Proper 19
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VI, Cycle A
COMMENTARY ON THE LESSONS
Lesson 1: Exodus 14:19-31 (C)
Strangely, I find myself believing a lot of this story to be true. Some research has shown that strong winds can occasionally affect water flow, reducing its depth significantly. There is dispute as to whether this all occurred in the Red Sea or another body of water. The researcher will consider this an important issue. The preacher may not. The part about the chariots being mired in the mud is believable. It may be that events have been compressed in time for the sake of a good story, but something exceptional seems to have aided the Israelites in their effort to escape from the Egyptian troops. As to whether God specifically did this for this occasion, we are once more each left to our theology on that subject. As to the closing sentence, I rather imagine the surviving Egyptians, if there were any, must have been impressed, to say the least. I do have some questions about the fairness of God drowning all those soldiers. Having been one myself, I know they were doing what they were ordered to do and some of them were undoubtedly good people. But perhaps that's to take things too literally. What is important here is a tradition which holds that God helped a downtrodden people to escape their captivity and to start a new life for themselves.
Lesson 1: Sirach 27:30--28:7 (RC, E)
A warning against harboring wrath. A person is to forgive other people their wrongful actions if they expect to be forgiven.
Lesson 2: Romans 14:1-12 (C); Romans 14:7-9 (RC); Romans 14:5-12 (E)
Paul is stating that, in today's parlance, we're all in this business of life together, so quit judging each other. Getting all worked up over differences in religious observances serves no good purpose. It sounds as though Paul is playing peacemaker between Gentile Christians who come directly into the Christian faith and Jewish Christians who tended to import some of their old traditions into their Christian observances. What matters to Paul is that we understand that Christ died for us, and the ultimate reason for that is that we would all praise God, "praise" meaning not merely liturgical words but the kind of lives we live.
Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35 (C, RC, E)
Jesus makes his point quite vividly. It's a great story, this servant who owes a huge sum of money to his owner. We miss the point if we wonder what he did with all that money, being a slave and all. Turnabout was not fair play to this fellow who proceeds to refuse to forgive a friend a small pittance after having just been forgiven a fortune. The owner tortures the man until he pays, which would mean forever, since there is no way he could raise that kind of money while being tortured. But this is, of course, a homey little story made up out of whole cloth to make one crucial point: God forgives every one of us an enormous amount for things we have done which we should not have done, or things we failed to do which we should have done. How little God asks in return, that we forgive other people their offenses against us.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "A New Freedom"
Text: Exodus 14:19-31
Theme: Would it be too much to say that we all live in some sort of captivity? I did for a number of years. Oh, mine was not so terrible as that faced by the early Israelites, nor by many African-American people, along with other ethnic minorities in America today. But mine was still painful enough for me. Mine was of the inward variety, a sense of lostness, of anxiety about my life. It was a feeling of being left out, of seeing others of my generation and acquaintance going on to their life's plans while I didn't have any. Or if I did, they changed pretty often and didn't seem to lead anyplace very exciting or meaningful. It was only when I sensed a call from God -- and I was 32 years old at the time -- that I began to get a sense of direction. In the course of preparing for and going to seminary, I began to break out of my captivity. God did that. I still have some other forms of captivity I suppose. Do you understand what I'm trying to say here? Some people are hopelessly overweight, or handicapped, or have any of a myriad of limitations in their lives which may or may not be evident, but which make them very unhappy.
1. God can and will help. A woman of my acquaintance was so troubled by anxiety attacks she could hardly live a happy day. I taught her a little trick I learned and it worked. The attacks disappeared, and her prayer life has kept her that way.
2. This doesn't mean a miracle. We still have to do our own work. Those Israelites got a hand up so to speak, but they still had a lot of hard, dangerous work ahead before they really attained their freedom.
3. Our freedom may not be the total absence of our problem, but rather, the empowerment to overcome the problem, to transcend and even use it. I never totally eliminated my problems, but I learned from them, understood other people better because of them, and eventually discovered that almost everyone -- maybe everyone -- has inner feelings of limitation and pain. It's called being human.
Title: "Honoring Religious Freedom"
Text: Romans 4:1-12
Theme: I recently attended a funeral service in a Catholic church with my wife's family. It lasted nearly two hours, and as a Methodist minister whose services lasted about thirty to forty minutes, depending on how long family members decided to speak, I became a little impatient after the first hour. My wife, raised in the Catholic Church, commented to me as we departed that it was a "deeply moving service." I hadn't understood the incense waved around the casket, the serving of communion, the absence of all but a very brief comment about the deceased by the priest, nor all the robed children who assisted. I therefore listened halfway while processing all the strange (to me) goings-on which were obviously understood by all but the few Protestants in the gathering. I reflected that a Catholic might have found my services just as strange. The priests had a habit of walking around with their hands folded, as if in prayer. That looked rather odd to me, but I began to realize it was a sign of respect and spirituality which I suppose is missing from my demeanor. All in all, while I'm sure I missed those elements which my wife's family found "deeply moving," and while I missed a stirring homily which we Methodists consider to be the true heart of worship, I did learn something about another faith and about myself. I realized that the way we are raised determines a great deal about the way we worship God. For most of us, that choice is determined for us by parents or others. And, I decided, it doesn't really matter in the long run, so long as we worship God in some way meaningful to us (assuming it's biblically based). I doubt that God gives a hoot whether one is an Episcopalian or a Catholic or a Methodist or a Presbyterian, or ... what matters is that I worship and praise God, that I declare the divine majesty, that I am obedient to my Lord's commandments, and that my own life is enriched in the process. And, as Paul has said, no one has a right to judge me in this matter, and I have no right to judge another in this matter. Respect for each other in religion, as in many other matters, is the mark of a true Christian.
Title: "As We Forgive"
Text: Matthew 18:21-35
Theme: Forgiveness. We need that on several levels. First of all, a day hardly passes but what I find myself saying something or other which I wish I hadn't said. Maybe I have just passed a little story about a colleague with an admonition that "this is just between us." Or maybe I snapped at my wife as I dashed out the door, late to another meeting. Maybe I just snickered at someone's ungainly appearance, or a friend's ridiculous-looking neckties. Sometimes it's what I didn't do. A couple weeks ago a friend told me that a mutual friend's wife was quite ill and he remarked that the friend would like to hear from me. Having just recovered from an illness myself, and having greatly appreciated sympathetic inquiries from friends, I took the man's phone number and promptly forgot. It was mentioned a day or two ago, but she's well now. Of course I'll call, but when it mattered I failed. When we add all these little failures up, they must be a mountain over the course of a life.
Then there are those rare but deeply hurtful wrongs we do. Not often. Maybe not intentional. A divorce with some hurtful words? A car accident while driving too fast? A thoughtless word spoken to a child? A lie that seemed harmless enough, but someone was hurt because of it? A bit of gossip which nearly destroyed an innocent? A violation of a young person's trust? Who among us can cast the first stone?
And there are those offenses against God. Profane words uttered in anger. Disdainful words about another person's religion (I know a man who called his wife's religion "the magic show"). Failing to show a little child a way to worship God. We all fall short. The Bible reiterates this truth, we are all sinners, all living with the hope of God's forgiveness. No matter how we may succeed in concealing these faults from others, we cannot conceal them from God. "Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid," we pray.
1. We are all sinners.
2. We are all recipients of injurious treatment from time to time.
3. God forgives us, but demands that we forgive as well.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
"The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a person is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self-justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God. We put him beyond the reach of the divine voice which can only be heard in silence. The impassioned response which our criticism triggers off in his soul makes too much noise."
-- Paul Tournier in Guilt And Grace
____________
"Those who criticize the most are the ones who create nothing."
--Tournier
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 114 (C) -- "Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord."
Psalm 103:1-13 (RC, E) -- "Bless the Lord, O my soul."
Prayer Of The Day
Forgive us, O God, for the wrongs we have done; for the judgment we have rendered about others; for the petty remarks which have sprung to our lips; for the tales we have told which did not build someone up; for the selfish prayers we have spoken to thee. Have mercy upon us, and enable us to follow a better way. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
Lesson 1: Exodus 14:19-31 (C)
Strangely, I find myself believing a lot of this story to be true. Some research has shown that strong winds can occasionally affect water flow, reducing its depth significantly. There is dispute as to whether this all occurred in the Red Sea or another body of water. The researcher will consider this an important issue. The preacher may not. The part about the chariots being mired in the mud is believable. It may be that events have been compressed in time for the sake of a good story, but something exceptional seems to have aided the Israelites in their effort to escape from the Egyptian troops. As to whether God specifically did this for this occasion, we are once more each left to our theology on that subject. As to the closing sentence, I rather imagine the surviving Egyptians, if there were any, must have been impressed, to say the least. I do have some questions about the fairness of God drowning all those soldiers. Having been one myself, I know they were doing what they were ordered to do and some of them were undoubtedly good people. But perhaps that's to take things too literally. What is important here is a tradition which holds that God helped a downtrodden people to escape their captivity and to start a new life for themselves.
Lesson 1: Sirach 27:30--28:7 (RC, E)
A warning against harboring wrath. A person is to forgive other people their wrongful actions if they expect to be forgiven.
Lesson 2: Romans 14:1-12 (C); Romans 14:7-9 (RC); Romans 14:5-12 (E)
Paul is stating that, in today's parlance, we're all in this business of life together, so quit judging each other. Getting all worked up over differences in religious observances serves no good purpose. It sounds as though Paul is playing peacemaker between Gentile Christians who come directly into the Christian faith and Jewish Christians who tended to import some of their old traditions into their Christian observances. What matters to Paul is that we understand that Christ died for us, and the ultimate reason for that is that we would all praise God, "praise" meaning not merely liturgical words but the kind of lives we live.
Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35 (C, RC, E)
Jesus makes his point quite vividly. It's a great story, this servant who owes a huge sum of money to his owner. We miss the point if we wonder what he did with all that money, being a slave and all. Turnabout was not fair play to this fellow who proceeds to refuse to forgive a friend a small pittance after having just been forgiven a fortune. The owner tortures the man until he pays, which would mean forever, since there is no way he could raise that kind of money while being tortured. But this is, of course, a homey little story made up out of whole cloth to make one crucial point: God forgives every one of us an enormous amount for things we have done which we should not have done, or things we failed to do which we should have done. How little God asks in return, that we forgive other people their offenses against us.
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "A New Freedom"
Text: Exodus 14:19-31
Theme: Would it be too much to say that we all live in some sort of captivity? I did for a number of years. Oh, mine was not so terrible as that faced by the early Israelites, nor by many African-American people, along with other ethnic minorities in America today. But mine was still painful enough for me. Mine was of the inward variety, a sense of lostness, of anxiety about my life. It was a feeling of being left out, of seeing others of my generation and acquaintance going on to their life's plans while I didn't have any. Or if I did, they changed pretty often and didn't seem to lead anyplace very exciting or meaningful. It was only when I sensed a call from God -- and I was 32 years old at the time -- that I began to get a sense of direction. In the course of preparing for and going to seminary, I began to break out of my captivity. God did that. I still have some other forms of captivity I suppose. Do you understand what I'm trying to say here? Some people are hopelessly overweight, or handicapped, or have any of a myriad of limitations in their lives which may or may not be evident, but which make them very unhappy.
1. God can and will help. A woman of my acquaintance was so troubled by anxiety attacks she could hardly live a happy day. I taught her a little trick I learned and it worked. The attacks disappeared, and her prayer life has kept her that way.
2. This doesn't mean a miracle. We still have to do our own work. Those Israelites got a hand up so to speak, but they still had a lot of hard, dangerous work ahead before they really attained their freedom.
3. Our freedom may not be the total absence of our problem, but rather, the empowerment to overcome the problem, to transcend and even use it. I never totally eliminated my problems, but I learned from them, understood other people better because of them, and eventually discovered that almost everyone -- maybe everyone -- has inner feelings of limitation and pain. It's called being human.
Title: "Honoring Religious Freedom"
Text: Romans 4:1-12
Theme: I recently attended a funeral service in a Catholic church with my wife's family. It lasted nearly two hours, and as a Methodist minister whose services lasted about thirty to forty minutes, depending on how long family members decided to speak, I became a little impatient after the first hour. My wife, raised in the Catholic Church, commented to me as we departed that it was a "deeply moving service." I hadn't understood the incense waved around the casket, the serving of communion, the absence of all but a very brief comment about the deceased by the priest, nor all the robed children who assisted. I therefore listened halfway while processing all the strange (to me) goings-on which were obviously understood by all but the few Protestants in the gathering. I reflected that a Catholic might have found my services just as strange. The priests had a habit of walking around with their hands folded, as if in prayer. That looked rather odd to me, but I began to realize it was a sign of respect and spirituality which I suppose is missing from my demeanor. All in all, while I'm sure I missed those elements which my wife's family found "deeply moving," and while I missed a stirring homily which we Methodists consider to be the true heart of worship, I did learn something about another faith and about myself. I realized that the way we are raised determines a great deal about the way we worship God. For most of us, that choice is determined for us by parents or others. And, I decided, it doesn't really matter in the long run, so long as we worship God in some way meaningful to us (assuming it's biblically based). I doubt that God gives a hoot whether one is an Episcopalian or a Catholic or a Methodist or a Presbyterian, or ... what matters is that I worship and praise God, that I declare the divine majesty, that I am obedient to my Lord's commandments, and that my own life is enriched in the process. And, as Paul has said, no one has a right to judge me in this matter, and I have no right to judge another in this matter. Respect for each other in religion, as in many other matters, is the mark of a true Christian.
Title: "As We Forgive"
Text: Matthew 18:21-35
Theme: Forgiveness. We need that on several levels. First of all, a day hardly passes but what I find myself saying something or other which I wish I hadn't said. Maybe I have just passed a little story about a colleague with an admonition that "this is just between us." Or maybe I snapped at my wife as I dashed out the door, late to another meeting. Maybe I just snickered at someone's ungainly appearance, or a friend's ridiculous-looking neckties. Sometimes it's what I didn't do. A couple weeks ago a friend told me that a mutual friend's wife was quite ill and he remarked that the friend would like to hear from me. Having just recovered from an illness myself, and having greatly appreciated sympathetic inquiries from friends, I took the man's phone number and promptly forgot. It was mentioned a day or two ago, but she's well now. Of course I'll call, but when it mattered I failed. When we add all these little failures up, they must be a mountain over the course of a life.
Then there are those rare but deeply hurtful wrongs we do. Not often. Maybe not intentional. A divorce with some hurtful words? A car accident while driving too fast? A thoughtless word spoken to a child? A lie that seemed harmless enough, but someone was hurt because of it? A bit of gossip which nearly destroyed an innocent? A violation of a young person's trust? Who among us can cast the first stone?
And there are those offenses against God. Profane words uttered in anger. Disdainful words about another person's religion (I know a man who called his wife's religion "the magic show"). Failing to show a little child a way to worship God. We all fall short. The Bible reiterates this truth, we are all sinners, all living with the hope of God's forgiveness. No matter how we may succeed in concealing these faults from others, we cannot conceal them from God. "Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid," we pray.
1. We are all sinners.
2. We are all recipients of injurious treatment from time to time.
3. God forgives us, but demands that we forgive as well.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
"The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a person is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self-justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God. We put him beyond the reach of the divine voice which can only be heard in silence. The impassioned response which our criticism triggers off in his soul makes too much noise."
-- Paul Tournier in Guilt And Grace
____________
"Those who criticize the most are the ones who create nothing."
--Tournier
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 114 (C) -- "Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord."
Psalm 103:1-13 (RC, E) -- "Bless the Lord, O my soul."
Prayer Of The Day
Forgive us, O God, for the wrongs we have done; for the judgment we have rendered about others; for the petty remarks which have sprung to our lips; for the tales we have told which did not build someone up; for the selfish prayers we have spoken to thee. Have mercy upon us, and enable us to follow a better way. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
