Fourth Sunday In Lent
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII, Cycle A
Object:
Seasonal Theme
We head toward the passion and cross of Christ.
Theme For The Day
The gift of light for us who struggle still in the darkness and how we live now that we might have light.
Old Testament Lesson
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Samuel Anoints David
Here is the story of God's servant, Samuel, choosing and then anointing the young handsome red-headed son of Jesse to succeed Saul as king of Israel. The whole episode seems to center around the fact that God judges by what's in people's hearts while we most often judge by what they look like (v. 7). God's choice through Samuel was not the one the world would have chosen.
Notice with the anointing by Samuel verse 13 claims that God's spirit took over and remained with David. So a common shepherd boy becomes qualified to rule when the time comes to do so. As the story proceeds, we discover it was a wise choice and David did have the abilities to rule well.
New Testament Lesson
Ephesians 5:8-14
Light And Dark
This passage of Paul's letter is rich with symbolism and metaphor closing with an early hymn fragment. Light and dark represent morality and lack of it. The same is true of the New Testament, the later discovered Qumran scrolls, and still later Jewish literature. First comes the comparison of living outside the Christian faith which is like living in perpetual darkness.
Then comes the analogy of living in the light as the way it is for Christians. Several admonitions follow: We are to make our light shine. In doing so we ought be good and honest and full of truth. And we should not take part in shameful things which are usually done in the dark. This was probably a reference to cultic rites performed by secret religious groups. To focus the light of Christ on such behavior is to show them for what they are.
Verse 14b must be something Paul assumed would be familiar. Perhaps it is a piece of poetry. Even more intriguing would be the theory that it is a portion of a baptism hymn sung in the early church.
The Gospel
John 9:1-41
Healing At Siloam
Some background which will help re-tell this marvelous act of healing.
1. John tells of miracles as proof of God's power and glory. The other Gospel writers tell them to illustrate Jesus' compassion.
2. The Pool of Siloam was one of the landmarks of Jerusalem. Hezekiah cut a 583-yard tunnel under the city from the spring outside the wall to the pool. Siloam means "sent" as the water is sent from outside into the city.
3. Spittle was believed to have powers to cure.
4. Jesus broke the Sabbath laws by making clay and healing.
5. This is the only miracle of healing in the Gospels where the person was born with the disease. Acts has a couple: Acts 3:2 and Acts 14:8.
6. The Jews almost always put suffering and sin together as cause and effect.
7. Jesus also used his spit to cure the deaf man in Mark 7:33. To Jesus the Sabbath was a sign of the new age and God's working of re-creation, not a mere day of rest. See Mark 3:1-6; Luke 13:10-17. Again we have the metaphor of light: verse 5. We humans have struggled in darkness since Adam, preferring evil to good and blind to our own condition, until the light comes to open our eyes to God too.
Here is a story of healing by Jesus of a man's blindness which becomes a spiritual pilgrimage to strong faith.
Verse 11
Just a blind man wanting his sight
Verse 17
Believes Jesus is a prophet
Verse 33
Believes Jesus comes from God
Verse 36
Now he puts his faith in Jesus
Here is one who finally accepted Jesus after obstacles like these: his own confusion, his parents, fear of getting involved, his religious leader's arguments, and threat of excommunication. For this preacher, verse 25 is the climax. He didn't know the theological fine points about sin, etc.; all he knew was that he used to be blind and now he can see. It brings to mind John Newton's familiar words in the hymn "Amazing Grace": "I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see."
Preaching Possibilities
A. The Old Testament Lesson offers a chance to preach about our call and God's equipment for us in carrying out what God would have us be and do, just as God did David.
We can talk also about how God often chooses the most unpromising person to do great things in the Kingdom.
B. There is a connection between the New Testament Lesson and the Gospel in the metaphor of light and dark. This will preach. Metaphors and illustrations abound.
The contemporary hymn by Graham Kendrick of 1987 called "Shine, Jesus, Shine"1 could be used before, during, and after the sermon. Your people will remember the simple words and catchy tune.
C. If you are ready for a biblical textual sermon, consider verse 8 of Ephesians 5. One could ask these questions:
1. How can we tell the difference between the things of dark and light?
2. What does it mean to be good, or honest, or truthful in our context? Is it even possible?
3. How do we baptized wake up and rise from death as in verse 14b?
The Gospel healing miracle and Jesus' words in John 9:5 can be the climax of your message.
Possible Outline Of Sermon Moves
The entire message can be on how we live after God gives us light and God's precious spirit. It's what happens after the miracle of giving the blind man sight. A title might be: "Living in the Light."
1. Begin by telling the story of the ship captain and the lighthouse from the possible metaphors and stories at the end of this Sunday's section.
2. Now transition to the use of lights in the scripture for this Sunday. In the New Testament, Paul, who had trouble with his eyesight, contrasts living in the dark with living in the light. In the Gospel, we have the story of a man who had lived his whole life in the darkness of blindness and whom Jesus heals with sight.
3. Now retell Jesus' healing of the man by using spit and mud.
4. Here tell your people the traditional lesson drawn from this New Testament and Gospel for this Sunday:
a. God gives us sight when we are blind.
b. God has compassion and works mightily to heal us.
c. God is the light for us who struggle in the darkness.
d. God helps us to see the world in a new light.
5. Explain that you would like to turn this miracle over and see if we can discover a different message for us but one important for our discipleship. This flip side would be how we are called to live after God gives us new sight. Paul says now that we are no longer in the dark and belong to the Lord, we should be:
a. Benevolent or good = Greek word for generosity of spirit.
b. Righteous or honest = meant giving to people and to God what is coming to them.
c. Truth or truthful = in New Testament not just to understand but to act. It is more than something to know, it is also something to be done.
6. Turn to the blind-from-birth man healed at Siloam. What happened to him after the healing and new sight given? His neighbors and others doubted it was he (v. 8).
a. The Pharisees criticized and insulted for Sabbath healing (vv. 16, 26).
b. His new beliefs were ridiculed by religious leaders (v. 28).
c. His parents failed to back him up (vv. 22-23).
d. He was banned from worship (v. 34).
e. He put his faith in the Christ who healed him (v. 38).
f. His witness was simple (v. 25) but hard to refute.
7. Use here "Shine, Jesus, Shine" mentioned earlier. If you can sing it, take a chance and do so.
8. Frame your sermon by returning to the lighthouse story you began with.
Prayer Of The Day
Help us, O God, to learn to live in the light. May we be people of light and act that way letting our light shine in this dark world. Guide us in the way of being good, honest, and truthful disciples as Saint Paul asks us to be. And show us the dark places that we might bring light to them. In Christ's name. Amen.
Possible Stories
A new captain of a battleship, on his first night cruise out of New York harbor, spotted a light ahead. He radioed ahead and said for the light to identify itself and take a 90 degree turn right. No response. He radioed again, "Look, I'm a battleship and can blow you out of the water. Take a 90-degree turn to the right." The response came back, "I'm the lighthouse and you take the 90 degree turn." We have a light in the darkness to give us direction. We often try to move the lighthouse rather than alter our course. Now this will really preach.
My German father took us to eat in a restaurant about twice a year -- once on the way to Michigan to fish and once on the way home. Much to the embarrassment of my mother, he would select the restaurant by placing his hands on the outside window and peer in to see how dark or light it was in there. If it were dark, we would not eat there. If it were light, in we would go for our twice-a-year restaurant meal. His theory was that a dark restaurant was one with poor food which was kept that way to hide the poor food. A brightly lighted one, on the other hand...
Winston Churchill is supposed to have said once about his potential opponent: "Baldwin occasionally stumbles across the truth. But he picks himself up and goes on without any notice."
-- Karl Langrock at a Grand View College Board of Directors meeting.
____________
1. Two hymn poems -- "Amazing Grace" (v. 1) and "Shine, Jesus, Shine" (in With One Voice hymnal #651, Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis).
We head toward the passion and cross of Christ.
Theme For The Day
The gift of light for us who struggle still in the darkness and how we live now that we might have light.
Old Testament Lesson
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Samuel Anoints David
Here is the story of God's servant, Samuel, choosing and then anointing the young handsome red-headed son of Jesse to succeed Saul as king of Israel. The whole episode seems to center around the fact that God judges by what's in people's hearts while we most often judge by what they look like (v. 7). God's choice through Samuel was not the one the world would have chosen.
Notice with the anointing by Samuel verse 13 claims that God's spirit took over and remained with David. So a common shepherd boy becomes qualified to rule when the time comes to do so. As the story proceeds, we discover it was a wise choice and David did have the abilities to rule well.
New Testament Lesson
Ephesians 5:8-14
Light And Dark
This passage of Paul's letter is rich with symbolism and metaphor closing with an early hymn fragment. Light and dark represent morality and lack of it. The same is true of the New Testament, the later discovered Qumran scrolls, and still later Jewish literature. First comes the comparison of living outside the Christian faith which is like living in perpetual darkness.
Then comes the analogy of living in the light as the way it is for Christians. Several admonitions follow: We are to make our light shine. In doing so we ought be good and honest and full of truth. And we should not take part in shameful things which are usually done in the dark. This was probably a reference to cultic rites performed by secret religious groups. To focus the light of Christ on such behavior is to show them for what they are.
Verse 14b must be something Paul assumed would be familiar. Perhaps it is a piece of poetry. Even more intriguing would be the theory that it is a portion of a baptism hymn sung in the early church.
The Gospel
John 9:1-41
Healing At Siloam
Some background which will help re-tell this marvelous act of healing.
1. John tells of miracles as proof of God's power and glory. The other Gospel writers tell them to illustrate Jesus' compassion.
2. The Pool of Siloam was one of the landmarks of Jerusalem. Hezekiah cut a 583-yard tunnel under the city from the spring outside the wall to the pool. Siloam means "sent" as the water is sent from outside into the city.
3. Spittle was believed to have powers to cure.
4. Jesus broke the Sabbath laws by making clay and healing.
5. This is the only miracle of healing in the Gospels where the person was born with the disease. Acts has a couple: Acts 3:2 and Acts 14:8.
6. The Jews almost always put suffering and sin together as cause and effect.
7. Jesus also used his spit to cure the deaf man in Mark 7:33. To Jesus the Sabbath was a sign of the new age and God's working of re-creation, not a mere day of rest. See Mark 3:1-6; Luke 13:10-17. Again we have the metaphor of light: verse 5. We humans have struggled in darkness since Adam, preferring evil to good and blind to our own condition, until the light comes to open our eyes to God too.
Here is a story of healing by Jesus of a man's blindness which becomes a spiritual pilgrimage to strong faith.
Verse 11
Just a blind man wanting his sight
Verse 17
Believes Jesus is a prophet
Verse 33
Believes Jesus comes from God
Verse 36
Now he puts his faith in Jesus
Here is one who finally accepted Jesus after obstacles like these: his own confusion, his parents, fear of getting involved, his religious leader's arguments, and threat of excommunication. For this preacher, verse 25 is the climax. He didn't know the theological fine points about sin, etc.; all he knew was that he used to be blind and now he can see. It brings to mind John Newton's familiar words in the hymn "Amazing Grace": "I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see."
Preaching Possibilities
A. The Old Testament Lesson offers a chance to preach about our call and God's equipment for us in carrying out what God would have us be and do, just as God did David.
We can talk also about how God often chooses the most unpromising person to do great things in the Kingdom.
B. There is a connection between the New Testament Lesson and the Gospel in the metaphor of light and dark. This will preach. Metaphors and illustrations abound.
The contemporary hymn by Graham Kendrick of 1987 called "Shine, Jesus, Shine"1 could be used before, during, and after the sermon. Your people will remember the simple words and catchy tune.
C. If you are ready for a biblical textual sermon, consider verse 8 of Ephesians 5. One could ask these questions:
1. How can we tell the difference between the things of dark and light?
2. What does it mean to be good, or honest, or truthful in our context? Is it even possible?
3. How do we baptized wake up and rise from death as in verse 14b?
The Gospel healing miracle and Jesus' words in John 9:5 can be the climax of your message.
Possible Outline Of Sermon Moves
The entire message can be on how we live after God gives us light and God's precious spirit. It's what happens after the miracle of giving the blind man sight. A title might be: "Living in the Light."
1. Begin by telling the story of the ship captain and the lighthouse from the possible metaphors and stories at the end of this Sunday's section.
2. Now transition to the use of lights in the scripture for this Sunday. In the New Testament, Paul, who had trouble with his eyesight, contrasts living in the dark with living in the light. In the Gospel, we have the story of a man who had lived his whole life in the darkness of blindness and whom Jesus heals with sight.
3. Now retell Jesus' healing of the man by using spit and mud.
4. Here tell your people the traditional lesson drawn from this New Testament and Gospel for this Sunday:
a. God gives us sight when we are blind.
b. God has compassion and works mightily to heal us.
c. God is the light for us who struggle in the darkness.
d. God helps us to see the world in a new light.
5. Explain that you would like to turn this miracle over and see if we can discover a different message for us but one important for our discipleship. This flip side would be how we are called to live after God gives us new sight. Paul says now that we are no longer in the dark and belong to the Lord, we should be:
a. Benevolent or good = Greek word for generosity of spirit.
b. Righteous or honest = meant giving to people and to God what is coming to them.
c. Truth or truthful = in New Testament not just to understand but to act. It is more than something to know, it is also something to be done.
6. Turn to the blind-from-birth man healed at Siloam. What happened to him after the healing and new sight given? His neighbors and others doubted it was he (v. 8).
a. The Pharisees criticized and insulted for Sabbath healing (vv. 16, 26).
b. His new beliefs were ridiculed by religious leaders (v. 28).
c. His parents failed to back him up (vv. 22-23).
d. He was banned from worship (v. 34).
e. He put his faith in the Christ who healed him (v. 38).
f. His witness was simple (v. 25) but hard to refute.
7. Use here "Shine, Jesus, Shine" mentioned earlier. If you can sing it, take a chance and do so.
8. Frame your sermon by returning to the lighthouse story you began with.
Prayer Of The Day
Help us, O God, to learn to live in the light. May we be people of light and act that way letting our light shine in this dark world. Guide us in the way of being good, honest, and truthful disciples as Saint Paul asks us to be. And show us the dark places that we might bring light to them. In Christ's name. Amen.
Possible Stories
A new captain of a battleship, on his first night cruise out of New York harbor, spotted a light ahead. He radioed ahead and said for the light to identify itself and take a 90 degree turn right. No response. He radioed again, "Look, I'm a battleship and can blow you out of the water. Take a 90-degree turn to the right." The response came back, "I'm the lighthouse and you take the 90 degree turn." We have a light in the darkness to give us direction. We often try to move the lighthouse rather than alter our course. Now this will really preach.
My German father took us to eat in a restaurant about twice a year -- once on the way to Michigan to fish and once on the way home. Much to the embarrassment of my mother, he would select the restaurant by placing his hands on the outside window and peer in to see how dark or light it was in there. If it were dark, we would not eat there. If it were light, in we would go for our twice-a-year restaurant meal. His theory was that a dark restaurant was one with poor food which was kept that way to hide the poor food. A brightly lighted one, on the other hand...
Winston Churchill is supposed to have said once about his potential opponent: "Baldwin occasionally stumbles across the truth. But he picks himself up and goes on without any notice."
-- Karl Langrock at a Grand View College Board of Directors meeting.
____________
1. Two hymn poems -- "Amazing Grace" (v. 1) and "Shine, Jesus, Shine" (in With One Voice hymnal #651, Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis).
