Sermon Illustrations for Proper 21 | Ordinary Time 26 (2016)
Illustration
Object:
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Have you ever had a vision? Have you ever been able to prophesy? In effect, we are reading about the fulfillment of a prophecy in this passage. Jeremiah prophesies that a certain plot of land will be offered for sale. The king is to buy it so that it will be preserved for the people. And it comes to pass. How unexpected! How wonderful! But is this the only way to preserve the promised land of the people from those who would conquer it? I don’t know. Is it right to claim property through an ancestral claim and expect those that currently own it to simply walk away?
Certainly in the U.S. we have not surrendered all the property taken from the indigenous tribes of people. Should we? I remember living in northern New York State when the Mohawk tribe reclaimed property that had been promised to them through treaty. I remember the anger and hate and violence perpetrated on both sides of the conflict. Those who had U.S. governmental deeds to the property were unwilling to surrender it. Those who had an ancient and ancestral claim wanted the treaty provision to be fulfilled. An impasse occurred, and through patience, conversation, and understanding the violence ended. I am sure some are still harboring anger about the decisions. Human beings like property; our memories are often reinforced through locations. Maybe that is why the realm of God is so foreign a concept to us. We cannot touch it. But we can feel it. I know I can. Can you?
Bonnie B.
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
I am a fan of the television show Touched by an Angel. Though I may have had a few theological differences with how things were portrayed, I always found the show refreshing and uplifting. The final episode of the show, “Walk With Me,” is a wonderful wrap-up of the whole series. Monica is sent to the town of Ascension, Colorado. She is up for promotion to supervisor, pending the outcome of a difficult case in which she must defend Zack, an innocent drifter accused of causing a boiler explosion at a school two years previously. The explosion killed most of the children, leaving the citizens devastated. As the story reaches its climax, one of the few remaining couples in town is told that they are going to have a baby. It’s a joyous moment signifying the rebirth of the town. The episode concludes the series in a fitting and moving way.
Sometimes when things appear dark and bleak, a ray of light shines as a reminder that things won’t always be that way. The context of this passage is grim. The siege of Jerusalem was at an advanced state. The outlook was dark; the situation desperate. Through the use of the personal, family example of Jeremiah, Hanamel, and the purchase of some property, God is revealing his plan of redemption. All was not lost. There would come a day when the people would come back to the land. This transaction would serve as a tangible reminder that the day would come when God would restore them.
God is still in the restoration business. Don’t forget that.
Bill T.
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
The downward spiral Jeremiah warned about and tried to prevent is in full swing in this text. The nation is skidding towards disaster. Zedekiah was made king of Judea in 597 BC, but only as the puppet of the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar. The city is besieged. And while Jeremiah is Zedekiah’s adviser, his advice was ignored and he was imprisoned.
Though Jeremiah is considered the prophet of doom and gloom, he responds by buying land in order to demonstrate he means it when he proclaims hope for the future. He tells his scribe and assistant Baruch to preserve the deed by burying it. Although he himself might never live in that land, like Abraham and the other patriarchs who were wanderers, Jeremiah has hope that his descendants would come home. And they did.
In the meantime, the disaster Jeremiah predicted followed a decade after Zedekiah was crowned. Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, and the king, forced to watch the execution of his sons, was then blinded and kept a prisoner of the emperor.
Frank R.
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
This is a very puzzling passage. Why did the Lord want Jeremiah to buy a field when the city was being besieged Sometimes we don’t ask the Lord why we should do something, we just do what he says. So Jeremiah had his cousin buy it and make sure all the papers were legal. The Lord says that one day it will be worth it! That day may be a long way off. Jeremiah will find out one day, and then the land will be a good investment.
The Lord sent us to Nepal, and our kids thought we were crazy. We thought so too when we arrived and went down streets filled with beggars with limbs missing. My wife called it picturesque squalor. But the longer we stayed and got acquainted, the more we thought it was the most wonderful place we had ever lived in. It may take more time for others to find out why God seemed to be directing them somewhere. Maybe that is what Jeremiah found. Be patient as well as obedient!
In other words, don’t question the Lord when you are sure he is directing you to do something.
Bob O.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Bring to mind that highly entertaining and profoundly theological musical Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye, his wife, and his daughters live in a shtetl in the Pale of Settlement of imperial Russia in 1905. Life is hard but not impossible for this pious Jewish family. They are scraping by with a modest home, enough food to eat, and sufficient freedom to practice their faith traditions with only sporadic anti-Semitic harassment.
In the movie version, there is a scene in which Tevye is feeding the animals in the small barn on his tiny farm. His imagination races until his thoughts burst forth as a song from his lips: “If I were a rich man...” Tevye sings that if he were rich he could build a tall house with a wooden floor and three staircases -- one up, one down, and one just for show. The family food supply would be without limit. His wife could sprout a double chin and look like a rich man’s wife. If he were rich other people would consider him wise. He concludes his musical ruminations by posing a rhetorical question to the Almighty: Would it really upset some vast eternal plan if I were a rich man?
The irony is that while Tevye longs for the riches of this world, he already possesses the qualities needed a for a rich, full life. To paraphrase 1 Timothy 6:18-19: He a rich man by the standards that really count. He is rich in good works. He has been generous in sharing the tradition of faith with his children. His neighbors look to him as a good man. In these things he has laid up a treasure for the future. He has taken hold of the life that really is life.
R. Robert C.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
The remarks of this lesson’s author are clearly not the ways of the world. This is a society which celebrates what Gordon Gekko said in the 1987 film Wall Street: “Greed is good!” “Grab for all the gusto you can,” we were told in Schlitz beer commercials. Even for the winners in the ways of the world, it is not necessarily a happy life. It is like Methodist founder John Wesley once pointed out, that wordly men are cruel to themselves, foisting on themselves a guilty conscience, tormenting desires, and passions (Commentary on the Bible, p. 557).
Martin Luther nicely pointed out what great temptations and misery wealth creates: “Blessed is the man who is content with his own lot. Why is this? The man who is not content but seeks wealth suffers various temptations... he becomes especially bound when eagerness for wealth develops.... This interest develops vengeance, anger, envy, various tricks to devise ways of keeping what he has. Because of his desires he has no rest” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 28, p. 371).
Early African theologian Lactantius offers helpful insights about wealth and how to use it: “Riches also do not render men illustrious, except that they are able to make them more conspicuous by good works. For men are rich, not because they possess riches, but because they employ them on works of justice; and they who seem to be poor on this account are rich, because they are not in want, and desire nothing” (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, p. 151).
Mark E.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Bryan Clauson is considered by many the best dirt-track racer of all time. He was a man who loved to race anything anywhere. But Clauson was more than just an excellent racer -- he was very popular driver because of his pleasant smile and equally pleasant personality. This year alone, he had been in 112 races and was easily on pace to set a record of competing in 200 events. Sadly, though, in August 2016 he was killed in a racing accident. Clauson will always be remembered for what he did and where he was going.
Application: We are called by Paul to be obedient in all that we do.
Ron L.
Luke 16:19-31
Would any of us really walk into our homes over a starving, ill person? The rich man seems to be able to ignore Lazarus, hungry and ill on his very doorstep. Lazarus is ignored, going hungry and being untreated for his sores and illness, while the rich man revels in ostentation. Yet when Lazarus dies, he sits at Abraham’s side and is comforted. The rich man also dies, but is not comforted. Rather, he is tormented and in pain. Instead of repenting or asking forgiveness, the rich man -- who apparently still sees Lazarus as unimportant -- requests that Lazarus come and comfort him.
How many of us expect the same from those in our midst? We are happy to have illegal immigrants cleaning our homes, washing dishes in restaurants, working in our laundries, or harvesting our crops -- but how many of us see those among us as equals, as worthy of fair treatment? And how many of us just wish we could build a wall or send them “home” or mistreat and enslave them? It’s the same thing over and over again. If someone has less they must be undeserving; at least that’s what some people think. But for most, it is a blessing of fate to be a person of privilege. It is fate that we were born into a majority culture or a wealthier socio-economic class, or have access to higher education, or were born in the United States or another nation of freedom and opportunity. Maybe our call as Christians is to be reminded that our blessings come from God and that it is our task, our purpose in life, to share those resources fairly so all may reach their full potential. It might make a difference now in the world. May it be so.
Bonnie B.
Luke 16:19-31
There is an expression that is said to have come from the locals of many small towns in Maine: “You can’t get there from here.” It’s sometimes the reply when a person is giving directions, and is really an astute observation about the impossibility of traveling a direct route between certain places. It seems to have something to do with lakes and the organization of roads in the vast rural areas of the state. That saying has become an idiom expressing the difficulty of getting from one place to another.
Certainly if anyone knew the agonizing truth of the expression “you can’t get there from here,” it was the rich man that Jesus describes in this passage. As Jesus describes it, when the rich man and Lazarus died they went to different places. Lazarus found himself by Abraham. The rich man found himself in Hades, where he was tormented. The rich man was in such pain that he pleaded with Abraham to send Lazarus to just touch his tongue with a drop of cool water. Abraham reminded the rich man of how things were in life; Lazarus suffered, and the rich man enjoyed good things. Then, though, he adds a sense of finality to the horrific situation the rich man found himself in: “Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed.” No one from either side could cross over. The weight of the words had to hit the rich man hard. “You can’t get there from here.”
It is a painful reminder of the truth the Hebrew writer knew in Hebrews 9:27 -- “It is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment.”
Bill T.
Luke 16:19-31
There’s a humorous short story by H.H. Munro, who wrote under the name Saki, about a poor man who wants to win the hand of a rich man’s daughter in marriage. The father gives him a job to do -- convincing families to buy and serve a nauseatingly healthy breakfast cereal to their families. He succeeds by renaming it with the unforgettable name “Filboid Studge” (which is also the name of the short story, in case you want to find it on the internet; it’s in the public domain) and creating a poster depicting one of the torments of the damned in hell: fiends holding bowls of the cereal just out of reach of the damned. At the bottom of the poster are the words “They cannot buy it now.” Despite its horrible taste, it soon sells so well that grocers cannot keep it on the shelves.
The story might be funny, but there’s nothing funny about the rich man’s predicament in this parable. Something he could have easily accomplished while he was alive is now impossible -- acts of mercy are denied. Regardless of the fact that we feel secure we are saved by faith and not works, there are many good things for us to accomplish that can only happen today! Even the finest Christian may regret tomorrow what she or he failed to do today.
Frank R.
Luke 16:19-31
This rich man could be just a parable, since he has no name, or maybe Jesus did not want to hurt his character. But Jesus does name the poor man. It doesn’t sound like the rich man was generous with Lazarus -- he only ate the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. The rich man just enjoyed himself. They both die -- but while Lazarus goes to Abraham’s bosom, the rich man goes to hell, which is hot! He is suffering and pleading for some mercy -- even if it is only a drop of water to cool his tongue.
This passage seems to be saying not so much that it is a crime to be rich as that sin is in not sharing some of your wealth with the poor you can see around you! Maybe the poor are not visible in your church, though there may be some who are close to disaster -- like losing their home.
Are we listening to the needs of those around us as well as just looking at the pictures of poverty in the newspaper and on television? Suffering may be closer than you think! Listen to the Lord calling you to help when needed.
Our weekly offering may be just a portion of the 10% that we owe to the Lord. Maybe we don’t think about where it is going. But if we are not in a wealthy neighborhood, do we look over at the people next door who may be struggling? When I was in Nepal, the poor were all around us as well as in our church -- a $5 weekly offering was great. The least some could do was pray for those in greater need.
I forward copies of the letters I get from Nepal showing how they are spending the money we send. In almost every case it is for a worthy cause. After the major earthquake there was even greater need! I would indeed be in hell if I didn’t help our friends there who were in great need, since it seems like my plate is always full for every meal in our country. This gave us a more powerful drive than just a picture in a magazine.
We come to church not looking for someone to rise from the dead. Instead we are there to listen to Moses and the prophets and the words of our Lord, who said that whatever we give to the least of these we are giving to him. So go into your community and look around for Lazarus. Better now than looking for a drink of water later (I won’t say where).
Bob O.
Have you ever had a vision? Have you ever been able to prophesy? In effect, we are reading about the fulfillment of a prophecy in this passage. Jeremiah prophesies that a certain plot of land will be offered for sale. The king is to buy it so that it will be preserved for the people. And it comes to pass. How unexpected! How wonderful! But is this the only way to preserve the promised land of the people from those who would conquer it? I don’t know. Is it right to claim property through an ancestral claim and expect those that currently own it to simply walk away?
Certainly in the U.S. we have not surrendered all the property taken from the indigenous tribes of people. Should we? I remember living in northern New York State when the Mohawk tribe reclaimed property that had been promised to them through treaty. I remember the anger and hate and violence perpetrated on both sides of the conflict. Those who had U.S. governmental deeds to the property were unwilling to surrender it. Those who had an ancient and ancestral claim wanted the treaty provision to be fulfilled. An impasse occurred, and through patience, conversation, and understanding the violence ended. I am sure some are still harboring anger about the decisions. Human beings like property; our memories are often reinforced through locations. Maybe that is why the realm of God is so foreign a concept to us. We cannot touch it. But we can feel it. I know I can. Can you?
Bonnie B.
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
I am a fan of the television show Touched by an Angel. Though I may have had a few theological differences with how things were portrayed, I always found the show refreshing and uplifting. The final episode of the show, “Walk With Me,” is a wonderful wrap-up of the whole series. Monica is sent to the town of Ascension, Colorado. She is up for promotion to supervisor, pending the outcome of a difficult case in which she must defend Zack, an innocent drifter accused of causing a boiler explosion at a school two years previously. The explosion killed most of the children, leaving the citizens devastated. As the story reaches its climax, one of the few remaining couples in town is told that they are going to have a baby. It’s a joyous moment signifying the rebirth of the town. The episode concludes the series in a fitting and moving way.
Sometimes when things appear dark and bleak, a ray of light shines as a reminder that things won’t always be that way. The context of this passage is grim. The siege of Jerusalem was at an advanced state. The outlook was dark; the situation desperate. Through the use of the personal, family example of Jeremiah, Hanamel, and the purchase of some property, God is revealing his plan of redemption. All was not lost. There would come a day when the people would come back to the land. This transaction would serve as a tangible reminder that the day would come when God would restore them.
God is still in the restoration business. Don’t forget that.
Bill T.
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
The downward spiral Jeremiah warned about and tried to prevent is in full swing in this text. The nation is skidding towards disaster. Zedekiah was made king of Judea in 597 BC, but only as the puppet of the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar. The city is besieged. And while Jeremiah is Zedekiah’s adviser, his advice was ignored and he was imprisoned.
Though Jeremiah is considered the prophet of doom and gloom, he responds by buying land in order to demonstrate he means it when he proclaims hope for the future. He tells his scribe and assistant Baruch to preserve the deed by burying it. Although he himself might never live in that land, like Abraham and the other patriarchs who were wanderers, Jeremiah has hope that his descendants would come home. And they did.
In the meantime, the disaster Jeremiah predicted followed a decade after Zedekiah was crowned. Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, and the king, forced to watch the execution of his sons, was then blinded and kept a prisoner of the emperor.
Frank R.
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
This is a very puzzling passage. Why did the Lord want Jeremiah to buy a field when the city was being besieged Sometimes we don’t ask the Lord why we should do something, we just do what he says. So Jeremiah had his cousin buy it and make sure all the papers were legal. The Lord says that one day it will be worth it! That day may be a long way off. Jeremiah will find out one day, and then the land will be a good investment.
The Lord sent us to Nepal, and our kids thought we were crazy. We thought so too when we arrived and went down streets filled with beggars with limbs missing. My wife called it picturesque squalor. But the longer we stayed and got acquainted, the more we thought it was the most wonderful place we had ever lived in. It may take more time for others to find out why God seemed to be directing them somewhere. Maybe that is what Jeremiah found. Be patient as well as obedient!
In other words, don’t question the Lord when you are sure he is directing you to do something.
Bob O.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Bring to mind that highly entertaining and profoundly theological musical Fiddler on the Roof. Tevye, his wife, and his daughters live in a shtetl in the Pale of Settlement of imperial Russia in 1905. Life is hard but not impossible for this pious Jewish family. They are scraping by with a modest home, enough food to eat, and sufficient freedom to practice their faith traditions with only sporadic anti-Semitic harassment.
In the movie version, there is a scene in which Tevye is feeding the animals in the small barn on his tiny farm. His imagination races until his thoughts burst forth as a song from his lips: “If I were a rich man...” Tevye sings that if he were rich he could build a tall house with a wooden floor and three staircases -- one up, one down, and one just for show. The family food supply would be without limit. His wife could sprout a double chin and look like a rich man’s wife. If he were rich other people would consider him wise. He concludes his musical ruminations by posing a rhetorical question to the Almighty: Would it really upset some vast eternal plan if I were a rich man?
The irony is that while Tevye longs for the riches of this world, he already possesses the qualities needed a for a rich, full life. To paraphrase 1 Timothy 6:18-19: He a rich man by the standards that really count. He is rich in good works. He has been generous in sharing the tradition of faith with his children. His neighbors look to him as a good man. In these things he has laid up a treasure for the future. He has taken hold of the life that really is life.
R. Robert C.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
The remarks of this lesson’s author are clearly not the ways of the world. This is a society which celebrates what Gordon Gekko said in the 1987 film Wall Street: “Greed is good!” “Grab for all the gusto you can,” we were told in Schlitz beer commercials. Even for the winners in the ways of the world, it is not necessarily a happy life. It is like Methodist founder John Wesley once pointed out, that wordly men are cruel to themselves, foisting on themselves a guilty conscience, tormenting desires, and passions (Commentary on the Bible, p. 557).
Martin Luther nicely pointed out what great temptations and misery wealth creates: “Blessed is the man who is content with his own lot. Why is this? The man who is not content but seeks wealth suffers various temptations... he becomes especially bound when eagerness for wealth develops.... This interest develops vengeance, anger, envy, various tricks to devise ways of keeping what he has. Because of his desires he has no rest” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 28, p. 371).
Early African theologian Lactantius offers helpful insights about wealth and how to use it: “Riches also do not render men illustrious, except that they are able to make them more conspicuous by good works. For men are rich, not because they possess riches, but because they employ them on works of justice; and they who seem to be poor on this account are rich, because they are not in want, and desire nothing” (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, p. 151).
Mark E.
1 Timothy 6:6-19
Bryan Clauson is considered by many the best dirt-track racer of all time. He was a man who loved to race anything anywhere. But Clauson was more than just an excellent racer -- he was very popular driver because of his pleasant smile and equally pleasant personality. This year alone, he had been in 112 races and was easily on pace to set a record of competing in 200 events. Sadly, though, in August 2016 he was killed in a racing accident. Clauson will always be remembered for what he did and where he was going.
Application: We are called by Paul to be obedient in all that we do.
Ron L.
Luke 16:19-31
Would any of us really walk into our homes over a starving, ill person? The rich man seems to be able to ignore Lazarus, hungry and ill on his very doorstep. Lazarus is ignored, going hungry and being untreated for his sores and illness, while the rich man revels in ostentation. Yet when Lazarus dies, he sits at Abraham’s side and is comforted. The rich man also dies, but is not comforted. Rather, he is tormented and in pain. Instead of repenting or asking forgiveness, the rich man -- who apparently still sees Lazarus as unimportant -- requests that Lazarus come and comfort him.
How many of us expect the same from those in our midst? We are happy to have illegal immigrants cleaning our homes, washing dishes in restaurants, working in our laundries, or harvesting our crops -- but how many of us see those among us as equals, as worthy of fair treatment? And how many of us just wish we could build a wall or send them “home” or mistreat and enslave them? It’s the same thing over and over again. If someone has less they must be undeserving; at least that’s what some people think. But for most, it is a blessing of fate to be a person of privilege. It is fate that we were born into a majority culture or a wealthier socio-economic class, or have access to higher education, or were born in the United States or another nation of freedom and opportunity. Maybe our call as Christians is to be reminded that our blessings come from God and that it is our task, our purpose in life, to share those resources fairly so all may reach their full potential. It might make a difference now in the world. May it be so.
Bonnie B.
Luke 16:19-31
There is an expression that is said to have come from the locals of many small towns in Maine: “You can’t get there from here.” It’s sometimes the reply when a person is giving directions, and is really an astute observation about the impossibility of traveling a direct route between certain places. It seems to have something to do with lakes and the organization of roads in the vast rural areas of the state. That saying has become an idiom expressing the difficulty of getting from one place to another.
Certainly if anyone knew the agonizing truth of the expression “you can’t get there from here,” it was the rich man that Jesus describes in this passage. As Jesus describes it, when the rich man and Lazarus died they went to different places. Lazarus found himself by Abraham. The rich man found himself in Hades, where he was tormented. The rich man was in such pain that he pleaded with Abraham to send Lazarus to just touch his tongue with a drop of cool water. Abraham reminded the rich man of how things were in life; Lazarus suffered, and the rich man enjoyed good things. Then, though, he adds a sense of finality to the horrific situation the rich man found himself in: “Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed.” No one from either side could cross over. The weight of the words had to hit the rich man hard. “You can’t get there from here.”
It is a painful reminder of the truth the Hebrew writer knew in Hebrews 9:27 -- “It is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment.”
Bill T.
Luke 16:19-31
There’s a humorous short story by H.H. Munro, who wrote under the name Saki, about a poor man who wants to win the hand of a rich man’s daughter in marriage. The father gives him a job to do -- convincing families to buy and serve a nauseatingly healthy breakfast cereal to their families. He succeeds by renaming it with the unforgettable name “Filboid Studge” (which is also the name of the short story, in case you want to find it on the internet; it’s in the public domain) and creating a poster depicting one of the torments of the damned in hell: fiends holding bowls of the cereal just out of reach of the damned. At the bottom of the poster are the words “They cannot buy it now.” Despite its horrible taste, it soon sells so well that grocers cannot keep it on the shelves.
The story might be funny, but there’s nothing funny about the rich man’s predicament in this parable. Something he could have easily accomplished while he was alive is now impossible -- acts of mercy are denied. Regardless of the fact that we feel secure we are saved by faith and not works, there are many good things for us to accomplish that can only happen today! Even the finest Christian may regret tomorrow what she or he failed to do today.
Frank R.
Luke 16:19-31
This rich man could be just a parable, since he has no name, or maybe Jesus did not want to hurt his character. But Jesus does name the poor man. It doesn’t sound like the rich man was generous with Lazarus -- he only ate the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. The rich man just enjoyed himself. They both die -- but while Lazarus goes to Abraham’s bosom, the rich man goes to hell, which is hot! He is suffering and pleading for some mercy -- even if it is only a drop of water to cool his tongue.
This passage seems to be saying not so much that it is a crime to be rich as that sin is in not sharing some of your wealth with the poor you can see around you! Maybe the poor are not visible in your church, though there may be some who are close to disaster -- like losing their home.
Are we listening to the needs of those around us as well as just looking at the pictures of poverty in the newspaper and on television? Suffering may be closer than you think! Listen to the Lord calling you to help when needed.
Our weekly offering may be just a portion of the 10% that we owe to the Lord. Maybe we don’t think about where it is going. But if we are not in a wealthy neighborhood, do we look over at the people next door who may be struggling? When I was in Nepal, the poor were all around us as well as in our church -- a $5 weekly offering was great. The least some could do was pray for those in greater need.
I forward copies of the letters I get from Nepal showing how they are spending the money we send. In almost every case it is for a worthy cause. After the major earthquake there was even greater need! I would indeed be in hell if I didn’t help our friends there who were in great need, since it seems like my plate is always full for every meal in our country. This gave us a more powerful drive than just a picture in a magazine.
We come to church not looking for someone to rise from the dead. Instead we are there to listen to Moses and the prophets and the words of our Lord, who said that whatever we give to the least of these we are giving to him. So go into your community and look around for Lazarus. Better now than looking for a drink of water later (I won’t say where).
Bob O.
