Sermon Illustrations for Proper 28 | Ordinary Time 33 (2013)
Illustration
Object:
Isaiah 65:17-25
A few years ago, Suzanne Collins wrote a popular trilogy that began with The Hunger Games. The setting is Panem (formerly North America), which has consolidated all the districts of people under one rather dictatorial government. In reprisal for a rebellion which had been quelled years ago, each district has to submit one "tribute" (young boy or girl) to compete in the annual Hunger Games, which allows only one victor each year. It's a bloody, sacrificial "show" that is watched by the residents in the capitol and beamed out to all the districts, which are compelled to watch their teenage tributes die until there is only one standing -- a reminder of the price to be paid for rebellion. The sixteen-year-old heroine Katniss Everdeen vows never to have children so that she would not have to subject herself or them to such a ritual of penance. She befriends one of the other tributes during the Hunger Games, a younger girl named Rue, who becomes mortally wounded by another tribute. She cradles Rue in her arms and sings a sweet song about sunshine in a meadow. She reflects before beginning to sing the last sounds Rue will hear: "The words are easy and soothing, promising tomorrow will be more hopeful than this awful piece of time we call today." Katniss would eagerly hear the words of Isaiah about a promising tomorrow when "they shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity."
Mark M.
Isaiah 65:17-25
This text is so different from the one in Habakkuk where the Lord does not seem to be answering. In this text it sounds like the Lord answers even before we ask! He has created a whole new heaven and earth and even a new Jerusalem where we will never cry again! By heaven, he seems to be talking about the "heavens" that we see around us as when we view the stars at night. He does not mean the heaven where we hope to spend eternity. Isaiah is talking to the people in exile telling them that the Lord is preparing the land for their return.
God may be telling us that there is a glorious future waiting for us who are faithful.
The main point of this text is that we will be filled with joy and delight because things will get better and better with less death and longer lives. It sounds like we will reap the fruits of our labors and not lose our house to the bank.
When God says that we will live as long as a tree, which can live for centuries, he says, this is for (all) his "people" (not you as an individual) and will continue for generations "and for our descendants."
I like that passage about the lamb lying down with the lion indicating a time of peace. Don't we all wish for that day? God's word says that it is coming for those whom he has chosen. This implies that it may not come for all people, so don't just check the news!
There is a messianic message here that one day God will open up a great future for us through one whom he will send. So that has been accomplished for us even before we asked! It has been accomplished for us today, and it happened 2,000 years ago on a cross.
Bob O.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
This is a dangerous text, easily distorted. Paul's warning against assisting believers living in idleness has been taken by some as justification for bashing the poor. In fact, the major Protestant Reformers help us see this text as a call to alleviate the plight of the 1 in 6 Americans victimized by poverty (as per recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics). Martin Luther sees it as nothing more than a call to political realism in our generosity:
But here we must be careful not to give rogues and rascals the chance to take advantage... Therefore it is important to be careful here and to ascertain what sort of people there may be in a city, who there is poor and badly off and who is not.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 21, pp. 116-117)
John Calvin protests the use of this text to justify failing to help the poor:
Hence Paul admonishes us that, although there are many who are undeserving while others abuse our liberality, we must not on this account leave off helping those who need our aid. Here we have a statement worthy of being observed -- that however ingratitude, moroseness, pride, arrogance, and other unseemly dispositions on the part of the poor may have a tendency to annoy us, or to dispirit us, from a feeling of weariness, we must strive, nevertheless, never to leave off aiming at doing good.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XXI/2, pp. 358-359)
Mark E.
Luke 21:5-19
This verse could refer to the beautifully fitted stones and jewels in the temple wall. We might feel the same about the beautiful church building that we worship in with its lovely stained-glass windows. How would we feel if someone told us that it would all be destroyed? Wouldn't we think that was sacrilegious? All the buildings we almost worship here and in foreign lands where beautiful cathedrals have stood for centuries, they could be our replacement for the temple walls, which had also stood for ages. We know that things don't last forever. We saw an ancient cathedral in Europe that had been bombed in WWII and only the front remained. But who would have known?
Was that meteor that crashed in Russia a sign from heaven? What about the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that have hit the U.S. and the rest of the world? What of that hurricane that destroyed so much of the east coast? If it happened to you, you could see it as a sign from God.
These things are happening all over the world in wars and natural tragedies, but Jesus is talking about the faith that the Israelites placed in their sacred buildings. If the Pharisees heard him say such things it could be an instant death knell for him. He is talking about more than buildings!
Jesus gives his disciples a hint of the coming of the end. One thing would be false prophets. Paul warned against anyone who would preach a different gospel other than the one he was preaching -- even if it came from an angel from heaven, let him be damned! That would immediately make one think of Muslims and Mormons who each claimed that their message came from an angel from heaven! There are others rising up today who claim to be prophets and who preach about the end of the world, predicting Armageddon or some great disaster to happen. Some have all kinds of restrictions about women's subservient roles. Even the religious bookstores are full of false and true information.
Jesus tells us that there will be wars and revolutions, but don't be frightened by them. Nation will rise against nation, he warned. As I often say, we see this displayed on our televisions every day! We wonder if it will ever stop! It is all coming true. I have wondered if it was always taking place, but that we have better news coverage today. When I was a child, we would read a headline of a farm accident in the next county. Now we read of a bus accident in India!
The hardest part is when Jesus says that we may be caught up in the middle of all this and may even lose our lives! Now it is getting close to home! It is one thing to see tragedies on TV, but quite another having them on your front step! Make sure your insurance is paid up. I mean your spiritual insurance!
Bob O.
Luke 21:5-19
"... Not one stone will be left upon another." Would Jesus himself been surprised at the reality that fulfilled his words? Solomon's Temple Mount was virtually doubled by King Herod (who reigned from 37-4 BCE), equaling the size of 30 football fields. The size of the hewn stones for this construction ranged from 2 to 10 tons. Herod also reconstructed the temple itself, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians in the early 6th century BCE and rebuilt after the Persians repatriated the exiled Jews. The Jewish historian Josephus reported that the entire facade of the temple was gilded with gold plates. When the sun rose in the east, the sight of the temple was blinding. The brilliance of the temple could be seen at quite a distance from all directions outside the city. The beauty, however, was temporal. After the Romans were through quashing the rebellion of 66-70 CE, the temple was totally obliterated once again. The Romans ploughed the Temple Mount and constructed a temple to Jupiter. The retaining walls themselves for the Temple Mount were also in ruins and left that way into the seventh-century CE, a testimony not only to the end of the animal sacrificial system in Judaism, but also to the end of the Jewish state (until 1948 CE). The western wall of the great retaining walls for the Temple Mount (not the temple) still stands and is a holy site for devout Jews today. It is called the Wailing Wall and used for prayer.
Mark M.
A few years ago, Suzanne Collins wrote a popular trilogy that began with The Hunger Games. The setting is Panem (formerly North America), which has consolidated all the districts of people under one rather dictatorial government. In reprisal for a rebellion which had been quelled years ago, each district has to submit one "tribute" (young boy or girl) to compete in the annual Hunger Games, which allows only one victor each year. It's a bloody, sacrificial "show" that is watched by the residents in the capitol and beamed out to all the districts, which are compelled to watch their teenage tributes die until there is only one standing -- a reminder of the price to be paid for rebellion. The sixteen-year-old heroine Katniss Everdeen vows never to have children so that she would not have to subject herself or them to such a ritual of penance. She befriends one of the other tributes during the Hunger Games, a younger girl named Rue, who becomes mortally wounded by another tribute. She cradles Rue in her arms and sings a sweet song about sunshine in a meadow. She reflects before beginning to sing the last sounds Rue will hear: "The words are easy and soothing, promising tomorrow will be more hopeful than this awful piece of time we call today." Katniss would eagerly hear the words of Isaiah about a promising tomorrow when "they shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity."
Mark M.
Isaiah 65:17-25
This text is so different from the one in Habakkuk where the Lord does not seem to be answering. In this text it sounds like the Lord answers even before we ask! He has created a whole new heaven and earth and even a new Jerusalem where we will never cry again! By heaven, he seems to be talking about the "heavens" that we see around us as when we view the stars at night. He does not mean the heaven where we hope to spend eternity. Isaiah is talking to the people in exile telling them that the Lord is preparing the land for their return.
God may be telling us that there is a glorious future waiting for us who are faithful.
The main point of this text is that we will be filled with joy and delight because things will get better and better with less death and longer lives. It sounds like we will reap the fruits of our labors and not lose our house to the bank.
When God says that we will live as long as a tree, which can live for centuries, he says, this is for (all) his "people" (not you as an individual) and will continue for generations "and for our descendants."
I like that passage about the lamb lying down with the lion indicating a time of peace. Don't we all wish for that day? God's word says that it is coming for those whom he has chosen. This implies that it may not come for all people, so don't just check the news!
There is a messianic message here that one day God will open up a great future for us through one whom he will send. So that has been accomplished for us even before we asked! It has been accomplished for us today, and it happened 2,000 years ago on a cross.
Bob O.
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
This is a dangerous text, easily distorted. Paul's warning against assisting believers living in idleness has been taken by some as justification for bashing the poor. In fact, the major Protestant Reformers help us see this text as a call to alleviate the plight of the 1 in 6 Americans victimized by poverty (as per recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics). Martin Luther sees it as nothing more than a call to political realism in our generosity:
But here we must be careful not to give rogues and rascals the chance to take advantage... Therefore it is important to be careful here and to ascertain what sort of people there may be in a city, who there is poor and badly off and who is not.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 21, pp. 116-117)
John Calvin protests the use of this text to justify failing to help the poor:
Hence Paul admonishes us that, although there are many who are undeserving while others abuse our liberality, we must not on this account leave off helping those who need our aid. Here we have a statement worthy of being observed -- that however ingratitude, moroseness, pride, arrogance, and other unseemly dispositions on the part of the poor may have a tendency to annoy us, or to dispirit us, from a feeling of weariness, we must strive, nevertheless, never to leave off aiming at doing good.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XXI/2, pp. 358-359)
Mark E.
Luke 21:5-19
This verse could refer to the beautifully fitted stones and jewels in the temple wall. We might feel the same about the beautiful church building that we worship in with its lovely stained-glass windows. How would we feel if someone told us that it would all be destroyed? Wouldn't we think that was sacrilegious? All the buildings we almost worship here and in foreign lands where beautiful cathedrals have stood for centuries, they could be our replacement for the temple walls, which had also stood for ages. We know that things don't last forever. We saw an ancient cathedral in Europe that had been bombed in WWII and only the front remained. But who would have known?
Was that meteor that crashed in Russia a sign from heaven? What about the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that have hit the U.S. and the rest of the world? What of that hurricane that destroyed so much of the east coast? If it happened to you, you could see it as a sign from God.
These things are happening all over the world in wars and natural tragedies, but Jesus is talking about the faith that the Israelites placed in their sacred buildings. If the Pharisees heard him say such things it could be an instant death knell for him. He is talking about more than buildings!
Jesus gives his disciples a hint of the coming of the end. One thing would be false prophets. Paul warned against anyone who would preach a different gospel other than the one he was preaching -- even if it came from an angel from heaven, let him be damned! That would immediately make one think of Muslims and Mormons who each claimed that their message came from an angel from heaven! There are others rising up today who claim to be prophets and who preach about the end of the world, predicting Armageddon or some great disaster to happen. Some have all kinds of restrictions about women's subservient roles. Even the religious bookstores are full of false and true information.
Jesus tells us that there will be wars and revolutions, but don't be frightened by them. Nation will rise against nation, he warned. As I often say, we see this displayed on our televisions every day! We wonder if it will ever stop! It is all coming true. I have wondered if it was always taking place, but that we have better news coverage today. When I was a child, we would read a headline of a farm accident in the next county. Now we read of a bus accident in India!
The hardest part is when Jesus says that we may be caught up in the middle of all this and may even lose our lives! Now it is getting close to home! It is one thing to see tragedies on TV, but quite another having them on your front step! Make sure your insurance is paid up. I mean your spiritual insurance!
Bob O.
Luke 21:5-19
"... Not one stone will be left upon another." Would Jesus himself been surprised at the reality that fulfilled his words? Solomon's Temple Mount was virtually doubled by King Herod (who reigned from 37-4 BCE), equaling the size of 30 football fields. The size of the hewn stones for this construction ranged from 2 to 10 tons. Herod also reconstructed the temple itself, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians in the early 6th century BCE and rebuilt after the Persians repatriated the exiled Jews. The Jewish historian Josephus reported that the entire facade of the temple was gilded with gold plates. When the sun rose in the east, the sight of the temple was blinding. The brilliance of the temple could be seen at quite a distance from all directions outside the city. The beauty, however, was temporal. After the Romans were through quashing the rebellion of 66-70 CE, the temple was totally obliterated once again. The Romans ploughed the Temple Mount and constructed a temple to Jupiter. The retaining walls themselves for the Temple Mount were also in ruins and left that way into the seventh-century CE, a testimony not only to the end of the animal sacrificial system in Judaism, but also to the end of the Jewish state (until 1948 CE). The western wall of the great retaining walls for the Temple Mount (not the temple) still stands and is a holy site for devout Jews today. It is called the Wailing Wall and used for prayer.
Mark M.
