Sermon Illustrations for Lent 4 (2019)
Illustration
Joshua 5:9-12
My parents were gardeners during my childhood. I spent time planting and weeding and harvesting the vegetables we grew; picking and arranging the flowers. We ate off the land and what the land provided. I didn’t know until I was a teenager that we planted and ate from the garden because we were pretty poor. Oh, there was always enough but sometimes just barely. My Dad fished and hunted and we ate everything he brought home. Sometimes I just wanted to have something ordinary, like Rice Krispy treats, but that was a waste of expensive marshmallows and breakfast cereal.
I wonder how the Israelites felt when they began to eat off the land, even though it was the Promised Land. No longer did manna fall from the heavens — now the land produced for them, but they needed to take part. It’s like that with all acts of production. Some of it relies on others or nature, and some relies on us. This Lent I will focus on doing my part.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Joshua 5:9-12
The lesson recounts the story of the Hebrews’ first Passover spent in the Holy Land. This is a festival that still matters today, not just for Jewish people, but even for the followers of Jesus. Modern rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman provide insight:
And the issues [of The Passover Story] are not only macro-political, but apply also to the spiritual and psychological struggles of individual human beings confronting their own “internal pharaohs,” when one aspect of the self takes over the whole person, twisting and perverting a person’s humanity by turning other facets of the self into slaves that yearn for freedom and full integration.
Passover is about freedom. Christians also believe that freedom is what God wants for his people, freedom both from the way we oppress ourselves psychologically and freedom from the way government and business dynamics do it to us. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that “a denial of freedom to an individual is a denial of life itself. The very character of the life of man demands freedom.” (A Testament of Hope, p.119). The black church in general has appreciated how freedom like our Jewish friends also celebrate is the essence of the Gospel. A 1969 consensus statement of the National Committee of Black Churchmen makes this clear:
The message of liberation is the revelation of God as revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Freedom IS the Gospel. Jesus Christ is the liberator! (Milton Sernett, ed., Afro-American Religious History [1985 ed.], p.475)
Christians dedicated to freedom keep on celebrating Passover.
Mark E.
* * *
Joshua 5:9-12
It seems like God, the Father, is hinting ahead to the bread of life that came ultimately through the cross of Christ, his son.
When they returned to Gilgal, they ate that produce from then on. No more manna.
Food was very important to Israel and still is. It also symbolized where they were whey they ate certain food. No more manna, now only Canaanite food. Some reminded them where they came from, pleasant or unpleasant. Today some Americans won’t eat Spanish food or German food. Some are vegetarians. Some won’t eat pork. Our church today has no restrictions.
Bob O.
* * *
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Paul tells us that we no longer look at people in the old way. Everyone is a new creation. Seeing that in the here and now can be difficult. If you look at the old political cartoons in Lincoln’s day he comes off looking pretty awful. His pants are drawn too short and his clothes don’t fit and there’s straw behind his ears. Judging by external appearances people didn’t think much of Lincoln the first time they met him. The very people he asked into his cabinet thought he was a country bumpkin and that they were going to control him. By the end of the Civil War the former rivals he brought into his cabinet had grown to respect him as a man of great insight and wisdom.
The fact that Jesus was crucified meant that many were unable to look past the cross to see the Savior. Their first impression wasn’t favorable enough for them to see further and discover who he truly was. We are called to be ambassadors of Christ — and hopefully people will give us a second look, as we too ought to give folks a closer gander, so we begin to see the Savior more clearly through the words and lives of those chosen to be ambassadors of Christ.
Frank R.
* * *
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Like a lot of others, I like the book and movie Unbroken. It is the story of Louie Zamperini. Louie grew up in California in the 1920s and was the bane of everyone’s existence. After one of his frequent brushes with the local police, his older brother took him under his wing and gave him his first pair of running shoes. His brother figured that if he could outrun the police, he could outrun most of his classmates. He was also so fast, that he could steal beer from bootleggers. Zamperini then began a phenomenal track career. As a teenager he ran in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where he ran his incredible final lap of the mile in a record fifty-six seconds. He was preparing for the 1940 Olympics and closing in on a four-minute mile when World War II began. Louie became a bombardier pilot on a B-24 Liberator. He crash-landed into the Pacific and was adrift for forty-seven days. Eventually he and one other crew member were washed ashore a Japanese-held island and were sent to a prisoner of war camp. There Louie fell under the control of the sadistic Corporal Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a camp guard the inmates called “the Bird” who took pleasure in killing prisoners after a period of slow torture. The harrowing experiences he endured as a POW sometimes made him long for the days when he was starving and attacked by sharks on that raft. He survived, however, and returned to the U.S. Haunted by nightmares of his torment, Louie sees himself as anything but a hero. Then, he meets Cynthia, a young woman who captures his eye — and his heart. Louie’s quest for revenge drives him deeper into despair, putting the couple on the brink of divorce until Cynthia experiences Billy Graham’s 1949 Los Angeles Crusade, where both find faith in Jesus Christ, and a renewed commitment to their marriage. Louie finds forgiveness for his wartime captors.
The Louie Zamperini story is a powerful testimony to the life-changing nature of a relationship with Jesus Christ. All who know Jesus become a “new creation.”
Bill T.
* * *
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. He is considered in English literature as a precursor of the Romantic Movement.
He was born in 1731. His father was the rector of the Church of St. Peter in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. William, after witnessing the death of seven children in infancy, watched his mother die at the age of six. After attending school, in 1763 he was offered a Clerkship of Journals in the House of Lords. He broke under the strain of the approaching examination which began a lifelong journey of depression and insanity. After his third suicide attempt, he was sent to Nathaniel Cotton’s asylum at St. Albans for recovery. After recovering, he settled at Huntingdon with a retired clergyman named Morley Unwin and his wife, Mary. During this recovery period John Newton, best known as the author of Amazing Grace, became a lifelong friend and mentor. Unfortunately, Newton could never convince Cowper of God’s saving grace.
Not long afterward, Morley Unwin was killed in a fall from his horse. Cowper continued to live in the Unwin home and the widow Mary became a mother figure for him and continued to care for Cowper during his bouts with depression and suicide. During these years he continued to write poems and hymns.
When Mary Unwin died in 1796, Cowper was plunged into an uncontrollable gloom. After her death he believed he was eternally damned and on March 20, 1799 he wrote his last poem The Castaway. In this poem he compares himself to a man who has fallen off a ship in a storm and has to be abandoned by his shipmates. The poem begins:
Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
Ron L.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3,11b-32
The Prodigal Son. Mark Twain called it the greatest story ever told. We can tell it about ourselves. How often has it been our story as we go away from God and the church, pursuing our latest passions, leaving worship and the community behind while we seek to do our own thing. And yet God does not give up on us.
The forgiving love of God expressed in this parable goes against the grain of American ways of thinking. A 2017 Pew Research Center poll reports that 52% of American Protestants believe that faith alone will not save you, that you must do works to get saved. In an environment like this we are likely to hear this parable as an admonition to do something, to repent, and then we will be forgiven. John Calvin has some good advice for us in that case:
It is wretched sophistry to infer from this that the grace of God is not exhibited to sinners until they anticipate it by their repentance... It is wrong to infer from this that repentance which is the gift of God is yielded to men from their own movement of the heart. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVI/2, p.347)
We need to remember what Augustine once said to God in his Confessions: “You never depart from us, but yet, only with difficulties do we return to You.” Saying you’re sorry isn’t easy in today’s “no guilt” society (with a President who told us he doesn’t have sins to confess). It really is a miracle of love when a child apologizes to parents for doing something wrong that they haven’t realized he or she did. And if human love that the parents have for that child can compel such repentance, think what God’s love can do. Before we say we’re sorry to God it’s already been forgiven, just like Augustine said: “That repentance... is wrought into action by the mercy and help of the Lord...” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.5, p.234)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
One of my kids became alcoholic and was in bad shape for several years, but then he changed and went to a recovery facility. When he came out I had a party for him. But one of his brothers complained and told me that it would not last and that I should have had a party for him instead.
The one who recovered now has a job helping other alcoholics and drug addicts. I told them that my estate was going to be divided equally because I loved them all equally.
In my parish in Cheyenne, Wyoming, I was a part time jail chaplain and when I invited some who got out to come to our church, I had a lot of criticism from some of my members for bringing those sinners in. Some of the congregation thought I was wasting my time working with bad people even if I was trying to change them. I told them that it was one reason for a church. We should be doing what Christ came to do.
Christ came to save sinners not just to bless the righteous.
Bob O.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Every time I read or hear the story of the Prodigal Son I wonder which character I am in the story. You see, at one time or another, I have been all of them. I have been the wayward child. I have been the “good” eldest child. I have been the parent. I have even been the employer of the wayward child. As I read the story this Lent, I think about what Jesus is trying to teach. Is it about making mistakes and being forgiven? Is it about our “right” to be angry when our dedication and commitment is not recognized? Is it about offering grace and forgiveness in all situations? Perhaps all those and none of those.
As you read this gospel lesson, this good news message, who are you in the story? What grace, forgiveness, recognition, acceptance or love are you seeking? How is your relationship with God at this very moment? When faced with life not going according to your plan will you turn toward or away from God — because in its essence this story is about restoration of relationships, a coming home to the embrace of the one who loves us unconditionally — no matter which role we play.
Bonnie B.
My parents were gardeners during my childhood. I spent time planting and weeding and harvesting the vegetables we grew; picking and arranging the flowers. We ate off the land and what the land provided. I didn’t know until I was a teenager that we planted and ate from the garden because we were pretty poor. Oh, there was always enough but sometimes just barely. My Dad fished and hunted and we ate everything he brought home. Sometimes I just wanted to have something ordinary, like Rice Krispy treats, but that was a waste of expensive marshmallows and breakfast cereal.
I wonder how the Israelites felt when they began to eat off the land, even though it was the Promised Land. No longer did manna fall from the heavens — now the land produced for them, but they needed to take part. It’s like that with all acts of production. Some of it relies on others or nature, and some relies on us. This Lent I will focus on doing my part.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Joshua 5:9-12
The lesson recounts the story of the Hebrews’ first Passover spent in the Holy Land. This is a festival that still matters today, not just for Jewish people, but even for the followers of Jesus. Modern rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman provide insight:
And the issues [of The Passover Story] are not only macro-political, but apply also to the spiritual and psychological struggles of individual human beings confronting their own “internal pharaohs,” when one aspect of the self takes over the whole person, twisting and perverting a person’s humanity by turning other facets of the self into slaves that yearn for freedom and full integration.
Passover is about freedom. Christians also believe that freedom is what God wants for his people, freedom both from the way we oppress ourselves psychologically and freedom from the way government and business dynamics do it to us. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that “a denial of freedom to an individual is a denial of life itself. The very character of the life of man demands freedom.” (A Testament of Hope, p.119). The black church in general has appreciated how freedom like our Jewish friends also celebrate is the essence of the Gospel. A 1969 consensus statement of the National Committee of Black Churchmen makes this clear:
The message of liberation is the revelation of God as revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Freedom IS the Gospel. Jesus Christ is the liberator! (Milton Sernett, ed., Afro-American Religious History [1985 ed.], p.475)
Christians dedicated to freedom keep on celebrating Passover.
Mark E.
* * *
Joshua 5:9-12
It seems like God, the Father, is hinting ahead to the bread of life that came ultimately through the cross of Christ, his son.
When they returned to Gilgal, they ate that produce from then on. No more manna.
Food was very important to Israel and still is. It also symbolized where they were whey they ate certain food. No more manna, now only Canaanite food. Some reminded them where they came from, pleasant or unpleasant. Today some Americans won’t eat Spanish food or German food. Some are vegetarians. Some won’t eat pork. Our church today has no restrictions.
Bob O.
* * *
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Paul tells us that we no longer look at people in the old way. Everyone is a new creation. Seeing that in the here and now can be difficult. If you look at the old political cartoons in Lincoln’s day he comes off looking pretty awful. His pants are drawn too short and his clothes don’t fit and there’s straw behind his ears. Judging by external appearances people didn’t think much of Lincoln the first time they met him. The very people he asked into his cabinet thought he was a country bumpkin and that they were going to control him. By the end of the Civil War the former rivals he brought into his cabinet had grown to respect him as a man of great insight and wisdom.
The fact that Jesus was crucified meant that many were unable to look past the cross to see the Savior. Their first impression wasn’t favorable enough for them to see further and discover who he truly was. We are called to be ambassadors of Christ — and hopefully people will give us a second look, as we too ought to give folks a closer gander, so we begin to see the Savior more clearly through the words and lives of those chosen to be ambassadors of Christ.
Frank R.
* * *
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Like a lot of others, I like the book and movie Unbroken. It is the story of Louie Zamperini. Louie grew up in California in the 1920s and was the bane of everyone’s existence. After one of his frequent brushes with the local police, his older brother took him under his wing and gave him his first pair of running shoes. His brother figured that if he could outrun the police, he could outrun most of his classmates. He was also so fast, that he could steal beer from bootleggers. Zamperini then began a phenomenal track career. As a teenager he ran in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, where he ran his incredible final lap of the mile in a record fifty-six seconds. He was preparing for the 1940 Olympics and closing in on a four-minute mile when World War II began. Louie became a bombardier pilot on a B-24 Liberator. He crash-landed into the Pacific and was adrift for forty-seven days. Eventually he and one other crew member were washed ashore a Japanese-held island and were sent to a prisoner of war camp. There Louie fell under the control of the sadistic Corporal Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a camp guard the inmates called “the Bird” who took pleasure in killing prisoners after a period of slow torture. The harrowing experiences he endured as a POW sometimes made him long for the days when he was starving and attacked by sharks on that raft. He survived, however, and returned to the U.S. Haunted by nightmares of his torment, Louie sees himself as anything but a hero. Then, he meets Cynthia, a young woman who captures his eye — and his heart. Louie’s quest for revenge drives him deeper into despair, putting the couple on the brink of divorce until Cynthia experiences Billy Graham’s 1949 Los Angeles Crusade, where both find faith in Jesus Christ, and a renewed commitment to their marriage. Louie finds forgiveness for his wartime captors.
The Louie Zamperini story is a powerful testimony to the life-changing nature of a relationship with Jesus Christ. All who know Jesus become a “new creation.”
Bill T.
* * *
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. He is considered in English literature as a precursor of the Romantic Movement.
He was born in 1731. His father was the rector of the Church of St. Peter in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. William, after witnessing the death of seven children in infancy, watched his mother die at the age of six. After attending school, in 1763 he was offered a Clerkship of Journals in the House of Lords. He broke under the strain of the approaching examination which began a lifelong journey of depression and insanity. After his third suicide attempt, he was sent to Nathaniel Cotton’s asylum at St. Albans for recovery. After recovering, he settled at Huntingdon with a retired clergyman named Morley Unwin and his wife, Mary. During this recovery period John Newton, best known as the author of Amazing Grace, became a lifelong friend and mentor. Unfortunately, Newton could never convince Cowper of God’s saving grace.
Not long afterward, Morley Unwin was killed in a fall from his horse. Cowper continued to live in the Unwin home and the widow Mary became a mother figure for him and continued to care for Cowper during his bouts with depression and suicide. During these years he continued to write poems and hymns.
When Mary Unwin died in 1796, Cowper was plunged into an uncontrollable gloom. After her death he believed he was eternally damned and on March 20, 1799 he wrote his last poem The Castaway. In this poem he compares himself to a man who has fallen off a ship in a storm and has to be abandoned by his shipmates. The poem begins:
Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
Ron L.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3,11b-32
The Prodigal Son. Mark Twain called it the greatest story ever told. We can tell it about ourselves. How often has it been our story as we go away from God and the church, pursuing our latest passions, leaving worship and the community behind while we seek to do our own thing. And yet God does not give up on us.
The forgiving love of God expressed in this parable goes against the grain of American ways of thinking. A 2017 Pew Research Center poll reports that 52% of American Protestants believe that faith alone will not save you, that you must do works to get saved. In an environment like this we are likely to hear this parable as an admonition to do something, to repent, and then we will be forgiven. John Calvin has some good advice for us in that case:
It is wretched sophistry to infer from this that the grace of God is not exhibited to sinners until they anticipate it by their repentance... It is wrong to infer from this that repentance which is the gift of God is yielded to men from their own movement of the heart. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVI/2, p.347)
We need to remember what Augustine once said to God in his Confessions: “You never depart from us, but yet, only with difficulties do we return to You.” Saying you’re sorry isn’t easy in today’s “no guilt” society (with a President who told us he doesn’t have sins to confess). It really is a miracle of love when a child apologizes to parents for doing something wrong that they haven’t realized he or she did. And if human love that the parents have for that child can compel such repentance, think what God’s love can do. Before we say we’re sorry to God it’s already been forgiven, just like Augustine said: “That repentance... is wrought into action by the mercy and help of the Lord...” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.5, p.234)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
One of my kids became alcoholic and was in bad shape for several years, but then he changed and went to a recovery facility. When he came out I had a party for him. But one of his brothers complained and told me that it would not last and that I should have had a party for him instead.
The one who recovered now has a job helping other alcoholics and drug addicts. I told them that my estate was going to be divided equally because I loved them all equally.
In my parish in Cheyenne, Wyoming, I was a part time jail chaplain and when I invited some who got out to come to our church, I had a lot of criticism from some of my members for bringing those sinners in. Some of the congregation thought I was wasting my time working with bad people even if I was trying to change them. I told them that it was one reason for a church. We should be doing what Christ came to do.
Christ came to save sinners not just to bless the righteous.
Bob O.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Every time I read or hear the story of the Prodigal Son I wonder which character I am in the story. You see, at one time or another, I have been all of them. I have been the wayward child. I have been the “good” eldest child. I have been the parent. I have even been the employer of the wayward child. As I read the story this Lent, I think about what Jesus is trying to teach. Is it about making mistakes and being forgiven? Is it about our “right” to be angry when our dedication and commitment is not recognized? Is it about offering grace and forgiveness in all situations? Perhaps all those and none of those.
As you read this gospel lesson, this good news message, who are you in the story? What grace, forgiveness, recognition, acceptance or love are you seeking? How is your relationship with God at this very moment? When faced with life not going according to your plan will you turn toward or away from God — because in its essence this story is about restoration of relationships, a coming home to the embrace of the one who loves us unconditionally — no matter which role we play.
Bonnie B.
