Sermon Illustrations for Proper 7 | OT 12 (2022)
Illustration
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a, Psalms 42 and 43
I came across a story from the United Christian Broadcasters “Word for Today” from November 15, 2008.
Imagine a beautiful china teacup saying, ‘I wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I was just a cold, hard lump of clay. One day the potter picked me up and said, “I could do something with this.” Then he started to put pressure on me and change my shape. I said, “What are you doing? That hurts. Stop!” But he said, “Not yet.” Then he put me on a wheel and began to spin me around and around until I shouted, “Let me off.” He replied, “Not yet.” Then he shaped me into a cup and put me in a hot oven. I cried, “Let me out of here, I’m suffocating.” But he looked at me and said, “Not yet,” When he took me out, I thought his work on me was over, but then he started to paint me. I couldn’t believe what he did next. He put me back into the oven, and I said, “I can’t stand this, please let me out!” But he said, “Not yet.” Finally, he took me out of the oven, and he put me on a shelf where I thought he had forgotten me… Then one day he took me off the shelf and held me up before a mirror. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had become a beautiful teacup that everyone wants to buy and drink from.
Are there things going on in your life right now that you don’t understand? Certainly, that was the case for Elijah. In those moments, trusting God and being willing to obey is critical. It was true for Elijah and for us. Remember, C.S. Lewis once wrote, “God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way.”
Bill T.
* * *
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a, Psalm 42 and 43
1 Kings 19:12 “A still, small voice.” According to Robert Alter, the King James translators got this right. The KJV teams used the groundbreaking work of William Tyndale, a man who was executed and strangled at the stake before his body was burned because he strove to translate scripture into English so that the believer in the pew could hear these words of life and determine their meaning for themselves. In this instance, however, Tyndale chose to translate the Hebrew phrase as “a small, still voice.” By tweaking the order of the words ever so slightly, the KJV translators created an unforgettable image. Alter, in his beautiful translation of the Hebrew scriptures, found many striking ways to express the original language in English that are faithfully accurate, but this phrase, he asserts, he had to leave alone. It’s simply too perfect.
Frank R.
* * *
Galatians 3:23-29
Martin Luther helps us understand further why we need the law of God, even if it does not save us. He wrote:
Therefore the grumbling, “If the law does not justify, it is nothing,” is a fallacious conclusion. For just as the conclusion is not valid if one says: “Money does not justify; therefore it is nothing. The eyes do not justify; therefore I shall pluck them out...” To each thing one must attribute its proper function and use. When we deny that the law justifies, we are not destroying or condemning it. (Luther’s Works, Vol. 26, p. 306)
The tutor’s release of the pupil does not mean the death or departure of the tutor, but spiritually, that the child has been changed and can do what the father wished the tutor to teach him. Likewise, the law releases us, not by its passing, not by being abrogated, but spiritually; and because a change has been effected in us, we have the experience God designed us to have through the law. (Complete Sermons, Vol. 3/2, p. 282)
Christians free from the law are not free from works taught by the law. Such Christians just know through the Spirit what the law teaches and now want to do what the law teaches us to do.
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 8:26-39
There are lots of different kinds of fear with which people wrestle. Some of the more unusual ones include mysophobia, which is the fear of dirt and germs. Hydrophobia is fear of water. Nyctophobia is the fear of darkness. Acrophobia is fear of high places. Amaxophobia is being afraid of riding in a car. Bibliophobia is fear of books. Claustrophobia is fear of confined places, and triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number thirteen. That’s a lot of fear!
There’s a different kind of fear seen in Luke’s eighth chapter. It’s a fear that seems to reject something as if it is too good to be true. It’s a fear that someone is acting outside of expected parameters. I don’t know that this fear has a name, but it is every bit as tragic and maybe more so than the ones listed above. In what must be one of the saddest sentences in the gospels, we read, “Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear” (vs. 37). May we never know that fear.
Bill T.
* * *
Luke 8:26-39
The response of the demon when Jesus asked his name, “Legion,” is one of the most chilling responses in scripture. But one of the most telling things about this exchange between our Savior and the demon is that Jesus asked for his name. We live in a culture that worries less about demons and more about demonizing our fellow humans, taking away our names and stuffing us into categories that dehumanize human beings made in the image of God. There’s no denying people hold radically different views on many different things, but to Jesus the Gerasene demoniac was a person who had a name, who was more than the inner demons tearing him apart. People are not the condition they struggle with. We are all made in God’s image and are made whole when we are treated as human beings.
Frank R.
I came across a story from the United Christian Broadcasters “Word for Today” from November 15, 2008.
Imagine a beautiful china teacup saying, ‘I wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I was just a cold, hard lump of clay. One day the potter picked me up and said, “I could do something with this.” Then he started to put pressure on me and change my shape. I said, “What are you doing? That hurts. Stop!” But he said, “Not yet.” Then he put me on a wheel and began to spin me around and around until I shouted, “Let me off.” He replied, “Not yet.” Then he shaped me into a cup and put me in a hot oven. I cried, “Let me out of here, I’m suffocating.” But he looked at me and said, “Not yet,” When he took me out, I thought his work on me was over, but then he started to paint me. I couldn’t believe what he did next. He put me back into the oven, and I said, “I can’t stand this, please let me out!” But he said, “Not yet.” Finally, he took me out of the oven, and he put me on a shelf where I thought he had forgotten me… Then one day he took me off the shelf and held me up before a mirror. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had become a beautiful teacup that everyone wants to buy and drink from.
Are there things going on in your life right now that you don’t understand? Certainly, that was the case for Elijah. In those moments, trusting God and being willing to obey is critical. It was true for Elijah and for us. Remember, C.S. Lewis once wrote, “God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way.”
Bill T.
* * *
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a, Psalm 42 and 43
1 Kings 19:12 “A still, small voice.” According to Robert Alter, the King James translators got this right. The KJV teams used the groundbreaking work of William Tyndale, a man who was executed and strangled at the stake before his body was burned because he strove to translate scripture into English so that the believer in the pew could hear these words of life and determine their meaning for themselves. In this instance, however, Tyndale chose to translate the Hebrew phrase as “a small, still voice.” By tweaking the order of the words ever so slightly, the KJV translators created an unforgettable image. Alter, in his beautiful translation of the Hebrew scriptures, found many striking ways to express the original language in English that are faithfully accurate, but this phrase, he asserts, he had to leave alone. It’s simply too perfect.
Frank R.
* * *
Galatians 3:23-29
Martin Luther helps us understand further why we need the law of God, even if it does not save us. He wrote:
Therefore the grumbling, “If the law does not justify, it is nothing,” is a fallacious conclusion. For just as the conclusion is not valid if one says: “Money does not justify; therefore it is nothing. The eyes do not justify; therefore I shall pluck them out...” To each thing one must attribute its proper function and use. When we deny that the law justifies, we are not destroying or condemning it. (Luther’s Works, Vol. 26, p. 306)
The tutor’s release of the pupil does not mean the death or departure of the tutor, but spiritually, that the child has been changed and can do what the father wished the tutor to teach him. Likewise, the law releases us, not by its passing, not by being abrogated, but spiritually; and because a change has been effected in us, we have the experience God designed us to have through the law. (Complete Sermons, Vol. 3/2, p. 282)
Christians free from the law are not free from works taught by the law. Such Christians just know through the Spirit what the law teaches and now want to do what the law teaches us to do.
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 8:26-39
There are lots of different kinds of fear with which people wrestle. Some of the more unusual ones include mysophobia, which is the fear of dirt and germs. Hydrophobia is fear of water. Nyctophobia is the fear of darkness. Acrophobia is fear of high places. Amaxophobia is being afraid of riding in a car. Bibliophobia is fear of books. Claustrophobia is fear of confined places, and triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number thirteen. That’s a lot of fear!
There’s a different kind of fear seen in Luke’s eighth chapter. It’s a fear that seems to reject something as if it is too good to be true. It’s a fear that someone is acting outside of expected parameters. I don’t know that this fear has a name, but it is every bit as tragic and maybe more so than the ones listed above. In what must be one of the saddest sentences in the gospels, we read, “Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear” (vs. 37). May we never know that fear.
Bill T.
* * *
Luke 8:26-39
The response of the demon when Jesus asked his name, “Legion,” is one of the most chilling responses in scripture. But one of the most telling things about this exchange between our Savior and the demon is that Jesus asked for his name. We live in a culture that worries less about demons and more about demonizing our fellow humans, taking away our names and stuffing us into categories that dehumanize human beings made in the image of God. There’s no denying people hold radically different views on many different things, but to Jesus the Gerasene demoniac was a person who had a name, who was more than the inner demons tearing him apart. People are not the condition they struggle with. We are all made in God’s image and are made whole when we are treated as human beings.
Frank R.
