Sermon Illustrations for Proper 12 | OT 17 (2025)
Illustration
Hosea 1:2-10 and Psalm 85
I came across an interesting fact about how the state of Ohio deals with sealing and expunging a court record. The process for filing a court file and expunging a criminal record are combined into the same thing. If granted, the request seals the record forever, and officials are not allowed to discuss the person’s past criminal record.
In these two passages we see the depth of Israel’s sin, God’s judgment, and his incredible forgiveness. These three truths are important for God’s people to grasp. When God forgives, he seals the record. Forgiveness is important.
There is a story Charles Bracelen writes about Robert E. Lee and forgiveness in his book Lee: The Last Years. Bracelen reports that after the Civil War, Robert E. Lee visited a Kentucky lady who took him to what was left of a big old tree in front of her house. There she bitterly cried that its limbs and trunk had been destroyed by Union artillery fire. She looked to Lee for a word condemning the north or at least sympathizing with her loss. After a brief silence, Lee said, "Cut it down, my dear madam, and forget it." It is better to forgive the injustices of the past than to allow them to remain, let bitterness take root and poison the rest of our lives.”
Forgiveness and letting go of the past is what God does well. Will we receive it? Will we do it, too?
Bill T.
* * *
Hosea 1:2-10
Shel Silverstein wrote the lyrics of the song “A Boy Named Sue,” made famous by Johnny Cash. It tells the story of a boy abandoned by his father but not before naming him Sue, so he’d grow up strong and tough. It’s a reminder of how choosing a name can end up creating blessings or causing harm. And certainly, the prophet Hosea, speaking during the time when things began to go downhill in Israel before it was finally conquered by the Assyrians, was hardly doing his children any favors when he chose names for his three children that heralded the looming doom!
Now it’s not clear to me if these were really the names of his children or part of what he acted out dramatically for the people. And actually, when he was told to marry “a wife of prostitution,” he could have been liberating a sex slave who was forced to take part in the rituals of another religion. The chapter itself, one of death and destruction, ends with the promise that God never forgets the people, no matter how far they stray, and that there will be restoration.
By the way, one scholar’s note in the margins of the just-published Anabaptist Community Bible notes that “The word translated as ‘prostitute’ (Heb. ‘eshet zenunim) means a promiscuous woman rather than someone who is paid in exchange for sex.”
Frank R.
* * *
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Judgement is so hard and so difficult to deal with. Paul is writing to a church about standing up for their faith, about not letting criticism and judgement move them away from faithfulness. Paul reminds the church that we are with Jesus – with Jesus in baptism, with Jesus in forgiveness, with Jesus…always with Jesus. The earthly ones cannot condemn us. We are people of the resurrection of Jesus, people of the faith of Jesus, people of the way.
There is comfort in knowing that Jesus is with us, even when we do not feel the presence of Jesus. No one can take that presence away from us. No criticism about what we wear, what we eat, how we move in the world, how we act with one another, can separate us from the redemption of our faith. We, however, can separate ourselves from God, and sometimes do. Yet God is still there, still present. We move. God remains. Jesus leads. What a blessing that is!!!
Bonnie B.
* * *
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Commenting on v.10’s reference to coming to fullness in Christ, John Wesley claims he {Christ] is originally full. “We are filled by him with wisdom and holiness.” (Commentary On the Bible, p.547)
About this union with Christ Martin Luther proclaimed:
The sum of the matter is this: Depressed or exalted, circumscribed in whatsoever way, dragged hither or thither, I still find Christ. For he holds in his hands everything… Therefore so long as he dwells in my heart, I have courage where I go, I cannot be lost, I dwell where Christ my Lord dwells. (Complete Sermons, Vol.4/2, p.279)
Augustine’s prayer that this union would occur in his own life, that God might take full control, is to be our prayer:
O Thou strength of my soul enter into it, and prepare it for thyself, that thou mayest have and hold it. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.1, p.142)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 11:1-13
In considering this lesson on prayer, it is good to take John Calvin’s reminder that prayer is not something we do. He contends that Jesus teaches that, “No man will pray aright, unless his lips and heart shall be directed by the heavenly master.” (Calvin’s Commentaries, (Vol.XVI/1, p.316) Sometimes it seems prayer is not answered, in which case Calvin counsels:
Believers ought not to be discouraged if they do not immediately obtain their desires… for if, among men, importunity of asking extorts what a person would not willingly do, we have no reason to doubt that God will listen to us… (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVI/1, p.354)
The father of Existentialist Philosophy Soren Kierkegaard put it well: “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.” Martin Luther has a nice way of relating prayer and the Christian life. He claimed that Christians are constantly in prayer, just as the pulse always beats in a living person (Luther’s Works, Vol.24, p.89)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 11:1-13
How often do we say this prayer in church? Has it become so familiar that we do not really hear the words we say that we recite by rote and not in a state of grace and hope? How often does the language seem archaic and old fashioned? So what if we changed them — or updated them? What if we prayer to Our Creator, rather than Our Father. What if we replaced the thy with more modern phrasing? What if we used another form of the prayer? The essence would be the same. What if we used a literal translation of the Aramaic? Could it change our focus to the words and the prayer as it is meant to be.
O Birther! Father-Mother of the cosmos
you create all that moves in light.
Focus your light within us — make it useful: as the rays of a beacon show the way.
Create your reign of unity now — through our fiery hearts and willing hands. Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight: subsistence for the call of growing life. Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.
Don't let us enter forgetfulness; But free us from unripeness. From you is born all ruling will, the power and the life to do, the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews. Truly — power to these statements — may they be the source from which all my actions grow. Sealed in trust and faith. Amen (https://abwoon.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/APwlinks2020.pdf)
Bonnie B.
* * *
Luke 11:1-13
One of my favorite movies is the Frank Capra 1946 movie It’s a Wonderful Life . The movie starts with different voices all praying for the same person, George Bailey. The movie is really about the power of prayer. The entire movie is what happens because people prayed for Geroge. It is a moving, powerful movie that is shown almost every Christmas.
Prayer matters. Jesus said, “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (vs. 9-10). God wants to give good gifts to his children. Martin Luther knew the value of prayer. He said, “Work, work, from morning until late at night. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall have to spend the first three hours in prayer.” Will we be dedicated to prayer, knowing that God hears and God answers?
Bill T.
* * *
Luke 11:1-13
As a writer I am often approached by some people who will tell me, “I always wanted to be a writer but I wrote something once and it got rejected and so I stopped.” In my mind I may think, “If you gave up after once rejection you didn’t really want to be a writer,” because writers write regardless of whether they get published right away.
But instead I ask a few questions. What did you write? Where did you send it? Was it the kind of writing that periodical publishes? (One person sent a poem to a devotional magazine that doesn’t publish poetry. So yes, he got rejected). All the writers I know, including myself, experienced years of rejection and even if they write regularly now, they (and I) still get rejection slips. We are persistent.
If you really want something you are persistent. And that’s what this portion of “The Sermon on the Plain,” as it is sometimes referred to, is about. First, Luke gives us a different version of the famous Lord’s prayer. It’s shorter, reminding us that as important as the words of this prayer are, and how they merit study and reflection, the important thing is to pray regularly. Whether we use these words, or use each clause as a starting point for a separate prayer, we should pray every day. Then Jesus tells a joke – because in that society people love to help each other when it comes to hospitality. The man who has unexpected guests knows his neighbors will love to help him just as he would help them in the same circumstances. The idea that someone would refuse would make people laugh. Even so, the curmudgeon of this parable gives in to a persistent plea.
So finally, ask. Ask. Ask. You would do what you could for family. We’re part of God’s family. Be persistent because one way or another God is responding!
Frank R.
I came across an interesting fact about how the state of Ohio deals with sealing and expunging a court record. The process for filing a court file and expunging a criminal record are combined into the same thing. If granted, the request seals the record forever, and officials are not allowed to discuss the person’s past criminal record.
In these two passages we see the depth of Israel’s sin, God’s judgment, and his incredible forgiveness. These three truths are important for God’s people to grasp. When God forgives, he seals the record. Forgiveness is important.
There is a story Charles Bracelen writes about Robert E. Lee and forgiveness in his book Lee: The Last Years. Bracelen reports that after the Civil War, Robert E. Lee visited a Kentucky lady who took him to what was left of a big old tree in front of her house. There she bitterly cried that its limbs and trunk had been destroyed by Union artillery fire. She looked to Lee for a word condemning the north or at least sympathizing with her loss. After a brief silence, Lee said, "Cut it down, my dear madam, and forget it." It is better to forgive the injustices of the past than to allow them to remain, let bitterness take root and poison the rest of our lives.”
Forgiveness and letting go of the past is what God does well. Will we receive it? Will we do it, too?
Bill T.
* * *
Hosea 1:2-10
Shel Silverstein wrote the lyrics of the song “A Boy Named Sue,” made famous by Johnny Cash. It tells the story of a boy abandoned by his father but not before naming him Sue, so he’d grow up strong and tough. It’s a reminder of how choosing a name can end up creating blessings or causing harm. And certainly, the prophet Hosea, speaking during the time when things began to go downhill in Israel before it was finally conquered by the Assyrians, was hardly doing his children any favors when he chose names for his three children that heralded the looming doom!
Now it’s not clear to me if these were really the names of his children or part of what he acted out dramatically for the people. And actually, when he was told to marry “a wife of prostitution,” he could have been liberating a sex slave who was forced to take part in the rituals of another religion. The chapter itself, one of death and destruction, ends with the promise that God never forgets the people, no matter how far they stray, and that there will be restoration.
By the way, one scholar’s note in the margins of the just-published Anabaptist Community Bible notes that “The word translated as ‘prostitute’ (Heb. ‘eshet zenunim) means a promiscuous woman rather than someone who is paid in exchange for sex.”
Frank R.
* * *
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Judgement is so hard and so difficult to deal with. Paul is writing to a church about standing up for their faith, about not letting criticism and judgement move them away from faithfulness. Paul reminds the church that we are with Jesus – with Jesus in baptism, with Jesus in forgiveness, with Jesus…always with Jesus. The earthly ones cannot condemn us. We are people of the resurrection of Jesus, people of the faith of Jesus, people of the way.
There is comfort in knowing that Jesus is with us, even when we do not feel the presence of Jesus. No one can take that presence away from us. No criticism about what we wear, what we eat, how we move in the world, how we act with one another, can separate us from the redemption of our faith. We, however, can separate ourselves from God, and sometimes do. Yet God is still there, still present. We move. God remains. Jesus leads. What a blessing that is!!!
Bonnie B.
* * *
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Commenting on v.10’s reference to coming to fullness in Christ, John Wesley claims he {Christ] is originally full. “We are filled by him with wisdom and holiness.” (Commentary On the Bible, p.547)
About this union with Christ Martin Luther proclaimed:
The sum of the matter is this: Depressed or exalted, circumscribed in whatsoever way, dragged hither or thither, I still find Christ. For he holds in his hands everything… Therefore so long as he dwells in my heart, I have courage where I go, I cannot be lost, I dwell where Christ my Lord dwells. (Complete Sermons, Vol.4/2, p.279)
Augustine’s prayer that this union would occur in his own life, that God might take full control, is to be our prayer:
O Thou strength of my soul enter into it, and prepare it for thyself, that thou mayest have and hold it. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.1, p.142)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 11:1-13
In considering this lesson on prayer, it is good to take John Calvin’s reminder that prayer is not something we do. He contends that Jesus teaches that, “No man will pray aright, unless his lips and heart shall be directed by the heavenly master.” (Calvin’s Commentaries, (Vol.XVI/1, p.316) Sometimes it seems prayer is not answered, in which case Calvin counsels:
Believers ought not to be discouraged if they do not immediately obtain their desires… for if, among men, importunity of asking extorts what a person would not willingly do, we have no reason to doubt that God will listen to us… (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVI/1, p.354)
The father of Existentialist Philosophy Soren Kierkegaard put it well: “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.” Martin Luther has a nice way of relating prayer and the Christian life. He claimed that Christians are constantly in prayer, just as the pulse always beats in a living person (Luther’s Works, Vol.24, p.89)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 11:1-13
How often do we say this prayer in church? Has it become so familiar that we do not really hear the words we say that we recite by rote and not in a state of grace and hope? How often does the language seem archaic and old fashioned? So what if we changed them — or updated them? What if we prayer to Our Creator, rather than Our Father. What if we replaced the thy with more modern phrasing? What if we used another form of the prayer? The essence would be the same. What if we used a literal translation of the Aramaic? Could it change our focus to the words and the prayer as it is meant to be.
O Birther! Father-Mother of the cosmos
you create all that moves in light.
Focus your light within us — make it useful: as the rays of a beacon show the way.
Create your reign of unity now — through our fiery hearts and willing hands. Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight: subsistence for the call of growing life. Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.
Don't let us enter forgetfulness; But free us from unripeness. From you is born all ruling will, the power and the life to do, the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews. Truly — power to these statements — may they be the source from which all my actions grow. Sealed in trust and faith. Amen (https://abwoon.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/APwlinks2020.pdf)
Bonnie B.
* * *
Luke 11:1-13
One of my favorite movies is the Frank Capra 1946 movie It’s a Wonderful Life . The movie starts with different voices all praying for the same person, George Bailey. The movie is really about the power of prayer. The entire movie is what happens because people prayed for Geroge. It is a moving, powerful movie that is shown almost every Christmas.
Prayer matters. Jesus said, “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (vs. 9-10). God wants to give good gifts to his children. Martin Luther knew the value of prayer. He said, “Work, work, from morning until late at night. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall have to spend the first three hours in prayer.” Will we be dedicated to prayer, knowing that God hears and God answers?
Bill T.
* * *
Luke 11:1-13
As a writer I am often approached by some people who will tell me, “I always wanted to be a writer but I wrote something once and it got rejected and so I stopped.” In my mind I may think, “If you gave up after once rejection you didn’t really want to be a writer,” because writers write regardless of whether they get published right away.
But instead I ask a few questions. What did you write? Where did you send it? Was it the kind of writing that periodical publishes? (One person sent a poem to a devotional magazine that doesn’t publish poetry. So yes, he got rejected). All the writers I know, including myself, experienced years of rejection and even if they write regularly now, they (and I) still get rejection slips. We are persistent.
If you really want something you are persistent. And that’s what this portion of “The Sermon on the Plain,” as it is sometimes referred to, is about. First, Luke gives us a different version of the famous Lord’s prayer. It’s shorter, reminding us that as important as the words of this prayer are, and how they merit study and reflection, the important thing is to pray regularly. Whether we use these words, or use each clause as a starting point for a separate prayer, we should pray every day. Then Jesus tells a joke – because in that society people love to help each other when it comes to hospitality. The man who has unexpected guests knows his neighbors will love to help him just as he would help them in the same circumstances. The idea that someone would refuse would make people laugh. Even so, the curmudgeon of this parable gives in to a persistent plea.
So finally, ask. Ask. Ask. You would do what you could for family. We’re part of God’s family. Be persistent because one way or another God is responding!
Frank R.
