Proper 11
Preaching
Aids To The Psalms
Exploring The Message
Fools say in their hearts,
"There is no God."
They are corrupt, they commit abominable acts;
there is no one who does good.
God looks down from heaven
on humankind to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.
They have all fallen away, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good, no, not one.
Have they no knowledge, those evildoers,
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon God?
There they shall be in great terror,
in terror such as has not been.
For God will scatter the bones of the ungodly;
they will be put to shame, for God has rejected them.
O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
Alternate Image
The Singer attends a school board meeting. Debates over
curriculum, discipline, teaching methods and extracurricular
activities are being hotly waged. One member of the group
continually brings up biblical concepts and how they relate to
education. She tries over and over again to apply these
principles to the issues being discussed. Each time she tries to
do this the chair of the board looks at her and exasperatedly
tells her that what she is saying is irrelevant and immaterial.
The chair
tells her this is not a religious institution and religious
values have nothing to do with their discussion. From then on,
whenever the woman rises to make a point, the chair, getting
angrier and angrier and redder and redder in the face, interrupts
and says, "Irrelevant and immaterial!" The woman tries to speak
her mind once more and the chair leaps to his feet and hollers,
"Irrelevant and ... Aargh ..." and falls over dead with a heart
attack. As the crowd looks aghast at the prostrate man, one is
heard to utter, "He appears irrelevant and immaterial."
Reflection
"There is no God," is not the utterance and mark of an atheist
but of one who lives and acts as though there was no God. Old
Testament times there were no disbelievers but there were plenty,
as there is today, who acted as though there was no God. They
acted as though God was irrelevant and immaterial. Whether we are
at school board meetings, running our businesses, raising our
families or governing the country, when we act as though God is
irrelevant and immaterial we are in big trouble. Whether we think
God is involved in the world or not, God is intimately involved
with the world and us and judges us. Our daily prayer should be
that God not find us irrelevant and immaterial.
"There is no God."
They are corrupt, they commit abominable acts;
there is no one who does good.
God looks down from heaven
on humankind to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.
They have all fallen away, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good, no, not one.
Have they no knowledge, those evildoers,
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon God?
There they shall be in great terror,
in terror such as has not been.
For God will scatter the bones of the ungodly;
they will be put to shame, for God has rejected them.
O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
When God restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
Alternate Image
The Singer attends a school board meeting. Debates over
curriculum, discipline, teaching methods and extracurricular
activities are being hotly waged. One member of the group
continually brings up biblical concepts and how they relate to
education. She tries over and over again to apply these
principles to the issues being discussed. Each time she tries to
do this the chair of the board looks at her and exasperatedly
tells her that what she is saying is irrelevant and immaterial.
The chair
tells her this is not a religious institution and religious
values have nothing to do with their discussion. From then on,
whenever the woman rises to make a point, the chair, getting
angrier and angrier and redder and redder in the face, interrupts
and says, "Irrelevant and immaterial!" The woman tries to speak
her mind once more and the chair leaps to his feet and hollers,
"Irrelevant and ... Aargh ..." and falls over dead with a heart
attack. As the crowd looks aghast at the prostrate man, one is
heard to utter, "He appears irrelevant and immaterial."
Reflection
"There is no God," is not the utterance and mark of an atheist
but of one who lives and acts as though there was no God. Old
Testament times there were no disbelievers but there were plenty,
as there is today, who acted as though there was no God. They
acted as though God was irrelevant and immaterial. Whether we are
at school board meetings, running our businesses, raising our
families or governing the country, when we act as though God is
irrelevant and immaterial we are in big trouble. Whether we think
God is involved in the world or not, God is intimately involved
with the world and us and judges us. Our daily prayer should be
that God not find us irrelevant and immaterial.
