Sermon Illustrations for Proper 26 | Ordinary Time 31 (2024)
Illustration
Ruth 1:1-18
I came across a website dedicated to sharing stories about dogs. I thought I would share one of them about loyalty. This one is about a dog named Hachiko. He is a world-renowned symbol of canine loyalty. He died in 1935 and there are five statues of Hachiko across Japan. Hachiko would go with his owner, Professor Ueno, to the train station. Hachiko would wait there for the professor to return each evening. One day, the professor passed away at work and never came back. Hachiko went to stay with another family, but he still went to the same place at the train station every day for nine years, nine months and fifteen days to wait for his owner who had passed away.
Loyalty is a big deal. Hachiko demonstrated that. So did Ruth. Ruth chapter one resonates with the message of loyalty. Ruth’s reply to Naomi telling her to return to her people has become the declaration of loyalty in marriage and in life. Ruth says:
Do not press me to leave you,
to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people
and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die,
and there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!
Loyalty matters. Martin Luther once said, “Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.”
Bill T.
* * *
Ruth 1:1-18
What’s in a name? In the case of the Book of Ruth, a lot. In the first verses we’re introduced to a man who is forced by famine to move into enemy territory. It’s as if an American who cannot find a job decides to uproot his family and move somewhere like Iran. The man’s name is Elimelech, which means, “My God is King.” In those days, gods were pictured as being tied to a particular region and people, but even though Elimelech is forced by circumstances into economic exile and eventual death, leaving his family without support and hope, God’s reign is affirmed by the way his line not only continues after it seemingly strikes a dead end, but is elevated in the eventual birth of a king. And not just any king, but King David!
Naomi’s name means “sweet” or “pleasant,” but having seemingly lost everything she will change her name to “Mara,” which means “bitterness.” Yet life will again become pleasant and sweet — and all because of a foreign woman who understands Leviticus and God’s good will towards the poor with the law of gleaning.
Their sons, who marry Moabite women, are named Mahlon and Chilion, which mean “sickness” and “death,” foreshadowing their early demise. And indeed, this occurs. In this ancient society this situation leaves Naomi without husband and sons, which also leaves her without hope.
Her daughter-in-law Orpah’s name means “nape,” and indeed when Naomi convinces her that their future together holds no hope for any of them Orpah, after sharing a sad kiss good-bye she obeys her mother-in-law and shows her the nape of her neck. I can’t blame her, but she missed out.
Ruth, however, does not obey her mother-in-law. Her name might mean “friendship,” but some suggest it might also mean “fertile.” Indeed, both possible meanings will prove true in her steadfast love for her mother-in-law, and the child she will bear who will carry Elimelech’s heritage into the future.
As for Boaz — there is some question about the meaning of his name, but one possibility is “strength,” and Boaz shows strength in not only resisting the dangerous possibilities when left alone with this Moabite woman and instead provides a future for both the late Elimelech and the embittered Mara who will again become Naomi.
Frank R.
* * *
Hebrews 9:11-14
Ancient offerings of goats and bulls, the ashes of heifers, were brought to the altar of God as a means of the people being redeemed and sanctified. The author of Hebrews recognizes this practice as an important part of the religious experience but goes much further. Jesus, he writes, purifies us. How valuable is the blood of Jesus.
I do not often see myself as a “blood of Christ” Christian. I know that Jesus bled and died. I know he went freely to the cross. I know he conquered death. I know these things in my heart and in my spirit. What I acknowledge is the life Jesus led, the seeking of justice, of bringing people in from the margins, the speaking out for life and the love of God, which brought him into such conflict with the power of empire and even the church, that there was a deep desire to eliminate him. And yet, the crucifixion backfired. Jesus rose. Jesus lives. Jesus conquers death. That is where I find my hope.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Hebrews 9:11-14
For a week during which some of us will be called on to make sacrifices (be good losers and support the winners we did not vote for), it is good to attend to the much greater sacrifice Christ has made for us. In a sermon on our text Martin Luther explains what the priestly sacrifice of Christ and his blood means for us:
Christ’s blood has obtained for us pardon forever acceptable to God. God will forgive our sins for the sake of that blood so long as its power shall last and its intercession for grace in our behalf, which is forever. Therefore, we are forever holy and blessed before God. (Sermons, Vol.VII, p.165)
This sacrifice has implications for everyday life. In the same sermon Luther observed:
But Christ, in God’s sight, purifies the conscience of dead works; that is, of sins meriting death, and of works performed in sin and therefore dead. Christ purifies from these, that we may serve the living God by living works. (Ibid., p.167)
In another Lutheran document, Apology of The Augsburg Confession, the dynamics of how Christ paying our sacrifice for us saves is nicely explained:
It is as when a person pays a debt for friends, the debtors are freed by the merit of the other, as though it were by their own. Thus, Christ’s merits are given to us so that we might be reckoned righteous... (The Book of Concord [2000 edition], p.240)
The Catholic Church in its catechism says it so beautifully what Christ has done for us:
It is love “to the end” that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life. Now “the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died [2 Cor.5:15].” (616
Mark E.
* * *
Mark 12:28-34
I found this story on CNN’s business website. Items bought at a garage sale don’t usually end up on the evening news, but a Chinese bowl bought by a New York family in 2007became famous in April of 2013. The new owners paid just three dollars for what turned out to be a bowl from the Northern Song Dynasty that was more than one thousand years old. Until someone told them what they really had, the family had the bowl stuck on the mantle over their fireplace. When they placed the bowl with Sotheby’s Auction House for sale, it was estimated to go for approximately $200,000. Incredibly, a dealer from London purchased it for more than $2,000,000!
Why would the original owners sell something so valuable for just three dollars? They didn’t know what it was worth. That story made me wonder, do people value the things that matter most? That seems to be question one of the scribes has for Jesus. I’ll paraphrase, but he’s asking, “Of all the commandments, which matters most?”
Jesus’ answer is clear. He gives a two-pronged reply. Love God and love people. That’s what matters most. Danny Gokey, in his song, nails it. “It all comes down to this. Love God and love people.” Will we?
Bill T.
* * *
Mark 12:28-34
With elections this week, we know that there is going to be some “blood spilled” with the results and some bad blood among Americans on different sides of the aisle. Preaching on this text, John Wesley noted that “gratitude toward our Creator cannot but produce benevolence to our fellow creatures.” (Works, Vol.7, p.269) In the first encyclical of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI offer a parallel understanding of the good work of love. He wrote:
... in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know...Then I learn to look on the other person, not simply with my eyes and my feelings, but from the perspective of Jesus Christ. His friend is my friend... I can give them much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave. (God Is Love, p.45)
Martin Luther even believed that loving the neighbor does not require being commanded or even reminded to love. He put it this way:
Thus if you want to know how the neighbor is to be loved and want to have an outstanding pattern of this, consider carefully how you love yourself... And so you do not need any book to instruct and admonish you how you should love your neighbor, for you have the loveliest and best of books about all laws right in your own heart. You do not need any professor to tell you about this matter; merely consult your own heart, and it will give you abundant instruction... (Luther’s Works, Vol.27, p.57)
Mark E.
* * *
Mark 12:28-34
This passage follows a series of challenges to Jesus and his teachings by the religious authorities. Jesus stifles this challenge by changing the rules of the game and challenging the religious authorities to weigh in on the authority of John the Baptist. Jesus lampoons these challengers by telling a pointed parable about wicked tenants who forget there is a higher authority they refuse to acknowledge. He turns the table on those who try to trap him with a question about the need for paying taxes to a hated foreign government by demonstrating that they already take part in the Roman economy by carrying Roman coins instead of temple coinage. And he answers another challenge based on the Levirate duty to preserve progeny for those in the community who die without heirs, recognizing what they’re doing is trying to disprove the resurrection of the dead through a ridiculous reductio ad absurdum, by quoting scripture back at them and leaving them befuddled as a result.
All this is prelude to the question about the greatest commandment. We have seen Jesus “knock out” one challenger after another. What is amazing and marvelous is that though we’ve been tempted to typecast all xcribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees as obstructionist, wrong-headed, and even evil, we meet a scribe who is so impressed by Jesus that he invites him into an honest scripture discussion. This question of which is the greatest commandment may have been a popular topic, kind of like the sort of fun-loving arguments about the greatest baseball player of all time, or whether Die Hard is really a Christmas movie. Experts in the Torah (the law, consisting of the first five books of the Bible) might make a case for the reason no law is more important than this one or that one.
Jesus responds to the question about the greatest commandment by listing two — Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:18, quoting the Shema (“Hear, O Israel, etc.”) a prayer that is recited at every synagogue service, as well as the commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself, which is part of what I like to call The Sermon on the Mount from the Hebrew Scriptures.
The best part of all is that the scribe and Jesus both conclude the encounter with mutual praise.
This passage of course can be the start of many lessons, but one that cannot be overlooked is that we should not assume a person is an antagonist just because they’re part of a group that up until now has been antagonizing!
Frank R.
* * *
Mark 12:28-34
We live in a world where we need to hear this scripture reading again and again — daily, maybe even hourly. Jesus shares what is most important to God, the most important of the laws. We are to love the Lord your God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our strength. Oh, to live our lives as if they are a gift of love to God. If we could only do that. The world would be a different place, especially if we remember the second part of this message. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
In a world full of contention and divisiveness, we forget the actions needed to love God and to love our neighbor. We approach election day in the US on Tuesday. Many of us are fearful that violence and unrest will break out in the midst of the political divisiveness of our country. My prayer is that we focus on these commandments as Jesus has offered them to us. May we be the followers of this law.
Bonnie B.
I came across a website dedicated to sharing stories about dogs. I thought I would share one of them about loyalty. This one is about a dog named Hachiko. He is a world-renowned symbol of canine loyalty. He died in 1935 and there are five statues of Hachiko across Japan. Hachiko would go with his owner, Professor Ueno, to the train station. Hachiko would wait there for the professor to return each evening. One day, the professor passed away at work and never came back. Hachiko went to stay with another family, but he still went to the same place at the train station every day for nine years, nine months and fifteen days to wait for his owner who had passed away.
Loyalty is a big deal. Hachiko demonstrated that. So did Ruth. Ruth chapter one resonates with the message of loyalty. Ruth’s reply to Naomi telling her to return to her people has become the declaration of loyalty in marriage and in life. Ruth says:
Do not press me to leave you,
to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people
and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die,
and there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!
Loyalty matters. Martin Luther once said, “Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.”
Bill T.
* * *
Ruth 1:1-18
What’s in a name? In the case of the Book of Ruth, a lot. In the first verses we’re introduced to a man who is forced by famine to move into enemy territory. It’s as if an American who cannot find a job decides to uproot his family and move somewhere like Iran. The man’s name is Elimelech, which means, “My God is King.” In those days, gods were pictured as being tied to a particular region and people, but even though Elimelech is forced by circumstances into economic exile and eventual death, leaving his family without support and hope, God’s reign is affirmed by the way his line not only continues after it seemingly strikes a dead end, but is elevated in the eventual birth of a king. And not just any king, but King David!
Naomi’s name means “sweet” or “pleasant,” but having seemingly lost everything she will change her name to “Mara,” which means “bitterness.” Yet life will again become pleasant and sweet — and all because of a foreign woman who understands Leviticus and God’s good will towards the poor with the law of gleaning.
Their sons, who marry Moabite women, are named Mahlon and Chilion, which mean “sickness” and “death,” foreshadowing their early demise. And indeed, this occurs. In this ancient society this situation leaves Naomi without husband and sons, which also leaves her without hope.
Her daughter-in-law Orpah’s name means “nape,” and indeed when Naomi convinces her that their future together holds no hope for any of them Orpah, after sharing a sad kiss good-bye she obeys her mother-in-law and shows her the nape of her neck. I can’t blame her, but she missed out.
Ruth, however, does not obey her mother-in-law. Her name might mean “friendship,” but some suggest it might also mean “fertile.” Indeed, both possible meanings will prove true in her steadfast love for her mother-in-law, and the child she will bear who will carry Elimelech’s heritage into the future.
As for Boaz — there is some question about the meaning of his name, but one possibility is “strength,” and Boaz shows strength in not only resisting the dangerous possibilities when left alone with this Moabite woman and instead provides a future for both the late Elimelech and the embittered Mara who will again become Naomi.
Frank R.
* * *
Hebrews 9:11-14
Ancient offerings of goats and bulls, the ashes of heifers, were brought to the altar of God as a means of the people being redeemed and sanctified. The author of Hebrews recognizes this practice as an important part of the religious experience but goes much further. Jesus, he writes, purifies us. How valuable is the blood of Jesus.
I do not often see myself as a “blood of Christ” Christian. I know that Jesus bled and died. I know he went freely to the cross. I know he conquered death. I know these things in my heart and in my spirit. What I acknowledge is the life Jesus led, the seeking of justice, of bringing people in from the margins, the speaking out for life and the love of God, which brought him into such conflict with the power of empire and even the church, that there was a deep desire to eliminate him. And yet, the crucifixion backfired. Jesus rose. Jesus lives. Jesus conquers death. That is where I find my hope.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Hebrews 9:11-14
For a week during which some of us will be called on to make sacrifices (be good losers and support the winners we did not vote for), it is good to attend to the much greater sacrifice Christ has made for us. In a sermon on our text Martin Luther explains what the priestly sacrifice of Christ and his blood means for us:
Christ’s blood has obtained for us pardon forever acceptable to God. God will forgive our sins for the sake of that blood so long as its power shall last and its intercession for grace in our behalf, which is forever. Therefore, we are forever holy and blessed before God. (Sermons, Vol.VII, p.165)
This sacrifice has implications for everyday life. In the same sermon Luther observed:
But Christ, in God’s sight, purifies the conscience of dead works; that is, of sins meriting death, and of works performed in sin and therefore dead. Christ purifies from these, that we may serve the living God by living works. (Ibid., p.167)
In another Lutheran document, Apology of The Augsburg Confession, the dynamics of how Christ paying our sacrifice for us saves is nicely explained:
It is as when a person pays a debt for friends, the debtors are freed by the merit of the other, as though it were by their own. Thus, Christ’s merits are given to us so that we might be reckoned righteous... (The Book of Concord [2000 edition], p.240)
The Catholic Church in its catechism says it so beautifully what Christ has done for us:
It is love “to the end” that confers on Christ’s sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life. Now “the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died [2 Cor.5:15].” (616
Mark E.
* * *
Mark 12:28-34
I found this story on CNN’s business website. Items bought at a garage sale don’t usually end up on the evening news, but a Chinese bowl bought by a New York family in 2007became famous in April of 2013. The new owners paid just three dollars for what turned out to be a bowl from the Northern Song Dynasty that was more than one thousand years old. Until someone told them what they really had, the family had the bowl stuck on the mantle over their fireplace. When they placed the bowl with Sotheby’s Auction House for sale, it was estimated to go for approximately $200,000. Incredibly, a dealer from London purchased it for more than $2,000,000!
Why would the original owners sell something so valuable for just three dollars? They didn’t know what it was worth. That story made me wonder, do people value the things that matter most? That seems to be question one of the scribes has for Jesus. I’ll paraphrase, but he’s asking, “Of all the commandments, which matters most?”
Jesus’ answer is clear. He gives a two-pronged reply. Love God and love people. That’s what matters most. Danny Gokey, in his song, nails it. “It all comes down to this. Love God and love people.” Will we?
Bill T.
* * *
Mark 12:28-34
With elections this week, we know that there is going to be some “blood spilled” with the results and some bad blood among Americans on different sides of the aisle. Preaching on this text, John Wesley noted that “gratitude toward our Creator cannot but produce benevolence to our fellow creatures.” (Works, Vol.7, p.269) In the first encyclical of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI offer a parallel understanding of the good work of love. He wrote:
... in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know...Then I learn to look on the other person, not simply with my eyes and my feelings, but from the perspective of Jesus Christ. His friend is my friend... I can give them much more than their outward necessities; I can give them the look of love which they crave. (God Is Love, p.45)
Martin Luther even believed that loving the neighbor does not require being commanded or even reminded to love. He put it this way:
Thus if you want to know how the neighbor is to be loved and want to have an outstanding pattern of this, consider carefully how you love yourself... And so you do not need any book to instruct and admonish you how you should love your neighbor, for you have the loveliest and best of books about all laws right in your own heart. You do not need any professor to tell you about this matter; merely consult your own heart, and it will give you abundant instruction... (Luther’s Works, Vol.27, p.57)
Mark E.
* * *
Mark 12:28-34
This passage follows a series of challenges to Jesus and his teachings by the religious authorities. Jesus stifles this challenge by changing the rules of the game and challenging the religious authorities to weigh in on the authority of John the Baptist. Jesus lampoons these challengers by telling a pointed parable about wicked tenants who forget there is a higher authority they refuse to acknowledge. He turns the table on those who try to trap him with a question about the need for paying taxes to a hated foreign government by demonstrating that they already take part in the Roman economy by carrying Roman coins instead of temple coinage. And he answers another challenge based on the Levirate duty to preserve progeny for those in the community who die without heirs, recognizing what they’re doing is trying to disprove the resurrection of the dead through a ridiculous reductio ad absurdum, by quoting scripture back at them and leaving them befuddled as a result.
All this is prelude to the question about the greatest commandment. We have seen Jesus “knock out” one challenger after another. What is amazing and marvelous is that though we’ve been tempted to typecast all xcribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees as obstructionist, wrong-headed, and even evil, we meet a scribe who is so impressed by Jesus that he invites him into an honest scripture discussion. This question of which is the greatest commandment may have been a popular topic, kind of like the sort of fun-loving arguments about the greatest baseball player of all time, or whether Die Hard is really a Christmas movie. Experts in the Torah (the law, consisting of the first five books of the Bible) might make a case for the reason no law is more important than this one or that one.
Jesus responds to the question about the greatest commandment by listing two — Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:18, quoting the Shema (“Hear, O Israel, etc.”) a prayer that is recited at every synagogue service, as well as the commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself, which is part of what I like to call The Sermon on the Mount from the Hebrew Scriptures.
The best part of all is that the scribe and Jesus both conclude the encounter with mutual praise.
This passage of course can be the start of many lessons, but one that cannot be overlooked is that we should not assume a person is an antagonist just because they’re part of a group that up until now has been antagonizing!
Frank R.
* * *
Mark 12:28-34
We live in a world where we need to hear this scripture reading again and again — daily, maybe even hourly. Jesus shares what is most important to God, the most important of the laws. We are to love the Lord your God with all our hearts, and with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our strength. Oh, to live our lives as if they are a gift of love to God. If we could only do that. The world would be a different place, especially if we remember the second part of this message. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
In a world full of contention and divisiveness, we forget the actions needed to love God and to love our neighbor. We approach election day in the US on Tuesday. Many of us are fearful that violence and unrest will break out in the midst of the political divisiveness of our country. My prayer is that we focus on these commandments as Jesus has offered them to us. May we be the followers of this law.
Bonnie B.
