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Sermon Illustrations For Proper 5 | OT 10 (2023)

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Genesis 12:1-9
I think one of the biggest problems that people will ultimately have with regards to self-driving cars is that even when all the bugs are worked out we don’t like giving up control to others. We like being in charge.

That’s part of what intrigues me when God says to Abraham that he is to go forward “…to the land that I will show you.” Abraham is about to embark on a journey with many twists and turns and he doesn’t know the destination yet! How many of us would respond to God by saying, “No, tell me first where I’m going. Let me look it up on a map, or my phone. Give me the coordinates.” But Abraham and Sarah have to let go of the steering wheel and let God be in charge.

When they take back hold of the wheel and attempt to steer on their own — like when Abraham twice tries to pass his wife off as his sister, or Sarah suggests they fulfill God’s promise of a child by using Hagar as a surrogate mother — things go awry, though God intervenes to make it all work out.

How many of us truly trust someone else — especially God — to guide us on our faith journey? How many of us will take our hands off the wheel of our lives and let God be the driver?
Frank R.

* * *

Genesis 12:1-9
Martin Luther claimed that this text “deserves our attention as an extraordinary example of mercy. It should encourage and persuade us that God will preserve the church also in our time, when everything is threatening religion with destruction.” (Luther’s Works, Vol.2, p.245)

Billy Graham’s daughter Anne Graham Lotz, herself an evangelist, says a lot about how we should regard Abraham and his faith:

Abraham wasn't perfect. He failed, made mistakes. But, he would go back, get right with God, and then just keep moving forward. He didn't quit when things got hard. He just kept on going. And everywhere he went, God was there. God was with him.

Søren Kierkegaard offers thoughtful reflections on how and why faith makes us great as it did Abraham:

Thus did they struggle on earth: there was one who conquered everything by his power, and there was one who conquered God by his powerlessness. There was one who relied upon himself and gained everything; there was one who in the security of his own strength sacrificed everything; but the one who believed God was the greatest of all. There was one who was great by virtue of his power, and one who was great by virtue of his hope, and one who was great by virtue of his love, but Abraham was the greatest of all, great by that power whose strength is powerlessness, great by that wisdom which is foolishness, great by that hope whose form is madness, great by the love that is hatred to oneself.

Martin Luther also reflects on the nature of faith over-against unbelief. He wrote:

Unbelief always wants to see and feel where to go; but its ambition is not realized.  Therefore, it must despair. Faith, however thinks thus; I know not where I am going. Go I must. (What Luther Says, p.467)
Mark E.

* * *

Genesis 12:1-9
Brennan Manning writes in Ruthless Trust about John Kavanaugh, a noted ethicist who went to Calcutta, seeking Mother Teresa. He spent three months working in the “house of the dying” to find out how he might best spend the rest of his life. When he met Mother Teresa, he asked her to pray for him. “What do you want me to pray for?” she replied. He then uttered his request: “Clarity. Pray that I have clarity.”

Without hesitation Mother Teresa answered, “No I will not do that.” When he asked her why, she said, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” When Kavanaugh said that she always seemed to have clarity, the very kind of clarity he was looking for, Mother Teresa laughed and said: “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So, I will pray that you trust God.”

Abraham did not have clarity as we see him in Genesis 12. He did not know where he would end up or what would happen on the road. He only knew that he would have to trust. Verse 4 indicates the depth of that trust. Only three words in the NRSV, but the resound. “So, Abram went.” Is there any more powerful description of Abram’s character? Will we demonstrate that level of trust?
Bill T.

* * * 

Romans 4:13-25
How often do you think about grace? I don’t consider it often and sometimes I’m not good at offering grace — especially to distracted and reckless drivers. There are moments when I am driving that I don’t recognize myself as a Christian who is called to offer the grace of God to others. Are there situations where you neglect and forget to offer grace? I am sure we all have our moments of temper and anger — of focusing on what is wrong instead of caring for one another. I’ve been trying lately to pray for drivers who usually upset me. I offer a prayer for their safety and the safety of those around them. I must admit I don’t always pray first. Sometimes I lose my temper first. But I do counter that anger with prayer. I am reminded, when I do so, how much grace has been poured over me. I think the more I offer grace, the better I get at offering it. Maybe it will be the same for you.
Bonnie B.

* * *

Romans 4:13-25
Martin Luther offers some interesting observations about this lesson:

God is so minded that he delights to strengthen the weak and to weaken the strong. For he is called Creator. He who, on one hand makes everything out of nothing and, on the other hand, can reduce everything to nothing. (What Luther Says, p.630)    

French intellectual Blaise Pascal offered thoughtful reflections on how God saves through faith alone. He wrote:

... Then Jesus Christ came to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves, that it is their passions that cut them off from God, that he has come to destroy these passions, and to give men his grace... (Pensées, 433)           

Dutch lay Christian Corrie ten Boom, who fearlessly shielded Jews from the Holocaust, profoundly explains what it means to have faith reckoned as righteousness:

God takes our sins — the past, present, and future, and dumps them in the sea and puts up a sign that says NO FISHING ALLOWED.
Mark E.

* * *

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
The most ancient written records we have tend to focus on tax collections. Every ancient society that left behind writings left behind tax records, receipts, and past due notices. Names, dates, places, special surcharges — these fill the records.

Oddly enough, poorer people often paid a higher rate of taxes. Richer individuals were often exempted from paying certain fees. Special surcharges ramped up the price for the poorer folks.

The taxes paid by Judeans in the first Christian century were especially galling to the residents of the region, because these taxes paid for the cost of the highly resented occupation of the region by the Roman legionnaires. The tax collector, though often a local person, represented the faceless, implacable, impersonal, unresponsive, but all-powerful might of Rome. Because of the efficiency of the system, there was not a corner of the empire which escaped this burden. If you lived under Roman rule, you paid the taxes.

Tax collector paid the taxes for an entire region, then collected them piecemeal from the residents. They were allowed to charge a markup to make a profit. And since no one but the tax collector had access to his records, it was assumed, not always incorrectly, that the tax collector was gouging them.

Which makes it all the more surprising that when Jesus looked for disciples, he deliberately chose a man named Matthew, a scribe who could write, sitting at his tax collecting station, immediately recognizable as the hated tax collector who stopped people and demanded payment, to be one of his apostles.

(This installment of Emphasis draws upon some of the information from the author’s installment of StoryShare for this week.)
Frank R.

* * *

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
I came across the story of a recently licensed pilot who was flying his private plane on a cloudy day. He was not very experienced in instrument landing. When the control tower was to bring him in, he began to get panicky. Then a voice came over the radio, “You just obey instructions, we’ll take care of the obstructions.”

I thought of that admonition as I read this familiar account from Matthew’s Gospel. There are three examples of those who had to trust. Matthew, a tax collector, was called to trust and leave his livelihood. A synagogue leader (Jairus though not named in Matthew) whose daughter was dead was told to trust that Jesus could snatch his daughter’s life from death’s cold grip. Between those two prominent men was an anonymous woman. However, her story is also a story of faith. She was compelled to see Jesus. She didn’t want to bother or slow him down, so she believed just touching the fringe of his cloak would be enough. She obeyed what she knew was to be true and was healed.

All three stories of faith, followed by obedience, brought results. Will we “trust and obey?”
Bill T.
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New & Featured This Week

The Immediate Word

Katy Stenta
Mary Austin
Dean Feldmeyer
George Reed
Tom Willadsen
For April 20, 2025:

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John Jamison
Object: A bowl and a towel.

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent

Have you ever gotten in trouble for not doing what you were supposed to do? (Let them respond.) Maybe it was something you were supposed to do at home, or maybe it was something you were supposed to do for someone else. Well, our story today is about the time Jesus’ friends didn’t do what Jesus told them they were supposed to do.
John Jamison
Activity: The Easter Game. See the note. 
John Jamison
Object: A box of Kleenex?

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Excellent!

Today is the day we call Good Friday, and it is the day that Jesus died. What happened on Good Friday is the story I want to tell you about. It is a short story, but it is also a very sad story. (Show the Kleenex.) It is so sad that I brought a box of Kleenex with me in case we need it. Let’s hear our story together.

Emphasis Preaching Journal

Mark Ellingsen
Acts 10:34-43
Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
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Isaiah 65:17-25
The vision of Isaiah, the new heaven and new earth, a world we cannot begin to imagine, moves us from the sorrow of Good Friday and the waiting of Saturday, into the joy of the resurrection. Isaiah proclaims from God, “no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress.” What a moment, what a time that will be. What hope there is in this prophecy? God’s promises are laid out before us. God’s promises are proclaimed to us.
Frank Ramirez
Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
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Isaiah 52:13--53:12
It’s unclear whether the original prophet is speaking about his own sufferings as a prophet bringing an unwanted word to people who want to believe all is well (and which could have led to severe physical punishment on the part of the authorities), or to the nation as the suffering servant who have suffered under the lash of a foreign oppressor, much as God’s people suffered under the Egyptians. These are legitimate interpretations, and perhaps there’s a bit of truth in all viewpoints.
Wayne Brouwer
When Canadian missionaries Don and Carol Richardson entered the world of the Sawi people in Irian Jaya in 1962, they were aware that culture shock awaited them. But the full impact of the tensions they faced didn’t become apparent until one challenging day.
David Kalas
What do you do on the night before God saves you? 

The children of Israel had been languishing in hopeless bondage for centuries. How many of them had lived and died under the taskmaster’s whip? How many of them had cried out to the Lord for help without seeing their prayers answered?  And so, as surely as their bodies were weighed down under the weight of their physical burdens, their spirits must also have been weighed down under years of bondage and despair.
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Mark Ellingsen
Bonnie Bates
Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10) 11-14
It is perhaps not widely known, but the Community Blood Center has a website that contains stories of blood recipients.  I spent some time on that website as I thought about this passage. One of the stories that struck me was Kristen’s. Kristen’s time of need came during the birth of her first child. After a smooth pregnancy, she experienced serious problems during delivery, which led to a massive hemorrhage. She needed transfusions immediately, and ended up receiving 28 units of platelets, plasma, and whole blood.

StoryShare

John E. Sumwalt
When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. (v. 14)

Mary weeps as she comes to the tomb that first Easter morning. She weeps because her dearest friend is dead. When this friend comes up behind her she turns around and sees him, but she doesn't really see him. Do you know what I mean?

Mary thought Jesus was the gardener. She implores him, "Sir, if you have taken him away tell me where you have laid him…"  She sees him but she doesn't see him.
Peter Andrew Smith
I’m sorry but I have some bad news. John heard the words of the doctor again as he sat in the pew waiting for the service to start on Good Friday. He was at church because he was a regular and he hoped, he prayed that he could escape the rising fear and dread that had come from the medical appointment yesterday. The doctor had been sure there was no problem when John had told him the symptoms he was experiencing a couple of weeks ago. The doctor even told him to just ignore them as they were a sign of getting older.
John E. Sumwalt
In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ (v. 25)

I was seven years old, the same age as my grandson, Leonard, when I asked the big communion question in the barn while helping Dad, the first Leonard Sumwalt, milk cows in 1958.

SermonStudio

Bonnie Bates
All my life I have struggled with the concept of calling this day of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion as “good.” What could possibly be good about Jesus being arrested, tried, convicted, and crucified? How can we call this feast day “good”?
Wayne Brouwer
When I was a pastor in rural southern Alberta, we held our Easter Sunrise worship services in a cemetery. It was difficult to gather in the dark, since neither mountains nor forests hid the spring-time sun, and the high desert plains lay open to almost ceaselessly unclouded skies. Still, we mumbled in hushed whispers as we acknowledged one another, and saved our booming tones for the final rousing chorus of “Up from the grave he arose…!” We did not shake the earth as much as we hoped.
Dennis Koch
Gospel Theme:

Different paces and paths to resurrection faith

Gospel Note:
John here obviously mingles at least two Easter morning traditions, the one featuring Mary Magdalene and the other starring Peter and the beloved disciple. The overall effect, however, is to show three different paths and paces to resurrection faith: the unnamed disciple rushes to the empty tomb and comes to faith simply upon viewing it; Mary slowly but finally recognizes the risen Christ and believes; Peter, however, simply goes home, perhaps to await further evidence.
Pamela Urfer
Cast: Two Roman soldiers, FLAVIUS and LUCIUS, and an ANGEL

Length:
15 minutes

FLAVIUS and LUCIUS are seated on their stools, center stage.

FLAVIUS: (Complaining) What was all the hurry about for this burial? I don't understand why we had to rush.

LUCIUS:
(Distracted but agreeable) Hmmmm.

FLAVIUS: I don't know why I even ask. It's so typical of the military: Hurry up and wait.

LUCIUS:
True.

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
The liturgy can start with a procession in which a child carries the Easter candle from the West end of the church to the altar at the East end, stopping at intervals to raise the candle high and cry, "Christ our Light". The people respond with "Alleluia!" All the candles in church are then lit from the Easter candle.

Call to worship:

The Lord is risen, he is risen indeed! Let us rejoice and be glad in him!

Invitation to confession:

Jesus, we turn to you.

Lord, have mercy.

Special Occasion

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