Sermon Illustrations for Proper 28 | Ordinary Time 33 (2015)
Illustration
Object:
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Aish.com, a website for individuals who participate in Judaism, shares an article written by Bayla Sheva Brunner on the issue of childless women. Childless herself, Brunner wanted to explore the situations of others. She quotes a woman in her 60s named Bracha as saying: “Since I was very young, I dreamt I was going to have ten kids. God decided that would not be my path. As difficult as it is to accept, ‘no’ is a full sentence.”
Hannah was such a woman. God had said no to her, but she was persistent. Even in the face of a husband who loved her and would not set her aside for her inability to bear children, Hannah desperately prayed for a son. Eli comes upon her praying silently in the Temple, admonishes her, and then blesses her. Hannah in fact does have a son, Samuel, a great prophet of old. But how much more difficult is it for the women like Bracha for whom the answer to the fervent prayer for a child is “no”? Pray this day for those who do not have the joy and challenge of bearing the children they so desperately desire. Give thanks for the children you have in your own life. Praise God for this blessing.
Bonnie B.
1 Samuel 1:4-20
The End is a 1978 movie starring Burt Reynolds about a guy who, because of an illness, thinks he should kill himself. At the end of the movie he is in a tight spot in the middle of the sea. He begins thinking, though, that killing himself might not be a good idea. He begins to bargain with God as he prays -- offering God, if God will save him and make him a better swimmer, to give 10%... no, 20%... no, 50% of all he has! He promises to be a better man, husband, and father. As he gets closer to the shore, though, his positions change a bit and he offers less and less. Finally, once on the shore, he is no longer really interested in making a deal at all.
I remember seeing that movie as a kid, and I have always remembered the ending. It is exactly how a lot of people are with God. When they’re in trouble, they’ll give God anything. As soon as the trouble passes, though, it’s business as usual. That’s not how it was with Hannah.
Hannah was in a tight spot too. She did not have a child, and she was being ridiculed for it. In that culture she was less of a woman for not being able to bear children. Like the Burt Reynolds character, she bargains with God too. That is about all they have in common. Hannah is honest in her words and keeps her promise, just as God kept his promise to her.
Bill T.
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Life is full of surprises, like Samuel’s birth was surprising. It is like the anonymous quote says: “The road of life can only reveal itself as it is traveled; each turn in the road reveals a surprise. Man’s future is hidden.” Indian poet and playwright Rabindranath Taquore put it this way: “That I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life.” The very nature of Christian faith is rooted in surprise. Famed 20th-century theologian Karl Barth spoke of the divine inscrutability, which entails that revelation is a knowing of what cannot be known, and so everything Christian must be a mystery (Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV/3, p. 144). Megachurch pastor Rick Warren captures this sense of the surprise which characterizes Christian faith: “What surprises me most about God is that the creator of the universe should want a relationship with me.” Armed with these insights, we can heed the exhortation of Pope Francis: “Let us ask ourselves today; are we open to ‘God’s surprises’?”
Mark E.
Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25
Pastors lay our people’s offering before the Lord every Sunday, but it is the offering of Jesus’ body and blood that forgives sin and makes us new people. It’s not because of what we (or the pastor) have done, but because of what God has done. He has opened the curtain. His “gift” has made the difference! All it took was one sacrifice! That made all things different for us.
We no longer have to keep a copy of the catechism or even the Bible in our pocket, because God has put his law in our hearts and written it in our minds. It is inside us!
When Christians have been imprisoned in any country, their Bibles have often been kept from them. But God has planted his law in their heats and minds. Many have memorized scripture, and it kept them from losing their minds when they were tortured or isolated in a cell. This is recorded in the writings of many Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer. So it is a good idea to memorize God’s word and put its essence in our minds (though God can put it there), even if what we learn is not a perfect literal translation -- and there can be many translations!
I have tried to memorize some scripture, and I have often been surprised when I counseled prisoners that words I had memorized would pop out at just the right time and help someone.
One old soldier was dying in the hospital, and I was called in since he had no church. He asked me if there was any hope for him since he had lived such a wicked life. How could the Lord help him now at the last minute? He was grabbing for straws, but as I was about to go one of the passages I knew popped into my head -- so I told him about the thief dying on the cross next to Jesus. When the thief confessed, he was saved at the very last minute. The soldier was silent for a while, but when I came back to see him later he had a smile of hope -- from that verse!
Because Jesus is our high priest, we can find our comfort in knowing that he has done all we need -- even at the last minute. That should be encouraging for us. How can we encourage others and bring them to saving faith? God has put it in our minds and hearts. Use it!
Bob O.
Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25
And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24).
The word “consider” means to think of one another, and to encourage one another. The phrase “to stir up” means “to stimulate” or “provoke” -- in this case, to love and good works. When we see the zeal of fellow Christians, and share in their trials, and rejoice in their joys -- it gives us new courage to press on in the Christian journey of life.
It is essential that God’s people attend the scheduled services of the local body in order to experience communion with the saints, to partake of the ordinances, and to receive thoughtful exhortations from the Word....
It is not unusual -- when inviting unsaved people to come to a church service -- to get a response indicating that there are too many hypocrites in the church. But hypocrites buy groceries too, and that doesn’t keep those folks from buying groceries at the same store. Hypocrites use banks, but those who excuse going to church services because of hypocrites have accounts in the same banks. Hypocrites work in factories and shops, but that does not keep most people from going to work day after day.
The church on earth has always been imperfect. It was imperfect before our cradles were made, and it will be imperfect after our coffins are rotted. Our purpose for gathering together is to help promote in each other’s lives the virtues and graces that we covet for ourselves.
(Harold S. Martin, Hebrews: Brethren New Testament Commentary, p. 130)
Frank R.
Mark 13:1-8
We’ve all seen the signs in newspaper cartoons that call out “THE END IS NEAR.” Usually some guy in shabby clothes is holding the sign, and there is often a funny caption or joke associated with the sign. We laugh at crazy stuff like that, but the end of time isn’t really a humorous matter. I heard on the radio about a preacher in Branson, Missouri, who is convinced the “end times” are upon us. He preaches to anyone who will listen about how the events going on in the Middle East and what’s reported in the news are connected to the prophecies in the Bible. To further demonstrate how much he is concerned about the “end times,” he will sell you a “fuel-less generator” and seven years of freeze-dried foods stored in five-gallon buckets. You can get both in your “survival kit” for the low price of $12,000!
We shake our heads at that, wondering how someone could be so craven, or perhaps more importantly how some could be so gullible. Jesus spoke to his disciples about the end of time. They, like most of us, wanted to know when it would come. In this passage he warned them about those who would predict the end and claim to be the “Messiah.” He goes on to describe some pretty awful things, but he adds that the end is not yet. These are the beginning of birth pangs. Did you catch that? The end is not YET. That tells us that the end will come. We aren’t to know the time. No one does. Being prepared for the end when it comes, though, will be important. I suspect it has little to do with fuel-less generators and five-gallon buckets of food.
Bill T.
Mark 13:1-8
When is the end of the end of the world coming? When will Christ return? When Jesus returns will there be great battles, tribulations? Will it be like in the movies? As we look at the war-torn places in our world, when we read about the latest natural disaster, when the next prediction for the end of the world is made, it’s hard not to wonder if this is the time. Whom do we believe -- this newest prophet of the apocalypse or Jesus?
As for me, I believe Jesus. We will not know when the end is coming, but we need to be ready. We need to have our spiritual house in order. We need to have a strong relationship with God and Jesus. Maybe we need to be like a friend I have who is in her 70s. Her home is neat as a pin, all the drawers and closets organized, and all her important papers (insurance policies, copies of her bank account information, and her will) in a bright red folder on her desk for her children. She is ready in case something happens. No one will question how she kept house or what she wants done with her belongings. But I wonder if her spiritual life is also in order. What is the state of her heart and her soul? For me, that’s the important thing to get ready.
Bonnie B.
Mark 13:1-8
A poll taken almost a decade ago by the Pew Research Center found that nearly one in five American Christians do not believe in Christ’s second coming. There is little reason to believe much has changed in the past ten years. The early modern French intellectual Blaise Pascal explained the chokehold the present has on us: “Our imagination so magnifies the present, because we are continually thinking about it, and so reduces eternity, because we do not think about it, that we turn eternity into nothing and nothing into eternity, and all this is so strongly rooted within us that all our reason cannot save us from it” (Pensees, p. 164).
Our lesson makes clear the end is on the horizon. We call this Realized Eschatology -- the belief that we are already in the end times. Martin Luther nicely explains this commitment. In his view, the Kingdom of God transpires “whenever our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that through his grace we believe his Holy Word and live godly lives here in time and hereafter in eternity” (The Book of Concord, edited by Theodore Tappert, pp. 356-357). Whenever we believe or live in faith, the end has come! Nineteenth-century Anglican priest James Long made a similar point: “To express is simple, the kingdom is where the king is.” Whenever Christ is present in our lives, we live in his kingdom.
What difference does awareness that the end has come make? This awareness creates a whole new reality (or at least stimulates our yearning for it), a vision that transforms our lives. In his book The End of the World, Reginald Stackhouse explained it well: “The need of the world meant the end of injustice, the kingdom of God meant a just society, and the return of Christ meant following him on earth.” Follow Jesus, work for justice, and you catch some glimpses right now of the end times -- and then the present with all its injustices and secularism gradually loses its hold on us.
Mark E.
Aish.com, a website for individuals who participate in Judaism, shares an article written by Bayla Sheva Brunner on the issue of childless women. Childless herself, Brunner wanted to explore the situations of others. She quotes a woman in her 60s named Bracha as saying: “Since I was very young, I dreamt I was going to have ten kids. God decided that would not be my path. As difficult as it is to accept, ‘no’ is a full sentence.”
Hannah was such a woman. God had said no to her, but she was persistent. Even in the face of a husband who loved her and would not set her aside for her inability to bear children, Hannah desperately prayed for a son. Eli comes upon her praying silently in the Temple, admonishes her, and then blesses her. Hannah in fact does have a son, Samuel, a great prophet of old. But how much more difficult is it for the women like Bracha for whom the answer to the fervent prayer for a child is “no”? Pray this day for those who do not have the joy and challenge of bearing the children they so desperately desire. Give thanks for the children you have in your own life. Praise God for this blessing.
Bonnie B.
1 Samuel 1:4-20
The End is a 1978 movie starring Burt Reynolds about a guy who, because of an illness, thinks he should kill himself. At the end of the movie he is in a tight spot in the middle of the sea. He begins thinking, though, that killing himself might not be a good idea. He begins to bargain with God as he prays -- offering God, if God will save him and make him a better swimmer, to give 10%... no, 20%... no, 50% of all he has! He promises to be a better man, husband, and father. As he gets closer to the shore, though, his positions change a bit and he offers less and less. Finally, once on the shore, he is no longer really interested in making a deal at all.
I remember seeing that movie as a kid, and I have always remembered the ending. It is exactly how a lot of people are with God. When they’re in trouble, they’ll give God anything. As soon as the trouble passes, though, it’s business as usual. That’s not how it was with Hannah.
Hannah was in a tight spot too. She did not have a child, and she was being ridiculed for it. In that culture she was less of a woman for not being able to bear children. Like the Burt Reynolds character, she bargains with God too. That is about all they have in common. Hannah is honest in her words and keeps her promise, just as God kept his promise to her.
Bill T.
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Life is full of surprises, like Samuel’s birth was surprising. It is like the anonymous quote says: “The road of life can only reveal itself as it is traveled; each turn in the road reveals a surprise. Man’s future is hidden.” Indian poet and playwright Rabindranath Taquore put it this way: “That I exist is a perpetual surprise which is life.” The very nature of Christian faith is rooted in surprise. Famed 20th-century theologian Karl Barth spoke of the divine inscrutability, which entails that revelation is a knowing of what cannot be known, and so everything Christian must be a mystery (Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV/3, p. 144). Megachurch pastor Rick Warren captures this sense of the surprise which characterizes Christian faith: “What surprises me most about God is that the creator of the universe should want a relationship with me.” Armed with these insights, we can heed the exhortation of Pope Francis: “Let us ask ourselves today; are we open to ‘God’s surprises’?”
Mark E.
Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25
Pastors lay our people’s offering before the Lord every Sunday, but it is the offering of Jesus’ body and blood that forgives sin and makes us new people. It’s not because of what we (or the pastor) have done, but because of what God has done. He has opened the curtain. His “gift” has made the difference! All it took was one sacrifice! That made all things different for us.
We no longer have to keep a copy of the catechism or even the Bible in our pocket, because God has put his law in our hearts and written it in our minds. It is inside us!
When Christians have been imprisoned in any country, their Bibles have often been kept from them. But God has planted his law in their heats and minds. Many have memorized scripture, and it kept them from losing their minds when they were tortured or isolated in a cell. This is recorded in the writings of many Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer. So it is a good idea to memorize God’s word and put its essence in our minds (though God can put it there), even if what we learn is not a perfect literal translation -- and there can be many translations!
I have tried to memorize some scripture, and I have often been surprised when I counseled prisoners that words I had memorized would pop out at just the right time and help someone.
One old soldier was dying in the hospital, and I was called in since he had no church. He asked me if there was any hope for him since he had lived such a wicked life. How could the Lord help him now at the last minute? He was grabbing for straws, but as I was about to go one of the passages I knew popped into my head -- so I told him about the thief dying on the cross next to Jesus. When the thief confessed, he was saved at the very last minute. The soldier was silent for a while, but when I came back to see him later he had a smile of hope -- from that verse!
Because Jesus is our high priest, we can find our comfort in knowing that he has done all we need -- even at the last minute. That should be encouraging for us. How can we encourage others and bring them to saving faith? God has put it in our minds and hearts. Use it!
Bob O.
Hebrews 10:11-14 (15-18) 19-25
And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24).
The word “consider” means to think of one another, and to encourage one another. The phrase “to stir up” means “to stimulate” or “provoke” -- in this case, to love and good works. When we see the zeal of fellow Christians, and share in their trials, and rejoice in their joys -- it gives us new courage to press on in the Christian journey of life.
It is essential that God’s people attend the scheduled services of the local body in order to experience communion with the saints, to partake of the ordinances, and to receive thoughtful exhortations from the Word....
It is not unusual -- when inviting unsaved people to come to a church service -- to get a response indicating that there are too many hypocrites in the church. But hypocrites buy groceries too, and that doesn’t keep those folks from buying groceries at the same store. Hypocrites use banks, but those who excuse going to church services because of hypocrites have accounts in the same banks. Hypocrites work in factories and shops, but that does not keep most people from going to work day after day.
The church on earth has always been imperfect. It was imperfect before our cradles were made, and it will be imperfect after our coffins are rotted. Our purpose for gathering together is to help promote in each other’s lives the virtues and graces that we covet for ourselves.
(Harold S. Martin, Hebrews: Brethren New Testament Commentary, p. 130)
Frank R.
Mark 13:1-8
We’ve all seen the signs in newspaper cartoons that call out “THE END IS NEAR.” Usually some guy in shabby clothes is holding the sign, and there is often a funny caption or joke associated with the sign. We laugh at crazy stuff like that, but the end of time isn’t really a humorous matter. I heard on the radio about a preacher in Branson, Missouri, who is convinced the “end times” are upon us. He preaches to anyone who will listen about how the events going on in the Middle East and what’s reported in the news are connected to the prophecies in the Bible. To further demonstrate how much he is concerned about the “end times,” he will sell you a “fuel-less generator” and seven years of freeze-dried foods stored in five-gallon buckets. You can get both in your “survival kit” for the low price of $12,000!
We shake our heads at that, wondering how someone could be so craven, or perhaps more importantly how some could be so gullible. Jesus spoke to his disciples about the end of time. They, like most of us, wanted to know when it would come. In this passage he warned them about those who would predict the end and claim to be the “Messiah.” He goes on to describe some pretty awful things, but he adds that the end is not yet. These are the beginning of birth pangs. Did you catch that? The end is not YET. That tells us that the end will come. We aren’t to know the time. No one does. Being prepared for the end when it comes, though, will be important. I suspect it has little to do with fuel-less generators and five-gallon buckets of food.
Bill T.
Mark 13:1-8
When is the end of the end of the world coming? When will Christ return? When Jesus returns will there be great battles, tribulations? Will it be like in the movies? As we look at the war-torn places in our world, when we read about the latest natural disaster, when the next prediction for the end of the world is made, it’s hard not to wonder if this is the time. Whom do we believe -- this newest prophet of the apocalypse or Jesus?
As for me, I believe Jesus. We will not know when the end is coming, but we need to be ready. We need to have our spiritual house in order. We need to have a strong relationship with God and Jesus. Maybe we need to be like a friend I have who is in her 70s. Her home is neat as a pin, all the drawers and closets organized, and all her important papers (insurance policies, copies of her bank account information, and her will) in a bright red folder on her desk for her children. She is ready in case something happens. No one will question how she kept house or what she wants done with her belongings. But I wonder if her spiritual life is also in order. What is the state of her heart and her soul? For me, that’s the important thing to get ready.
Bonnie B.
Mark 13:1-8
A poll taken almost a decade ago by the Pew Research Center found that nearly one in five American Christians do not believe in Christ’s second coming. There is little reason to believe much has changed in the past ten years. The early modern French intellectual Blaise Pascal explained the chokehold the present has on us: “Our imagination so magnifies the present, because we are continually thinking about it, and so reduces eternity, because we do not think about it, that we turn eternity into nothing and nothing into eternity, and all this is so strongly rooted within us that all our reason cannot save us from it” (Pensees, p. 164).
Our lesson makes clear the end is on the horizon. We call this Realized Eschatology -- the belief that we are already in the end times. Martin Luther nicely explains this commitment. In his view, the Kingdom of God transpires “whenever our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that through his grace we believe his Holy Word and live godly lives here in time and hereafter in eternity” (The Book of Concord, edited by Theodore Tappert, pp. 356-357). Whenever we believe or live in faith, the end has come! Nineteenth-century Anglican priest James Long made a similar point: “To express is simple, the kingdom is where the king is.” Whenever Christ is present in our lives, we live in his kingdom.
What difference does awareness that the end has come make? This awareness creates a whole new reality (or at least stimulates our yearning for it), a vision that transforms our lives. In his book The End of the World, Reginald Stackhouse explained it well: “The need of the world meant the end of injustice, the kingdom of God meant a just society, and the return of Christ meant following him on earth.” Follow Jesus, work for justice, and you catch some glimpses right now of the end times -- and then the present with all its injustices and secularism gradually loses its hold on us.
Mark E.
