Sermon Illustrations For Proper 8 | Ordinary Time 13 (2020)
Illustration
Genesis 22:1-14
There’s something very singular about the near-sacrifice of Isaac, an event referred to in Jewish tradition as the Adekah, from the Hebrew word for binding, as in the binding of Isaac. Unlike acts of triumph, like the parting of the Red Sea, which is remembered and celebrated in the psalms, or failures, like the grumbling of the people in the desert that led to water flowing of the rock, and which is also remembered in psalms as a rebuke, the Adekah is not mentioned elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures. It is almost as if there are no lessons to be learned, or if it was simply too difficult to explicate or make sense of.
Some say this incident is a rebuke to the idea of human sacrifice, which is not called for by the God of Israel. Typically, in the ancient world human sacrifice, there was a response to times of great disaster, and it was the people who initiated the sacrificed humans in order to placate or appease their god. But in this story, it is not Abraham who initiates human sacrifice in response to a disaster. Indeed, there is no disaster in the offering. It is God who requires Abraham to go through with the near sacrifice of his son. The text tells us this is a test of Abraham’s faithfulness, and perhaps Abraham had not shown faithfulness in other ways. He lied twice about his wife to save his own life. He complained about God’s slowness in fulfilling the promise he and Sarah would share a child. Nor do we know what God, Abraham, Isaac, or Sarah for that matter, thought about all this. Nobody’s interior monologue is revealed to us. The only word Abraham says to God in this story is hinenu. “Here I am.” He responds by acting.
After this near sacrifice of Isaac, there is no record of a conversation between Abraham and Isaac afterwards. I hate to argue from silence -- surely something awkward must have been said, but perhaps what the text is really telling us is that the relationship was over.
Frank R.
* * *
Genesis 22:1-14
A.W. Tozer once wrote, “God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.” Trusting God to do what we can’t envision or imagine is the essence of faith. We have to walk by faith and not by sight to see what God can do.
In 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. flew his small airplane from New York City to Massachusetts for a wedding. His wife Carolyn and her sister were also on the plane. Though Kennedy was a licensed pilot, he had not yet been approved for using only instruments to navigate. Their takeoff was delayed until after dark. Hindsight being what it is, Kennedy should have waited for daylight or sought a more experienced pilot to help. Instead, he took off. Tragically, they never reached their destination. The plane crashed. Investigators determined that the crash was likely caused by disorientation from flying over open water at night without any landmarks or visible horizon. Sadly, Kennedy’s lack of experience may have led him to trust what he was seeing more than what the instrument panel was telling him.
Trusting only what you see; we know what that’s like. Abraham was in a difficult spot. He was told to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. He knew the promise about Isaac, so how hard it must’ve been to raise the knife. What he saw with his physical eyes didn’t make sense, but Abraham chose to look with the eyes of faith. Hebrews 11:19 says, “He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” Will we trust God, as Abraham did, and see him do what is impossible?
Bill T.
* * *
Genesis 22:1-14, Psalm 13
I served as a chaplain in the United States Army for four years. It was a very rewarding experience; but even more so, it was a very enlightening experience. On multiple occasions, and I want to emphasize to the reader that it was on many occasions, I became involved in a group of enlisted men discussing birth control. Not one, and I mean not one, of these encounters came from a planned session by the chaplain on health and hygiene. They all happened to be conversations that I happened upon as idle soldiers sat around talking. Almost to the man each shared that his wife would not allow him to have a vasectomy as a birth control preventative measure. From all possible birth control options, a vasectomy is one of the easiest and simplest procedures, as well as one of the most reliable. Why? The wives were afraid that a husband who had a vasectomy could cheat on her without fear of being caught. I came away from every one of these conversations saddened, because it indicted the lack of trust that prevailed in that marital relationship.
Ron L.
* * *
Romans 6:12-23
Sin is a serious problem. John Calvin made that point, as when considering this text, he observed that, “When once sin has obtained dominion in our soul, all our faculties are continually applied to its service.” (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XX/2, p.231) but grace makes sin less alluring. Martin Luther explained this well:
For the man who has Christ through true faith does not desire any of this world’s goods (however much they may allure him), not even life itself, nor does he fear the evils, even death itself (no matter how terrifying they may be). (Luther’s Works, Vol.25, p.318)
When this happens, we are changed by God’s grace. John Wesley described those under grace as living in such a way that “... our minds, all pliant and ductile, should be conformed to the gospel percepts, as liquid metals take the figure of the mold into which they are cast.” (Commentary On the Bible, p.501) Famed 20th-century theologian Karl Barth made a similar point, when he claimed that, “Under grace [the love of God] we are at God’s disposal to do what He will with our members.” (The Epistle to the Romans, p.208) In grace, God is in charge!
Mark E.
* * *
Romans 6:12-23
Paul’s language of slavery is unequivocally problematic. This is especially true for American Christians who live in the shadow of the enslavement, rape, torture, and murder of black bodies. There is no apologizing for Paul’s choice of metaphor, and I truly believe that if he understood that hundreds of years into the future, his words would be used to justify the brutalization of hundreds of thousands––if not millions––of black lives, he would not have chosen this metaphor. Yet, if there is any chance to salvage the scriptures from the way they were used to justify some of the greatest crimes of humanity, we need to understand that Paul’s metaphor is just that––a metaphor.
Metaphors are helpful heuristic tools. They enable us to contextualize complex abstract ideas within the realm of the familiar, but because they are the vehicle through which ideas are communicated, it is possible to change and adapt metaphors without necessarily altering the abstract idea they are meant to describe. For example, Freud used the example of a man on horseback in order to explain how the ego (self) directs the id (desires) (Freud 1923, p. 15). Now, culture has changed since the 1920s, and today it would be entirely appropriate to adapt the metaphor by describing the concept using the metaphor of someone driving a car. There is nothing lost in the meaning of the metaphor despite its change. We still understand that the point is that there’s something directing something else that needs to be directed, or else it will just go all over the place.
I know it may sound sacrilegious to suggest that we might abandon Paul’s metaphor of enslavement, but Paul himself explains that, “I am speaking in human terms” (Romans 6:19). Given the Apostle’s acknowledgement of the imperfection of his metaphor, perhaps it is an invitation for later generations to reimagine a metaphor more suited to their particular “human terms.” For example, let us imagine: instead of the idea of being “enslaved to sin,” what if we thought about it as being employed as a paper-pusher for Sin, Inc? This evil corporation tears through communities, putting mom-and-pop shops out of business. It infiltrates the local public school and forces it to advertise its products. It dumps its polluted waste into the lake that had once been a natural wonder, where couples young and old would walk around hand-in-hand enjoying the sunshine. What if, then, Jesus, the recruiter from God, Inc., came to you and told you that if you quit working for Sin, Inc., and joined up with God, Inc., you could give back to your community––all while also getting a big raise and better working conditions?
This metaphor does not change the content of Paul’s message, but only updates the way in which that content is delivered. Of course, this is only one example. I am sure there are hundreds of other metaphors that might work better. What is important, however, is that we acknowledge that when Paul speaks “in human terms,” he sometimes misses the mark. He is, after all, human. And so are we. Perhaps, then, the most human thing to do is to pick up Paul’s metaphor and translate it into the “human terms” that best serve us today.
M T.
* * *
Romans 6:12-23
Freedom from sin is something to be sought after. Paul, however, reminds us it is not through our own power that we have overcome sin. We have been blessed by grace. The grace we are given is a result of our faithfulness, not because we are slaves to the law. Paul reminds us that it is not that we have control over sinfulness, but that our relationships with the one who sanctifies us moves us to live in righteousness. It’s not that we are perfect, but when we focus on righteousness, when we focus on our freedom from sin and the grace poured over us, we are truly in relationship, Paul says enslaved to God. Through that connection and our sanctification, we move toward another free gift from God — eternal life.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Matthew 10:40-42
There’s a church manual called the Didache (Dih-dah-key) from the first or second Christian century. You’ll find the Lord’s Prayer in it, quotations from the Sermon on the Mount, prayers for love feast, and various instructions for life together as a community. And then there’s this:
Regarding apostles and prophets, do this according to the teachings of the Good News. Receive all apostles coming to you as you would the Lord. However, don’t let them stay more than a day, or a second day if necessary. If he stays a third day, he’s a false prophet. An apostle should be taking enough bread for the journey, but if they ask for money, this is a false prophet. (Didache 11:3, my translation)
This is in sharp contrast to the instructions Jesus gives us in today’s gospel lesson from Matthew, promising us great reward if we receive prophets and apostles in our midst.
But the Didache puts a time limit on how long you can entertain a prophet. Something has happened, I believe, to cause this situation of cynicism. No doubt people had come through taking advantage of Christians, The Roman satirist Lucian (c. 120-180 AD) specifically targets Christians as especially gullible. In his satire “The Death of Peregrinus” he tells a story in which this Peregrinus becomes a leader of the Christians in order to get money for doing nothing.
We are also in danger of becoming callous, cynical, and world-weary because there are some people ready to take advantage of us because we follow Jesus. This must not prevent us, however, from doing just that -- following Jesus.
Frank R.
* * *
Matthew 10:40-42
Arguably, the greatest basketball player ever was Michael Jordan. In an interview, he once told a reporter, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Jordan attributed his tremendous success to not giving up or giving in to adversity. That’s a powerful message.
Christians are not immune to going through tough stuff. In Matthew 10, Jesus indicates that those who represent him in this world may struggle.
Herbert Schlossberg wrote a book, Called to Suffer, Called to Triumph, in which he wrote about Bulgarian pastor Hristo Kulichev. On January 9, 1985, Kulichev was arrested and put in prison. His crime was that he preached in his church while the state had appointed another man to do that. His trial was a travesty. He was sentenced to eight months in prison. During his time in prison he did all he could to make Jesus known.
When he got out, he wrote, "Both prisoners and jailers asked many questions, and it turned out that we had a more fruitful ministry there than we could have expected in church. God was better served by our presence in prison than if we had been free."
Don’t give up and remember that going through difficulties for Jesus is worth it.
Bill T.
* * *
Matthew 10:40-42
Rana Awdish wrote the book In Shock, that was published in 2017. In the book, Dr. Awdish described how she never imagined that an emergency trip to the hospital would result in hemorrhaging nearly all of her blood volume and losing her unborn first child. But after her first visit, Dr. Awdish spent months fighting for her life, enduring consecutive major surgeries and experiencing multiple overlapping organ failures. At each step of the recovery process, Awdish was faced with something even more unexpected. Now, as a patient and no longer the attending physician, she experienced the repeated cavalier behavior from her fellow physicians — indifference following human loss, disregard for anguish and suffering, an unremitting emotional distance, and never having any input into her medical care. This experience exposed her, to when she was an attending physician, of her own lack of neglect for a patient’s feelings. This personal awareness is reflected in this passage from her book: “I worried that to a patient, modesty would be read as indecisiveness, caution would be reinterpreted as a lack of authority. I was trained in an era when an edge of arrogance was considered an essential character trait of a truly skillful physician.” She went on to write that it could all be summed up in one word — “ego.”
Ron L.
There’s something very singular about the near-sacrifice of Isaac, an event referred to in Jewish tradition as the Adekah, from the Hebrew word for binding, as in the binding of Isaac. Unlike acts of triumph, like the parting of the Red Sea, which is remembered and celebrated in the psalms, or failures, like the grumbling of the people in the desert that led to water flowing of the rock, and which is also remembered in psalms as a rebuke, the Adekah is not mentioned elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures. It is almost as if there are no lessons to be learned, or if it was simply too difficult to explicate or make sense of.
Some say this incident is a rebuke to the idea of human sacrifice, which is not called for by the God of Israel. Typically, in the ancient world human sacrifice, there was a response to times of great disaster, and it was the people who initiated the sacrificed humans in order to placate or appease their god. But in this story, it is not Abraham who initiates human sacrifice in response to a disaster. Indeed, there is no disaster in the offering. It is God who requires Abraham to go through with the near sacrifice of his son. The text tells us this is a test of Abraham’s faithfulness, and perhaps Abraham had not shown faithfulness in other ways. He lied twice about his wife to save his own life. He complained about God’s slowness in fulfilling the promise he and Sarah would share a child. Nor do we know what God, Abraham, Isaac, or Sarah for that matter, thought about all this. Nobody’s interior monologue is revealed to us. The only word Abraham says to God in this story is hinenu. “Here I am.” He responds by acting.
After this near sacrifice of Isaac, there is no record of a conversation between Abraham and Isaac afterwards. I hate to argue from silence -- surely something awkward must have been said, but perhaps what the text is really telling us is that the relationship was over.
Frank R.
* * *
Genesis 22:1-14
A.W. Tozer once wrote, “God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.” Trusting God to do what we can’t envision or imagine is the essence of faith. We have to walk by faith and not by sight to see what God can do.
In 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. flew his small airplane from New York City to Massachusetts for a wedding. His wife Carolyn and her sister were also on the plane. Though Kennedy was a licensed pilot, he had not yet been approved for using only instruments to navigate. Their takeoff was delayed until after dark. Hindsight being what it is, Kennedy should have waited for daylight or sought a more experienced pilot to help. Instead, he took off. Tragically, they never reached their destination. The plane crashed. Investigators determined that the crash was likely caused by disorientation from flying over open water at night without any landmarks or visible horizon. Sadly, Kennedy’s lack of experience may have led him to trust what he was seeing more than what the instrument panel was telling him.
Trusting only what you see; we know what that’s like. Abraham was in a difficult spot. He was told to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. He knew the promise about Isaac, so how hard it must’ve been to raise the knife. What he saw with his physical eyes didn’t make sense, but Abraham chose to look with the eyes of faith. Hebrews 11:19 says, “He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” Will we trust God, as Abraham did, and see him do what is impossible?
Bill T.
* * *
Genesis 22:1-14, Psalm 13
I served as a chaplain in the United States Army for four years. It was a very rewarding experience; but even more so, it was a very enlightening experience. On multiple occasions, and I want to emphasize to the reader that it was on many occasions, I became involved in a group of enlisted men discussing birth control. Not one, and I mean not one, of these encounters came from a planned session by the chaplain on health and hygiene. They all happened to be conversations that I happened upon as idle soldiers sat around talking. Almost to the man each shared that his wife would not allow him to have a vasectomy as a birth control preventative measure. From all possible birth control options, a vasectomy is one of the easiest and simplest procedures, as well as one of the most reliable. Why? The wives were afraid that a husband who had a vasectomy could cheat on her without fear of being caught. I came away from every one of these conversations saddened, because it indicted the lack of trust that prevailed in that marital relationship.
Ron L.
* * *
Romans 6:12-23
Sin is a serious problem. John Calvin made that point, as when considering this text, he observed that, “When once sin has obtained dominion in our soul, all our faculties are continually applied to its service.” (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XX/2, p.231) but grace makes sin less alluring. Martin Luther explained this well:
For the man who has Christ through true faith does not desire any of this world’s goods (however much they may allure him), not even life itself, nor does he fear the evils, even death itself (no matter how terrifying they may be). (Luther’s Works, Vol.25, p.318)
When this happens, we are changed by God’s grace. John Wesley described those under grace as living in such a way that “... our minds, all pliant and ductile, should be conformed to the gospel percepts, as liquid metals take the figure of the mold into which they are cast.” (Commentary On the Bible, p.501) Famed 20th-century theologian Karl Barth made a similar point, when he claimed that, “Under grace [the love of God] we are at God’s disposal to do what He will with our members.” (The Epistle to the Romans, p.208) In grace, God is in charge!
Mark E.
* * *
Romans 6:12-23
Paul’s language of slavery is unequivocally problematic. This is especially true for American Christians who live in the shadow of the enslavement, rape, torture, and murder of black bodies. There is no apologizing for Paul’s choice of metaphor, and I truly believe that if he understood that hundreds of years into the future, his words would be used to justify the brutalization of hundreds of thousands––if not millions––of black lives, he would not have chosen this metaphor. Yet, if there is any chance to salvage the scriptures from the way they were used to justify some of the greatest crimes of humanity, we need to understand that Paul’s metaphor is just that––a metaphor.
Metaphors are helpful heuristic tools. They enable us to contextualize complex abstract ideas within the realm of the familiar, but because they are the vehicle through which ideas are communicated, it is possible to change and adapt metaphors without necessarily altering the abstract idea they are meant to describe. For example, Freud used the example of a man on horseback in order to explain how the ego (self) directs the id (desires) (Freud 1923, p. 15). Now, culture has changed since the 1920s, and today it would be entirely appropriate to adapt the metaphor by describing the concept using the metaphor of someone driving a car. There is nothing lost in the meaning of the metaphor despite its change. We still understand that the point is that there’s something directing something else that needs to be directed, or else it will just go all over the place.
I know it may sound sacrilegious to suggest that we might abandon Paul’s metaphor of enslavement, but Paul himself explains that, “I am speaking in human terms” (Romans 6:19). Given the Apostle’s acknowledgement of the imperfection of his metaphor, perhaps it is an invitation for later generations to reimagine a metaphor more suited to their particular “human terms.” For example, let us imagine: instead of the idea of being “enslaved to sin,” what if we thought about it as being employed as a paper-pusher for Sin, Inc? This evil corporation tears through communities, putting mom-and-pop shops out of business. It infiltrates the local public school and forces it to advertise its products. It dumps its polluted waste into the lake that had once been a natural wonder, where couples young and old would walk around hand-in-hand enjoying the sunshine. What if, then, Jesus, the recruiter from God, Inc., came to you and told you that if you quit working for Sin, Inc., and joined up with God, Inc., you could give back to your community––all while also getting a big raise and better working conditions?
This metaphor does not change the content of Paul’s message, but only updates the way in which that content is delivered. Of course, this is only one example. I am sure there are hundreds of other metaphors that might work better. What is important, however, is that we acknowledge that when Paul speaks “in human terms,” he sometimes misses the mark. He is, after all, human. And so are we. Perhaps, then, the most human thing to do is to pick up Paul’s metaphor and translate it into the “human terms” that best serve us today.
M T.
* * *
Romans 6:12-23
Freedom from sin is something to be sought after. Paul, however, reminds us it is not through our own power that we have overcome sin. We have been blessed by grace. The grace we are given is a result of our faithfulness, not because we are slaves to the law. Paul reminds us that it is not that we have control over sinfulness, but that our relationships with the one who sanctifies us moves us to live in righteousness. It’s not that we are perfect, but when we focus on righteousness, when we focus on our freedom from sin and the grace poured over us, we are truly in relationship, Paul says enslaved to God. Through that connection and our sanctification, we move toward another free gift from God — eternal life.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Matthew 10:40-42
There’s a church manual called the Didache (Dih-dah-key) from the first or second Christian century. You’ll find the Lord’s Prayer in it, quotations from the Sermon on the Mount, prayers for love feast, and various instructions for life together as a community. And then there’s this:
Regarding apostles and prophets, do this according to the teachings of the Good News. Receive all apostles coming to you as you would the Lord. However, don’t let them stay more than a day, or a second day if necessary. If he stays a third day, he’s a false prophet. An apostle should be taking enough bread for the journey, but if they ask for money, this is a false prophet. (Didache 11:3, my translation)
This is in sharp contrast to the instructions Jesus gives us in today’s gospel lesson from Matthew, promising us great reward if we receive prophets and apostles in our midst.
But the Didache puts a time limit on how long you can entertain a prophet. Something has happened, I believe, to cause this situation of cynicism. No doubt people had come through taking advantage of Christians, The Roman satirist Lucian (c. 120-180 AD) specifically targets Christians as especially gullible. In his satire “The Death of Peregrinus” he tells a story in which this Peregrinus becomes a leader of the Christians in order to get money for doing nothing.
We are also in danger of becoming callous, cynical, and world-weary because there are some people ready to take advantage of us because we follow Jesus. This must not prevent us, however, from doing just that -- following Jesus.
Frank R.
* * *
Matthew 10:40-42
Arguably, the greatest basketball player ever was Michael Jordan. In an interview, he once told a reporter, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Jordan attributed his tremendous success to not giving up or giving in to adversity. That’s a powerful message.
Christians are not immune to going through tough stuff. In Matthew 10, Jesus indicates that those who represent him in this world may struggle.
Herbert Schlossberg wrote a book, Called to Suffer, Called to Triumph, in which he wrote about Bulgarian pastor Hristo Kulichev. On January 9, 1985, Kulichev was arrested and put in prison. His crime was that he preached in his church while the state had appointed another man to do that. His trial was a travesty. He was sentenced to eight months in prison. During his time in prison he did all he could to make Jesus known.
When he got out, he wrote, "Both prisoners and jailers asked many questions, and it turned out that we had a more fruitful ministry there than we could have expected in church. God was better served by our presence in prison than if we had been free."
Don’t give up and remember that going through difficulties for Jesus is worth it.
Bill T.
* * *
Matthew 10:40-42
Rana Awdish wrote the book In Shock, that was published in 2017. In the book, Dr. Awdish described how she never imagined that an emergency trip to the hospital would result in hemorrhaging nearly all of her blood volume and losing her unborn first child. But after her first visit, Dr. Awdish spent months fighting for her life, enduring consecutive major surgeries and experiencing multiple overlapping organ failures. At each step of the recovery process, Awdish was faced with something even more unexpected. Now, as a patient and no longer the attending physician, she experienced the repeated cavalier behavior from her fellow physicians — indifference following human loss, disregard for anguish and suffering, an unremitting emotional distance, and never having any input into her medical care. This experience exposed her, to when she was an attending physician, of her own lack of neglect for a patient’s feelings. This personal awareness is reflected in this passage from her book: “I worried that to a patient, modesty would be read as indecisiveness, caution would be reinterpreted as a lack of authority. I was trained in an era when an edge of arrogance was considered an essential character trait of a truly skillful physician.” She went on to write that it could all be summed up in one word — “ego.”
Ron L.
