Proper 8
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VI, Cycle A
Lesson 1: Genesis 22:1-14 (C)
This is a powerful passage, perhaps the greatest single example of a faith commitment to be found in the Bible. Speaking as a father, I would rather give up my own life than that of my child. I would have failed this test, flat out. Abraham was ordered to execute his son, Isaac (sacrifice was the word, but execute is the one which comes to my mind). I suppose Abraham knew God wouldn't allow him to go through with the test. Maybe, at the last instant, Abraham would have held back. I certainly would have. Perhaps one must think oneself back into an ancient worldview in order to appreciate this story. Children died when young more often than not. Maybe fathers didn't allow themselves to become as attached as we dads today, though I find that hard to believe. Anyway, the upshot of the story is that God was testing Abraham and, seeing him willing to kill his little boy, stopped him at the last minute. I don't know, though. By today's values, we'd have thought more of Abraham if he'd defied God and said, "Kill me if you must, but I refuse to take my son's life."
Lesson 1: 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16 (RC)
The prophet Elisha had occasional business which took him through the town of Shunem, where dwelt a family with whom it became his custom to stay the night. They had prepared a small apartment for Elisha, recognizing in him the high character of a man of God. One night Elisha was meditating as to what he might do in order to return the favor, and it came to him that the woman was childless, and wished very much to have a son. He therefore announced to her that she and her husband would conceive. In due time she did, indeed, have a son.
Lesson 1: Isaiah 2:10-17 (E)
Isaiah has apparently been offended by someone with inflated ideas about himself. He declares God's opposition to such posturing, and that God will see that such have a comeuppance. Isaiah even includes mountains lofty hills, and high towers in this promise, probably by way of emphasis. His point is that God is greater than all and that only those who humble themselves will be acceptable in God's sight.
Lesson 2: Romans 6:12-23 (C)
Paul again emphasizes his sense of the important distinction between law and grace. He realizes that some people mistakenly assume that inasmuch as good works don't seem to matter, only grace, they might as well do what they've always done. Paul disputes this, urging each of us to present ourselves to God as "instruments of righteousness." What some people of the time had trouble understanding is that once we have appropriated grace (not just had it offered), we no longer desire to sin. Grace awakens in us a form of love which seeks the best for others.
Lesson 2: Romans 6:3-4, 8-11 (RC); Romans 6:3-11 (E)
(See Proper 7)
Gospel: Matthew 10:40-42 (C); Matthew 10:37-42 (RC); Matthew 10:34-42 (E)
Jesus completes his instructions to the apostles with the assurance that they go with full authority to represent him. It won't be an easy life, but they go with no less authority than as representatives of God, so they may go in the knowledge that they will have divine oversight. Then Jesus adds a homily, which might be the basis of a sermon: "Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple -- truly, I tell you, none of these will lose their reward."
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "For A Better World"
Text: Genesis 22:1-14
Theme: Any of us today who reads this story must be horrified that the Genesis writer could believe God would even ask that Abraham sacrifice his son in this way. However, in preaching, while congregations don't want very much Old Testament history, they need a little.
1. Whether God wanted such a sacrifice is not the point. The people thought he did. The measure of a devout person in the Jewish community of nearly 2,000 years ago (and of most other communities as well) was that person's willingness to make a sacrifice to placate whatever gods one worshiped. As the Jewish belief in one God solidified, the people believed he must be worshiped in this way. Given that, Abraham was a devout man with wholehearted trust in God. Since Abraham was the George Washington/Uncle Sam of that nation, it meant that the people were beneficiaries of a forebear who, because of his faithfulness, had won God's approval of the nation. Thus, it was for them to perpetuate such faithfulness. No more vivid example of the kind of man Abraham had become could have been given.
2. Jesus taught that the sacrifice God really wants is a contrite heart, not sacrifice such as was generally practiced. Our sins are not forgiven because we make a sacrifice. They are forgiven by a God of love who asks only that we recognize our sins, recognize the effect they have on us and each other, and that we repent.
3. Sins, then, have a consequence. Jesus died because of them, and the effect of that death is to dramatize for us the effect that our self-centeredness has, not only on other people, but on God himself (forasmuch as you have done this unto the least of these, and so forth). This is not to say that God demands punishment and that we, being unable to endure appropriate punishment, had Jesus stand in for us. The idea of substitutionary atonement dishonors the God of whom Jesus taught. Rather, Jesus embodied pure love, was set loose in a world which is capable of destroying pure love, then in dying revealed to us that we don't want the world to be that way, nor do we want to be that way.
Title: "The Gift That Sets Us Free"
Text: Romans 6:12-23
Theme: Paul has cleared up for his readers the misconception they have of law versus grace.
1. SIN in capital letters is a condition, a basic state of alienation from God. Like the flu, it can produce a variety of symptoms within us. Sins are actions we know to be wrong, or should know. All of us are living in a state of SIN, according to Paul, and therefore, since it ultimately destroys, we must be saved by a power greater than our own.
2. LAW is the means by which a society defines right and wrong. Heretofore, laws were necessary for people to live orderly lives, and for laws to be effective, there must be consequences. For this reason, law could never be the ground of love. There's an unavoidable element of self-centeredness in all law, the fear of consequences, the desire for recognition, the wish for good standing with community, with God. Laws were not bad in and of themselves. They were necessary before.
3. GRACE, though, has replaced law. Only grace can suffice as the ground of pure love. If a person does what is right as a response to grace, he or she requires no reward. Having done what is right is a reward Therefore, the opposite of sin is not righteous obedience to law, it is love which is awakened in us by the gift of God's free grace.
Title: "Random Acts Of Kindness"
Text: Matthew 10:40-42
Theme: Jesus said that those who gave the little ones a cup of water would receive a reward. Was he not speaking of simple kindnesses? We've all heard the admonition to do "random acts of kindness." That refers to a spirit of life, a basic attitude toward people and the world.
1. Random acts of kindness are the necessary conditions of a happy community life. They are the very opposite of what we see so often. I watched television last night, and in my own community, there were two murders, a rapist captured, a trial of a man who killed three people while driving drunk, a man up north who swerved his truck and killed a sixteen-year-old Amish girl, an announcement that no progress has yet been made in the murder of a well-known Presbyterian minister, and the same regarding two young men who were murdered while closing a toy store for the night. What kind of world is this? Think what life could be like if instead, everyone did one small cup-of-water act of kindness a day.
2. Jesus promised a reward. I don't think he meant that God will reach down and reward us, or that life will necessarily hand out a reward. I think the refreshing realization that I can do and have done something like that is its own reward.
3. We begin to become a certain kind of person when we do small kindnesses. It is contagious, for one thing. Other people see, copy. We feel good about ourselves, we become the kind of people others want to have as friends. I have a friend, a couple, who are always available to take any of the rest of us to the airport, no matter the time. If a friend is having trouble fixing his roof, Bob is over there in old clothes. When a staff member of his church is facing a personal dilemma, it's Bob they talk to because he will care, and he will never tell. If only the world was peopled with folks like that man instead of the ones I mentioned above. The rewards are marvelous, and many.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
The story is old but embodies something of human nature. It was the depths of the Depression, the late '20s. Many people who had worked hard, made something of themselves, were suddenly thrust into abject poverty. One night a man was walking down a dark street and saw a little girl twelve maybe. She was crying her little heart out. The man asked her what was wrong. She said her mother had sent her to the corner grocery for some food, had given her their last dollar (which back then was enough), and as she arrived at the grocery, she reached in her pocket and found she had lost the dollar. She was afraid to go home. The man, moved by the child's plight, took out a dollar and gave it to her. Her little face lighted up with joy as she turned toward the nearby grocery. Meanwhile, the man continued down the street, "looking for another little girl who needed a dollar."
____________
A certain man went through college the easy way. He settled for minimum grades, stayed out too late, missed many classes, was hardly more than an immature playboy. After graduation, he held two or three unfulfilling jobs, was headed nowhere with his life. Then his father died. An only child, he went to help his mother. Because she knew nothing of family finances, the boy began overseeing his father's financial affairs. He began to find records of the cost of putting their son through college. Mother had done without new clothes. Dad had mortgaged the house. There had been no vacations, few pleasures in life. The boy began to realize how much his mom and dad had sacrificed to let him go to college -- which he had all but wasted. He was mortified, hated what he had become. But this young fellow decided it was not too late. Belatedly, he realized how much he had been loved, what that love had cost. It would no longer be wasted. Somehow, he managed to gain entrance to a seminary. He graduated with honors and became a distinguished clergyman of the Presbyterian Church. All because he learned what price love had paid for him to have a life.
____________
Ann Landers often prints letters like the one the other day about the woman in the office who chews gum with her mouth open all day, driving everyone else nuts. It made me think of certain neighbors whose dog barks all day. (I love the sign I saw on a church: "A bad neighbor never hears his own dog bark.") I think of all the people who go through life giving little thought to the well-being and happiness of those around them. How nice, when we see the person who does those little random acts of kindness.
____________
My father was terribly injured in a car accident when I was in high school. We didn't have much money, so he arranged to have himself brought home from the hospital, and he lay in a bed in our first floor dining room for weeks, while Mother cared for him. He should have been in the hospital the whole time, but we would have lost our home. My dad was determined that my brother and I would continue to have a comfortable home. Long before Dad was well, he struggled up out of bed and went back to work selling insurance, so we could have food on the table and a home. Only in recent years, my father long passed away, have I understood what he did for me. That's why I'm content to think of God as "my heavenly FATHER."
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 13 (C) -- How long will you hide your face from me?
Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18 (RC, E) -- I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever.
Prayer Of The Day
We repent, O Lord, for the things which we have done that we wish now we had not done. Buried in our past are deeds long done, hurts inflicted, kindnesses never performed, arrogance which offended those who might have been our friends. O God, how it hurts to remember. Purge us, we pray, of this responsibility, and help us yet to make amends through the people we are yet to meet. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
This is a powerful passage, perhaps the greatest single example of a faith commitment to be found in the Bible. Speaking as a father, I would rather give up my own life than that of my child. I would have failed this test, flat out. Abraham was ordered to execute his son, Isaac (sacrifice was the word, but execute is the one which comes to my mind). I suppose Abraham knew God wouldn't allow him to go through with the test. Maybe, at the last instant, Abraham would have held back. I certainly would have. Perhaps one must think oneself back into an ancient worldview in order to appreciate this story. Children died when young more often than not. Maybe fathers didn't allow themselves to become as attached as we dads today, though I find that hard to believe. Anyway, the upshot of the story is that God was testing Abraham and, seeing him willing to kill his little boy, stopped him at the last minute. I don't know, though. By today's values, we'd have thought more of Abraham if he'd defied God and said, "Kill me if you must, but I refuse to take my son's life."
Lesson 1: 2 Kings 4:8-11, 14-16 (RC)
The prophet Elisha had occasional business which took him through the town of Shunem, where dwelt a family with whom it became his custom to stay the night. They had prepared a small apartment for Elisha, recognizing in him the high character of a man of God. One night Elisha was meditating as to what he might do in order to return the favor, and it came to him that the woman was childless, and wished very much to have a son. He therefore announced to her that she and her husband would conceive. In due time she did, indeed, have a son.
Lesson 1: Isaiah 2:10-17 (E)
Isaiah has apparently been offended by someone with inflated ideas about himself. He declares God's opposition to such posturing, and that God will see that such have a comeuppance. Isaiah even includes mountains lofty hills, and high towers in this promise, probably by way of emphasis. His point is that God is greater than all and that only those who humble themselves will be acceptable in God's sight.
Lesson 2: Romans 6:12-23 (C)
Paul again emphasizes his sense of the important distinction between law and grace. He realizes that some people mistakenly assume that inasmuch as good works don't seem to matter, only grace, they might as well do what they've always done. Paul disputes this, urging each of us to present ourselves to God as "instruments of righteousness." What some people of the time had trouble understanding is that once we have appropriated grace (not just had it offered), we no longer desire to sin. Grace awakens in us a form of love which seeks the best for others.
Lesson 2: Romans 6:3-4, 8-11 (RC); Romans 6:3-11 (E)
(See Proper 7)
Gospel: Matthew 10:40-42 (C); Matthew 10:37-42 (RC); Matthew 10:34-42 (E)
Jesus completes his instructions to the apostles with the assurance that they go with full authority to represent him. It won't be an easy life, but they go with no less authority than as representatives of God, so they may go in the knowledge that they will have divine oversight. Then Jesus adds a homily, which might be the basis of a sermon: "Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple -- truly, I tell you, none of these will lose their reward."
SERMON SUGGESTIONS
Title: "For A Better World"
Text: Genesis 22:1-14
Theme: Any of us today who reads this story must be horrified that the Genesis writer could believe God would even ask that Abraham sacrifice his son in this way. However, in preaching, while congregations don't want very much Old Testament history, they need a little.
1. Whether God wanted such a sacrifice is not the point. The people thought he did. The measure of a devout person in the Jewish community of nearly 2,000 years ago (and of most other communities as well) was that person's willingness to make a sacrifice to placate whatever gods one worshiped. As the Jewish belief in one God solidified, the people believed he must be worshiped in this way. Given that, Abraham was a devout man with wholehearted trust in God. Since Abraham was the George Washington/Uncle Sam of that nation, it meant that the people were beneficiaries of a forebear who, because of his faithfulness, had won God's approval of the nation. Thus, it was for them to perpetuate such faithfulness. No more vivid example of the kind of man Abraham had become could have been given.
2. Jesus taught that the sacrifice God really wants is a contrite heart, not sacrifice such as was generally practiced. Our sins are not forgiven because we make a sacrifice. They are forgiven by a God of love who asks only that we recognize our sins, recognize the effect they have on us and each other, and that we repent.
3. Sins, then, have a consequence. Jesus died because of them, and the effect of that death is to dramatize for us the effect that our self-centeredness has, not only on other people, but on God himself (forasmuch as you have done this unto the least of these, and so forth). This is not to say that God demands punishment and that we, being unable to endure appropriate punishment, had Jesus stand in for us. The idea of substitutionary atonement dishonors the God of whom Jesus taught. Rather, Jesus embodied pure love, was set loose in a world which is capable of destroying pure love, then in dying revealed to us that we don't want the world to be that way, nor do we want to be that way.
Title: "The Gift That Sets Us Free"
Text: Romans 6:12-23
Theme: Paul has cleared up for his readers the misconception they have of law versus grace.
1. SIN in capital letters is a condition, a basic state of alienation from God. Like the flu, it can produce a variety of symptoms within us. Sins are actions we know to be wrong, or should know. All of us are living in a state of SIN, according to Paul, and therefore, since it ultimately destroys, we must be saved by a power greater than our own.
2. LAW is the means by which a society defines right and wrong. Heretofore, laws were necessary for people to live orderly lives, and for laws to be effective, there must be consequences. For this reason, law could never be the ground of love. There's an unavoidable element of self-centeredness in all law, the fear of consequences, the desire for recognition, the wish for good standing with community, with God. Laws were not bad in and of themselves. They were necessary before.
3. GRACE, though, has replaced law. Only grace can suffice as the ground of pure love. If a person does what is right as a response to grace, he or she requires no reward. Having done what is right is a reward Therefore, the opposite of sin is not righteous obedience to law, it is love which is awakened in us by the gift of God's free grace.
Title: "Random Acts Of Kindness"
Text: Matthew 10:40-42
Theme: Jesus said that those who gave the little ones a cup of water would receive a reward. Was he not speaking of simple kindnesses? We've all heard the admonition to do "random acts of kindness." That refers to a spirit of life, a basic attitude toward people and the world.
1. Random acts of kindness are the necessary conditions of a happy community life. They are the very opposite of what we see so often. I watched television last night, and in my own community, there were two murders, a rapist captured, a trial of a man who killed three people while driving drunk, a man up north who swerved his truck and killed a sixteen-year-old Amish girl, an announcement that no progress has yet been made in the murder of a well-known Presbyterian minister, and the same regarding two young men who were murdered while closing a toy store for the night. What kind of world is this? Think what life could be like if instead, everyone did one small cup-of-water act of kindness a day.
2. Jesus promised a reward. I don't think he meant that God will reach down and reward us, or that life will necessarily hand out a reward. I think the refreshing realization that I can do and have done something like that is its own reward.
3. We begin to become a certain kind of person when we do small kindnesses. It is contagious, for one thing. Other people see, copy. We feel good about ourselves, we become the kind of people others want to have as friends. I have a friend, a couple, who are always available to take any of the rest of us to the airport, no matter the time. If a friend is having trouble fixing his roof, Bob is over there in old clothes. When a staff member of his church is facing a personal dilemma, it's Bob they talk to because he will care, and he will never tell. If only the world was peopled with folks like that man instead of the ones I mentioned above. The rewards are marvelous, and many.
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS
The story is old but embodies something of human nature. It was the depths of the Depression, the late '20s. Many people who had worked hard, made something of themselves, were suddenly thrust into abject poverty. One night a man was walking down a dark street and saw a little girl twelve maybe. She was crying her little heart out. The man asked her what was wrong. She said her mother had sent her to the corner grocery for some food, had given her their last dollar (which back then was enough), and as she arrived at the grocery, she reached in her pocket and found she had lost the dollar. She was afraid to go home. The man, moved by the child's plight, took out a dollar and gave it to her. Her little face lighted up with joy as she turned toward the nearby grocery. Meanwhile, the man continued down the street, "looking for another little girl who needed a dollar."
____________
A certain man went through college the easy way. He settled for minimum grades, stayed out too late, missed many classes, was hardly more than an immature playboy. After graduation, he held two or three unfulfilling jobs, was headed nowhere with his life. Then his father died. An only child, he went to help his mother. Because she knew nothing of family finances, the boy began overseeing his father's financial affairs. He began to find records of the cost of putting their son through college. Mother had done without new clothes. Dad had mortgaged the house. There had been no vacations, few pleasures in life. The boy began to realize how much his mom and dad had sacrificed to let him go to college -- which he had all but wasted. He was mortified, hated what he had become. But this young fellow decided it was not too late. Belatedly, he realized how much he had been loved, what that love had cost. It would no longer be wasted. Somehow, he managed to gain entrance to a seminary. He graduated with honors and became a distinguished clergyman of the Presbyterian Church. All because he learned what price love had paid for him to have a life.
____________
Ann Landers often prints letters like the one the other day about the woman in the office who chews gum with her mouth open all day, driving everyone else nuts. It made me think of certain neighbors whose dog barks all day. (I love the sign I saw on a church: "A bad neighbor never hears his own dog bark.") I think of all the people who go through life giving little thought to the well-being and happiness of those around them. How nice, when we see the person who does those little random acts of kindness.
____________
My father was terribly injured in a car accident when I was in high school. We didn't have much money, so he arranged to have himself brought home from the hospital, and he lay in a bed in our first floor dining room for weeks, while Mother cared for him. He should have been in the hospital the whole time, but we would have lost our home. My dad was determined that my brother and I would continue to have a comfortable home. Long before Dad was well, he struggled up out of bed and went back to work selling insurance, so we could have food on the table and a home. Only in recent years, my father long passed away, have I understood what he did for me. That's why I'm content to think of God as "my heavenly FATHER."
____________
Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 13 (C) -- How long will you hide your face from me?
Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18 (RC, E) -- I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever.
Prayer Of The Day
We repent, O Lord, for the things which we have done that we wish now we had not done. Buried in our past are deeds long done, hurts inflicted, kindnesses never performed, arrogance which offended those who might have been our friends. O God, how it hurts to remember. Purge us, we pray, of this responsibility, and help us yet to make amends through the people we are yet to meet. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
