Proper 13 / Pentecost 11 / Ordinary Time 18
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series IX, Cycle B
Theme of the Day
Being fed by our Lord and the companionship it brings.
Collect of the Day
Petition is offered that the God of immeasurable love fill us and the world with the life that comes only from Him. The prayer focuses on justification.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 51:1-12
See Ash Wednesday.
or Psalm 78:23-29
* An Asaph Psalm telling the story of God's great deeds and His people's faithlessness.
* God's care for His people during the exodus and time in the wilderness is described.
* The accounts of the miraculous feeding of the people in the wilderness reported in Exodus 16 and Numbers 11 are celebrated. The bread provided is said to be bread of angels (v. 25).
Sermon Text and Title
"Forgive and Forget"
2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim how even people of faith like David and us have sinned, yet we too are forgiven, our iniquity remembered no more.
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* Having eliminated Uriah, David takes Uriah's widow as his wife (11:26-27a). This displeases the Lord, who sends the prophet Nathan to condemn David (11:27b--12:1).
* Nathan confronts David with a parable of two men, one rich and the other poor. The poor man had a small pet lamb (12:2-3). A rich man came and took this lone lamb from the poor man rather than feed a guest from his own flock (12:4).
* David was angered by this account, claiming the rich man deserved death and (as per Exodus 22:1) thinking a fourfold restitution of property should be provided to the poor man's family (12:5-6). Then Nathan tells him that he is the man (12:7). And yet David has been richly blessed by the Lord (12:7-8). The question is raised why David has done such evil (12:9).
* As a result of his sin, Nathan informs David that the sword will never depart from his house. Trouble will be raised up against him. His wives will be taken from him (12:10-12). David confesses his sin. Forgiveness is offered (12:13).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* The story is about sin and God's judgment of it. But it is also and especially a word of God's inexplicable mercy and forgiveness (Justification by Grace).
* About David's sin John Wesley writes: "This is an eminent example of the corruption of man's nature, of the deceitfulness of sin…" (Commentary on the Bible, p. 200).
* Wesley considers this a story of the merciful God who still "pities and prevents him who had so horribly forsaken God" (Ibid.).
* Prominent nineteenth-century Congregational Puritan minister Henry Ward Beecher hit the nail on the head in noting that only a forgiveness like God's that truly forgets is true forgiveness:
I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note -- torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.
* The lack of forgiveness of ourselves that we experience often comes when we are alone. Late medieval English mystic Julian of Norwich thoughtfully expresses how God's forgiving love overcomes this:
And so it goes with all of us who are sinners. But though it is true that we do this frequently, His goodness never allows us to be alone. Continuously He is with us, tenderly He excuses us, and always He shields us from blame in His sight.
(The Revelation of Divine Love, p. 203)
* See the quotations about God's love in Theological Insights for the First Lesson, Pentecost 11.
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* See the insights in this section for the Second Lesson, Pentecost 9.
* There is an infidelity epidemic in America today. Some estimate that 30% to 60% of all married individuals in America will engage in infidelity. Roughly 2% to 3% of all children born are the progeny of infidelity.
5. Gimmick
David had done great evil. What do you regret in your life, wish you could do over? Have you been forgiven? Forgiven yourself?
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Forgiveness is defined as the giving up of resentment or the desire to punish, to stop being angry, or to cancel a debt. It is such a seemingly easy thing, and yet a complex, difficult thing to execute and receive.
* Sometimes we agonize over the mistakes we have made, the wrongs we have done, and we wonder if we have really been forgiven for them. On those occasions we wonder if we can forgive ourselves. Forgiveness, oh how we yearn for it (sometimes). Other times it's no big deal.
* Same with doing the deed of forgiveness. It comes so easy to say it's okay to a friend. But other times we can't get over the hurt. It's always there, even if we try. We forgive on the surface, but deep down we don't forget.
* Georgene and her parents Mitch and Madge were polite in their dealings with each other. The consistent tensions between child and parents had lessened since adulthood, and Georgene had gotten her own residence. Mitch and Madge had hardly been ideal parents. Alcohol abuse and careerism had led to a lot of neglect and fights during Georgene's childhood. This left her a child with a lot of self-esteem issues, questioning her own lovability. Many fights later, in adulthood, they had asked for forgiveness on numerous occasions and she had expressed forgiveness. Sure, she meant it, but in her mid-twenties the scars of neglect and insecurities and her suspicions of their sincerity remained. Georgene could forgive. But she hadn't forgotten.
* That's the way it is with us fallen human beings. We forgive; we really want to forgive. But we really don't forget.
* Human beings are like walls in living rooms and master bedrooms of family homes. We tack things on the walls (pictures, knick-knacks, and the like). We take them down, especially if they get damaged. After awhile we may even forget what we hung on the wall. But long after what we hung on the wall has been removed, the holes are still there. The holes are the memory of what hung there, long after the reality of what was hanging on the wall has been removed. It is like that with human beings. We can forgive (clear away the realities of what hurt us) but forgetting is another matter. Use the comment by Henry Ward Beecher in Theological Insights.
* This is not the way God forgives. In our story today, David had sinned heinously in scheming to have Uriah killed so that he might have Uriah's beautiful widow Bathsheba as his wife (11:26-27a). The Lord sent his prophet Nathan to condemn the deed and announce ways in which life would never be the same for David (12:7-11, 14). But then the Lord forgave David's sin; He puts it away (12:13)! David did not die for his sins; he did not lose the throne and the promise of an eternal kingdom (7:12-16).
* God forgave the sins of David. He counted them no more. Can we not say He forgot them? Ultimately David's sin did not matter, for though the child David had fathered with Bathsheba died (12:15b-23), they became parents of the famed son of David who would continue the Davidic line, Solomon (12:24). Yes, when God forgives, He also forgets.
* The Bible says that in Isaiah 43:18: God promises He will not remember the former things or consider the things of old. And in the same chapter (v. 25) God claims to bolt out our transgressions and He will not remember our sins anymore. When God forgives He forgets.
* Early twentieth-century Canadian businessman James Grund had it right in his famed comment: "To forgive is human, to forget divine." God is not like Alicia in The Good Wife, agonizing over whether to forgive her wayward loved one.
* Why does it matter that God forgives this way? Because when the slate is wiped clean like God does, then doubts about our status before God are gone. No more worries about whether I am really forgiven. The slate is wiped clean! And if all the sins of the past, all your mistakes and regrets are gone, then you can really forgive yourself. How wonderful to be loved that way, to have your sins forgiven.
* What an awesome and wonderful love this is. Cite the quotations in the fifth and final bullet points of Theological Insights. He even loves seedy people like David who did things we wouldn't dream of doing. His love is as inexhaustible as an infinite ocean, an energy that stirs rocks. This is a forgiving love that tenderly excuses us and shields us from blame and never leaves us alone.
7. Wrap-Up
Hungry for forgiveness? Need nourishment to overcome your despair? Our Lord will feed you! Devour that astounding, tender love the next time you're not sure you're forgiven, the next time you can't forgive yourself. God doesn't remember what you feel guilty about. The slate is clean. And as the Holy Spirit He'll hang around with you to assure you it's all okay. What an awesome God we have!
Sermon Text and Title
"Unity in the Body"
Ephesians 4:1-16
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim how the church's structure and status as body of Christ entails unity in its daily life.
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* Part of a discussion of the ethical implications of Paul's cosmic Christology and ecclesiology. This aim is made explicit in verse 1.
* Describes the virtues of the worthy life (including humility, gentleness, patience) (vv. 2-3).
* Affirms the unity of the body of Christ, the Spirit, and the one baptism of the one God (vv. 4-6). God is said to permeate the cosmos (v. 6).
* Each was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift (v. 7).
* Psalm 68:18 is quoted to communicate how Christ has ascended in the sense of conquering all spiritual powers (vv. 8-9). This ascension entails Christ's cosmic status, filling all things (v. 10).
* The gifts Christ gives are various offices of the church to equip saints for ministry to build up the body so all come to the unity of faith, to maturity, to the full stature of Christ (vv. 11-13).
* Thus we must no longer be tossed to and fro by every new doctrine but speaking truth in love must grow up into Christ from whom the whole body is knit together (vv. 14-16).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Attention is given to the implications for church life of the church's unity in Christ and God's and Christ's permeation of the cosmos as well as a Classic View of the Atonement.
* John Chrysostom eloquently explained the absurdity of fracturing unity:
And surely these are the very reasons why thou oughtest not rise up against thy neighbors. For if all things are common, and one has nothing more than another, when this mad folly? We partake of the same nature, partake alike of soul and body, we breathe the same air, we use the same food. Whence this rebellious rising of one against another?
(Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 13, p. 99)
* Martin Luther tried to explain the Christian life in light of this concern with unity: "Let the Christian know his earthly life is not unto himself, not for his own sake: His life and work here belong to Christ his Lord" (Complete Sermons, Vol. 4/2, p. 282).
* With regard to Paul's comments about Christian virtues (vv. 2-3), Luther notes how one of them, patience, contributes to the unity of the body:
Note that genuine humility is bound to follow where faith is real. Upon humility follow real patience and love toward our neighbor, so that we despise no one, gladly serve everybody and do good to him, bear whatever happens to us, are not angry and do not avenge ourselves when men show ingratitude, unfaithfulness, spite, mockery, and disgrace.
(What Luther Says, p. 671)
* Karl Barth provides a helpful and broader way of understanding our unity (linking up with the polity discussion of vv. 11-13). We are united in proclamation, he contends, with the saints who went before us:
The present-day witnesses of the word of God can and should look back to the witnesses of the same word who preceded them and away to those contemporary with them. In this matter it is impossible to speak without having first heard. All speaking is a response to these fathers and brethren.
(Church Dogmatics, Vol. I/2, p. 573)
* God's permeation of the cosmos (v. 6), which entails that we are all in a sense united as part of Him, was nicely portrayed by Augustine. He compared God to an infinite sea and the cosmos as but a sponge dropped into it (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 1, pp. 104-105, 74).
* Consider the Wesley quote in Possible Sermon Moves for the Second Lesson, Pentecost 8.
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* See the insights and data in this section for the Second Lessons, Pentecost 9, 8.
5. Gimmick
This is a church where everybody's family; we all get along so well. Yeah, are you sure you know what you're saying?
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Sometimes family churches are not friendly to singles. Sometimes congregations from rich- or middle-class neighborhoods don't welcome people off the streets. In fact, the chief guru of the Church Growth Movement, Donald McGavran, has taught us that the best way to grow churches is by targeting an audience of like-minded people with similar economic and educational backgrounds (Understanding Church Growth). We need to think for a moment about the consequences of the fact that this philosophy has pretty much been bought by most American denominations (both mainline Protestant and Evangelical), and that most new congregation start-ups by our denomination and as well as most of the largest megachurches have operated with these principles. It seems that we need to ask if despite our rhetoric we really believe that the church should reflect a unity, that the companionship we say we crave in the church is really universal. We need to look at this congregation and see how we are doing. Or have we endorsed the Church Growth Movement philosophy of just targeting people like ourselves for membership in this congregation and denomination?
* Analyze the make-up of the congregation and make some observations about where there are good expressions of unity and broad representation of diversity that is America (if any instances exist) and also ways in which the congregation is not doing as good a job on this score.
* Ask what we can do to improve. The good news of the Second Lesson is that we do not have to do anything, that God in Christ will do (has done) the things needed to be done already. Let's just say that we haven't had our eyes open to how big the church really is (and that's why we do not sense or act out our unity sufficiently).
* In our lesson today Paul says there is one body, just as there is just one Holy Spirit (v. 4). God is said to be everywhere, permeating every space in the universe, just as Christ does since the ascension (vv. 6, 10). As for the body of Christ, it seems that if Christ is everywhere the body of Christ must be everywhere. Get that? The church, the body of Christ, is everywhere.
Then Paul proceeds to remind the Ephesians and us that each member of the body has been given grace (v. 7), different gifts and tasks (v. 11), and that all of us may come to unity (v. 13). He closes by speaking of the knitting together of the whole body (v. 16).
* Get that? The whole body of Christ is knit together. Not just those of a like-minded outlook on life, not just the professionals or the laborers, not just black or white, not just those of our congregation or Christians in our nation in the twenty-first century. All of us are knit together.
* Perhaps the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, Karl Barth, explained how far this unity extended. Use his quotation in Theological Insights. Barth reminds us that in unity we are not just accountable to members of this congregation, to Christians with whom we share common interests and a common social class, not just to the leaders of the denomination, to living Christians, but to the ancestors in the faith who lived before us! What wonderful companionship we can count on.
That sense of responsibility (that you are accountable to the founders of this congregation, to the denomination's founders, to the martyrs of the faith) makes it a little harder to justify less than your best effort in the things you do for the church and in the way you witness to Jesus with your life. Add Luther's comments in the third bullet point of Theological Insights, regarding that we no longer belong to ourselves in the body of Christ.
* Consider using the John Wesley quotation in Possible Sermon Moves for the Second Lesson, Pentecost 8. A nineteenth-century Iranian philosopher, Baha'u'llah, offered an observation that clearly portrays Christian values: "So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth."
* Who says you can only grow the church, only do evangelism well when you target people with a similar background? No, we shatter the body's unity, isolate ourselves from the full companionship the church affords, when we are satisfied with the kind of companionship and unity we already have (just limiting it to our friends and those like us).
* Beware of the consequences of not preserving this universal unity of the body of Christ, either by lack of patience and humility with members or with failing to welcome all Christians as part of the body. Use the quotation by John Chrysostom and the second quotation by Martin Luther in Theological Insights. It's clear that to engage in these behaviors is to deny the reality Christ has created, to destroy the sharing and companionship he established.
7. Wrap-Up
Yes, we say we are a family church, a church where everybody's welcome. That's the way Christ has made us, as one body. But don't forget how big and broad the body of Christ is. Church, now go and do your thing! Be sure not to try to make the body too small.
Sermon Text and Title
"The Bread of Life: Never Abandoned"
John 6:24-35
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim and clarify in what sense Jesus is bread of life (with implications for Christology and Justification by Grace and the Lord's Supper). Helping hearers recognize that the bread we eat stays in our bodies, leading to opportunities to undercut secular perceptions that faith is irrelevant for daily life (sin).
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* A continuation of Jesus' discourse on His relation to God; this is the beginning of His discourse on the bread of life.
* Crowds seeking Jesus after His feeding of the 5,000 cannot find Him and proceed to cross the Sea of Galilee to try to find Him in Capernaum (vv. 23-24).
* Finding Jesus, He is addressed as rabbi. The Lord rebukes them on the grounds that they have sought Him merely because they wished to eat the food He had provided at the previous miracle. He rebukes them for seeking the food that perishes, not the food that endures for eternal life. God the Father is said to have set His seal on Jesus the Son of Man (vv. 25-27).
* The crowd asks Jesus how to perform the works of God. Jesus first answers that faith in Him who sent Jesus is the work of God (vv. 28-29).
* The crowd in turn requests a sign. They refer to how the Jewish ancestors ate manna in the wilderness (vv. 30-31). Jesus responds by noting it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven, but His Father. This bread of God gives life (vv. 32-33).
* They ask for the bread, and Jesus responds that He is the bread and that whoever comes to Him will never hunger or thirst (vv. 35-36).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* The text investigates what it means to call Christ the bread of life (Christology and Justification by Grace). In appreciating how this image entails intimacy with Jesus (Justification as Intimate Union), opportunity is provided to critique the perceived irrelevance of faith or faith as an individual affair in our secular age (sin). Attention is also given to how this image relates to the Lord's Supper as real presence.
* Regarding Jesus' suspicions of the crowd's motives voiced in verse 26, Calvin writes: "… they expect nothing greater from Him than to live happily at ease in this world. This is to rob Christ of His chief power…" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVII/2, p. 240).
* Martin Luther makes a similar point: "It is the lot of God's Word in the world to find that the learned and the works-righteous always know better" (Luther's Works, Vol. 23, p. 30).
* Luther understands the seal set on Jesus by the Father (v. 27) to entail that "God proposes to subordinate what is proud, holy, and wise in this world to this teaching and to this single teacher, Christ" (Luther's Works, Vol. 23, p. 15).
* To this insight he adds: "Cling to this food of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit, and be assured that no one's works and alms give life; only this food, the body and blood of Christ accomplishes that. Then good works will follow automatically" (Ibid., p. 18).
* Luther elaborates further on the meaning of the bread of life:
This bread is to be a preservative against death. It is as if a physician or a pharmacist were to tell a patient: "I will give you a medicine, a portion or purgative, that will save you from death. You will no longer live in fear of death, since you are immune."
(Ibid., p. 41)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* A 2006 Pew Foundation survey found 4 in 10 Americans believed God was distant from our everyday lives.
5. Gimmick
We human beings call ourselves by a lot of names. The pastor should call him/herself "bigmouth." Select a woman in the congregation and suggest she might call herself "wife" or "liberated woman." Find others in the congregation who are known to call themselves by a familiar ID. But who among us would call himself "Bread of Life" or "Bread of Heaven"? Jesus did. What could He have meant? What does it mean to say that Jesus Christ is the bread of life?
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Ask the congregation if they agree that we are living in a godless world. Cite data in Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights.
* Ask the congregation if God has a real impact on their daily lives, how much He is on their minds when they are on the job, parenting, driving to work, or washing the dishes.
* Confess that you, like them, may not ask for God's help with big decisions if faith really doesn't matter much. Where is God when we're at a necking party and have to decide how far to go? Where is God when you would like to change the course of your life and don't know where to begin?
* We need somebody to talk to, somebody who will listen. Somebody who can "walk a mile in our shoes" (as the old rock hit proclaimed).
* To these anguished calls, Jesus says He's the bread of life, that He is the bread of life who will take away hunger and thirst (v. 35). What good is that? How does it help address the problems of God's distance with which we have been struggling?
* It may not be one of our favorite foods, but bread is one of the key staples of life. Famed American chef James Beard explains things well: "Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods…" Without bread, there'd be something important missing in our lives.
* This was Jesus' point in identifying Himself as Bread of Life. He wanted to say that just as bread is essential to our physical life, so He is essential to our spiritual life. With Christ we have the One, true companion, the man who can walk a mile in our shoes.
* But where is Christ, this One who never abandons us? He is present in communion (in the bread and wine).
* Yet there is one more thing to saying that Jesus is the bread of life. We can compare Jesus to ordinary bread we eat at meals. When we eat bread at meals it becomes part of us. We carry around that bread we ate. That's the way it is with Jesus Christ. As we carry this morning's breakfast bread or last night's dinner bread, we carry around Jesus in our guts, everywhere we go. Like the food we ate, we may not know Jesus is present, but just the same He accompanies us, and is our companion and friend.
* Yes, Jesus accompanies us everywhere we go. But He does more than that. Just as bread nourishes us, so Christ the Bread of Life nourishes us too. Like bread, Christ gives us strength.
* The bread that Jesus prepares for us is a lot tastier and more nutritious than Emeril's or Rachael Ray's cuisine.
* See the last quote by Martin Luther in Theological Insights to get ideas for further elaboration on how the bread of life strengthens us for living the Christian life.
* The bread of life's constant presence with us does not mean that we will never have another care in the world or even that we can always be sure that God is with us. We all have moments of doubt. But to say Jesus is the bread of life is to believe that He is always there, giving us strength in the midst of our weakness. And weakness and shortcomings, doubts and failures we'll always have. Martin Luther made that clear:
Outwardly Christians stumble and fall from time to time. Only weakness and shame appear on the surface, revealing that the Christians are sinners who do that which displeases the world. Then they are regarded as fools, as Cinderellas, as footmats for the world, as damned, impotent, and worthless people. But this does not matter. In their weakness, sin, folly, and frailty there abides inwardly and secretly a force and power unrecognizable by the world and hidden from its view, but on which for all that, carries off the victory; for Christ resides in them and manifests Himself to them.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 23, p. 146)
7. Wrap-Up
Because Jesus Christ, the bread of life, is always with us, we Christians have the power it takes to keep on keepin' on with living the Christian life. Come and receive this bread again (and again, and again), the man ever ready to be your companion when the doubts, selfishness, and fears emerge. Assure the congregation that He'll be with them this week.
Being fed by our Lord and the companionship it brings.
Collect of the Day
Petition is offered that the God of immeasurable love fill us and the world with the life that comes only from Him. The prayer focuses on justification.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 51:1-12
See Ash Wednesday.
or Psalm 78:23-29
* An Asaph Psalm telling the story of God's great deeds and His people's faithlessness.
* God's care for His people during the exodus and time in the wilderness is described.
* The accounts of the miraculous feeding of the people in the wilderness reported in Exodus 16 and Numbers 11 are celebrated. The bread provided is said to be bread of angels (v. 25).
Sermon Text and Title
"Forgive and Forget"
2 Samuel 11:26--12:13a
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim how even people of faith like David and us have sinned, yet we too are forgiven, our iniquity remembered no more.
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* Having eliminated Uriah, David takes Uriah's widow as his wife (11:26-27a). This displeases the Lord, who sends the prophet Nathan to condemn David (11:27b--12:1).
* Nathan confronts David with a parable of two men, one rich and the other poor. The poor man had a small pet lamb (12:2-3). A rich man came and took this lone lamb from the poor man rather than feed a guest from his own flock (12:4).
* David was angered by this account, claiming the rich man deserved death and (as per Exodus 22:1) thinking a fourfold restitution of property should be provided to the poor man's family (12:5-6). Then Nathan tells him that he is the man (12:7). And yet David has been richly blessed by the Lord (12:7-8). The question is raised why David has done such evil (12:9).
* As a result of his sin, Nathan informs David that the sword will never depart from his house. Trouble will be raised up against him. His wives will be taken from him (12:10-12). David confesses his sin. Forgiveness is offered (12:13).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* The story is about sin and God's judgment of it. But it is also and especially a word of God's inexplicable mercy and forgiveness (Justification by Grace).
* About David's sin John Wesley writes: "This is an eminent example of the corruption of man's nature, of the deceitfulness of sin…" (Commentary on the Bible, p. 200).
* Wesley considers this a story of the merciful God who still "pities and prevents him who had so horribly forsaken God" (Ibid.).
* Prominent nineteenth-century Congregational Puritan minister Henry Ward Beecher hit the nail on the head in noting that only a forgiveness like God's that truly forgets is true forgiveness:
I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note -- torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.
* The lack of forgiveness of ourselves that we experience often comes when we are alone. Late medieval English mystic Julian of Norwich thoughtfully expresses how God's forgiving love overcomes this:
And so it goes with all of us who are sinners. But though it is true that we do this frequently, His goodness never allows us to be alone. Continuously He is with us, tenderly He excuses us, and always He shields us from blame in His sight.
(The Revelation of Divine Love, p. 203)
* See the quotations about God's love in Theological Insights for the First Lesson, Pentecost 11.
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* See the insights in this section for the Second Lesson, Pentecost 9.
* There is an infidelity epidemic in America today. Some estimate that 30% to 60% of all married individuals in America will engage in infidelity. Roughly 2% to 3% of all children born are the progeny of infidelity.
5. Gimmick
David had done great evil. What do you regret in your life, wish you could do over? Have you been forgiven? Forgiven yourself?
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Forgiveness is defined as the giving up of resentment or the desire to punish, to stop being angry, or to cancel a debt. It is such a seemingly easy thing, and yet a complex, difficult thing to execute and receive.
* Sometimes we agonize over the mistakes we have made, the wrongs we have done, and we wonder if we have really been forgiven for them. On those occasions we wonder if we can forgive ourselves. Forgiveness, oh how we yearn for it (sometimes). Other times it's no big deal.
* Same with doing the deed of forgiveness. It comes so easy to say it's okay to a friend. But other times we can't get over the hurt. It's always there, even if we try. We forgive on the surface, but deep down we don't forget.
* Georgene and her parents Mitch and Madge were polite in their dealings with each other. The consistent tensions between child and parents had lessened since adulthood, and Georgene had gotten her own residence. Mitch and Madge had hardly been ideal parents. Alcohol abuse and careerism had led to a lot of neglect and fights during Georgene's childhood. This left her a child with a lot of self-esteem issues, questioning her own lovability. Many fights later, in adulthood, they had asked for forgiveness on numerous occasions and she had expressed forgiveness. Sure, she meant it, but in her mid-twenties the scars of neglect and insecurities and her suspicions of their sincerity remained. Georgene could forgive. But she hadn't forgotten.
* That's the way it is with us fallen human beings. We forgive; we really want to forgive. But we really don't forget.
* Human beings are like walls in living rooms and master bedrooms of family homes. We tack things on the walls (pictures, knick-knacks, and the like). We take them down, especially if they get damaged. After awhile we may even forget what we hung on the wall. But long after what we hung on the wall has been removed, the holes are still there. The holes are the memory of what hung there, long after the reality of what was hanging on the wall has been removed. It is like that with human beings. We can forgive (clear away the realities of what hurt us) but forgetting is another matter. Use the comment by Henry Ward Beecher in Theological Insights.
* This is not the way God forgives. In our story today, David had sinned heinously in scheming to have Uriah killed so that he might have Uriah's beautiful widow Bathsheba as his wife (11:26-27a). The Lord sent his prophet Nathan to condemn the deed and announce ways in which life would never be the same for David (12:7-11, 14). But then the Lord forgave David's sin; He puts it away (12:13)! David did not die for his sins; he did not lose the throne and the promise of an eternal kingdom (7:12-16).
* God forgave the sins of David. He counted them no more. Can we not say He forgot them? Ultimately David's sin did not matter, for though the child David had fathered with Bathsheba died (12:15b-23), they became parents of the famed son of David who would continue the Davidic line, Solomon (12:24). Yes, when God forgives, He also forgets.
* The Bible says that in Isaiah 43:18: God promises He will not remember the former things or consider the things of old. And in the same chapter (v. 25) God claims to bolt out our transgressions and He will not remember our sins anymore. When God forgives He forgets.
* Early twentieth-century Canadian businessman James Grund had it right in his famed comment: "To forgive is human, to forget divine." God is not like Alicia in The Good Wife, agonizing over whether to forgive her wayward loved one.
* Why does it matter that God forgives this way? Because when the slate is wiped clean like God does, then doubts about our status before God are gone. No more worries about whether I am really forgiven. The slate is wiped clean! And if all the sins of the past, all your mistakes and regrets are gone, then you can really forgive yourself. How wonderful to be loved that way, to have your sins forgiven.
* What an awesome and wonderful love this is. Cite the quotations in the fifth and final bullet points of Theological Insights. He even loves seedy people like David who did things we wouldn't dream of doing. His love is as inexhaustible as an infinite ocean, an energy that stirs rocks. This is a forgiving love that tenderly excuses us and shields us from blame and never leaves us alone.
7. Wrap-Up
Hungry for forgiveness? Need nourishment to overcome your despair? Our Lord will feed you! Devour that astounding, tender love the next time you're not sure you're forgiven, the next time you can't forgive yourself. God doesn't remember what you feel guilty about. The slate is clean. And as the Holy Spirit He'll hang around with you to assure you it's all okay. What an awesome God we have!
Sermon Text and Title
"Unity in the Body"
Ephesians 4:1-16
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim how the church's structure and status as body of Christ entails unity in its daily life.
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* Part of a discussion of the ethical implications of Paul's cosmic Christology and ecclesiology. This aim is made explicit in verse 1.
* Describes the virtues of the worthy life (including humility, gentleness, patience) (vv. 2-3).
* Affirms the unity of the body of Christ, the Spirit, and the one baptism of the one God (vv. 4-6). God is said to permeate the cosmos (v. 6).
* Each was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift (v. 7).
* Psalm 68:18 is quoted to communicate how Christ has ascended in the sense of conquering all spiritual powers (vv. 8-9). This ascension entails Christ's cosmic status, filling all things (v. 10).
* The gifts Christ gives are various offices of the church to equip saints for ministry to build up the body so all come to the unity of faith, to maturity, to the full stature of Christ (vv. 11-13).
* Thus we must no longer be tossed to and fro by every new doctrine but speaking truth in love must grow up into Christ from whom the whole body is knit together (vv. 14-16).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* Attention is given to the implications for church life of the church's unity in Christ and God's and Christ's permeation of the cosmos as well as a Classic View of the Atonement.
* John Chrysostom eloquently explained the absurdity of fracturing unity:
And surely these are the very reasons why thou oughtest not rise up against thy neighbors. For if all things are common, and one has nothing more than another, when this mad folly? We partake of the same nature, partake alike of soul and body, we breathe the same air, we use the same food. Whence this rebellious rising of one against another?
(Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 13, p. 99)
* Martin Luther tried to explain the Christian life in light of this concern with unity: "Let the Christian know his earthly life is not unto himself, not for his own sake: His life and work here belong to Christ his Lord" (Complete Sermons, Vol. 4/2, p. 282).
* With regard to Paul's comments about Christian virtues (vv. 2-3), Luther notes how one of them, patience, contributes to the unity of the body:
Note that genuine humility is bound to follow where faith is real. Upon humility follow real patience and love toward our neighbor, so that we despise no one, gladly serve everybody and do good to him, bear whatever happens to us, are not angry and do not avenge ourselves when men show ingratitude, unfaithfulness, spite, mockery, and disgrace.
(What Luther Says, p. 671)
* Karl Barth provides a helpful and broader way of understanding our unity (linking up with the polity discussion of vv. 11-13). We are united in proclamation, he contends, with the saints who went before us:
The present-day witnesses of the word of God can and should look back to the witnesses of the same word who preceded them and away to those contemporary with them. In this matter it is impossible to speak without having first heard. All speaking is a response to these fathers and brethren.
(Church Dogmatics, Vol. I/2, p. 573)
* God's permeation of the cosmos (v. 6), which entails that we are all in a sense united as part of Him, was nicely portrayed by Augustine. He compared God to an infinite sea and the cosmos as but a sponge dropped into it (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 1, pp. 104-105, 74).
* Consider the Wesley quote in Possible Sermon Moves for the Second Lesson, Pentecost 8.
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* See the insights and data in this section for the Second Lessons, Pentecost 9, 8.
5. Gimmick
This is a church where everybody's family; we all get along so well. Yeah, are you sure you know what you're saying?
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Sometimes family churches are not friendly to singles. Sometimes congregations from rich- or middle-class neighborhoods don't welcome people off the streets. In fact, the chief guru of the Church Growth Movement, Donald McGavran, has taught us that the best way to grow churches is by targeting an audience of like-minded people with similar economic and educational backgrounds (Understanding Church Growth). We need to think for a moment about the consequences of the fact that this philosophy has pretty much been bought by most American denominations (both mainline Protestant and Evangelical), and that most new congregation start-ups by our denomination and as well as most of the largest megachurches have operated with these principles. It seems that we need to ask if despite our rhetoric we really believe that the church should reflect a unity, that the companionship we say we crave in the church is really universal. We need to look at this congregation and see how we are doing. Or have we endorsed the Church Growth Movement philosophy of just targeting people like ourselves for membership in this congregation and denomination?
* Analyze the make-up of the congregation and make some observations about where there are good expressions of unity and broad representation of diversity that is America (if any instances exist) and also ways in which the congregation is not doing as good a job on this score.
* Ask what we can do to improve. The good news of the Second Lesson is that we do not have to do anything, that God in Christ will do (has done) the things needed to be done already. Let's just say that we haven't had our eyes open to how big the church really is (and that's why we do not sense or act out our unity sufficiently).
* In our lesson today Paul says there is one body, just as there is just one Holy Spirit (v. 4). God is said to be everywhere, permeating every space in the universe, just as Christ does since the ascension (vv. 6, 10). As for the body of Christ, it seems that if Christ is everywhere the body of Christ must be everywhere. Get that? The church, the body of Christ, is everywhere.
Then Paul proceeds to remind the Ephesians and us that each member of the body has been given grace (v. 7), different gifts and tasks (v. 11), and that all of us may come to unity (v. 13). He closes by speaking of the knitting together of the whole body (v. 16).
* Get that? The whole body of Christ is knit together. Not just those of a like-minded outlook on life, not just the professionals or the laborers, not just black or white, not just those of our congregation or Christians in our nation in the twenty-first century. All of us are knit together.
* Perhaps the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, Karl Barth, explained how far this unity extended. Use his quotation in Theological Insights. Barth reminds us that in unity we are not just accountable to members of this congregation, to Christians with whom we share common interests and a common social class, not just to the leaders of the denomination, to living Christians, but to the ancestors in the faith who lived before us! What wonderful companionship we can count on.
That sense of responsibility (that you are accountable to the founders of this congregation, to the denomination's founders, to the martyrs of the faith) makes it a little harder to justify less than your best effort in the things you do for the church and in the way you witness to Jesus with your life. Add Luther's comments in the third bullet point of Theological Insights, regarding that we no longer belong to ourselves in the body of Christ.
* Consider using the John Wesley quotation in Possible Sermon Moves for the Second Lesson, Pentecost 8. A nineteenth-century Iranian philosopher, Baha'u'llah, offered an observation that clearly portrays Christian values: "So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth."
* Who says you can only grow the church, only do evangelism well when you target people with a similar background? No, we shatter the body's unity, isolate ourselves from the full companionship the church affords, when we are satisfied with the kind of companionship and unity we already have (just limiting it to our friends and those like us).
* Beware of the consequences of not preserving this universal unity of the body of Christ, either by lack of patience and humility with members or with failing to welcome all Christians as part of the body. Use the quotation by John Chrysostom and the second quotation by Martin Luther in Theological Insights. It's clear that to engage in these behaviors is to deny the reality Christ has created, to destroy the sharing and companionship he established.
7. Wrap-Up
Yes, we say we are a family church, a church where everybody's welcome. That's the way Christ has made us, as one body. But don't forget how big and broad the body of Christ is. Church, now go and do your thing! Be sure not to try to make the body too small.
Sermon Text and Title
"The Bread of Life: Never Abandoned"
John 6:24-35
1. Theological Aim of the Sermon and Strategy
To proclaim and clarify in what sense Jesus is bread of life (with implications for Christology and Justification by Grace and the Lord's Supper). Helping hearers recognize that the bread we eat stays in our bodies, leading to opportunities to undercut secular perceptions that faith is irrelevant for daily life (sin).
2. Exegesis (see Introduction to Selected Books of the Bible)
* A continuation of Jesus' discourse on His relation to God; this is the beginning of His discourse on the bread of life.
* Crowds seeking Jesus after His feeding of the 5,000 cannot find Him and proceed to cross the Sea of Galilee to try to find Him in Capernaum (vv. 23-24).
* Finding Jesus, He is addressed as rabbi. The Lord rebukes them on the grounds that they have sought Him merely because they wished to eat the food He had provided at the previous miracle. He rebukes them for seeking the food that perishes, not the food that endures for eternal life. God the Father is said to have set His seal on Jesus the Son of Man (vv. 25-27).
* The crowd asks Jesus how to perform the works of God. Jesus first answers that faith in Him who sent Jesus is the work of God (vv. 28-29).
* The crowd in turn requests a sign. They refer to how the Jewish ancestors ate manna in the wilderness (vv. 30-31). Jesus responds by noting it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven, but His Father. This bread of God gives life (vv. 32-33).
* They ask for the bread, and Jesus responds that He is the bread and that whoever comes to Him will never hunger or thirst (vv. 35-36).
3. Theological Insights (see Charts of the Major Theological Options)
* The text investigates what it means to call Christ the bread of life (Christology and Justification by Grace). In appreciating how this image entails intimacy with Jesus (Justification as Intimate Union), opportunity is provided to critique the perceived irrelevance of faith or faith as an individual affair in our secular age (sin). Attention is also given to how this image relates to the Lord's Supper as real presence.
* Regarding Jesus' suspicions of the crowd's motives voiced in verse 26, Calvin writes: "… they expect nothing greater from Him than to live happily at ease in this world. This is to rob Christ of His chief power…" (Calvin's Commentaries, Vol. XVII/2, p. 240).
* Martin Luther makes a similar point: "It is the lot of God's Word in the world to find that the learned and the works-righteous always know better" (Luther's Works, Vol. 23, p. 30).
* Luther understands the seal set on Jesus by the Father (v. 27) to entail that "God proposes to subordinate what is proud, holy, and wise in this world to this teaching and to this single teacher, Christ" (Luther's Works, Vol. 23, p. 15).
* To this insight he adds: "Cling to this food of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit, and be assured that no one's works and alms give life; only this food, the body and blood of Christ accomplishes that. Then good works will follow automatically" (Ibid., p. 18).
* Luther elaborates further on the meaning of the bread of life:
This bread is to be a preservative against death. It is as if a physician or a pharmacist were to tell a patient: "I will give you a medicine, a portion or purgative, that will save you from death. You will no longer live in fear of death, since you are immune."
(Ibid., p. 41)
4. Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights
* A 2006 Pew Foundation survey found 4 in 10 Americans believed God was distant from our everyday lives.
5. Gimmick
We human beings call ourselves by a lot of names. The pastor should call him/herself "bigmouth." Select a woman in the congregation and suggest she might call herself "wife" or "liberated woman." Find others in the congregation who are known to call themselves by a familiar ID. But who among us would call himself "Bread of Life" or "Bread of Heaven"? Jesus did. What could He have meant? What does it mean to say that Jesus Christ is the bread of life?
6. Possible Sermon Moves and/or Stories/Examples
* Ask the congregation if they agree that we are living in a godless world. Cite data in Socio-Economic, Political, Psychological, and Scientific Insights.
* Ask the congregation if God has a real impact on their daily lives, how much He is on their minds when they are on the job, parenting, driving to work, or washing the dishes.
* Confess that you, like them, may not ask for God's help with big decisions if faith really doesn't matter much. Where is God when we're at a necking party and have to decide how far to go? Where is God when you would like to change the course of your life and don't know where to begin?
* We need somebody to talk to, somebody who will listen. Somebody who can "walk a mile in our shoes" (as the old rock hit proclaimed).
* To these anguished calls, Jesus says He's the bread of life, that He is the bread of life who will take away hunger and thirst (v. 35). What good is that? How does it help address the problems of God's distance with which we have been struggling?
* It may not be one of our favorite foods, but bread is one of the key staples of life. Famed American chef James Beard explains things well: "Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods…" Without bread, there'd be something important missing in our lives.
* This was Jesus' point in identifying Himself as Bread of Life. He wanted to say that just as bread is essential to our physical life, so He is essential to our spiritual life. With Christ we have the One, true companion, the man who can walk a mile in our shoes.
* But where is Christ, this One who never abandons us? He is present in communion (in the bread and wine).
* Yet there is one more thing to saying that Jesus is the bread of life. We can compare Jesus to ordinary bread we eat at meals. When we eat bread at meals it becomes part of us. We carry around that bread we ate. That's the way it is with Jesus Christ. As we carry this morning's breakfast bread or last night's dinner bread, we carry around Jesus in our guts, everywhere we go. Like the food we ate, we may not know Jesus is present, but just the same He accompanies us, and is our companion and friend.
* Yes, Jesus accompanies us everywhere we go. But He does more than that. Just as bread nourishes us, so Christ the Bread of Life nourishes us too. Like bread, Christ gives us strength.
* The bread that Jesus prepares for us is a lot tastier and more nutritious than Emeril's or Rachael Ray's cuisine.
* See the last quote by Martin Luther in Theological Insights to get ideas for further elaboration on how the bread of life strengthens us for living the Christian life.
* The bread of life's constant presence with us does not mean that we will never have another care in the world or even that we can always be sure that God is with us. We all have moments of doubt. But to say Jesus is the bread of life is to believe that He is always there, giving us strength in the midst of our weakness. And weakness and shortcomings, doubts and failures we'll always have. Martin Luther made that clear:
Outwardly Christians stumble and fall from time to time. Only weakness and shame appear on the surface, revealing that the Christians are sinners who do that which displeases the world. Then they are regarded as fools, as Cinderellas, as footmats for the world, as damned, impotent, and worthless people. But this does not matter. In their weakness, sin, folly, and frailty there abides inwardly and secretly a force and power unrecognizable by the world and hidden from its view, but on which for all that, carries off the victory; for Christ resides in them and manifests Himself to them.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 23, p. 146)
7. Wrap-Up
Because Jesus Christ, the bread of life, is always with us, we Christians have the power it takes to keep on keepin' on with living the Christian life. Come and receive this bread again (and again, and again), the man ever ready to be your companion when the doubts, selfishness, and fears emerge. Assure the congregation that He'll be with them this week.
