – the rain of our tears will never be able to end. Yet, we know that to be untrue. We know that God walks with us, embraces us, upholds us. There is hope – there is always hope in God.
Bonnie B.
* * *
James 1:17-27
I came across this story on Bible.org. Pastor Stuart Briscoe was teaching the principles of Bible study. He showed how to pick out the promises and the commands in scripture, and what to do with them. Finally, as he reviewed the lesson, he asked, “Now, what do you do with the commands?” A little old lady raised her hand and said, “I underline them in blue.”
Underlining the Bible’s commands in blue might make for a colorful Bible, but the point of the commands is that we obey them. That’s the point that James is making, too. James writes, in verse 22, “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” Are we doing the things we know the Bible tells us to do?
I am a fan of Charles Schultz and his comic strip, “Peanuts.” In one comic strip, Charlie Brown asked his sister Sally about her memory verse from Sunday School. Sally struggled to recall it, trying to figure out what book it is was in. Finally, she blurted out, “Maybe it was something from the book of Reevaluation.”
Sally got the book wrong, but the idea of reevaluation may be just right. We need to be doers of the word.
Bill T.
* * *
James 1:17-27
“Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17)
The lights referred in God’s title are the stars. Although the word parangage can be used in other senses, as an astronomical term it refers to the periodic changes in the procession of the skies, how the stars move in their seasons, reflected in the use of the word tropes, or solstice. The winter and summer solstice represent the widest variations in the procession of the skies. There’s also the word aposkiasma, which means shadows, but which can refer specifically to eclipses, which are of course the shadows the moon occasionally casts over the sun, causing a huge variation in the brightness of the sun. That word was also used by Democritus, who referred to shadows cast by the higher elevations on the moon. The arrangement of the three words, parangage, tropes, aposkiasma, is a little confusing grammatically but the poetic use of these terms is mean to draw attention to the true author of the heavenly lights, which despite their seeming perfection have flaws. God has no such flaws!
Frank R.
* * *
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
In my role as a judicatory leader in the United Church of Christ, I often encounter people who worship church buildings, church traditions, orders of worship, particular translations of the bible or hymns and church music. They have become more attached to the trappings of being faithful, than they are to faith and God. Sometimes celebrating and worshipping our history is idolatry that keeps us from the living faith. Our intentions may be to preserve that which has always existed rather than moving into the world God has laid before us, the new moments of love of God and love of neighbor. Shall we instead focus on the Spirit of God rather than our traditions, our buildings, our orders of worship? Shall we become the living faith in the world, following the call of God? That is my hope.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
John Calvin offers an interesting insight on this lesson regarding who really abides by the laws:
Whenever we are so eager to keep the laws of men as to bestow less care and attention on keeping the law of God itself, we are held to be transgressing it. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVI/2, p.251)
The ways of the world are not God’s ways most of the time. Christianity is a religion which goes against the grain of society, and can be downright offensive to the world’s sense of propriety. The forefather of existentialism Søren Kierkegaard put it this way:
But observe what a poor service one renders Christianity by doing away with the possibility of offence and making it an amiable, sentimental paganism... And verily the eighteen centuries, which have not contributed an iota to prove the truth of Christianity, have on the contrary contributed with steadily increasing power to do away Christianity... it is rather true (though it certainly sounds like a satire...) that just in proportion as the proof supposedly has increased in cogency — fewer and fewer persons are convinced. (Training In Christianity, pp.143-144)
Mark E.
