Sermon Illustrations For Proper 6 | OT 11 | Pentecost 3 (2023)
Illustration
Genesis 18:1-15, (21:1-7)
Abram doesn’t hesitate to offer hospitality to strangers. It is the custom of the desert to do so — for friends, strangers, and even for enemies. Abram commands that loaves be made, and that milk and curds be offered. There is an important message for us in the beginning of this passage. (Surely, we know the promise of the birth of a son and the descendants which number as grains of sand is important as well). I chose this Sunday to write about hospitality. One of the underlying hopes of the United Church of Christ, within which I serve, is that we will offer radical hospitality. What would that mean to you? When I visit our siblings in the church of south India, I am overwhelmed by hospitality — floral leis or bouquets of flowers, shawls, food stuffs, songs of greeting are all offered — even in the poorest of churches. Oh, how I wish we offered comparable hospitality in the churches I visit and serve — not hospitality to me, but hospitality to the guest, the visitor, the stranger. How that might change the public view of the church.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7)
I don’t blame Sarah for laughing when she heard the prediction that she would be pregnant and give birth within a year of the visitor’s words. And like most of us who are caught laughing at inappropriate times, our first impulse is to deny it. “But you did laugh,” the visitor insists. Well, so did Abraham. Really, we also ought to laugh. Laughter is part of the way we bring perspective to painful situations. Nearly all humor, except execrable puns which are not really funny, is based on pain.
And Sarah will laugh again, after the birth of Isaac (Genesis 21:6) and will name him Laughter. That shows she was able to have some perspective after the pain of labor.
But like most of us, we don’t always appreciate the laughter of others. Sarah will not appreciate the laughing of Hagar’s son. Genesis 21:9 is translated in various ways — playing, mocking, making sport of Isaac. The picture is of an older child taking advantage of the age difference. But the root for that word is “laughter,” and for this reason the Common English Bible translates the verse “Sarah saw Hagar’s son laughing, the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham.” Robert Alter translates the verse “And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.” The laughter may be innocent, nothing worse than one child’s laughter directed at another. It could have been hurtful or harmful. But regardless, Sarah did not find the laughter funny, and this led to a series of events that did not reflect well on either Sarah or Abraham.
We don’t like it when we think we’re the butt of laughter, but we want to laugh freely without thinking how others may feel.
Frank R.
* * *
Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7)
I’ve discovered that thanks to our phones having morphed into cameras people are more likely to post greetings and photographs from the places they’re visiting instead of scribbling a quick greeting on the back of a postcard and sending it through the mail. Come to think of it, I’ve found it much more difficult recently to find postcards while traveling.
Ah, but there was a time we used to amaze our friends with postcards proclaiming, “World’s Biggest!” with the photograph of some notable landmark we’d come across in our travels.
Genesis mentions more than one postcard-worthy landmark. One of these is the Terebinth, or oak grove, of Mamre, a place that Abraham visited more than once. Ancient and venerable trees were honored in the ancient world. The Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote his books The Jewish War and The Antiquities of the Jews a generation after the earthly minister of Jesus, refers to an ancient tree northwest of Hebron that was identified as the Oak of Abraham.
The name Mamre is not thought to be semitic. The word is also used as an alternate name for Hebron (Genesis 23:19) and refers to a person known to Abraham (Genesis 14:13, 24).
I think it’s appropriate that it is at this landmark, a place steeped with mystery, tradition, history, and antiquity even in the time of Abraham, that God appeared in person to tell Abraham and Sarah that a promise that even in their lifetimes had come to seem old and antiquated and unfulfillable would be fulfilled.
Frank R.
* * *
Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7)
God has a way of doing apparently impossible things. Ask members with parents who grew up in different locales and met by chance to consider how unlikely their lives are. Consider how mega-church pastor Rick Warren’s ministry to thousands of worshippers every Sunday began with a Bible study of seven people. Think how the Pentecostal movement, an international phenomenon, began from small prayer meetings in a small Black church in Los Angeles. From
a rational standpoint these events seem impossible, as laughable as believing an older couple with a wife past menopause could conceive.
Regarding Sarah’s laughter about the possibility of her getting pregnant again at her age (v.12), John Calvin offers an analysis of sin which typifies many of us as we consider God and his dealings with us:
Thus, as often as we measure the promises and works of God, by our own reason, and by the laws of nature, we act reproachfully towards him, though we may intend nothing of the sort. For we do not pay him his due honour, except we regard every obstacle which presents itself in heaven and on earth, as placed under subjection to his word. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.I/1, p.474)
This sort of waywardness has other unhappy consequences for everyday life. About them, Calvin writes:
It is not surprising, that in arduous affairs we fail, or that we succumb to difficulties: but God’s way is far otherwise, for he looks down with contempt, from above, upon things which alarm us by their lofty elevation. (Ibid., p.475)
As a result, Christians see both in life and in this text that “the majesty of God, when it is seriously felt by us, shakes us out of our insensibility.” (Ibid., p.477)
Mark E.
* * *
Romans 5:1-8
One of the most moving monuments in Washington D.C. is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It is the most-visited memorial on the National Mall and attracts five million people each year. The memorial includes the Three Servicemen statue and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, but most prominent is the section known as “The Wall.” It is on the wall that the names of more than 58,000 servicemen and women who gave their lives in that conflict.
I spent some time watching videos of those who visited “The Wall.” It is a moving experience. People come to the wall to find the name of their loved one. When they find it, it is a time of often quiet, thoughtful meditation. The men and women listed on “The Wall” died for their country.
I thought of that when I read this passage. We honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, those who have given their lives for others. Can there be any better or more powerful example of that than Jesus? Dying for a cause, a nation, or loved ones is an incredible sacrifice. Dying for sinners? That is beyond understanding. That is, though, what Jesus did. May we remember, honor and boast in the name of the one who gave his life for us.
Bill T.
* * *
Romans 5:1-8
Some people have access to the important people. Some have access codes so they can get online for tickets, hotel reservations, and even basic commodities before others can. Some people know people, important people, who can smooth away difficulties in life with a phone call or a text. It’s not fair, but it’s how the world works.
In the Hebrew scriptures, which Paul was familiar with, it helped if you had a goel, sometimes translated ‘redeemer,” but which could also be translated in my opinion as “a go-to guy.” If there was a problem with authorities, if someone needed access to an important official, if someone was in trouble and couldn’t get anyone to listen, you could turn to the goel in the family and the problems when away. Naomi tells Ruth, when they’re at their wits end, that her cousin Boaz just might be the goel, or redeemer they need.
In this passage Paul talks about achieving “peace with God,” something that in the Roman world would require the offering of a sacrifice. And that’s only talking about access to a god. Good luck appealing to the emperor, or the governor, for justice, if you don’t have the right connections. But Paul talks about how Jesus is our redeemer — yes, I know we talk about Jesus being the redeemer all the time — in the sense of being our goel. Through Jesus we obtain access to “the grace in which we stand,” something that does not require a priority access code or knowing the right people — since Jesus is the right person and we can all have equal access to God through Christ.
Frank R.
* * *
Matthew 9:35--10:8 (9-23)
Work when you can and where you can. This piece of sage advice can apply to anyone in any situation, and it definitely applies to a man named William Sydney Porter. You may not have heard of William Sydney Porter, but I am guessing if you know literature, you’ve read his works. His pen name is O. Henry. Stories like The Gift of the Magi, The Ransom of Red Chief, and The Duplicity of Hargraves are well known as are many others. What is not as well known about O. Henry is that he spent time in prison. His literary career took off from prison. Porter had been convicted of embezzlement from the bank where he had worked in Texas (although there is some evidence that it was not theft but carelessness that led to the loss of funds) and was sentenced to five years in prison. While there, he wrote and published some of his best-known stories, establishing himself as a premiere author.
Porter was willing to work where he was and when he could. The result was a great literary legacy. Work when you can and where you can. I think it also applies to followers of Jesus. As Jesus travels through the cities teaching and healing, he comes across crowds of people. They are lost, hurting, and broken. His comment then resounds still today. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
There is work that needs to be done for the kingdom. If not now, when? If not us, then who?
Bill T.
* * *
Matthew 9:35--10:8 (9-23)
Relevant magazine reported last year what many of us already know, that there is a pending clergy shortage in most American denominations. In part, this is a function of baby boomers retiring, of resignations during the pandemic, but also because seminaries are shrinking and less and less white youth are considering the ministry as a vocation. Add to this the decline in overall church membership. This text on Jesus’ call to the disciples is certainly timely.
No less than Jesus in his prophecy about the fate of the disciples, Martin Luther made clear that being a follower of Jesus is no easy matter, that we should expect a rough time. He once put it this way:
All the world is an enemy of him who wants to cling to Christ; he is nothing but an owl among birds. (What Luther Says, p.42)
A call to leadership in the church is truly miraculous, Luther says, when you consider the kind of people God has to work with. Of course, the original twelve were not much better than we are. Thus, the first reformer noted once over a dinner table:
Our Lord God fills his high office in an odd manner. He entrusts it to preachers, poor sinners, who tell and teach the message and yet live according to it only in weakness. Thus, God’s power always goes forward amid extreme weakness. (What Luther Says, p.950)
Mark E.
* * *
Matthew 9:35--10:8 (9-23)
These stories of Jesus healing people, sometime unexpected people in unexpected ways, always speak to me of grace and love. Jesus heals, often without question, and even sometimes without his knowledge. Jesus heals. The acts of healing are so necessary in our world. I am not a healer. I cannot touch someone and heal their physical, emotional or spiritual illness. Yet, I can sit with people and speak of the healing Jesus offers, even when we are uncertain that we deserve to be healed. We are called, each and all of us, to heal those among us, to welcome the least likely to be welcomed individual, to offer love and grace. I wonder how the world would change if every Christian, every follower of Jesus, took a moment to offer welcome, grace and love. It’s a goal to move towards — a direction to step forward into as we follow Jesus.
Bonnie B.
Abram doesn’t hesitate to offer hospitality to strangers. It is the custom of the desert to do so — for friends, strangers, and even for enemies. Abram commands that loaves be made, and that milk and curds be offered. There is an important message for us in the beginning of this passage. (Surely, we know the promise of the birth of a son and the descendants which number as grains of sand is important as well). I chose this Sunday to write about hospitality. One of the underlying hopes of the United Church of Christ, within which I serve, is that we will offer radical hospitality. What would that mean to you? When I visit our siblings in the church of south India, I am overwhelmed by hospitality — floral leis or bouquets of flowers, shawls, food stuffs, songs of greeting are all offered — even in the poorest of churches. Oh, how I wish we offered comparable hospitality in the churches I visit and serve — not hospitality to me, but hospitality to the guest, the visitor, the stranger. How that might change the public view of the church.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7)
I don’t blame Sarah for laughing when she heard the prediction that she would be pregnant and give birth within a year of the visitor’s words. And like most of us who are caught laughing at inappropriate times, our first impulse is to deny it. “But you did laugh,” the visitor insists. Well, so did Abraham. Really, we also ought to laugh. Laughter is part of the way we bring perspective to painful situations. Nearly all humor, except execrable puns which are not really funny, is based on pain.
And Sarah will laugh again, after the birth of Isaac (Genesis 21:6) and will name him Laughter. That shows she was able to have some perspective after the pain of labor.
But like most of us, we don’t always appreciate the laughter of others. Sarah will not appreciate the laughing of Hagar’s son. Genesis 21:9 is translated in various ways — playing, mocking, making sport of Isaac. The picture is of an older child taking advantage of the age difference. But the root for that word is “laughter,” and for this reason the Common English Bible translates the verse “Sarah saw Hagar’s son laughing, the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham.” Robert Alter translates the verse “And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing.” The laughter may be innocent, nothing worse than one child’s laughter directed at another. It could have been hurtful or harmful. But regardless, Sarah did not find the laughter funny, and this led to a series of events that did not reflect well on either Sarah or Abraham.
We don’t like it when we think we’re the butt of laughter, but we want to laugh freely without thinking how others may feel.
Frank R.
* * *
Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7)
I’ve discovered that thanks to our phones having morphed into cameras people are more likely to post greetings and photographs from the places they’re visiting instead of scribbling a quick greeting on the back of a postcard and sending it through the mail. Come to think of it, I’ve found it much more difficult recently to find postcards while traveling.
Ah, but there was a time we used to amaze our friends with postcards proclaiming, “World’s Biggest!” with the photograph of some notable landmark we’d come across in our travels.
Genesis mentions more than one postcard-worthy landmark. One of these is the Terebinth, or oak grove, of Mamre, a place that Abraham visited more than once. Ancient and venerable trees were honored in the ancient world. The Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote his books The Jewish War and The Antiquities of the Jews a generation after the earthly minister of Jesus, refers to an ancient tree northwest of Hebron that was identified as the Oak of Abraham.
The name Mamre is not thought to be semitic. The word is also used as an alternate name for Hebron (Genesis 23:19) and refers to a person known to Abraham (Genesis 14:13, 24).
I think it’s appropriate that it is at this landmark, a place steeped with mystery, tradition, history, and antiquity even in the time of Abraham, that God appeared in person to tell Abraham and Sarah that a promise that even in their lifetimes had come to seem old and antiquated and unfulfillable would be fulfilled.
Frank R.
* * *
Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7)
God has a way of doing apparently impossible things. Ask members with parents who grew up in different locales and met by chance to consider how unlikely their lives are. Consider how mega-church pastor Rick Warren’s ministry to thousands of worshippers every Sunday began with a Bible study of seven people. Think how the Pentecostal movement, an international phenomenon, began from small prayer meetings in a small Black church in Los Angeles. From
a rational standpoint these events seem impossible, as laughable as believing an older couple with a wife past menopause could conceive.
Regarding Sarah’s laughter about the possibility of her getting pregnant again at her age (v.12), John Calvin offers an analysis of sin which typifies many of us as we consider God and his dealings with us:
Thus, as often as we measure the promises and works of God, by our own reason, and by the laws of nature, we act reproachfully towards him, though we may intend nothing of the sort. For we do not pay him his due honour, except we regard every obstacle which presents itself in heaven and on earth, as placed under subjection to his word. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.I/1, p.474)
This sort of waywardness has other unhappy consequences for everyday life. About them, Calvin writes:
It is not surprising, that in arduous affairs we fail, or that we succumb to difficulties: but God’s way is far otherwise, for he looks down with contempt, from above, upon things which alarm us by their lofty elevation. (Ibid., p.475)
As a result, Christians see both in life and in this text that “the majesty of God, when it is seriously felt by us, shakes us out of our insensibility.” (Ibid., p.477)
Mark E.
* * *
Romans 5:1-8
One of the most moving monuments in Washington D.C. is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It is the most-visited memorial on the National Mall and attracts five million people each year. The memorial includes the Three Servicemen statue and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, but most prominent is the section known as “The Wall.” It is on the wall that the names of more than 58,000 servicemen and women who gave their lives in that conflict.
I spent some time watching videos of those who visited “The Wall.” It is a moving experience. People come to the wall to find the name of their loved one. When they find it, it is a time of often quiet, thoughtful meditation. The men and women listed on “The Wall” died for their country.
I thought of that when I read this passage. We honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, those who have given their lives for others. Can there be any better or more powerful example of that than Jesus? Dying for a cause, a nation, or loved ones is an incredible sacrifice. Dying for sinners? That is beyond understanding. That is, though, what Jesus did. May we remember, honor and boast in the name of the one who gave his life for us.
Bill T.
* * *
Romans 5:1-8
Some people have access to the important people. Some have access codes so they can get online for tickets, hotel reservations, and even basic commodities before others can. Some people know people, important people, who can smooth away difficulties in life with a phone call or a text. It’s not fair, but it’s how the world works.
In the Hebrew scriptures, which Paul was familiar with, it helped if you had a goel, sometimes translated ‘redeemer,” but which could also be translated in my opinion as “a go-to guy.” If there was a problem with authorities, if someone needed access to an important official, if someone was in trouble and couldn’t get anyone to listen, you could turn to the goel in the family and the problems when away. Naomi tells Ruth, when they’re at their wits end, that her cousin Boaz just might be the goel, or redeemer they need.
In this passage Paul talks about achieving “peace with God,” something that in the Roman world would require the offering of a sacrifice. And that’s only talking about access to a god. Good luck appealing to the emperor, or the governor, for justice, if you don’t have the right connections. But Paul talks about how Jesus is our redeemer — yes, I know we talk about Jesus being the redeemer all the time — in the sense of being our goel. Through Jesus we obtain access to “the grace in which we stand,” something that does not require a priority access code or knowing the right people — since Jesus is the right person and we can all have equal access to God through Christ.
Frank R.
* * *
Matthew 9:35--10:8 (9-23)
Work when you can and where you can. This piece of sage advice can apply to anyone in any situation, and it definitely applies to a man named William Sydney Porter. You may not have heard of William Sydney Porter, but I am guessing if you know literature, you’ve read his works. His pen name is O. Henry. Stories like The Gift of the Magi, The Ransom of Red Chief, and The Duplicity of Hargraves are well known as are many others. What is not as well known about O. Henry is that he spent time in prison. His literary career took off from prison. Porter had been convicted of embezzlement from the bank where he had worked in Texas (although there is some evidence that it was not theft but carelessness that led to the loss of funds) and was sentenced to five years in prison. While there, he wrote and published some of his best-known stories, establishing himself as a premiere author.
Porter was willing to work where he was and when he could. The result was a great literary legacy. Work when you can and where you can. I think it also applies to followers of Jesus. As Jesus travels through the cities teaching and healing, he comes across crowds of people. They are lost, hurting, and broken. His comment then resounds still today. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
There is work that needs to be done for the kingdom. If not now, when? If not us, then who?
Bill T.
* * *
Matthew 9:35--10:8 (9-23)
Relevant magazine reported last year what many of us already know, that there is a pending clergy shortage in most American denominations. In part, this is a function of baby boomers retiring, of resignations during the pandemic, but also because seminaries are shrinking and less and less white youth are considering the ministry as a vocation. Add to this the decline in overall church membership. This text on Jesus’ call to the disciples is certainly timely.
No less than Jesus in his prophecy about the fate of the disciples, Martin Luther made clear that being a follower of Jesus is no easy matter, that we should expect a rough time. He once put it this way:
All the world is an enemy of him who wants to cling to Christ; he is nothing but an owl among birds. (What Luther Says, p.42)
A call to leadership in the church is truly miraculous, Luther says, when you consider the kind of people God has to work with. Of course, the original twelve were not much better than we are. Thus, the first reformer noted once over a dinner table:
Our Lord God fills his high office in an odd manner. He entrusts it to preachers, poor sinners, who tell and teach the message and yet live according to it only in weakness. Thus, God’s power always goes forward amid extreme weakness. (What Luther Says, p.950)
Mark E.
* * *
Matthew 9:35--10:8 (9-23)
These stories of Jesus healing people, sometime unexpected people in unexpected ways, always speak to me of grace and love. Jesus heals, often without question, and even sometimes without his knowledge. Jesus heals. The acts of healing are so necessary in our world. I am not a healer. I cannot touch someone and heal their physical, emotional or spiritual illness. Yet, I can sit with people and speak of the healing Jesus offers, even when we are uncertain that we deserve to be healed. We are called, each and all of us, to heal those among us, to welcome the least likely to be welcomed individual, to offer love and grace. I wonder how the world would change if every Christian, every follower of Jesus, took a moment to offer welcome, grace and love. It’s a goal to move towards — a direction to step forward into as we follow Jesus.
Bonnie B.
