Sermon Illustrations for Proper 27 | OT 32 (2013)
Illustration
Object:
Haggai 1:5b--2:9
"Shake it up, baby," sang the Isley Brothers and the Beatles. God was out to shake up the power structures of the day in the 6th-century BC. A lot needs shaking up today in American society. We are reminded of the U.S. Census Bureau report that 1 in 6 Americans lives in poverty. We might also talk about Census Bureau data demonstrating that 48% of first-born children in America emerge from the wombs of unwed mothers. We are a nation deeply polarized, almost crippled by it. Just as God shook up the structures of oppressions preventing a new day from emerging for Israel in Haggai's day, he continues to do so today, as John Calvin describes:
The operation of God is then twofold; for it is first necessary to shake men, that they may unlearn their whole character, that is, that forgetting their former nature, they may willingly receive the yoke of Christ. We indeed know how great is our perverseness... there is need in such a case of violent shaking.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XV/1, pp. 359-360)
Shaken up in this way, we are set free from all the old oppressive structures. And this freedom to do Christ's thing leads us, according to famed Catholic mystic Meister Eckhart, to escape ourselves, to stop seeking our own interests (Varieties of Mystic Experience, p. 127).
As Martin Luther put it: The Christian is "lord of all, subject to none," but also "a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all" (Luther's Works, Vol. 31, p. 344). With enough lives shaken up by God, set free in this way, the old oppressive structures and ways of doing business don't have a chance.
Mark E.
Haggai 1:15b--2:9
The great composer George Frideric Handel sent word to the local tavern owner to prepare a dinner for two. When Handel arrived alone, the owner inquired where his company was. Handel replied, "I am the company." Then he ate both meals.
Application: Many people are alone and need to hear the word that someone is with them.
Ron L.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
How many times have we read letters by some "enthusiasts" who tell us that the Lord has already come or is coming at any moment? Jehovah's Witnesses try to tell us that he already came in the early 1900s. Others say he came in 2000! There are always some who try to get you all excited about our Lord's coming. Paul warns us not to be alarmed by these words. They have not come from God or from any of his representatives.
Of course, our Lord will come some day. But Jesus told us on earth that even he did not know the hour or the day! Then why do we believe every idiot?
The day of our Lord's coming will be preceded, as Paul says, by the coming of the rebellion and when the man of lawlessness is revealed. I am old enough to remember WWII and when some said that Hitler or Stalin were the men of lawlessness. They even pointed up the fact that their names were six letters long and that 666 was the number of the devil! It may have been the end for some people, but we are still here and still waiting. Right? Stalin was supposed to be the big bear descending on the world, but he is gone!
It is not wrong to look for the end, but we should not spend all our time trying to discover when! As Luther said, if the world would end tomorrow he would still plant his tree that day. In other words, just keep on doing what the Lord gave you to do today! In a single year, 1843, seventeen people were admitted to a lunatic asylum in Worcester, Massachusetts, worried that the Lord was coming any minute and they weren't ready. Maybe the opposite is true today. There are too many -- even Christians -- who don't care! When you hear dire warnings all the time you tend to put them aside. Both parties in our government are predicting dire consequences of the other parties' actions!
Some have even made a god of democracy, but even Colin Powell warned that it would not work in some countries (where the majority might want sharia law for example). Democracy was a total disaster throughout scripture. If it weren't we would be worshiping that golden calf, which was voted in by the majority! So be careful!
We can find our hope in the promise that God has saved us through his sanctifying grace. Those last words should be read over and memorized. They should encourage us never to lose our faith. God loves us! Never forget that! He will never leave us or desert us!
Bob O.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
In 1971, Carly Simon sang "Anticipation," which made it to the pop charts and was sung everywhere. The first lines of the song are: "We can never know about the days to come, but we think about them anyway." There was a lot of chatter about the return of the Lord in the early days of the church. Some thought it had already arrived, but Paul reminded the Thessalonians that they needed to continue to live in anticipation. This hope for "the coming of the Lord" not only "is keepin' me waitin' " (in the words of the song), but it also requires the church not to be "just chasin' after some finer day"; rather, to be about "every good work and word" in the present while one lives in anticipation.
Mark M.
Luke 20:27-38
The great Austrian composer Gustav Mahler used the beauty of the Austrian countryside to inspire his music. Mahler once told a tourist not to look at the view because "I have already composed it."
Application: The beauty of creation shows us that God is not dead.
Ron L.
Luke 20:27-38
A 2006 Scripps-Howard/Ohio University poll revealed that only 36% of Americans believe in the resurrection of the body. Questions like the ones posed to Jesus about the status of marital relations in heaven doubtless contribute to this skepticism.
Famed theologian Karl Barth insists that "there is no reference here, and cannot be, to an abolition of the sexes or cessation of the being of man as male and female" (Church Dogmatics, Vol. III/2, p. 296). Ancient apologist for the early church Justin Martyr said something in the same spirit, that the parts of the body will not have the same function in eternal life as they did on earth (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 295). There is no need for procreation in heaven, Martin Luther once wrote (What Luther Says, p. 1218). And Augustine sheds further light on sexuality in heaven:
...but because it [the resurrected body] is subject to the spirit with a perfect and marvelous readiness of obedience, and responds in all things to the will that has entered on immortality -- all reluctance, all corruption, and all slowness being removed.... And thus the body, being the source of uneasiness because it can feel no want, shall be animated by a spirit perfectly pure and happy, and shall enjoy unbroken peace.
(Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2, pp. 255-256, 257)
Sex will be undertaken for different reasons in heaven than its purposes here on earth. Sex will not be for procreation or for selfish pleasure, but a pure response of love -- a love that we will feel for all. In that sense marriage will be even better in heaven, but since we have that relationship with everyone there will be no need for it in the heavenly reality.
Mark E.
"Shake it up, baby," sang the Isley Brothers and the Beatles. God was out to shake up the power structures of the day in the 6th-century BC. A lot needs shaking up today in American society. We are reminded of the U.S. Census Bureau report that 1 in 6 Americans lives in poverty. We might also talk about Census Bureau data demonstrating that 48% of first-born children in America emerge from the wombs of unwed mothers. We are a nation deeply polarized, almost crippled by it. Just as God shook up the structures of oppressions preventing a new day from emerging for Israel in Haggai's day, he continues to do so today, as John Calvin describes:
The operation of God is then twofold; for it is first necessary to shake men, that they may unlearn their whole character, that is, that forgetting their former nature, they may willingly receive the yoke of Christ. We indeed know how great is our perverseness... there is need in such a case of violent shaking.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XV/1, pp. 359-360)
Shaken up in this way, we are set free from all the old oppressive structures. And this freedom to do Christ's thing leads us, according to famed Catholic mystic Meister Eckhart, to escape ourselves, to stop seeking our own interests (Varieties of Mystic Experience, p. 127).
As Martin Luther put it: The Christian is "lord of all, subject to none," but also "a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all" (Luther's Works, Vol. 31, p. 344). With enough lives shaken up by God, set free in this way, the old oppressive structures and ways of doing business don't have a chance.
Mark E.
Haggai 1:15b--2:9
The great composer George Frideric Handel sent word to the local tavern owner to prepare a dinner for two. When Handel arrived alone, the owner inquired where his company was. Handel replied, "I am the company." Then he ate both meals.
Application: Many people are alone and need to hear the word that someone is with them.
Ron L.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
How many times have we read letters by some "enthusiasts" who tell us that the Lord has already come or is coming at any moment? Jehovah's Witnesses try to tell us that he already came in the early 1900s. Others say he came in 2000! There are always some who try to get you all excited about our Lord's coming. Paul warns us not to be alarmed by these words. They have not come from God or from any of his representatives.
Of course, our Lord will come some day. But Jesus told us on earth that even he did not know the hour or the day! Then why do we believe every idiot?
The day of our Lord's coming will be preceded, as Paul says, by the coming of the rebellion and when the man of lawlessness is revealed. I am old enough to remember WWII and when some said that Hitler or Stalin were the men of lawlessness. They even pointed up the fact that their names were six letters long and that 666 was the number of the devil! It may have been the end for some people, but we are still here and still waiting. Right? Stalin was supposed to be the big bear descending on the world, but he is gone!
It is not wrong to look for the end, but we should not spend all our time trying to discover when! As Luther said, if the world would end tomorrow he would still plant his tree that day. In other words, just keep on doing what the Lord gave you to do today! In a single year, 1843, seventeen people were admitted to a lunatic asylum in Worcester, Massachusetts, worried that the Lord was coming any minute and they weren't ready. Maybe the opposite is true today. There are too many -- even Christians -- who don't care! When you hear dire warnings all the time you tend to put them aside. Both parties in our government are predicting dire consequences of the other parties' actions!
Some have even made a god of democracy, but even Colin Powell warned that it would not work in some countries (where the majority might want sharia law for example). Democracy was a total disaster throughout scripture. If it weren't we would be worshiping that golden calf, which was voted in by the majority! So be careful!
We can find our hope in the promise that God has saved us through his sanctifying grace. Those last words should be read over and memorized. They should encourage us never to lose our faith. God loves us! Never forget that! He will never leave us or desert us!
Bob O.
2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
In 1971, Carly Simon sang "Anticipation," which made it to the pop charts and was sung everywhere. The first lines of the song are: "We can never know about the days to come, but we think about them anyway." There was a lot of chatter about the return of the Lord in the early days of the church. Some thought it had already arrived, but Paul reminded the Thessalonians that they needed to continue to live in anticipation. This hope for "the coming of the Lord" not only "is keepin' me waitin' " (in the words of the song), but it also requires the church not to be "just chasin' after some finer day"; rather, to be about "every good work and word" in the present while one lives in anticipation.
Mark M.
Luke 20:27-38
The great Austrian composer Gustav Mahler used the beauty of the Austrian countryside to inspire his music. Mahler once told a tourist not to look at the view because "I have already composed it."
Application: The beauty of creation shows us that God is not dead.
Ron L.
Luke 20:27-38
A 2006 Scripps-Howard/Ohio University poll revealed that only 36% of Americans believe in the resurrection of the body. Questions like the ones posed to Jesus about the status of marital relations in heaven doubtless contribute to this skepticism.
Famed theologian Karl Barth insists that "there is no reference here, and cannot be, to an abolition of the sexes or cessation of the being of man as male and female" (Church Dogmatics, Vol. III/2, p. 296). Ancient apologist for the early church Justin Martyr said something in the same spirit, that the parts of the body will not have the same function in eternal life as they did on earth (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, p. 295). There is no need for procreation in heaven, Martin Luther once wrote (What Luther Says, p. 1218). And Augustine sheds further light on sexuality in heaven:
...but because it [the resurrected body] is subject to the spirit with a perfect and marvelous readiness of obedience, and responds in all things to the will that has entered on immortality -- all reluctance, all corruption, and all slowness being removed.... And thus the body, being the source of uneasiness because it can feel no want, shall be animated by a spirit perfectly pure and happy, and shall enjoy unbroken peace.
(Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2, pp. 255-256, 257)
Sex will be undertaken for different reasons in heaven than its purposes here on earth. Sex will not be for procreation or for selfish pleasure, but a pure response of love -- a love that we will feel for all. In that sense marriage will be even better in heaven, but since we have that relationship with everyone there will be no need for it in the heavenly reality.
Mark E.
