Sermon Illustrations for Proper 5 | OT 10 (2013)
Illustration
Object:
1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)
The Gentile widow had nothing to give Elijah, and yet he healed her child. It seems like the poor widow got something for nothing! Americans don't like this message, especially those 60% of us convinced (according to Harvard economist Edward Glaaeser, see his A World of Difference) that the poor are lazy. What Ronald Reagan's press secretary Lyn Nofziger said still captures the Tea Party mood:
The reason this country continues its drift toward Socialism and big nanny government is because too many people vote in the expectation of getting something for nothing, not because they have a concern for what is good for the country.
But even if we grant that in the realm of everyday interactions American author Napolean Hill is right in telling us that "there is no such thing as something for nothing," with God it is clearly different. It is not just this widow who brought nothing to God and got something. God seeks out people like us who have nothing to give him. We bring nothing to our salvation and yet receive it (the biggest something a creature should receive). We bring nothing to our birth and yet receive life. Even the creation, which was out of nothing, exemplifies how God gives something out of nothing.
The physicists' Big Bang Theory bears out the truth that the gift of existence exemplifies that God makes something out of nothing. No two ways about: When it comes to God's work we all get something for nothing. For as Martin Luther once put it, for we have a God "who out of an impossible thing can make something possible, and make something out of nothing" (Complete Sermons, Vol. 3/1, p. 133).
Mark E.
1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)
You can run out of gas. You can run out of food. You can run out of money. You can run out of options and run out of ideas and run out of time. You can reach the end of the month, the end of your contract, the end of the line, the end of your patience, and even the end of your rope. You can run out of nearly everything. God never runs out. You can never reach the end of God's love and mercy, because there is no end to reach.
Scott B.
1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)
Susan Jacoby wrote an editorial for the New York Times in which she pointed out the falsehood of the television series Mad Men. The show, now in its sixth season, covers the time period from 1960 to 1967. In the show, the admen of Madison Avenue have enough money to spend lavishly on their wives and mistresses. That may be how it is for the show's characters, but it was not true for Jacoby's father and most men in the United States. With wives still unable to secure meaningful work, most men were the primary providers for their families. There was no fallback plan if they could not bring home enough money to provide for the necessities. It definitely was not the advertising business on Madison Avenue. Instead of lavish clothes, Jacoby remembers lying in bed and listening to her father's car tires going over the salt-laden driveway in Lansing as he began his workday.
Application: Elijah reminds us that it is the simple things that bring us through life like a jar of meal and a blessing.
Ron L.
Galatians 1:11-24
Without credentials it is hard to get a job. More and more people are attending vocational institutions to retrain for occupations for which the market is opening up. A good case in point is welding. Industrial companies are desperate for qualified welders to take the place of the aging and retiring artisans of metal craft. Young men and women are getting their certification in welding after the appropriate instruction at a qualified educational school. Paul went back to school, so to speak, because he found that his initial training in being a Pharisee did not equip him to be a disciple of Jesus. He outlines his new resume in this text.
Mark M.
Galatians 1:11-24
It is so easy coming out of seminary to bring to our people a message that our professors made up. There was a pastor in Wisconsin a number of years ago who was defrocked for preaching what he learned in seminary -- that maybe Mary was not a virgin! There were some theologians who we had to read who called into question Jesus' miracles! If I hadn't received a revelation from God, that experience in seminary might have cost me my faith. I even talked with a Baptist pastor who almost lost his faith in seminary.
Be careful not to bore your people with quotes from some great theologians (not all are bad!). Most of our members are more interested in your relationship with God. Our love for God should be based on something more than some words we have read. God can use words from the Bible, but we need God's Spirit to bring them to life. That comes through prayer and meditation more than through reading words. A friend in seminary was asked by his professor what his sources were when he turned in a paper. When he said it was the Bible, his prof told him that he wanted to know if he was quoting from Bultman, Barth, or Brunner. In other words, it should be academically respectable. If it were spiritually sound that was not as important.
It took a miraculous experience to change Paul. Obviously we don't preach what some fundamentalists do that you are not saved without a miraculous experience. They often ask me, "When were you saved" -- in other words, when did God give you an experience that changed you? I tell them I was saved 2,000 years ago, but I only came to realize it recently. I personally received an experience with the Lord, but I believe that Jesus saved me from the moment of my baptism. As long as I didn't reject what he did for me, I was saved.
Sometimes it may take a traumatic experience to turn us around. I was a prison chaplain a while back, and I knew several inmates who were turned completely around when God revealed himself to them. How he did it was up to him. The WORDS read helped him mature in his faith, but it was an experience that turned him around.
Our authority to be a pastor or servant of God comes from HIM. Our installation or ordainment is only confirmation of what God had done to us.
I have met pastors of every denomination and the thing that impresses me most is when I feel the love of God expressed in their lives. I knew that God had come into their lives, and I could feel HIS authority. I didn't care about the documentation on their walls. I felt that even some non-Lutherans were saved!
Bob O.
Luke 7:11-17
Commenting on this story of the resurrection of the widow's son of Nain, Martin Luther praised it as a word of comfort: "This and similar works of Christ should remind us that we must be very courageous and unafraid in times of sickness, pestilence, and life-threatening danger. At moments when the world says, All is lost, the Christian responds, Not so, God still lives and Christ rules at the right hand of God" (Complete Sermons, Vol. 7, p. 25).
Also commenting on the text, John Calvin contended that this is a story to stimulate us, to get us enthusiastic about faith (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVI/1, p. 386). We need that enthusiasm, because too often the wonder of Jesus' miracles in our own lives, the courage Luther notes this story affords, gets lost. For as English author Aldous Huxley once said, "Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted." But as we hang on to the enthusiasm the miracle reported generates, become enthused by God's other miracles in our lives, by the awareness that God rules, then that enthusiasm cannot but change our lives. For it is like American businessman Charles Schwab once said: "A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm. Witnessing the miraculous love of God cannot but by the grace of God lead to excitement and success."
Mark E.
Luke 7:11-17
People sometimes worry about the end of the world, but the truth is that the world ends all the time. Whenever there is a death, the world ends. Thoughts and memories, little bits of songs from second grade, quirky personal theories all vanish. Every time someone dies, their unique view of the world goes with them. Every time someone dies, it is, at least as they see it, the end of the world. When the world ends, Jesus sees. When the world ends, Jesus has compassion. When the world ends, Jesus says "rise!"
Scott B.
Luke 7:11-17
In 1844 a group of 50,000 followers expected the immediate return of Jesus. So strongly did they hold these beliefs that many sold their possessions and others let their fields lie fallow. When Jesus did not return, the aftermath was called the Great Disappointment. Some, sadly, even committed suicide. In May of that year, the remaining followers organized themselves into a church. They called themselves Adventists, for they expected the immediate return -- advent -- of Jesus.
Application: Even though the Seventh-Day Adventists do remarkable work in the world today, many were led into a false hope by a false prophecy. The people realized that Jesus was a great prophet who rose among them. Be careful to discern the teachings of a true prophet called by God.
Ron L.
The Gentile widow had nothing to give Elijah, and yet he healed her child. It seems like the poor widow got something for nothing! Americans don't like this message, especially those 60% of us convinced (according to Harvard economist Edward Glaaeser, see his A World of Difference) that the poor are lazy. What Ronald Reagan's press secretary Lyn Nofziger said still captures the Tea Party mood:
The reason this country continues its drift toward Socialism and big nanny government is because too many people vote in the expectation of getting something for nothing, not because they have a concern for what is good for the country.
But even if we grant that in the realm of everyday interactions American author Napolean Hill is right in telling us that "there is no such thing as something for nothing," with God it is clearly different. It is not just this widow who brought nothing to God and got something. God seeks out people like us who have nothing to give him. We bring nothing to our salvation and yet receive it (the biggest something a creature should receive). We bring nothing to our birth and yet receive life. Even the creation, which was out of nothing, exemplifies how God gives something out of nothing.
The physicists' Big Bang Theory bears out the truth that the gift of existence exemplifies that God makes something out of nothing. No two ways about: When it comes to God's work we all get something for nothing. For as Martin Luther once put it, for we have a God "who out of an impossible thing can make something possible, and make something out of nothing" (Complete Sermons, Vol. 3/1, p. 133).
Mark E.
1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)
You can run out of gas. You can run out of food. You can run out of money. You can run out of options and run out of ideas and run out of time. You can reach the end of the month, the end of your contract, the end of the line, the end of your patience, and even the end of your rope. You can run out of nearly everything. God never runs out. You can never reach the end of God's love and mercy, because there is no end to reach.
Scott B.
1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24)
Susan Jacoby wrote an editorial for the New York Times in which she pointed out the falsehood of the television series Mad Men. The show, now in its sixth season, covers the time period from 1960 to 1967. In the show, the admen of Madison Avenue have enough money to spend lavishly on their wives and mistresses. That may be how it is for the show's characters, but it was not true for Jacoby's father and most men in the United States. With wives still unable to secure meaningful work, most men were the primary providers for their families. There was no fallback plan if they could not bring home enough money to provide for the necessities. It definitely was not the advertising business on Madison Avenue. Instead of lavish clothes, Jacoby remembers lying in bed and listening to her father's car tires going over the salt-laden driveway in Lansing as he began his workday.
Application: Elijah reminds us that it is the simple things that bring us through life like a jar of meal and a blessing.
Ron L.
Galatians 1:11-24
Without credentials it is hard to get a job. More and more people are attending vocational institutions to retrain for occupations for which the market is opening up. A good case in point is welding. Industrial companies are desperate for qualified welders to take the place of the aging and retiring artisans of metal craft. Young men and women are getting their certification in welding after the appropriate instruction at a qualified educational school. Paul went back to school, so to speak, because he found that his initial training in being a Pharisee did not equip him to be a disciple of Jesus. He outlines his new resume in this text.
Mark M.
Galatians 1:11-24
It is so easy coming out of seminary to bring to our people a message that our professors made up. There was a pastor in Wisconsin a number of years ago who was defrocked for preaching what he learned in seminary -- that maybe Mary was not a virgin! There were some theologians who we had to read who called into question Jesus' miracles! If I hadn't received a revelation from God, that experience in seminary might have cost me my faith. I even talked with a Baptist pastor who almost lost his faith in seminary.
Be careful not to bore your people with quotes from some great theologians (not all are bad!). Most of our members are more interested in your relationship with God. Our love for God should be based on something more than some words we have read. God can use words from the Bible, but we need God's Spirit to bring them to life. That comes through prayer and meditation more than through reading words. A friend in seminary was asked by his professor what his sources were when he turned in a paper. When he said it was the Bible, his prof told him that he wanted to know if he was quoting from Bultman, Barth, or Brunner. In other words, it should be academically respectable. If it were spiritually sound that was not as important.
It took a miraculous experience to change Paul. Obviously we don't preach what some fundamentalists do that you are not saved without a miraculous experience. They often ask me, "When were you saved" -- in other words, when did God give you an experience that changed you? I tell them I was saved 2,000 years ago, but I only came to realize it recently. I personally received an experience with the Lord, but I believe that Jesus saved me from the moment of my baptism. As long as I didn't reject what he did for me, I was saved.
Sometimes it may take a traumatic experience to turn us around. I was a prison chaplain a while back, and I knew several inmates who were turned completely around when God revealed himself to them. How he did it was up to him. The WORDS read helped him mature in his faith, but it was an experience that turned him around.
Our authority to be a pastor or servant of God comes from HIM. Our installation or ordainment is only confirmation of what God had done to us.
I have met pastors of every denomination and the thing that impresses me most is when I feel the love of God expressed in their lives. I knew that God had come into their lives, and I could feel HIS authority. I didn't care about the documentation on their walls. I felt that even some non-Lutherans were saved!
Bob O.
Luke 7:11-17
Commenting on this story of the resurrection of the widow's son of Nain, Martin Luther praised it as a word of comfort: "This and similar works of Christ should remind us that we must be very courageous and unafraid in times of sickness, pestilence, and life-threatening danger. At moments when the world says, All is lost, the Christian responds, Not so, God still lives and Christ rules at the right hand of God" (Complete Sermons, Vol. 7, p. 25).
Also commenting on the text, John Calvin contended that this is a story to stimulate us, to get us enthusiastic about faith (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVI/1, p. 386). We need that enthusiasm, because too often the wonder of Jesus' miracles in our own lives, the courage Luther notes this story affords, gets lost. For as English author Aldous Huxley once said, "Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted." But as we hang on to the enthusiasm the miracle reported generates, become enthused by God's other miracles in our lives, by the awareness that God rules, then that enthusiasm cannot but change our lives. For it is like American businessman Charles Schwab once said: "A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm. Witnessing the miraculous love of God cannot but by the grace of God lead to excitement and success."
Mark E.
Luke 7:11-17
People sometimes worry about the end of the world, but the truth is that the world ends all the time. Whenever there is a death, the world ends. Thoughts and memories, little bits of songs from second grade, quirky personal theories all vanish. Every time someone dies, their unique view of the world goes with them. Every time someone dies, it is, at least as they see it, the end of the world. When the world ends, Jesus sees. When the world ends, Jesus has compassion. When the world ends, Jesus says "rise!"
Scott B.
Luke 7:11-17
In 1844 a group of 50,000 followers expected the immediate return of Jesus. So strongly did they hold these beliefs that many sold their possessions and others let their fields lie fallow. When Jesus did not return, the aftermath was called the Great Disappointment. Some, sadly, even committed suicide. In May of that year, the remaining followers organized themselves into a church. They called themselves Adventists, for they expected the immediate return -- advent -- of Jesus.
Application: Even though the Seventh-Day Adventists do remarkable work in the world today, many were led into a false hope by a false prophecy. The people realized that Jesus was a great prophet who rose among them. Be careful to discern the teachings of a true prophet called by God.
Ron L.
