Sermons Illustrations for Proper 20 | Ordinary Time 25 (2013)
Illustration
Object:
Jeremiah 8:18--9:1
They are in Babylon, and Zion is vacant with the people gone. There are some who may be in a foreign land today who are longing to go home, but their home may be a wasteland.
One problem of living in another country is that we are tempted to take on their customs and traditions -- and maybe their gods. In some cases that may be good as when Muslims move to a Christian country and are tempted to change if we treat them well. This has been true over the centuries when Muslim or other invaders came and tried to convert Christians -- unfortunately with some success! It is the old-timers in either case who try to preserve the status quo. "Faith of Our Fathers" can be the hymn of immigrants everywhere.
This text tells us that there is only one God, our Lord and he can get angry if we turn to those other "gods."
In our country we are trying to be so accepting of others that we don't want to hurt them by speaking of our faith. We seem to be ashamed of our Lord!
There were some dangerous words spoken by one president when he said, "It is the duty of nations as well as men to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to confess this truth announced in Holy Scripture and proven by all history that those nations, only, are blessed whose God is the Lord!" When was the last time a president said words like those? Those were said by Abraham Lincoln! I wish we could hear them again from our capital! Maybe we are suffering in our congress because we have denied those words! Maybe that is why there is no healing for the wounds of our people.
We are hurting our God because of our denial, and it has crushed us also! He weeps for us day and night. Has our Lord suffered in vain? Let us turn back to him with all our hearts and leave all the foreign gods, whatever or whomever they may be. It may cost us something, but it will be worth it!
Bob O.
Jeremiah 8:18--9:1
Ann Weems writes in her Psalms of Lament how the stars fell from her sky on the day her son was killed in a car accident on his 21st birthday, taking away the promise of his future. Jeremiah mourns the day when the Babylonian armies overpower the land and people of Israel, seemingly taking away the promised future God had given them. Grief is upon him and he mourns in dismay. Ann Weems is empathetic with Jeremiah and with all God's people who question their future, who are distraught by the vicissitudes of life: "Turn back to me; you promised. Be merciful to me; you promised. Heal me; you promised. My heart is broken. My mind is broken. My body is broken. Nothing works anymore. Unless you help me nothing will ever work again."
Mark M.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, set in a small Jewish village in Russia on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution, one of the townspeople asks the rabbi if there is a blessing for the Tsar. Russian Jews at the time were being harassed and forcibly relocated by the government. The rabbi pauses a moment, as if stumped by the question, and then answers: "May God bless and keep the Tsar... far away from us!"
In the complex social and political arrangement we now call the "feudal system," there were intricate layers of authority and loyalty. Dukes, counts, viscounts, knights, and countless other classes of nobility we all arranged in an intricate pecking order. For most people who worked and lived day to day, however, the one person that they paid most attention to was the one who owned the land on which they lived and worked. The one who owned the land also owned them, in a very real sense. The title used for that person was "Lord." Our politics are much different now, but we also use that word to mean to the one to whom our true loyalty is due. We too belong to the one we call "Lord."
Scott B.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Bald is in. The 41st President of the United States, George H.W. Bush, has shaved his head. Bush noticed that the members of his Secret Service security detail were all bald -- they all had shaved heads. He learned that this was done in solidarity with two-year-old Patrick, a child of one of their agents who had leukemia. In solidarity with the agents who have pledged to protect his life, Bush had his own head shaved. But solidarity goes further than a shaved head. George and Barbara lost their infant daughter Robin to leukemia.
Application: God does desire everyone to be saved. That everyone should have new life.
Ron L.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
At least two ways present themselves for illustrating the comment in verse 4 that God desires all to be saved. The most common illustration is the idea that God holds out a gift for all people, and we need to reach out and take hold of that gift. This can be a dangerous, self-righteous image, unless it is made clear that in reaching out to receive the gift, God the Holy Spirit is guiding our arm in the direction of the gift.
A more grace-oriented vision is suggested by Martin Luther and famed modern theologian Karl Barth. In this model, God does not just "offer" the gift (of salvation) to everyone, but actually places it in everyone's lap! This is not to say that everyone is inevitably saved. Stubborn, foolish people may still brush the expensive gift away, and so be damned. But that is hardly a free choice; it is downright stupidity. Don't reject what you have, and it is yours! After all, the only unforgivable sin is the sin against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32). More often than not, if God wants it (wills it), he gets it. He plans to get (save) us all.
Mark E.
Luke 16:1-13
This is an odd one. I'm sure there are many today who are wasting the boss' money. I read in the paper about congressmen who are wasting our tax money for personal gain. Our former governor was called into question for using government money to fly his plane to vacations and personal meetings. It is an everyday thing, but what do they do about it? In most cases they just hope the whole thing will go away. We might say they are shrewd. It seems as though Jesus is addressing this parable to some of the wealthy, including tax collectors.
In the case of the fellow the boss fired, would it have been called dishonest to shortchange his boss by cutting all the bills? It could be questionable. I know there could be court cases over it. The assumption could be that the manager had overcharged those debtors and was just evening things up. Was it shrewd or dishonest? In Jesus' day, tax collectors were always overcharging those who owed taxes and keeping some for themselves. It would be better to repay some rather than lose your job.
I think part of the point is that even though the manager had been fired, he still tried to set things right instead of hurting the boss and bringing him to court or trying to get even some other way. Nor did he bring the debtors into court to force them to pay all the money they owed. It still seems selfish to set things up for himself by making friends for when he no longer had a job.
The main point is that we can't serve two masters. If money is at the top of our list, then we will hate anything the boss may do to make us pay up -- even the boss himself. If the boss is more important, then we will be truthful and do all we can for the business, even at our own expense. Is there any job or profession that does not force us to decide what is at the top of our loyalty list? Don't we pray that our doctor is not in his profession mainly for the money? I doubt a pastor would be!
Make a list in your mind and heart as to who is at the top. If it is not God, then beware of the day of reckoning!
Bob O.
Luke 16:1-13
How are we managing the resources with which God entrusts us? Debt in America is an embarrassment! Regarding individual households, it is reported that the average credit card debt is slightly over $7,000. We have seen the unfortunate results of what happens when people go into debt in buying overpriced houses or purchasing houses that are beyond their means. Our national household is not any better. In 1966, our national debt was less than $1 trillion. By 2000, it had grown to almost $6 trillion. Today, we are over $16 trillion. Congress throughout the years has been too ready to increase the debt ceiling rather than reorder our spending priorities and reduce the fiscal corruption in government. Questions are being raised regarding both sides of the aisle squandering our national resources. More serious questions are being raised as to whether changing managers would make any difference.
Mark M.
They are in Babylon, and Zion is vacant with the people gone. There are some who may be in a foreign land today who are longing to go home, but their home may be a wasteland.
One problem of living in another country is that we are tempted to take on their customs and traditions -- and maybe their gods. In some cases that may be good as when Muslims move to a Christian country and are tempted to change if we treat them well. This has been true over the centuries when Muslim or other invaders came and tried to convert Christians -- unfortunately with some success! It is the old-timers in either case who try to preserve the status quo. "Faith of Our Fathers" can be the hymn of immigrants everywhere.
This text tells us that there is only one God, our Lord and he can get angry if we turn to those other "gods."
In our country we are trying to be so accepting of others that we don't want to hurt them by speaking of our faith. We seem to be ashamed of our Lord!
There were some dangerous words spoken by one president when he said, "It is the duty of nations as well as men to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to confess this truth announced in Holy Scripture and proven by all history that those nations, only, are blessed whose God is the Lord!" When was the last time a president said words like those? Those were said by Abraham Lincoln! I wish we could hear them again from our capital! Maybe we are suffering in our congress because we have denied those words! Maybe that is why there is no healing for the wounds of our people.
We are hurting our God because of our denial, and it has crushed us also! He weeps for us day and night. Has our Lord suffered in vain? Let us turn back to him with all our hearts and leave all the foreign gods, whatever or whomever they may be. It may cost us something, but it will be worth it!
Bob O.
Jeremiah 8:18--9:1
Ann Weems writes in her Psalms of Lament how the stars fell from her sky on the day her son was killed in a car accident on his 21st birthday, taking away the promise of his future. Jeremiah mourns the day when the Babylonian armies overpower the land and people of Israel, seemingly taking away the promised future God had given them. Grief is upon him and he mourns in dismay. Ann Weems is empathetic with Jeremiah and with all God's people who question their future, who are distraught by the vicissitudes of life: "Turn back to me; you promised. Be merciful to me; you promised. Heal me; you promised. My heart is broken. My mind is broken. My body is broken. Nothing works anymore. Unless you help me nothing will ever work again."
Mark M.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, set in a small Jewish village in Russia on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution, one of the townspeople asks the rabbi if there is a blessing for the Tsar. Russian Jews at the time were being harassed and forcibly relocated by the government. The rabbi pauses a moment, as if stumped by the question, and then answers: "May God bless and keep the Tsar... far away from us!"
In the complex social and political arrangement we now call the "feudal system," there were intricate layers of authority and loyalty. Dukes, counts, viscounts, knights, and countless other classes of nobility we all arranged in an intricate pecking order. For most people who worked and lived day to day, however, the one person that they paid most attention to was the one who owned the land on which they lived and worked. The one who owned the land also owned them, in a very real sense. The title used for that person was "Lord." Our politics are much different now, but we also use that word to mean to the one to whom our true loyalty is due. We too belong to the one we call "Lord."
Scott B.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Bald is in. The 41st President of the United States, George H.W. Bush, has shaved his head. Bush noticed that the members of his Secret Service security detail were all bald -- they all had shaved heads. He learned that this was done in solidarity with two-year-old Patrick, a child of one of their agents who had leukemia. In solidarity with the agents who have pledged to protect his life, Bush had his own head shaved. But solidarity goes further than a shaved head. George and Barbara lost their infant daughter Robin to leukemia.
Application: God does desire everyone to be saved. That everyone should have new life.
Ron L.
1 Timothy 2:1-7
At least two ways present themselves for illustrating the comment in verse 4 that God desires all to be saved. The most common illustration is the idea that God holds out a gift for all people, and we need to reach out and take hold of that gift. This can be a dangerous, self-righteous image, unless it is made clear that in reaching out to receive the gift, God the Holy Spirit is guiding our arm in the direction of the gift.
A more grace-oriented vision is suggested by Martin Luther and famed modern theologian Karl Barth. In this model, God does not just "offer" the gift (of salvation) to everyone, but actually places it in everyone's lap! This is not to say that everyone is inevitably saved. Stubborn, foolish people may still brush the expensive gift away, and so be damned. But that is hardly a free choice; it is downright stupidity. Don't reject what you have, and it is yours! After all, the only unforgivable sin is the sin against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32). More often than not, if God wants it (wills it), he gets it. He plans to get (save) us all.
Mark E.
Luke 16:1-13
This is an odd one. I'm sure there are many today who are wasting the boss' money. I read in the paper about congressmen who are wasting our tax money for personal gain. Our former governor was called into question for using government money to fly his plane to vacations and personal meetings. It is an everyday thing, but what do they do about it? In most cases they just hope the whole thing will go away. We might say they are shrewd. It seems as though Jesus is addressing this parable to some of the wealthy, including tax collectors.
In the case of the fellow the boss fired, would it have been called dishonest to shortchange his boss by cutting all the bills? It could be questionable. I know there could be court cases over it. The assumption could be that the manager had overcharged those debtors and was just evening things up. Was it shrewd or dishonest? In Jesus' day, tax collectors were always overcharging those who owed taxes and keeping some for themselves. It would be better to repay some rather than lose your job.
I think part of the point is that even though the manager had been fired, he still tried to set things right instead of hurting the boss and bringing him to court or trying to get even some other way. Nor did he bring the debtors into court to force them to pay all the money they owed. It still seems selfish to set things up for himself by making friends for when he no longer had a job.
The main point is that we can't serve two masters. If money is at the top of our list, then we will hate anything the boss may do to make us pay up -- even the boss himself. If the boss is more important, then we will be truthful and do all we can for the business, even at our own expense. Is there any job or profession that does not force us to decide what is at the top of our loyalty list? Don't we pray that our doctor is not in his profession mainly for the money? I doubt a pastor would be!
Make a list in your mind and heart as to who is at the top. If it is not God, then beware of the day of reckoning!
Bob O.
Luke 16:1-13
How are we managing the resources with which God entrusts us? Debt in America is an embarrassment! Regarding individual households, it is reported that the average credit card debt is slightly over $7,000. We have seen the unfortunate results of what happens when people go into debt in buying overpriced houses or purchasing houses that are beyond their means. Our national household is not any better. In 1966, our national debt was less than $1 trillion. By 2000, it had grown to almost $6 trillion. Today, we are over $16 trillion. Congress throughout the years has been too ready to increase the debt ceiling rather than reorder our spending priorities and reduce the fiscal corruption in government. Questions are being raised regarding both sides of the aisle squandering our national resources. More serious questions are being raised as to whether changing managers would make any difference.
Mark M.
