Advent 1
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series IX, Cycle B
Object:
Theme of the Day
Face the future with confidence, a word especially appropriate as we face the future on the first day of the new church year.
Collect of the Day
A prayer calling on God to come and rescue us from the evil and sin surrounding us.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
* Lament and prayer (esp. for northern Israel [as evidenced by the tribes that are mentioned in v. 2]) for deliverance or salvation from national enemies.
* Strong doctrine of providence affirmed; God is the One who has sent the affliction.
* Reference in verse 17 to "the one at your [God's] right hand, on the Son of Man made strong be God," probably refers to Israel, but could be interpreted messianically.
* Emphasis on restoration and theme that when God's favor is shone salvation transpires (probably a hymn refrain [see vv. 3, 7, 19]) is a reminder that God's new ways [the eschatological hope] are in continuity with God's former manner of dealing with His people [redemption does not contradict the original/created order].
Sermon Text and Title
"Iniquity Remembered No More"
Isaiah 64:1-9
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
Helping people to see sin (selfishness) even in their best deeds, so that they can better appreciate the gift of God's unconditional forgiveness (by grace alone), its radically new (eschatological) character, and what happens to you when this gift is bestowed (an Intimate Union with Christ). The sermon should aim to aid them to see that this is what Advent and Christmas are all about.
2. Exegesis(see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* An eschatological prophecy of Third Isaiah
* The prophet laments that the people of Judah have continued to sin, even after their return from the Babylonian Exile. They have become a society in which "no one calls on Your [God's] Name." The precariousness of life ("we all fade like a leaf") is noted (vv. 6-7).
* He prays that God would reveal Himself as in the days of old, to do so in a cataclysmic, eschatological way (vv. 1-4).
* Petition is made that the awesome God who the prophet is bold to call Father and not to remember the sins of the people forever (vv. 8-9).
* We are but clay, the work of God's hands (v. 8).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Bring the congregation to an awareness that we are sinners (totally sinful in everything we do). The following quotations by Martin Luther clarify this point sharply:
For man cannot but seek his own advantages and love himself above all things. And this is the sum of his iniquities. Hence even in good things and virtues men seek themselves, that is, they seek to please themselves and applaud themselves. (Luther's Works, Vol. 25, p. 222) And this is in agreement with scripture, which describes man as so turned in on himself that he uses not only physical but even spiritual goods for his own purpose and in all things seeks only himself.
(Ibid., p. 345)
* There is a growing secularism, as less and less Americans in each succeeding year's Gallup polls note that religion is important to them. A quotation by John Calvin in a commentary on the very text we consider well explains why in view of our increased secularism, things are going wrong in America.
... when we are alienated from Him [God], everything must go ill with us. We are indolent and sluggish by nature; and therefore we need to have spurs applied to us.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. VIII/2, p. 370)
* Proclaim Justification by Grace alone (that God remembers our sins no more); could tie this to a Realized Eschatology, an appreciation of the urgency that we believe this word.
* This word changes lives. Teach Justification as Intimate Union with Christ. Luther nicely illustrates this theme in a quotation pertaining to our text:
In this way the clay will be turned into a fine little jug again… Thus in all temptations let us firmly believe that we are not mire [dirt] of the streets but clay of the Potter, God who will reshape us. We are the clay of the Potter, not the mire [dirt] of the streets."
(Luther's Works, Vol. 17, p. 372)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* The latest insights of sociobiology and brain research support the insight that we are selfish in everything we do. It seems our genes are selfish, driven to propagate themselves in the next generation. Consequently, even spousal love, the nurturing of children, and the building of community are selfish, driven by the genes' desire propagate themselves (Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene; Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis).
* Neurobiology supports this insight to some extent. It seems that in all our activities, even the most other-directed activities like human love and spiritual exercises such as prayer, we are rewarded by the flow of good-feeling brain chemicals like dopamine (Dean Hamer, The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes; Daniel Amen, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life).
* Gallup polls on the importance of religion in America show religion's progressive annual declines in influence.
5. Gimmick
Read verse 6. Ask the congregation if they are unclean, if all their righteous deeds really are just filthy cloth. Help them to see that these words are true, that everything they do happens as a result of selfishness. Besides using the preceding Scientific Insights, give examples of how your good deeds are selfishly motivated.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* After opening points associated with the Gimmick, provide historical background on the text. Highlight the disappointment and waywardness of the Jewish exiles after their return to Israel in the 530s or 520s BC under Persian influence.
* Note the disappointment we may be feeling with life, how the American Dream is not turning out for many of us, perhaps not even for ourselves. (The last recession has changed American life. Give examples.) As Martin Luther put it while exegeting Isaiah: Our power and influence are like "a drop in the bucket and dust." That is all that our sweat and toil gain (Luther's Works, Vol. 17, p. 20).
* Explore with the congregation the possibility that as disappointments experienced by the returned exiles regarding the quality of their social life were related to their lack of faithfulness, so there is a correlation between the present conditions of American life, our own sense of disappointment with life, the sense that ultimately all we do "fades like a leaf" (will not last forever) [v. 6], and the fact that America is a nation in which "no one [sometimes not even us] calls the Lord's name" (v. 7).
* In the midst of our despair, we hope like the prophet for God to return with His awesome deeds, a confidence we can have because He comes again in Christ each Christmas. Help parishioners appreciate that an awareness of our sin and selfishness (give examples of selfishness doing the good deeds you do or cite the Scientific Insights above) is the best way to prepare for His coming again, that this is the meaning of Advent. We prepare for Christmas as we reflect on the fragility and apparent meaninglessness of life, see our lives as the filthy cloths and fading leaves (v. 6) the prophet says we are.
* There seems to be no way out of this condition. We are trapped in the old order.
* But in fact Christ has come to initiate the new order, to start something brand new in our lives. He comes not as an angry God, but as One who does not remember our sins forever (v. 8). Martin Luther reminds us while interpreting this text that God's decision not to remember our sin forever is most significant, given human nature. Because in despair, he reminds us, it feels like the trial is eternal, that deliverance is nowhere in sight. But the forgiving, forgetful God of ours takes our sin and despair and puts it in its place -- in the past (Luther's Works, Vol. 17, p. 207).
* In making these preceding points, be sure you do not give the impression that this forgiveness is given because of something we do (like our deep faith or piety). Be sure that the emphasis is on God's decision not to remember.
7. Wrap-Up
So what? What does forgiveness do for you and me in our everyday lives? Use the final Luther quotation in Theological Insights. End by reminding hearers how worthless they may feel sometimes, how worthless the daily grind of life may feel, like the scum of the streets, but that God sees us as good clay to shape into a fine and useful jug, and does not remember our sin and sense of meaninglessness anymore.
Sermon Text and Title
"Strengthened to the End"
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To help the congregation experience the confidence of the gospel of grace (Justification by Grace through faith), in the face of change and the fear of death.
2. Exegesis(see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* A thanksgiving to God, as part of Paul's salutation to the Corinthians, seeming to praise them in the best traditions of the ancient Near East, but in fact hinting at the sensitive topics (knowledge, speech, and claiming the spiritual gifts) that were dividing them and the apostle.
* Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are not lacking any spiritual gift (v. 7, a clear critique of their passion [perhaps of Gnostic influence] for attaining a wisdom from teachers other than Paul) (ch. 2). They have what they need until Christ comes again.
* The eschatological emphasis characteristic of the epistle (see 4:5; 5:5) surfaces in verse 8. Assurance is given that we have what we need, will be strengthened, to endure blamelessly to the end. The reference to "blamelessness" implies a reference to the justification of the sinner (6:11).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Eschatology and an appreciation that God is only known through the crucified Christ dominates the text (vv. 8-9). Preachers can determine whether they will interpret this theme in an exclusively future mode or as already in some sense realized (on the horizon). In either case, the text reminds us that we already have what we need to endure to the end. Justification by Grace Through Faith is suggested in the texts. Martin Luther nicely made this point while preaching on this text:
The gospel is a grace which brings to you all manner of gifts, by Him enriching you in everything. You lack nothing from God, but you await this one thing, that blessed day when Christ will reveal Himself to you with all those heavenly gifts which you now possess in faith.
(Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 4.2, p. 293)
* One sense in which the end is on the horizon is death. And armed with the gospel, accustomed to denying to ourselves as a result of taking on the self-denying lifestyle of baptism (Romans 6:1-19), we are prepared for death. No need to fear death if you've spent your whole life doing it:
A Christian is a person who begins to tread the way from this life to heaven the moment he is baptized, in the faith that Christ is henceforth the way, the truth, and the life. And he holds to this until his end… He is prepared at all times, whether death comes today, tomorrow, or in one, two, or ten years; for in Christ he has already been transported to the other side. We cannot be safe from death for a minute; in baptism all Christians begin to die, and they continue to die until they reach the grave. (Luther's Works, Vol. 24, p. 51)
He [the Christian] takes comfort in the fact that through baptism he is engrafted into Christ… Why should such a one fear death? Though it come at any time, in form of pestilence or accident, it will always find the Christian ready and well prepared, be he awake or asleep; for his is in Christ Jesus. (Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 4/2, p. 299)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* Neurobiological research supports the value of lives lived with openness to change and new challenges. It seems that when undertaking new tasks the brain forges new neural (brain-cell) connections. When that happens the front part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) is bathed in natural dope (esp. dopamine), which gives feelings of pleasure and happiness (see Sherwin Nuland, The Art of Aging: A Doctor's Prescription for Well-Being).
5. Gimmick
Ask the congregation if they fear death, if change seems threatening.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Following the Gimmick, explore the fear of death further; subsequently help parishioners to see that all change, anything new, involves a kind of death, and all the uncertainties associated with death.
* Death is scary. "The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself" (Publilius Syrus, Syrian-born Latin writer of the early first century BC). Such fear is inevitable, it seems. Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist, put it this way: "The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it…."
* Change is no easier. It involves a death of sorts. We are a little like the victim of abuse who stays in the abusive relationship. We fail to welcome change, because the uncertainty of change, the loss of continuity and what is familiar, is a kind of death. Consider how even the seasons of the year testify to this, how the leaves must die in preparation for winter and rebirth of spring, how the seed must perish if the tree or plant is to bloom and thrive. (Rely on examples in your own life or in the community to illustrate that change is a death.)
* Saint Paul and the gospel give us hope and courage to face these realities. He claims that God will strengthen the faithful to the end, that we might be blameless on the Day of the Lord (v. 8). How can we miss if we have Christ?
* Develop the Pauline teaching of Justification by Grace (6:11), noting how the reference to being blameless to the end (v. 8) suggests that God's act in Christ has made us blameless before Him. This insight and the fact that the faithful lack no spiritual gifts (v. 7) means that through God's love we have all we need to live good, fruitful lives and to face the end. Use the first quotation in the Theological Insights section above.
* Gifted with all that Christ has entails that life will be well lived. We will be ready and willing to take on new challenges, courageous in seizing new opportunities even when that means saying good-bye to what is familiar. And when you live well, death is not so scary: "As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death" (Leonardo da Vinci). "The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives well is prepared to die at any time" (Mark Twain).
* Christmas (and so Advent) is a reminder that life, not death, has the final word.
* Concretize these points about not needing to fear death by appealing to baptism. In the sacrament we die to sin and rise with Christ, taking on a life of dying and rising (Romans 6). As a result, we are more prepared for death, because we have been dying (living lives of renunciation to sin and self) our whole lives. See final quotes in the Theological Insights section to concretize this point.
7. Wrap-Up
The fear of death is indeed frightening. Raise the question if Paul is not right. Help parishioners realize that we are ready for it. With Christ in your life, with the meaning in life that being a Christian offers in view of the self-denying lifestyle Christians have been given to live as people living their baptism, death (and change) are not such scary things after all. Christians are used to giving things up and have the confidence that death leads to life!
Sermon Text and Title
"Heads-Up: The New Day Is Dawning!"
Mark 13:24-37
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim that the Eschaton has been realized in the person of Christ and that we are living in a new era in which new possibilities for the present are open, so we need to be prepared! The sermon should aid the congregation in appreciating that this theme is given testimony by Advent and Christmas.
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* A prophecy of the end of the age, uttered by Jesus prior to the passion in the context of His prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem (v. 2).
* There is essential agreement in His prophecy with the versions of the other Synoptic Gospels (save Mark's characteristic omission of references to the Son of Man returning in a great lighting of the sky [perhaps characteristic of the Markan concern to stress the hiddenness of Jesus' revelation]). (Compare Matthew 24:26-28 and Luke 17:23-24, 37 to the Markan account.)
* References to the Son not knowing the day or hour, only the Father (v. 32), may be indicative of Jesus as Son of Man (His humanity) not comprehending all that the Father knows, though not that somehow the Son of God is subordinate to the Father.
* The cataclysmic events prophesied are still under God's control (vv. 6-25). The reason for these catastrophes is to prepare for Christ (vv. 26-28, 37).They will come soon (v. 30).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Help the congregation to understand and experience the biblical/Markan concept of Realized Eschatology.
* The eminent New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann explains this concept profoundly:
This is the deeper meaning of the mythological preaching of Jesus -- to be open to God's future which is really imminent for every one of us; to be prepared for this future which can come as a thief in the night when we do not expect it; to be prepared, because this future will be judgment on all men who have bound themselves to the world and are not free, not open to God's future.
(Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp. 31-32)
* Martin Luther King Jr. operated with a similar viewpoint: "We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now" (A Call to Conscience, p. 162).
* We are trapped by our past (doctrine of sin). This is why we are not ready for or welcoming of the future, even when present circumstances are oppressive or destructive. But Christ's presence in the second coming (or whenever He comes into our lives), gives us by grace the confidence we need, the willingness to embrace what is to come. The great twentieth-century theologian and martyr for the faith Dietrich Bonhoeffer made this point while preaching on the First Sunday in Advent 78 years ago:
Who is addressed here? People who know they are enslaved and in chains. People who know that an oppressor has them under control and forces them to do compulsory labor… And now the First Sunday in Advent tells us nothing else: "Your redemption is drawing near!" It is already knocking at the door, don't you hear it? It is breaking open its way though the rubble and hard rock of your life and heart. It isn't happening quickly, but it is coming. Christ is breaking open His way to you….
Do you want to be redeemed? That is the one great question Advent puts to us. Does even a vestige of longing burn in us? If not, what do we want from Advent, what do we want from Christmas? A little inner emotion?...
Lift up your heads, you army of the afflicted, the humbled, the discouraged, you defeated army with bowed heads. The battle if not lost, the victory is yours -- take courage, be strong! There is no room here for shaking your heads and doubting, because Christ is coming.
(A Testament to Freedom, pp. 236-237)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* A possible direction of a sermon with a socio-political profile might be to Google statistics about the 2010 Christmas shopping season, highlighting that this is the old order and that now is the year to change these patterns. Stress the urgency of the moment!
5. Gimmick
Its soon time for Christmas. Ask the congregation if they are always prepared or if they tend to put things off. Proceed to point out ways in which we are running out of time, not just in preparing for Christmas but that the clock is ticking in our lives, and we are all running out of time.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* After opening Gimmick, begin to tell the gospel story. Set it in Jesus' last week prior to His death, harkening back to the beginning of the chapter as Jesus is prophesying destruction of the Temple. Bring the congregation into the circle of Peter, James, John, and Andrew (v. 3). Provide historical background regarding how things were not bad economically in Roman-occupied Palestine for the rich (a function of the economic policies of Herod the Great and the luxurious lifestyle his development programs had provided for some), but that it was nonetheless an uneven prosperity and a climate of bondage. Note parallels between the Jewish economic conditions and our own uneven distribution of wealth, a sense that we have seen the best of times in the past (for the American economic empire seems fragile, just as the Jews enjoying prosperity were heirs of the Herodian prosperity). Note how the opulence of the wealthy Jews of Jesus' lifetime, coupled with a sense that the majority of the Hebrews were no longer devout, matches the opulence evident in our mad rush for Christmas purchases and growing secularism.
* Jesus proclaimed that things would not continue as they were and that the ultimate emblem of the Herodian prosperity, of the religious going-through-the-motions, the Jerusalem Temple, would not long endure. A new era was coming, He proclaimed; His followers must be prepared. Are we ready for the new economic and religious realities that may be on America's immediate horizon? Are we ready for the rest of our lives, for what lies ahead?
* Explore the theme of preparation for the future and how loathe we are to do so. Our sin renders us slothful and inclined to let things stay as they are. We are like the lazy/slothful person described in Proverbs 26 (vv. 14-15): As a door turns on its hinges we turn in bed. We would bury our hands in a dish but be too tired to bring our hands back to our mouths.
It is as Carl Sandburg put it: "Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."
* Jesus' prophecy and warning that the new day is coming soon, that we need to prepare and no longer can be content with the way things are (for the present order [the structure of our lives is deeply flawed]), gives us a new option, a better way to spend our coins.
* Jesus claimed that the new era would transpire in the lifetimes of His hearers (v. 30). Since He cannot have been wrong, we can only conclude that either He was talking about us or that we are already in the end times. In any case, the present is urgent. Introduce this concept (of Realized Eschatology); use the quotation by Bultmann in the Theological Insights section.
* In this new reality that is coming, the materialism, secularism, and lack of commitment that characterizes our times will change. Now is the time, with God's inspiring grace, to challenge these trends, and to make a difference!
* This understanding of the end times makes the present moment essential. To miss the moment is to miss the opportunity for success. It is as the nineteenth-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once said: "The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes." To miss the moment is to miss the future. It is like the old pearl of wisdom put it: "Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life." American author H. Jackson Brown Jr., famed for his composition of Life's Little Instruction Book, once claimed: "The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today."
* So much is lost when we fail to embrace the present moment.
We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight….
We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.
(Blaise Pascal, Pensees, p. 43)
7. Wrap-Up
Help hearers to recognize that by God's grace there are some big things ahead for us in the coming year. God has some great plans for us. We dare not put off those big projects, those changes we have been intending to make! The end times are now!
Face the future with confidence, a word especially appropriate as we face the future on the first day of the new church year.
Collect of the Day
A prayer calling on God to come and rescue us from the evil and sin surrounding us.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
* Lament and prayer (esp. for northern Israel [as evidenced by the tribes that are mentioned in v. 2]) for deliverance or salvation from national enemies.
* Strong doctrine of providence affirmed; God is the One who has sent the affliction.
* Reference in verse 17 to "the one at your [God's] right hand, on the Son of Man made strong be God," probably refers to Israel, but could be interpreted messianically.
* Emphasis on restoration and theme that when God's favor is shone salvation transpires (probably a hymn refrain [see vv. 3, 7, 19]) is a reminder that God's new ways [the eschatological hope] are in continuity with God's former manner of dealing with His people [redemption does not contradict the original/created order].
Sermon Text and Title
"Iniquity Remembered No More"
Isaiah 64:1-9
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
Helping people to see sin (selfishness) even in their best deeds, so that they can better appreciate the gift of God's unconditional forgiveness (by grace alone), its radically new (eschatological) character, and what happens to you when this gift is bestowed (an Intimate Union with Christ). The sermon should aim to aid them to see that this is what Advent and Christmas are all about.
2. Exegesis(see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* An eschatological prophecy of Third Isaiah
* The prophet laments that the people of Judah have continued to sin, even after their return from the Babylonian Exile. They have become a society in which "no one calls on Your [God's] Name." The precariousness of life ("we all fade like a leaf") is noted (vv. 6-7).
* He prays that God would reveal Himself as in the days of old, to do so in a cataclysmic, eschatological way (vv. 1-4).
* Petition is made that the awesome God who the prophet is bold to call Father and not to remember the sins of the people forever (vv. 8-9).
* We are but clay, the work of God's hands (v. 8).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Bring the congregation to an awareness that we are sinners (totally sinful in everything we do). The following quotations by Martin Luther clarify this point sharply:
For man cannot but seek his own advantages and love himself above all things. And this is the sum of his iniquities. Hence even in good things and virtues men seek themselves, that is, they seek to please themselves and applaud themselves. (Luther's Works, Vol. 25, p. 222) And this is in agreement with scripture, which describes man as so turned in on himself that he uses not only physical but even spiritual goods for his own purpose and in all things seeks only himself.
(Ibid., p. 345)
* There is a growing secularism, as less and less Americans in each succeeding year's Gallup polls note that religion is important to them. A quotation by John Calvin in a commentary on the very text we consider well explains why in view of our increased secularism, things are going wrong in America.
... when we are alienated from Him [God], everything must go ill with us. We are indolent and sluggish by nature; and therefore we need to have spurs applied to us.
(Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. VIII/2, p. 370)
* Proclaim Justification by Grace alone (that God remembers our sins no more); could tie this to a Realized Eschatology, an appreciation of the urgency that we believe this word.
* This word changes lives. Teach Justification as Intimate Union with Christ. Luther nicely illustrates this theme in a quotation pertaining to our text:
In this way the clay will be turned into a fine little jug again… Thus in all temptations let us firmly believe that we are not mire [dirt] of the streets but clay of the Potter, God who will reshape us. We are the clay of the Potter, not the mire [dirt] of the streets."
(Luther's Works, Vol. 17, p. 372)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* The latest insights of sociobiology and brain research support the insight that we are selfish in everything we do. It seems our genes are selfish, driven to propagate themselves in the next generation. Consequently, even spousal love, the nurturing of children, and the building of community are selfish, driven by the genes' desire propagate themselves (Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene; Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis).
* Neurobiology supports this insight to some extent. It seems that in all our activities, even the most other-directed activities like human love and spiritual exercises such as prayer, we are rewarded by the flow of good-feeling brain chemicals like dopamine (Dean Hamer, The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes; Daniel Amen, Change Your Brain, Change Your Life).
* Gallup polls on the importance of religion in America show religion's progressive annual declines in influence.
5. Gimmick
Read verse 6. Ask the congregation if they are unclean, if all their righteous deeds really are just filthy cloth. Help them to see that these words are true, that everything they do happens as a result of selfishness. Besides using the preceding Scientific Insights, give examples of how your good deeds are selfishly motivated.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* After opening points associated with the Gimmick, provide historical background on the text. Highlight the disappointment and waywardness of the Jewish exiles after their return to Israel in the 530s or 520s BC under Persian influence.
* Note the disappointment we may be feeling with life, how the American Dream is not turning out for many of us, perhaps not even for ourselves. (The last recession has changed American life. Give examples.) As Martin Luther put it while exegeting Isaiah: Our power and influence are like "a drop in the bucket and dust." That is all that our sweat and toil gain (Luther's Works, Vol. 17, p. 20).
* Explore with the congregation the possibility that as disappointments experienced by the returned exiles regarding the quality of their social life were related to their lack of faithfulness, so there is a correlation between the present conditions of American life, our own sense of disappointment with life, the sense that ultimately all we do "fades like a leaf" (will not last forever) [v. 6], and the fact that America is a nation in which "no one [sometimes not even us] calls the Lord's name" (v. 7).
* In the midst of our despair, we hope like the prophet for God to return with His awesome deeds, a confidence we can have because He comes again in Christ each Christmas. Help parishioners appreciate that an awareness of our sin and selfishness (give examples of selfishness doing the good deeds you do or cite the Scientific Insights above) is the best way to prepare for His coming again, that this is the meaning of Advent. We prepare for Christmas as we reflect on the fragility and apparent meaninglessness of life, see our lives as the filthy cloths and fading leaves (v. 6) the prophet says we are.
* There seems to be no way out of this condition. We are trapped in the old order.
* But in fact Christ has come to initiate the new order, to start something brand new in our lives. He comes not as an angry God, but as One who does not remember our sins forever (v. 8). Martin Luther reminds us while interpreting this text that God's decision not to remember our sin forever is most significant, given human nature. Because in despair, he reminds us, it feels like the trial is eternal, that deliverance is nowhere in sight. But the forgiving, forgetful God of ours takes our sin and despair and puts it in its place -- in the past (Luther's Works, Vol. 17, p. 207).
* In making these preceding points, be sure you do not give the impression that this forgiveness is given because of something we do (like our deep faith or piety). Be sure that the emphasis is on God's decision not to remember.
7. Wrap-Up
So what? What does forgiveness do for you and me in our everyday lives? Use the final Luther quotation in Theological Insights. End by reminding hearers how worthless they may feel sometimes, how worthless the daily grind of life may feel, like the scum of the streets, but that God sees us as good clay to shape into a fine and useful jug, and does not remember our sin and sense of meaninglessness anymore.
Sermon Text and Title
"Strengthened to the End"
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To help the congregation experience the confidence of the gospel of grace (Justification by Grace through faith), in the face of change and the fear of death.
2. Exegesis(see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* A thanksgiving to God, as part of Paul's salutation to the Corinthians, seeming to praise them in the best traditions of the ancient Near East, but in fact hinting at the sensitive topics (knowledge, speech, and claiming the spiritual gifts) that were dividing them and the apostle.
* Paul reminds the Corinthians that they are not lacking any spiritual gift (v. 7, a clear critique of their passion [perhaps of Gnostic influence] for attaining a wisdom from teachers other than Paul) (ch. 2). They have what they need until Christ comes again.
* The eschatological emphasis characteristic of the epistle (see 4:5; 5:5) surfaces in verse 8. Assurance is given that we have what we need, will be strengthened, to endure blamelessly to the end. The reference to "blamelessness" implies a reference to the justification of the sinner (6:11).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Eschatology and an appreciation that God is only known through the crucified Christ dominates the text (vv. 8-9). Preachers can determine whether they will interpret this theme in an exclusively future mode or as already in some sense realized (on the horizon). In either case, the text reminds us that we already have what we need to endure to the end. Justification by Grace Through Faith is suggested in the texts. Martin Luther nicely made this point while preaching on this text:
The gospel is a grace which brings to you all manner of gifts, by Him enriching you in everything. You lack nothing from God, but you await this one thing, that blessed day when Christ will reveal Himself to you with all those heavenly gifts which you now possess in faith.
(Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 4.2, p. 293)
* One sense in which the end is on the horizon is death. And armed with the gospel, accustomed to denying to ourselves as a result of taking on the self-denying lifestyle of baptism (Romans 6:1-19), we are prepared for death. No need to fear death if you've spent your whole life doing it:
A Christian is a person who begins to tread the way from this life to heaven the moment he is baptized, in the faith that Christ is henceforth the way, the truth, and the life. And he holds to this until his end… He is prepared at all times, whether death comes today, tomorrow, or in one, two, or ten years; for in Christ he has already been transported to the other side. We cannot be safe from death for a minute; in baptism all Christians begin to die, and they continue to die until they reach the grave. (Luther's Works, Vol. 24, p. 51)
He [the Christian] takes comfort in the fact that through baptism he is engrafted into Christ… Why should such a one fear death? Though it come at any time, in form of pestilence or accident, it will always find the Christian ready and well prepared, be he awake or asleep; for his is in Christ Jesus. (Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 4/2, p. 299)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* Neurobiological research supports the value of lives lived with openness to change and new challenges. It seems that when undertaking new tasks the brain forges new neural (brain-cell) connections. When that happens the front part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) is bathed in natural dope (esp. dopamine), which gives feelings of pleasure and happiness (see Sherwin Nuland, The Art of Aging: A Doctor's Prescription for Well-Being).
5. Gimmick
Ask the congregation if they fear death, if change seems threatening.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Following the Gimmick, explore the fear of death further; subsequently help parishioners to see that all change, anything new, involves a kind of death, and all the uncertainties associated with death.
* Death is scary. "The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself" (Publilius Syrus, Syrian-born Latin writer of the early first century BC). Such fear is inevitable, it seems. Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist, put it this way: "The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it…."
* Change is no easier. It involves a death of sorts. We are a little like the victim of abuse who stays in the abusive relationship. We fail to welcome change, because the uncertainty of change, the loss of continuity and what is familiar, is a kind of death. Consider how even the seasons of the year testify to this, how the leaves must die in preparation for winter and rebirth of spring, how the seed must perish if the tree or plant is to bloom and thrive. (Rely on examples in your own life or in the community to illustrate that change is a death.)
* Saint Paul and the gospel give us hope and courage to face these realities. He claims that God will strengthen the faithful to the end, that we might be blameless on the Day of the Lord (v. 8). How can we miss if we have Christ?
* Develop the Pauline teaching of Justification by Grace (6:11), noting how the reference to being blameless to the end (v. 8) suggests that God's act in Christ has made us blameless before Him. This insight and the fact that the faithful lack no spiritual gifts (v. 7) means that through God's love we have all we need to live good, fruitful lives and to face the end. Use the first quotation in the Theological Insights section above.
* Gifted with all that Christ has entails that life will be well lived. We will be ready and willing to take on new challenges, courageous in seizing new opportunities even when that means saying good-bye to what is familiar. And when you live well, death is not so scary: "As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death" (Leonardo da Vinci). "The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives well is prepared to die at any time" (Mark Twain).
* Christmas (and so Advent) is a reminder that life, not death, has the final word.
* Concretize these points about not needing to fear death by appealing to baptism. In the sacrament we die to sin and rise with Christ, taking on a life of dying and rising (Romans 6). As a result, we are more prepared for death, because we have been dying (living lives of renunciation to sin and self) our whole lives. See final quotes in the Theological Insights section to concretize this point.
7. Wrap-Up
The fear of death is indeed frightening. Raise the question if Paul is not right. Help parishioners realize that we are ready for it. With Christ in your life, with the meaning in life that being a Christian offers in view of the self-denying lifestyle Christians have been given to live as people living their baptism, death (and change) are not such scary things after all. Christians are used to giving things up and have the confidence that death leads to life!
Sermon Text and Title
"Heads-Up: The New Day Is Dawning!"
Mark 13:24-37
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim that the Eschaton has been realized in the person of Christ and that we are living in a new era in which new possibilities for the present are open, so we need to be prepared! The sermon should aid the congregation in appreciating that this theme is given testimony by Advent and Christmas.
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* A prophecy of the end of the age, uttered by Jesus prior to the passion in the context of His prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem (v. 2).
* There is essential agreement in His prophecy with the versions of the other Synoptic Gospels (save Mark's characteristic omission of references to the Son of Man returning in a great lighting of the sky [perhaps characteristic of the Markan concern to stress the hiddenness of Jesus' revelation]). (Compare Matthew 24:26-28 and Luke 17:23-24, 37 to the Markan account.)
* References to the Son not knowing the day or hour, only the Father (v. 32), may be indicative of Jesus as Son of Man (His humanity) not comprehending all that the Father knows, though not that somehow the Son of God is subordinate to the Father.
* The cataclysmic events prophesied are still under God's control (vv. 6-25). The reason for these catastrophes is to prepare for Christ (vv. 26-28, 37).They will come soon (v. 30).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Help the congregation to understand and experience the biblical/Markan concept of Realized Eschatology.
* The eminent New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann explains this concept profoundly:
This is the deeper meaning of the mythological preaching of Jesus -- to be open to God's future which is really imminent for every one of us; to be prepared for this future which can come as a thief in the night when we do not expect it; to be prepared, because this future will be judgment on all men who have bound themselves to the world and are not free, not open to God's future.
(Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp. 31-32)
* Martin Luther King Jr. operated with a similar viewpoint: "We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now" (A Call to Conscience, p. 162).
* We are trapped by our past (doctrine of sin). This is why we are not ready for or welcoming of the future, even when present circumstances are oppressive or destructive. But Christ's presence in the second coming (or whenever He comes into our lives), gives us by grace the confidence we need, the willingness to embrace what is to come. The great twentieth-century theologian and martyr for the faith Dietrich Bonhoeffer made this point while preaching on the First Sunday in Advent 78 years ago:
Who is addressed here? People who know they are enslaved and in chains. People who know that an oppressor has them under control and forces them to do compulsory labor… And now the First Sunday in Advent tells us nothing else: "Your redemption is drawing near!" It is already knocking at the door, don't you hear it? It is breaking open its way though the rubble and hard rock of your life and heart. It isn't happening quickly, but it is coming. Christ is breaking open His way to you….
Do you want to be redeemed? That is the one great question Advent puts to us. Does even a vestige of longing burn in us? If not, what do we want from Advent, what do we want from Christmas? A little inner emotion?...
Lift up your heads, you army of the afflicted, the humbled, the discouraged, you defeated army with bowed heads. The battle if not lost, the victory is yours -- take courage, be strong! There is no room here for shaking your heads and doubting, because Christ is coming.
(A Testament to Freedom, pp. 236-237)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* A possible direction of a sermon with a socio-political profile might be to Google statistics about the 2010 Christmas shopping season, highlighting that this is the old order and that now is the year to change these patterns. Stress the urgency of the moment!
5. Gimmick
Its soon time for Christmas. Ask the congregation if they are always prepared or if they tend to put things off. Proceed to point out ways in which we are running out of time, not just in preparing for Christmas but that the clock is ticking in our lives, and we are all running out of time.
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* After opening Gimmick, begin to tell the gospel story. Set it in Jesus' last week prior to His death, harkening back to the beginning of the chapter as Jesus is prophesying destruction of the Temple. Bring the congregation into the circle of Peter, James, John, and Andrew (v. 3). Provide historical background regarding how things were not bad economically in Roman-occupied Palestine for the rich (a function of the economic policies of Herod the Great and the luxurious lifestyle his development programs had provided for some), but that it was nonetheless an uneven prosperity and a climate of bondage. Note parallels between the Jewish economic conditions and our own uneven distribution of wealth, a sense that we have seen the best of times in the past (for the American economic empire seems fragile, just as the Jews enjoying prosperity were heirs of the Herodian prosperity). Note how the opulence of the wealthy Jews of Jesus' lifetime, coupled with a sense that the majority of the Hebrews were no longer devout, matches the opulence evident in our mad rush for Christmas purchases and growing secularism.
* Jesus proclaimed that things would not continue as they were and that the ultimate emblem of the Herodian prosperity, of the religious going-through-the-motions, the Jerusalem Temple, would not long endure. A new era was coming, He proclaimed; His followers must be prepared. Are we ready for the new economic and religious realities that may be on America's immediate horizon? Are we ready for the rest of our lives, for what lies ahead?
* Explore the theme of preparation for the future and how loathe we are to do so. Our sin renders us slothful and inclined to let things stay as they are. We are like the lazy/slothful person described in Proverbs 26 (vv. 14-15): As a door turns on its hinges we turn in bed. We would bury our hands in a dish but be too tired to bring our hands back to our mouths.
It is as Carl Sandburg put it: "Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."
* Jesus' prophecy and warning that the new day is coming soon, that we need to prepare and no longer can be content with the way things are (for the present order [the structure of our lives is deeply flawed]), gives us a new option, a better way to spend our coins.
* Jesus claimed that the new era would transpire in the lifetimes of His hearers (v. 30). Since He cannot have been wrong, we can only conclude that either He was talking about us or that we are already in the end times. In any case, the present is urgent. Introduce this concept (of Realized Eschatology); use the quotation by Bultmann in the Theological Insights section.
* In this new reality that is coming, the materialism, secularism, and lack of commitment that characterizes our times will change. Now is the time, with God's inspiring grace, to challenge these trends, and to make a difference!
* This understanding of the end times makes the present moment essential. To miss the moment is to miss the opportunity for success. It is as the nineteenth-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once said: "The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes." To miss the moment is to miss the future. It is like the old pearl of wisdom put it: "Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life." American author H. Jackson Brown Jr., famed for his composition of Life's Little Instruction Book, once claimed: "The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today."
* So much is lost when we fail to embrace the present moment.
We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight….
We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so.
(Blaise Pascal, Pensees, p. 43)
7. Wrap-Up
Help hearers to recognize that by God's grace there are some big things ahead for us in the coming year. God has some great plans for us. We dare not put off those big projects, those changes we have been intending to make! The end times are now!
