Sermon Illustrations for Proper 8 | OT 13 (2015)
Illustration
Object:
2 Samuel 1:1, 16-27
David lamented over Saul and his son Jonathan. He praises them, implying that he and Israel would not be who they were without them. David’s testimony is a witness to what 19th-century American Congregationalist Henry Ward Beecher once wrote: “Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” Gratitude is good for you. Studies by psychologist Robert Emmons (Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make Your Happier) have indicated that adults keeping gratitude journals poll happier and healthier than the general public.
That a life of giving thanks leads to happiness is not a new insight. English author G. K. Chesterton taught us that nearly 100 years ago, as he wrote: “I maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” When we are grateful we experience wonder, the sense that life is more than our explanations of it. And so gratitude opens us up to hear God. That is what the famed medieval Christian mystic Meister Eckhart meant when he wrote: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
Gratitude makes life even better, because it makes living more than everyday routine.
Mark E.
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
This looks like a stewardship text! You should put your money where your mouth is. If you say you are faithful and loving, then prove it by your giving! Our sincerity is also being tested every Sunday and with every paycheck. So think of the other fellow’s needs. His needs should come first, this text seems to say.
There are starving children all over the world. Just because some may not be Christian, does that mean we don’t care? Every denominational newsletter shows Christians who are desperately in need.
As Paul collects for the needs he knows about, so your church points up specific needs in this country and in the world. Tornadoes and hurricanes have wiped out many brothers and sisters in Christ right here.
As a retired missionary, I get e-mails from my people in Nepal pointing up their desperate needs. Because I know Nepalis personally, that hits me hardest and leads me to give to their needs first. Even Warren Buffett could not give enough to take care of all the world’s needs. God will put it in your heart where he wants your contributions to go.
Paul closes with words that are dangerous in Congress: equality. There is always the hint that those who have more deserve what they make, and we hate to ask them to give more. God forbid that our government should work for equality!
One excuse I always hear is that so many of those poor who have little are lazy and don’t deserve handouts. The main equality we hear about is an equality of effort on everyone’s part. If you are poor, it “probably” means to some that you are not trying hard enough.
Paul does not talk about all these speculations. He just says that our obligation is to distribute the wealth equally. When a time comes when you may be out of a job and broke even though you are trying, then those who are blessed are obligated to help you.
This doesn’t mean that we have to wait until a law is passed to distribute our tax money so that no one suffers. Paul is indicating that it should be a voluntary thing done out of love, not law. Is your next-door neighbor hungry? Feed him. We don’t have to look far to see needs.
Our family has decided that instead of spending our Christmas gift money on fancy gifts for each other plus postage to get them there, we are all giving to a food pantry in our area instead. We may still give some toys to the children, but we need to teach them about others’ needs and maybe have them give some of their old toys to the Salvation Army.
Why not gather at your next Bible study and discuss the implications of this passage? Talk about it with your family also.
Bob O.
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Life in Corinth was distinctly cosmopolitan, and contrasts with the traditional Greek way of life were obvious. Many of its citizens were wealthy. In fact, wealth and its ostentatious display became the hallmark of Corinth. While Achaia (Greece) as a whole suffered poverty and neglect, Corinth enjoyed prosperity; while Achaia led a quiet life remote from the noise and the press of the city and its politics, Corinth teemed with commerce and intrigue. While the Greeks tried as best they could to preserve their traditional culture, the Corinthians indulged new attitudes and ways of life fueled by the new wealth and unbridled by ancestral tradition. Thus, the province and its capital were in many respects worlds apart. Their feelings about each other were, at best, ambiguous. What may have been the prevailing sentiment with regard to the Corinthians was expressed succinctly by a Delphic oracle which Strabo read at the temple of Apollo at Tenea. Strabo reported that an Asian had asked the oracle whether he should carry out his plan to move to Corinth or remain at home. The oracle’s answer was as follows: “Happy is Corinth, but I would rather be a Teneate.”
(Hans Dieter Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of Paul,p. 53)
Frank R.
Mark 5:21-43
Death is something we don’t like confronting. Eminent 18th-century French intellectual Blaise Pascal powerfully described these dynamics: “When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after... I take fright” (Pensees, p. 48).
Thoughts of death can paralyze us. We dodge considering it. Again Pascal tells the truth with a most uncomfortable insight: “If our condition were truly happy, we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it” (Ibid.).
We engage in all sorts of frivolous activities (games, shopping, tinkering, gossiping), anything to avoid reminders of our waning life and that in another four to five decades we probably will not be around. This fear can keep some of us from living boldly, from taking responsible risks, from playing. And so the warning of the Roman emperor and great philosopher Marcus Aurelius remains relevant today: “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
Jesus’ raising of Jairus’ daughter clearly speaks to these dynamics and fears and to other anxieties that come our way. Martin Luther made that point powerfully, claiming that our text teaches us that Christ is a helper and rescuer from death (Complete Sermons, Vol. 7, p. 177): “So from today’s Gospel let us learn that all adversity, no matter how great it appears in your eyes, is in the eyes of our God less than nothing. For if death has no part of a Christian, then even less so blindness, deafness, leprosy, and pestilence; they are of no significance” (Ibid., p. 190).
An utterance whose source is unknown is clearly in line with Luther’s thinking: “Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death.”
Mark E.
David lamented over Saul and his son Jonathan. He praises them, implying that he and Israel would not be who they were without them. David’s testimony is a witness to what 19th-century American Congregationalist Henry Ward Beecher once wrote: “Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” Gratitude is good for you. Studies by psychologist Robert Emmons (Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make Your Happier) have indicated that adults keeping gratitude journals poll happier and healthier than the general public.
That a life of giving thanks leads to happiness is not a new insight. English author G. K. Chesterton taught us that nearly 100 years ago, as he wrote: “I maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” When we are grateful we experience wonder, the sense that life is more than our explanations of it. And so gratitude opens us up to hear God. That is what the famed medieval Christian mystic Meister Eckhart meant when he wrote: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
Gratitude makes life even better, because it makes living more than everyday routine.
Mark E.
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
This looks like a stewardship text! You should put your money where your mouth is. If you say you are faithful and loving, then prove it by your giving! Our sincerity is also being tested every Sunday and with every paycheck. So think of the other fellow’s needs. His needs should come first, this text seems to say.
There are starving children all over the world. Just because some may not be Christian, does that mean we don’t care? Every denominational newsletter shows Christians who are desperately in need.
As Paul collects for the needs he knows about, so your church points up specific needs in this country and in the world. Tornadoes and hurricanes have wiped out many brothers and sisters in Christ right here.
As a retired missionary, I get e-mails from my people in Nepal pointing up their desperate needs. Because I know Nepalis personally, that hits me hardest and leads me to give to their needs first. Even Warren Buffett could not give enough to take care of all the world’s needs. God will put it in your heart where he wants your contributions to go.
Paul closes with words that are dangerous in Congress: equality. There is always the hint that those who have more deserve what they make, and we hate to ask them to give more. God forbid that our government should work for equality!
One excuse I always hear is that so many of those poor who have little are lazy and don’t deserve handouts. The main equality we hear about is an equality of effort on everyone’s part. If you are poor, it “probably” means to some that you are not trying hard enough.
Paul does not talk about all these speculations. He just says that our obligation is to distribute the wealth equally. When a time comes when you may be out of a job and broke even though you are trying, then those who are blessed are obligated to help you.
This doesn’t mean that we have to wait until a law is passed to distribute our tax money so that no one suffers. Paul is indicating that it should be a voluntary thing done out of love, not law. Is your next-door neighbor hungry? Feed him. We don’t have to look far to see needs.
Our family has decided that instead of spending our Christmas gift money on fancy gifts for each other plus postage to get them there, we are all giving to a food pantry in our area instead. We may still give some toys to the children, but we need to teach them about others’ needs and maybe have them give some of their old toys to the Salvation Army.
Why not gather at your next Bible study and discuss the implications of this passage? Talk about it with your family also.
Bob O.
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Life in Corinth was distinctly cosmopolitan, and contrasts with the traditional Greek way of life were obvious. Many of its citizens were wealthy. In fact, wealth and its ostentatious display became the hallmark of Corinth. While Achaia (Greece) as a whole suffered poverty and neglect, Corinth enjoyed prosperity; while Achaia led a quiet life remote from the noise and the press of the city and its politics, Corinth teemed with commerce and intrigue. While the Greeks tried as best they could to preserve their traditional culture, the Corinthians indulged new attitudes and ways of life fueled by the new wealth and unbridled by ancestral tradition. Thus, the province and its capital were in many respects worlds apart. Their feelings about each other were, at best, ambiguous. What may have been the prevailing sentiment with regard to the Corinthians was expressed succinctly by a Delphic oracle which Strabo read at the temple of Apollo at Tenea. Strabo reported that an Asian had asked the oracle whether he should carry out his plan to move to Corinth or remain at home. The oracle’s answer was as follows: “Happy is Corinth, but I would rather be a Teneate.”
(Hans Dieter Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of Paul,p. 53)
Frank R.
Mark 5:21-43
Death is something we don’t like confronting. Eminent 18th-century French intellectual Blaise Pascal powerfully described these dynamics: “When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into the eternity which comes before and after... I take fright” (Pensees, p. 48).
Thoughts of death can paralyze us. We dodge considering it. Again Pascal tells the truth with a most uncomfortable insight: “If our condition were truly happy, we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it” (Ibid.).
We engage in all sorts of frivolous activities (games, shopping, tinkering, gossiping), anything to avoid reminders of our waning life and that in another four to five decades we probably will not be around. This fear can keep some of us from living boldly, from taking responsible risks, from playing. And so the warning of the Roman emperor and great philosopher Marcus Aurelius remains relevant today: “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
Jesus’ raising of Jairus’ daughter clearly speaks to these dynamics and fears and to other anxieties that come our way. Martin Luther made that point powerfully, claiming that our text teaches us that Christ is a helper and rescuer from death (Complete Sermons, Vol. 7, p. 177): “So from today’s Gospel let us learn that all adversity, no matter how great it appears in your eyes, is in the eyes of our God less than nothing. For if death has no part of a Christian, then even less so blindness, deafness, leprosy, and pestilence; they are of no significance” (Ibid., p. 190).
An utterance whose source is unknown is clearly in line with Luther’s thinking: “Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death.”
Mark E.
