Seventh Sunday After The Epiphany
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII Cycle C
Seasonal Theme
Jesus calling his disciples and it dawning on them who this person is they are following. Light for a dark world.
Theme For The Day
Having a radical, undeserved, God's love for the unlovely and living out the golden rule.
Old Testament Lesson
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
The Reconciliation Of Brothers With Joseph
One of the main elements I see in this passage of Joseph reconciling with his brothers is the way Joseph could see God's hand in his brothers selling him into Egypt (vv. 8, 9). The truth here is that spiritual persons, who can see God at work in all that takes place, are able to forgive and reconcile with those who have mistreated them.
So Joseph, now steward of the king, instructs his brothers to go back and bring father Jacob and all their families and move into Goshen, which was a fertile portion of the Nile area where they could well survive the five more years of drought.
The brothers, after many tears and conversations were now reconciled, jealousy no longer present, because Joseph was able to see God at work for their good in all that had happened to them. (The remnant was kept intact.)
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
More Resurrection
This follows on the heels of last week's reading on the same subject: the resurrection of the dead. Paul is addressing a very difficult subject by using human metaphors, ideas, and words. These are matters of faith, so we must refrain from literal interpretation when he is trying to express the unexplainable. Paul must have had the question from his Corinthian congregation asking what the body in our resurrection of the body was like. He answers using several analogies:
1. It will be a spiritual body not like our physical body.
2. It means like a seed planted, the old must die before the new body is present. (Paul's biology is faulty here; but it's a good metaphor for new life at our Easter.)
3. Creation has many kinds of bodies (v. 39). So we will be given a glorified body fitting for us at that time.
Then come the two examples of physical and spiritual bodies:
1. Adam, created by God from the dust of the earth,
2. And Jesus, from heaven.
We are both: while on earth, Adam, then into heaven as spiritual body. Only in Jesus do we inherit eternal life (v. 50).
Perhaps Paul should have said more simply that we don't know what this resurrected body of ours will be like, but we do know Jesus promised to bring us there to a place prepared for us (John 14:3).
The Gospel
Luke 6:27-38
Love For Enemies
Following last week's reading, we continue Luke's Sermon on the Plain. It is comparable to Matthew's Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 and 6. Each of the teachings in this collection of the themes Jesus taught his disciples is a bomb shell. They illustrate to us just how radical and different Christian discipleship is compared with the conventional wisdom of the world.
The love we are to have for our enemies is a love we determine we will have for them. It's not of the heart, but of our will. Only by God's grace can we have this agape love of God for an enemy.
And notice this, our Christian ethic is not made up of all the things we don't do, but rather it is made up of the things we do:
1. Love your enemies;
2. Do good to those who hate you;
3. Bless those who curse you;
4. Pray for those who abuse you;
5. Turn the other cheek;
6. Share with those who ask; and
7. Do to others what you would like them to do to you.
Then Jesus makes the point painful to me. He really is saying it's not a big deal to love the lovely and deserving, but we are to love those who don't deserve it and will never even appreciate it! The reward probably will not be ours here but on into eternity.
Verses 35 and 36 urge us to be merciful and love like this, just like God does. Wow! It's very wildly radical stuff in this Sermon on the Plain. And, I must add, this is only possible in our human circumstances with a large portion of help from God's Holy Spirit.
Preaching Possibilities
Both the New Testament and Gospel texts are continuations from last week's readings and would lend themselves to a part 2 sermon continuing from last week.
A. New Testament Reading -- Life after our death, part 2.
B. The Gospel -- Sermon on the Plain, ethics for Christians, part 2.
C. Also, the Old Testament Reading can stand alone. We can talk about Joseph seeing the horrible things which happened to him, even by his brothers, as God's will in caring for him and his family. Be sure to make the distinction between God causing something bad to happen to us and God taking something bad which happened to us and bringing some good out of it.
D. I think one could also begin with Jesus' radical teachings of ethics for disciples and illustrating that kind of love with the Old Testament Reading of Joseph reconciling with his brothers who had sold him into Egypt. I'll go there.
Possible Outline Of Sermon Moves
A. Begin with a story of someone you never liked and how hard it was (is) to love that one. Or if that's too personal for you to use today, use one of the possible metaphors below.
B. Move to the story of Joseph and how he was able to love his brothers who had sold him into slavery.
C. Move to what Jesus taught the disciples in the Sermon on the Plain about radical love. List some things about this kind of love.
1. It is a positive ethic of what we are to do rather than what we are not to do.
2. It is not the world's way of getting even, getting revenge, and getting what's yours and what's coming to you.
3. This is God's love we have for the other and only possible with help through God's spirit.
D. Move to Jesus' clincher on this idea in verse 32. Anyone can love the lovely -- we are much more radical than that!
E. Point to two verses which sum up the teaching today: Verse 31 -- the golden rule in positive form. Verse 36 -- be merciful, with God as our example.
F. Frame your sermon by returning to your opening story and tell how you will, in light of this sermon, try harder to have love for this person obnoxious to you.
Prayer For The Day
Help us to have your love for those who are so unlovely to us, O God, and help us also to have the kind of mercy on others which God has for us. Being a faithful disciple in our culture isn't easy. We need your help because you have called us, too, like James and John, Mary Magdalene and Priscilla. Make of us a congregation of radical love for others. In Christ's name. Amen.
Possible Metaphors And Stories
In the movie Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen loved the condemned regardless of his crime of rape and murder. She walked with him down the aisle to the chamber for injection to kill him. Others just couldn't understand a love like that. Wow! A powerful testimony to God's unconditional love for all sinners and how we must represent that radical love in our world and ministry.
"He likes me," little Elizabeth said after I put my hands on her head and blessed her at the communion rail while giving her parents Holy Communion.
The meal acts that out -- God likes us ... and more.
I was very moved to see on the news Reginald Denny hug the mothers of the two men who had beaten him nearly to death during the Los Angeles riots.
We rarely live out our conviction that, because God radically forgave and loved us, we are to do the same toward each other.
The news was very moving. It pictured the families of the boys who had beaten a baby nearly to death and the parents of the baby, brought together by a black pastor. They hugged, cried, and prayed together. One family was African-American, the other Mexican-American. There is a way for all to be one family in Christ and to give forgiveness even to those who most hurt you.
Jesus calling his disciples and it dawning on them who this person is they are following. Light for a dark world.
Theme For The Day
Having a radical, undeserved, God's love for the unlovely and living out the golden rule.
Old Testament Lesson
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
The Reconciliation Of Brothers With Joseph
One of the main elements I see in this passage of Joseph reconciling with his brothers is the way Joseph could see God's hand in his brothers selling him into Egypt (vv. 8, 9). The truth here is that spiritual persons, who can see God at work in all that takes place, are able to forgive and reconcile with those who have mistreated them.
So Joseph, now steward of the king, instructs his brothers to go back and bring father Jacob and all their families and move into Goshen, which was a fertile portion of the Nile area where they could well survive the five more years of drought.
The brothers, after many tears and conversations were now reconciled, jealousy no longer present, because Joseph was able to see God at work for their good in all that had happened to them. (The remnant was kept intact.)
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
More Resurrection
This follows on the heels of last week's reading on the same subject: the resurrection of the dead. Paul is addressing a very difficult subject by using human metaphors, ideas, and words. These are matters of faith, so we must refrain from literal interpretation when he is trying to express the unexplainable. Paul must have had the question from his Corinthian congregation asking what the body in our resurrection of the body was like. He answers using several analogies:
1. It will be a spiritual body not like our physical body.
2. It means like a seed planted, the old must die before the new body is present. (Paul's biology is faulty here; but it's a good metaphor for new life at our Easter.)
3. Creation has many kinds of bodies (v. 39). So we will be given a glorified body fitting for us at that time.
Then come the two examples of physical and spiritual bodies:
1. Adam, created by God from the dust of the earth,
2. And Jesus, from heaven.
We are both: while on earth, Adam, then into heaven as spiritual body. Only in Jesus do we inherit eternal life (v. 50).
Perhaps Paul should have said more simply that we don't know what this resurrected body of ours will be like, but we do know Jesus promised to bring us there to a place prepared for us (John 14:3).
The Gospel
Luke 6:27-38
Love For Enemies
Following last week's reading, we continue Luke's Sermon on the Plain. It is comparable to Matthew's Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 and 6. Each of the teachings in this collection of the themes Jesus taught his disciples is a bomb shell. They illustrate to us just how radical and different Christian discipleship is compared with the conventional wisdom of the world.
The love we are to have for our enemies is a love we determine we will have for them. It's not of the heart, but of our will. Only by God's grace can we have this agape love of God for an enemy.
And notice this, our Christian ethic is not made up of all the things we don't do, but rather it is made up of the things we do:
1. Love your enemies;
2. Do good to those who hate you;
3. Bless those who curse you;
4. Pray for those who abuse you;
5. Turn the other cheek;
6. Share with those who ask; and
7. Do to others what you would like them to do to you.
Then Jesus makes the point painful to me. He really is saying it's not a big deal to love the lovely and deserving, but we are to love those who don't deserve it and will never even appreciate it! The reward probably will not be ours here but on into eternity.
Verses 35 and 36 urge us to be merciful and love like this, just like God does. Wow! It's very wildly radical stuff in this Sermon on the Plain. And, I must add, this is only possible in our human circumstances with a large portion of help from God's Holy Spirit.
Preaching Possibilities
Both the New Testament and Gospel texts are continuations from last week's readings and would lend themselves to a part 2 sermon continuing from last week.
A. New Testament Reading -- Life after our death, part 2.
B. The Gospel -- Sermon on the Plain, ethics for Christians, part 2.
C. Also, the Old Testament Reading can stand alone. We can talk about Joseph seeing the horrible things which happened to him, even by his brothers, as God's will in caring for him and his family. Be sure to make the distinction between God causing something bad to happen to us and God taking something bad which happened to us and bringing some good out of it.
D. I think one could also begin with Jesus' radical teachings of ethics for disciples and illustrating that kind of love with the Old Testament Reading of Joseph reconciling with his brothers who had sold him into Egypt. I'll go there.
Possible Outline Of Sermon Moves
A. Begin with a story of someone you never liked and how hard it was (is) to love that one. Or if that's too personal for you to use today, use one of the possible metaphors below.
B. Move to the story of Joseph and how he was able to love his brothers who had sold him into slavery.
C. Move to what Jesus taught the disciples in the Sermon on the Plain about radical love. List some things about this kind of love.
1. It is a positive ethic of what we are to do rather than what we are not to do.
2. It is not the world's way of getting even, getting revenge, and getting what's yours and what's coming to you.
3. This is God's love we have for the other and only possible with help through God's spirit.
D. Move to Jesus' clincher on this idea in verse 32. Anyone can love the lovely -- we are much more radical than that!
E. Point to two verses which sum up the teaching today: Verse 31 -- the golden rule in positive form. Verse 36 -- be merciful, with God as our example.
F. Frame your sermon by returning to your opening story and tell how you will, in light of this sermon, try harder to have love for this person obnoxious to you.
Prayer For The Day
Help us to have your love for those who are so unlovely to us, O God, and help us also to have the kind of mercy on others which God has for us. Being a faithful disciple in our culture isn't easy. We need your help because you have called us, too, like James and John, Mary Magdalene and Priscilla. Make of us a congregation of radical love for others. In Christ's name. Amen.
Possible Metaphors And Stories
In the movie Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen loved the condemned regardless of his crime of rape and murder. She walked with him down the aisle to the chamber for injection to kill him. Others just couldn't understand a love like that. Wow! A powerful testimony to God's unconditional love for all sinners and how we must represent that radical love in our world and ministry.
"He likes me," little Elizabeth said after I put my hands on her head and blessed her at the communion rail while giving her parents Holy Communion.
The meal acts that out -- God likes us ... and more.
I was very moved to see on the news Reginald Denny hug the mothers of the two men who had beaten him nearly to death during the Los Angeles riots.
We rarely live out our conviction that, because God radically forgave and loved us, we are to do the same toward each other.
The news was very moving. It pictured the families of the boys who had beaten a baby nearly to death and the parents of the baby, brought together by a black pastor. They hugged, cried, and prayed together. One family was African-American, the other Mexican-American. There is a way for all to be one family in Christ and to give forgiveness even to those who most hurt you.
