Sermon Illustrations for Proper 8 | OT 13 (2024)
Illustration
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan in this lesson is both an expression of his grief, but also insofar as he was grieving over them he was looking back in gratitude for their lives. That is an important reminder for Christians, according to the 16th century confessional document, The Heidelberg Catechism. The document asserts that we are given the Holy Spirit “so that with our whole life we may show ourselves grateful to God for his goodness...” (The Book of Confessions, 4.086) In the same spirit, 19th-century American Congregationalist clergyman and social reformer Henry Ward Beecher once noted that “Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” Psychologist Robert Emmons has shown that gratitude leads to happiness (Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Cam Make You Happier). Medieval Mystic Meister Eckhart offers some good advice on how easy it is to be grateful. As he once put: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
Mark E.
* * *
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-12
David intones the pain he feels in the loss of Saul and Jonathan. He is grieved and weary, and perhaps even angry at their loss in battle. I think in these days about the loss of all the people in Israel and Gaza, in the Ukraine and Russia, in Haiti, and all the other war-torn places of our world. The lament rises and is sung by those left behind. Why oh why do we insist that the only way to peace is through war?
Sometimes war feels inevitable. Governments can’t seem to release anger at attack or even resistance without succumbing to violence as a solution. I’m not saying that attacks on innocents is ever okay. I’m not saying that anger at abuse and battle isn’t okay. I am asking the question what might we do instead? How might we come together to seek peace and reconciliation? What else is possible if we come together and work through the issues before us, the pain we have encountered, the evil that has been perpetrated and act for peace and reconciliation, rather than revenge? Ghandi is remembered as saying, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” I would rather live in a world that sees the humanness beyond the anger and revenge. Wouldn’t you?
Bonnie B.
* * *
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
This dirge, David’s famous lament over Jonathan, might be called “The Song of the Bow.” It is recorded in something called The Book of Jashar, which might be translated as the “Record of the Upright.” This seems to be an ancient collection of war songs that was once well known among the ancient Israelites, although it has since been lost.
There is another reference to it in Joshua 10:13 which refers to the famous incident in which the sun stood still at Gibeon:
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
This present passage is evidently taken from the Book of Jashar as well. “How the mighty have fallen,” David laments, speaking both of his adversary Saul, who was nevertheless the Lord’s anointed king, as well as his close personal friend Jonathan. These three tragically found themselves on opposite sides of battle, and though the result of his victory led to David’s ultimate ascension to the throne of a united kingdom of twelve tribes in the city of Jerusalem, he could nevertheless honor Saul and Jonathan as the mighty who had fallen.
There’s the old Latin proverb — De mortuis nil nisi bonum, “Speak no evil of the dead.” A more literal translation would read, “Of the dead say nothing but good,” but either way (and remembering that there are some who have died who may only be remembered with scorn) it’s good to remember we don’t have to demonize those who are on the opposite sides of the aisle.
Frank R.
* * *
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
When Paul writes: “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak,” he is referring to a controversy that was separating believers in various multi-cultural settings. Typically, all meat on the marketplace was first offered to an idol. Upon its slaughter, a small amount was burned as an offering to the local god. At the same time the priest would examine the carcass, declare the meat wholesome, and it would then be offered for sale in the marketplace. In some cities in the Roman Empire this was the only meat available for sale to city folks (and Christians in the first century lived mostly in urban settings). Though technically offered to a pagan god, this was really just a certificate of health.
So what were first-century Christians to do? Some believed that anything offered to an idol was anathema, a nauseating abomination. Others believed there were no such thing as these gods and as far as they were concerned that meat was dinner. Paul agreed with the latter position, but he was encouraging Christians in Corinth, Rome, and other cities to take the feelings of other believers into account, and to eat no such meat if it really bothered their fellow believers.
This is an important admonition, not only when it comes to setting a table for guests, but in other things as well — and yet — there are times when one has to draw a line and say there aren’t two sides to every issue.
When? I suspect at the very least when it involves the wellbeing of fellow human beings. During the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King was jailed in Birmingham for technically breaking the law — but it was an unjust Jim Crow law. He expected opposition from racists — but many white pastors of mainline Christian churches were encouraging him to back off from challenging the powers of institutional racism, asking him to be patient, because they did not want to offend the authorities, to go slow because people had not had time to change their attitudes. In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, King took those pastors to task. After all, human beings were suffering under those laws, and even being killed for standing up for simple human rights.
Frank R.
* * *
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
In 1995, people were stunned when the story hit the news that an elderly woman named Oseola McCarty had donated $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi for their scholarship fund. McCarty was an 87-year-old woman who had been forced to drop out of school in the sixth grade to care for her family. For more than sixty years, she made a living washing clothes for hire in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, saving as much as she could from her pay. She had hoped to be a nurse but never got the chance. She wanted others to have the opportunity for the education she never received, so she gave away the money she had saved for so many years. It is a scholarship that exists today at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Ms. McCarty exemplifies the kind of giver that Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians. Paul wants them to finish the work that they started with respect to giving. He calls it a “generous undertaking.” He adds, “if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable.” May we have a heart to give and benefit others. A.W. Tozer wrote, “Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth. Whatever is given to Christ is immediately touched with immortality.”
Bill T.
* * *
Mark 5:21-43
A 2019 University of Israel study indicated that the human brain tries its best to keep us from dwelling on our inevitable demise, to get us to think of it as an unfortunate event which happens to other people. Our brains shield us from its inevitability. French scholar Blaise Pascal pointed out how often these dynamics do not work, even as we try to dodge the reality of death by filling our lives with frivolous things. On this matter he wrote:
When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into eternity which comes before and after... I take fright... If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it. (Pensées, p.48)
Martin Luther offers in a sermon on this text, a most comforting insight. He proclaimed to his flock (and us):
So from today’s gospel let us learn that all adversity, no matter how great it appears in your eyes it is in the eyes of God nothing. For if death has no part of a Christian, then even less so blindness, deadness, leprosy, and pestilence; they are of no significance. (Complete Sermons, Vol.7, p.190)
Mark E.
* * *
Mark 5:21-33
Courage in the face of pain and anguish. That’s what I see in the woman with the history of hemorrhage and bleeding. She has faith that Jesus can heal her, and she has the courage to reach out to be healed. Her faith heals her, according to the words of Jesus. How many times in our own lives have we been afraid to reach out to Jesus for healing and wholeness? I tell the story often of the still-born deaths of my twin sons. My husband and I were not supposed to be able to have more children and yet, miracle of miracles, I became pregnant, not with one child but with two.
When they died at 35 weeks, I was broken, devastated, angry, and in anguish. I couldn’t figure out why a miracle had been offered and then snatched away. In my cognitive mind, I knew there was biology involved, but in my heart, I was so angry that God had allowed this miracle to be taken away. My relationship with God was so intimate that I could rage at God, yell in prayer and pain, seek some sense of understanding. I’m not sure I will ever forget the pain of that time, but I will always remember the tears of cleansing and hope that poured down my cheeks in prayer, the feel of God’s presence enveloping me, bringing healing to my heart. My faith made me well.
Bonnie B.
David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan in this lesson is both an expression of his grief, but also insofar as he was grieving over them he was looking back in gratitude for their lives. That is an important reminder for Christians, according to the 16th century confessional document, The Heidelberg Catechism. The document asserts that we are given the Holy Spirit “so that with our whole life we may show ourselves grateful to God for his goodness...” (The Book of Confessions, 4.086) In the same spirit, 19th-century American Congregationalist clergyman and social reformer Henry Ward Beecher once noted that “Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” Psychologist Robert Emmons has shown that gratitude leads to happiness (Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Cam Make You Happier). Medieval Mystic Meister Eckhart offers some good advice on how easy it is to be grateful. As he once put: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
Mark E.
* * *
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-12
David intones the pain he feels in the loss of Saul and Jonathan. He is grieved and weary, and perhaps even angry at their loss in battle. I think in these days about the loss of all the people in Israel and Gaza, in the Ukraine and Russia, in Haiti, and all the other war-torn places of our world. The lament rises and is sung by those left behind. Why oh why do we insist that the only way to peace is through war?
Sometimes war feels inevitable. Governments can’t seem to release anger at attack or even resistance without succumbing to violence as a solution. I’m not saying that attacks on innocents is ever okay. I’m not saying that anger at abuse and battle isn’t okay. I am asking the question what might we do instead? How might we come together to seek peace and reconciliation? What else is possible if we come together and work through the issues before us, the pain we have encountered, the evil that has been perpetrated and act for peace and reconciliation, rather than revenge? Ghandi is remembered as saying, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” I would rather live in a world that sees the humanness beyond the anger and revenge. Wouldn’t you?
Bonnie B.
* * *
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27
This dirge, David’s famous lament over Jonathan, might be called “The Song of the Bow.” It is recorded in something called The Book of Jashar, which might be translated as the “Record of the Upright.” This seems to be an ancient collection of war songs that was once well known among the ancient Israelites, although it has since been lost.
There is another reference to it in Joshua 10:13 which refers to the famous incident in which the sun stood still at Gibeon:
And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
This present passage is evidently taken from the Book of Jashar as well. “How the mighty have fallen,” David laments, speaking both of his adversary Saul, who was nevertheless the Lord’s anointed king, as well as his close personal friend Jonathan. These three tragically found themselves on opposite sides of battle, and though the result of his victory led to David’s ultimate ascension to the throne of a united kingdom of twelve tribes in the city of Jerusalem, he could nevertheless honor Saul and Jonathan as the mighty who had fallen.
There’s the old Latin proverb — De mortuis nil nisi bonum, “Speak no evil of the dead.” A more literal translation would read, “Of the dead say nothing but good,” but either way (and remembering that there are some who have died who may only be remembered with scorn) it’s good to remember we don’t have to demonize those who are on the opposite sides of the aisle.
Frank R.
* * *
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
When Paul writes: “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak,” he is referring to a controversy that was separating believers in various multi-cultural settings. Typically, all meat on the marketplace was first offered to an idol. Upon its slaughter, a small amount was burned as an offering to the local god. At the same time the priest would examine the carcass, declare the meat wholesome, and it would then be offered for sale in the marketplace. In some cities in the Roman Empire this was the only meat available for sale to city folks (and Christians in the first century lived mostly in urban settings). Though technically offered to a pagan god, this was really just a certificate of health.
So what were first-century Christians to do? Some believed that anything offered to an idol was anathema, a nauseating abomination. Others believed there were no such thing as these gods and as far as they were concerned that meat was dinner. Paul agreed with the latter position, but he was encouraging Christians in Corinth, Rome, and other cities to take the feelings of other believers into account, and to eat no such meat if it really bothered their fellow believers.
This is an important admonition, not only when it comes to setting a table for guests, but in other things as well — and yet — there are times when one has to draw a line and say there aren’t two sides to every issue.
When? I suspect at the very least when it involves the wellbeing of fellow human beings. During the Civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King was jailed in Birmingham for technically breaking the law — but it was an unjust Jim Crow law. He expected opposition from racists — but many white pastors of mainline Christian churches were encouraging him to back off from challenging the powers of institutional racism, asking him to be patient, because they did not want to offend the authorities, to go slow because people had not had time to change their attitudes. In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, King took those pastors to task. After all, human beings were suffering under those laws, and even being killed for standing up for simple human rights.
Frank R.
* * *
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
In 1995, people were stunned when the story hit the news that an elderly woman named Oseola McCarty had donated $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi for their scholarship fund. McCarty was an 87-year-old woman who had been forced to drop out of school in the sixth grade to care for her family. For more than sixty years, she made a living washing clothes for hire in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, saving as much as she could from her pay. She had hoped to be a nurse but never got the chance. She wanted others to have the opportunity for the education she never received, so she gave away the money she had saved for so many years. It is a scholarship that exists today at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Ms. McCarty exemplifies the kind of giver that Paul writes about in 2 Corinthians. Paul wants them to finish the work that they started with respect to giving. He calls it a “generous undertaking.” He adds, “if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable.” May we have a heart to give and benefit others. A.W. Tozer wrote, “Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth. Whatever is given to Christ is immediately touched with immortality.”
Bill T.
* * *
Mark 5:21-43
A 2019 University of Israel study indicated that the human brain tries its best to keep us from dwelling on our inevitable demise, to get us to think of it as an unfortunate event which happens to other people. Our brains shield us from its inevitability. French scholar Blaise Pascal pointed out how often these dynamics do not work, even as we try to dodge the reality of death by filling our lives with frivolous things. On this matter he wrote:
When I consider the brief span of my life absorbed into eternity which comes before and after... I take fright... If our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it. (Pensées, p.48)
Martin Luther offers in a sermon on this text, a most comforting insight. He proclaimed to his flock (and us):
So from today’s gospel let us learn that all adversity, no matter how great it appears in your eyes it is in the eyes of God nothing. For if death has no part of a Christian, then even less so blindness, deadness, leprosy, and pestilence; they are of no significance. (Complete Sermons, Vol.7, p.190)
Mark E.
* * *
Mark 5:21-33
Courage in the face of pain and anguish. That’s what I see in the woman with the history of hemorrhage and bleeding. She has faith that Jesus can heal her, and she has the courage to reach out to be healed. Her faith heals her, according to the words of Jesus. How many times in our own lives have we been afraid to reach out to Jesus for healing and wholeness? I tell the story often of the still-born deaths of my twin sons. My husband and I were not supposed to be able to have more children and yet, miracle of miracles, I became pregnant, not with one child but with two.
When they died at 35 weeks, I was broken, devastated, angry, and in anguish. I couldn’t figure out why a miracle had been offered and then snatched away. In my cognitive mind, I knew there was biology involved, but in my heart, I was so angry that God had allowed this miracle to be taken away. My relationship with God was so intimate that I could rage at God, yell in prayer and pain, seek some sense of understanding. I’m not sure I will ever forget the pain of that time, but I will always remember the tears of cleansing and hope that poured down my cheeks in prayer, the feel of God’s presence enveloping me, bringing healing to my heart. My faith made me well.
Bonnie B.
