Sermon Illustrations for the Sixth Sunday of Easter (2018)
Illustration
Acts 10:44-48
Jimmie Holland graduated from medical school in 1952. She originally wanted to be a nurse, then she planned on being a country doctor or a pediatrician. Finally, she elected to become a psychiatrist. Dr. Holland gave several reasons for this decision. Her uncle was institutionalized for a mental breakdown when he was nine. Her first husband committed suicide when she was 27. Her current husband, James, a chemotherapy specialist, made her realize that all of his colleagues were focusing solely on medical treatment and not on the state of the mind of the patient. Dr. Holland developed a specialty of psychooncology. This specialty provides psychiatric treatment to cancer patients. Dr. Holland urged doctors to screen for emotional distress as a vital sign, just as they do for temperature, pulse, respiration, blood pressure and pain. She stressed that psychological symptoms must also be treated. Dr. Holland said, “One of the things that I have learned in 40 years is that our emotions are exactly the same. They haven’t changed one iota over millennia. It’s fear. It’s worry. It’s what’s going to happen to me and what’s going to happen to my family. All those fears are there.”
Application: There is a message in the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is the message that we are all the same.
Ron L.
Acts 10:44-48
In his book Gettysburg Religion, historian Steve Longenecker writes about all the different Christian denominations to be found in that historic town before, during, and after the famous Civil War battle. Generally black and white Christians in Gettysburg attended separate congregations. However, at the Marsh Creek congregation of the German Baptist Brethren, otherwise known as the Dunkers, one of the Pennsylvania Plain Peoples, blacks and whites worshiped together at the unassuming meeting house.
At pains to remain nonconformists with regards to the world, while conforming in unity with each other, the Dunkers would send queries to their Annual Meeting when they encountered a vexing situation. One of these involved the Holy Kiss, a form of greeting mandated by the New Testament according to their understanding of scriptures. On two occasions the Marsh Creek congregation sent queries to the Annual Meeting about whether the Holy Kiss was to be shared between black and white Christians. On the first occasion the meeting returned the answer, “Yes.” On the second occasion the Annual Meeting said that if some believers had qualms about the practice they were to practice forbearance with each other.
One is reminded of how the apostle Peter would be at the forefront of breaking down ethnic barriers in this famous passage from Acts, and yet sometimes waiver, as when Paul scolded Peter in his letter to the Galatians when he discovered his fellow apostle was eating at a segregated table. It can be difficult to break down prejudice in becoming one body of Christ, but it is also Biblical to do so.
Frank R.
Acts 10:44-48
I didn’t see that coming! Have you ever heard those words? Have you ever said them? I found an ironic story in a June 2017 edition of USA Today.
An Arizona psychic medium recalls the moment a car crashed through the front window of a restaurant in Canada, launching him into the air and pinning him against a wall.
"I didn't foresee it happening," said Blair Robertson of Litchfield Park, Ariz., a community about 20 miles northwest of Phoenix, as he jokes about the May 30 accident even as he recovers from injuries.
He was having lunch with a mentor and fellow psychic when the car plowed through the window at Silks Country Kitchen in Virgil, Ontario. Robertson and his friend were seated at a table by the window.
"It basically sounded like a bomb going off," Robertson said. "It took place one second in time."
The crash was captured on a restaurant surveillance camera, and Robertson has posted the video.
“The car grabbed my leg and pulled me back down. It pinned my leg under the car in a very weird position,'' he recalled, in an interview with The Arizona Republic.
With an injured left rib, swollen leg, bruises throughout his body and whiplash in his neck, Robertson is amazed he is still alive. Police said the 85-year-old woman who was driving the car was not impaired and just lost control of the vehicle.
A psychic couldn’t foresee the crash that injured him and his fellow psychic. Sounds a bit odd, huh? Probably no more odd than what a first century Jew might have thought about what happened at Corneilus’ house. Gentiles had the Holy Spirit come on them! Peter, himself, was there to see it. Was there any reason why they shouldn’t be baptized? God had done the incredible. His kingdom was opened to non-Jews. For some, they never saw it coming. For us today, it is a huge event. God’s kingdom is much bigger and more diverse than could possibly be imagined.
Bill T.
1 John 5:1-6
Often, I am asked, can anyone enter heaven who doesn’t believe in Jesus? We certainly can enter into a deep philosophical and theological discussion, but the essence of the questions is, “If I’m not sure Jesus is the Son of God, does God still love me?” Luckily, I am not the one who decides who is loved by God and who is not. God loves us all, all of God’s creation and created. After all, at the moment of creation God considered all of creation and declared that it was good!
Now really, I am not avoiding an answer to the question. The reality is I don’t know who will enter heaven. It’s not my decision. That decision is solely up to God. What do I know? God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit is revealed to be a loving presence of mercy and grace. God knows our hearts and motives. God loves us despite our inability to love one another. Would a God of love exclude one seeking God? Would God reject one seeking God’s presence, love and acceptance? I don’t think so.
Bonnie B.
1 John 5:1-6
No, we are not saved by works, but works can show that we are saved. If we love our job, our career, we will work hard to prove that it is important to us because we want to and not just to make more money.
Our wife or husband know that we love them by the way we show it in the things we do for them.
We show our Father in Heaven that we believe in Jesus and love him by our faithfulness in his church and in our life. God’s commands are not burdensome. We should enjoy doing them because we love him.
I hope a football player is not playing just to win great honor and glory -- and the woman he wants. He should play because he loves the game and loves to play -- even if he did not make a big salary for playing. His love for the game is shown in how enthusiastically he plays.
Why do we want to overcome the world? This seems to imply worldly pleasures. It does not mean that we need to build a big army to conquer the world. It means to overcome the temptations of the world, which pull us away from our Lord.
We are helping a woman in the prison who is tempted to use drugs by fellow prisoners and even some of the guards. Those guards were later fired. They loved money more than their job. Our woman resisted temptation because she had come to know the Lord. She was baptized in prison. She got out early because of her faith.
Will our government overcome the world because of our faith? We are still fighting battles all over the world. We can win them, it seems, only by genocide, by killing all none believers. Our church can overcome the world by winning the world to Christ! We have a choice and Christians will have to decide. Will love for God’s children all over the world be won by soldiers or missionaries? It is not easy to draw lines and it may cost a lot in some cases.
Bob O.
1 John 5:1-6
The message of Easter in this lesson is that the commandments of God are not burdensome when we love God since we are being born of God and that entails that the world is conquered (vv.2-4). John Wesley made it clear that Christ’s work makes love possible. He compared that love to the sun, illuminating the world like the heart functions to keep human beings alive (Commentary On the Bible, p.588). St. Augustine had a lot to say on this subject: “My friends, it is not for me to enlarge your hearts. Ask God that you may love one another.” (Love One Another, p.104) This love that God creates in us as inclusive, he says, winds up being given away to everyone, even to those we do not intend to have it: “Choose for yourself what you’ll love, and you get others too.” (Ibid., p.102) This inclusivity even extends to our enemies. Augustine adds:
John 15:9-17
The NRSV translates John 15:15 as “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing….” It’s not clear to me why this word choice. The word doulos, rendered as “servant,” would be better translated as “slave.”
Slavery was a fact in most ancient societies. It was not a desirable condition. People became slaves in the ancient world because they were born to parents who were slaves, or because they were captured in war, or because they made the choice themselves when economic debts gave them no alternative.
But unlike American slavery, it was not race based. It was not built on the false assumption that some people were naturally meant to be slaves because of their racial background, or that some people were naturally inferior.
In some circumstances slaves were able to buy their freedom, but even then they could not shake off the shame of their former station. Remember the reference in Acts to the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Acts 6:9)? Evidently even in the practice of their faith they continued to feel discriminated against.
But Jesus says, “I no longer call you slaves…” Their status has been changed to colleagues, family, and friends, because of what Jesus has done for them. Jesus bore the shame of the cross and eradicated our status as slaves to sin and to the world.
Frank R.
John 15:9-17
In Charles Dickens classic story, A Tale of Two Cities, we find the story of two friends, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay is a young Frenchman with a wife and family. He is thrown into a dungeon and faces the guillotine. Carton, a wasted lawyer, is finishing his life as a loose-living individual in England. Carton hears of Darnay’s imprisonment and through a chain of events gets into the dungeon and changes garments with Darnay. He then sets it up for Darnay to be carried out of the prison, so he can ultimately escape. The next morning Sydney Carton makes his way up the steps that lead to the guillotine where only one woman recognizes who he really is. This abridged version of that crucial part of the story illustrates the point that Dickens wanted to make; “Greater love has no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friend.”
Dickens knew the roots of that story. He drew that illustration from the words of Jesus himself in the passage of text for today. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” When I hear this passage, I am also drawn to the last episode of one of my favorite television shows, Touched by an Angel. In that last episode Monica is up for a promotion when she comes upon a drifter, wrongly accused and convicted. Instead of pursing her promotion, she gives it up to follow him to prison. Only at the conclusion does she find out that the drifter was Jesus. He tells her, “Well done my good and faithful servant. Greater love has no man than this; that he lay down his life for a friend.” It is clear in both A Tale of Two Cities and Touched by an Angel. It is real in what Jesus did for us. What amazing love!
Bill T.
John 15:9-17
Sue Grafton died in December 2017 at the age of 77. Grafton is best known as the author of the alphabet murder mysteries. Her first murder mystery novel was “A is for Alibi,” and was published in 1982. Kinsey Millhone was the private detective who starred in her books. And unlike male mystery writers, Kinsey Millhone dealt with, in the words of Grafton, the “human and emotional ramifications” of violent crime. Grafton, before becoming an internationally recognized novelist, wrote television scripts and screenplays for movies. From that experience she realized that a book converted to the screen was always misrepresented. This is why she refused to allow her books to become television shows or movies. In August 2017 she published “Y is for Yesterday.” Dealing with cancer, Grafton was never able to write her final mystery novel for the letter Z. Though, for thirty years she knew what the title would be, “Z is for Zero.” Upon Grafton’s death her daughter, Jamie Clark, made this public announcement, “She was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows, and in that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name. Because of all those things, and out of deep abiding love and respect for our dear sweet Sue, as far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends at Y.”
Application: In John’s gospel we are called to be more than servants of our Lord, as we are called to serve Jesus as a friend. But, whatever our calling, we may never complete the task set before us. Our ministry may end at Y and not Z.
Ron L.
Jimmie Holland graduated from medical school in 1952. She originally wanted to be a nurse, then she planned on being a country doctor or a pediatrician. Finally, she elected to become a psychiatrist. Dr. Holland gave several reasons for this decision. Her uncle was institutionalized for a mental breakdown when he was nine. Her first husband committed suicide when she was 27. Her current husband, James, a chemotherapy specialist, made her realize that all of his colleagues were focusing solely on medical treatment and not on the state of the mind of the patient. Dr. Holland developed a specialty of psychooncology. This specialty provides psychiatric treatment to cancer patients. Dr. Holland urged doctors to screen for emotional distress as a vital sign, just as they do for temperature, pulse, respiration, blood pressure and pain. She stressed that psychological symptoms must also be treated. Dr. Holland said, “One of the things that I have learned in 40 years is that our emotions are exactly the same. They haven’t changed one iota over millennia. It’s fear. It’s worry. It’s what’s going to happen to me and what’s going to happen to my family. All those fears are there.”
Application: There is a message in the coming of the Holy Spirit. It is the message that we are all the same.
Ron L.
Acts 10:44-48
In his book Gettysburg Religion, historian Steve Longenecker writes about all the different Christian denominations to be found in that historic town before, during, and after the famous Civil War battle. Generally black and white Christians in Gettysburg attended separate congregations. However, at the Marsh Creek congregation of the German Baptist Brethren, otherwise known as the Dunkers, one of the Pennsylvania Plain Peoples, blacks and whites worshiped together at the unassuming meeting house.
At pains to remain nonconformists with regards to the world, while conforming in unity with each other, the Dunkers would send queries to their Annual Meeting when they encountered a vexing situation. One of these involved the Holy Kiss, a form of greeting mandated by the New Testament according to their understanding of scriptures. On two occasions the Marsh Creek congregation sent queries to the Annual Meeting about whether the Holy Kiss was to be shared between black and white Christians. On the first occasion the meeting returned the answer, “Yes.” On the second occasion the Annual Meeting said that if some believers had qualms about the practice they were to practice forbearance with each other.
One is reminded of how the apostle Peter would be at the forefront of breaking down ethnic barriers in this famous passage from Acts, and yet sometimes waiver, as when Paul scolded Peter in his letter to the Galatians when he discovered his fellow apostle was eating at a segregated table. It can be difficult to break down prejudice in becoming one body of Christ, but it is also Biblical to do so.
Frank R.
Acts 10:44-48
I didn’t see that coming! Have you ever heard those words? Have you ever said them? I found an ironic story in a June 2017 edition of USA Today.
An Arizona psychic medium recalls the moment a car crashed through the front window of a restaurant in Canada, launching him into the air and pinning him against a wall.
"I didn't foresee it happening," said Blair Robertson of Litchfield Park, Ariz., a community about 20 miles northwest of Phoenix, as he jokes about the May 30 accident even as he recovers from injuries.
He was having lunch with a mentor and fellow psychic when the car plowed through the window at Silks Country Kitchen in Virgil, Ontario. Robertson and his friend were seated at a table by the window.
"It basically sounded like a bomb going off," Robertson said. "It took place one second in time."
The crash was captured on a restaurant surveillance camera, and Robertson has posted the video.
“The car grabbed my leg and pulled me back down. It pinned my leg under the car in a very weird position,'' he recalled, in an interview with The Arizona Republic.
With an injured left rib, swollen leg, bruises throughout his body and whiplash in his neck, Robertson is amazed he is still alive. Police said the 85-year-old woman who was driving the car was not impaired and just lost control of the vehicle.
A psychic couldn’t foresee the crash that injured him and his fellow psychic. Sounds a bit odd, huh? Probably no more odd than what a first century Jew might have thought about what happened at Corneilus’ house. Gentiles had the Holy Spirit come on them! Peter, himself, was there to see it. Was there any reason why they shouldn’t be baptized? God had done the incredible. His kingdom was opened to non-Jews. For some, they never saw it coming. For us today, it is a huge event. God’s kingdom is much bigger and more diverse than could possibly be imagined.
Bill T.
1 John 5:1-6
Often, I am asked, can anyone enter heaven who doesn’t believe in Jesus? We certainly can enter into a deep philosophical and theological discussion, but the essence of the questions is, “If I’m not sure Jesus is the Son of God, does God still love me?” Luckily, I am not the one who decides who is loved by God and who is not. God loves us all, all of God’s creation and created. After all, at the moment of creation God considered all of creation and declared that it was good!
Now really, I am not avoiding an answer to the question. The reality is I don’t know who will enter heaven. It’s not my decision. That decision is solely up to God. What do I know? God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit is revealed to be a loving presence of mercy and grace. God knows our hearts and motives. God loves us despite our inability to love one another. Would a God of love exclude one seeking God? Would God reject one seeking God’s presence, love and acceptance? I don’t think so.
Bonnie B.
1 John 5:1-6
No, we are not saved by works, but works can show that we are saved. If we love our job, our career, we will work hard to prove that it is important to us because we want to and not just to make more money.
Our wife or husband know that we love them by the way we show it in the things we do for them.
We show our Father in Heaven that we believe in Jesus and love him by our faithfulness in his church and in our life. God’s commands are not burdensome. We should enjoy doing them because we love him.
I hope a football player is not playing just to win great honor and glory -- and the woman he wants. He should play because he loves the game and loves to play -- even if he did not make a big salary for playing. His love for the game is shown in how enthusiastically he plays.
Why do we want to overcome the world? This seems to imply worldly pleasures. It does not mean that we need to build a big army to conquer the world. It means to overcome the temptations of the world, which pull us away from our Lord.
We are helping a woman in the prison who is tempted to use drugs by fellow prisoners and even some of the guards. Those guards were later fired. They loved money more than their job. Our woman resisted temptation because she had come to know the Lord. She was baptized in prison. She got out early because of her faith.
Will our government overcome the world because of our faith? We are still fighting battles all over the world. We can win them, it seems, only by genocide, by killing all none believers. Our church can overcome the world by winning the world to Christ! We have a choice and Christians will have to decide. Will love for God’s children all over the world be won by soldiers or missionaries? It is not easy to draw lines and it may cost a lot in some cases.
Bob O.
1 John 5:1-6
The message of Easter in this lesson is that the commandments of God are not burdensome when we love God since we are being born of God and that entails that the world is conquered (vv.2-4). John Wesley made it clear that Christ’s work makes love possible. He compared that love to the sun, illuminating the world like the heart functions to keep human beings alive (Commentary On the Bible, p.588). St. Augustine had a lot to say on this subject: “My friends, it is not for me to enlarge your hearts. Ask God that you may love one another.” (Love One Another, p.104) This love that God creates in us as inclusive, he says, winds up being given away to everyone, even to those we do not intend to have it: “Choose for yourself what you’ll love, and you get others too.” (Ibid., p.102) This inclusivity even extends to our enemies. Augustine adds:
You are to love everyone, even your enemies, not because they’re already your sisters and brothers but so they’ll become so. Then you will always be aflame with love -- for one who is already a sister or brother, or for your enemies because love will make them your sisters and brothers. (Ibid., pp.104-105)Mark E.
John 15:9-17
The NRSV translates John 15:15 as “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing….” It’s not clear to me why this word choice. The word doulos, rendered as “servant,” would be better translated as “slave.”
Slavery was a fact in most ancient societies. It was not a desirable condition. People became slaves in the ancient world because they were born to parents who were slaves, or because they were captured in war, or because they made the choice themselves when economic debts gave them no alternative.
But unlike American slavery, it was not race based. It was not built on the false assumption that some people were naturally meant to be slaves because of their racial background, or that some people were naturally inferior.
In some circumstances slaves were able to buy their freedom, but even then they could not shake off the shame of their former station. Remember the reference in Acts to the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Acts 6:9)? Evidently even in the practice of their faith they continued to feel discriminated against.
But Jesus says, “I no longer call you slaves…” Their status has been changed to colleagues, family, and friends, because of what Jesus has done for them. Jesus bore the shame of the cross and eradicated our status as slaves to sin and to the world.
Frank R.
John 15:9-17
In Charles Dickens classic story, A Tale of Two Cities, we find the story of two friends, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay is a young Frenchman with a wife and family. He is thrown into a dungeon and faces the guillotine. Carton, a wasted lawyer, is finishing his life as a loose-living individual in England. Carton hears of Darnay’s imprisonment and through a chain of events gets into the dungeon and changes garments with Darnay. He then sets it up for Darnay to be carried out of the prison, so he can ultimately escape. The next morning Sydney Carton makes his way up the steps that lead to the guillotine where only one woman recognizes who he really is. This abridged version of that crucial part of the story illustrates the point that Dickens wanted to make; “Greater love has no man than this; that he lay down his life for his friend.”
Dickens knew the roots of that story. He drew that illustration from the words of Jesus himself in the passage of text for today. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” When I hear this passage, I am also drawn to the last episode of one of my favorite television shows, Touched by an Angel. In that last episode Monica is up for a promotion when she comes upon a drifter, wrongly accused and convicted. Instead of pursing her promotion, she gives it up to follow him to prison. Only at the conclusion does she find out that the drifter was Jesus. He tells her, “Well done my good and faithful servant. Greater love has no man than this; that he lay down his life for a friend.” It is clear in both A Tale of Two Cities and Touched by an Angel. It is real in what Jesus did for us. What amazing love!
Bill T.
John 15:9-17
Sue Grafton died in December 2017 at the age of 77. Grafton is best known as the author of the alphabet murder mysteries. Her first murder mystery novel was “A is for Alibi,” and was published in 1982. Kinsey Millhone was the private detective who starred in her books. And unlike male mystery writers, Kinsey Millhone dealt with, in the words of Grafton, the “human and emotional ramifications” of violent crime. Grafton, before becoming an internationally recognized novelist, wrote television scripts and screenplays for movies. From that experience she realized that a book converted to the screen was always misrepresented. This is why she refused to allow her books to become television shows or movies. In August 2017 she published “Y is for Yesterday.” Dealing with cancer, Grafton was never able to write her final mystery novel for the letter Z. Though, for thirty years she knew what the title would be, “Z is for Zero.” Upon Grafton’s death her daughter, Jamie Clark, made this public announcement, “She was adamant that her books would never be turned into movies or TV shows, and in that same vein, she would never allow a ghost writer to write in her name. Because of all those things, and out of deep abiding love and respect for our dear sweet Sue, as far as we in the family are concerned, the alphabet now ends at Y.”
Application: In John’s gospel we are called to be more than servants of our Lord, as we are called to serve Jesus as a friend. But, whatever our calling, we may never complete the task set before us. Our ministry may end at Y and not Z.
Ron L.
