These Illustrations Cover Luke 7:36--8:3
Sermon Opener – Shaping People’s Lives through Forgiveness - Luke 7:36--8:3
At the University of Notre Dame in 1981 a rather prophetic lecture was given that predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union. The lecturer called Communism “a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written." A year later the same speaker told the British House of Commons that the march of freedom and democracy "will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history." Years later, in 1988, students at Moscow University sat and listened as this same speaker told them how the microchip would lead the way in expanding human freedom. Indeed, even that prediction is coming true. The Internet may be playing a critical role in dismantling china’s communism. Remember now that this 1988, long before the advent of the Internet.
Who was this Speaker? This lecturer who looked into the future and was able to rightly discern where history was taking us? It was Ronald Reagan. Putting political preferences aside for just a moment I think all of us would have to agree that on at least a few crucial issues Reagan got it right. He looked into the future and steered us correctly. What is it that gives some people the ability to look at a situation and rightly sized it up? It seems to be a kind of gift doesn’t it?
This is one of the qualities that separate the great men from the ordinary. In our story this morning (in Luke 7) certain insights are being expressed. A gathering of men at a dinner party has just witnessed a woman, who they all know to be a woman of ill repute, walk into the room with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume. She walks up behind Jesus and kneels. She is crying. As she weeps her tears fall onto his feet. She uses her hair as a towel to dry his feet and then she pours the expensive perfume on his feet. This is the scene and it is a sudden departure from the evening’s festivities. But it now becomes the focal point of Jesus’ teachings.
Now, listen to how the Pharisee sizes up the situation. He has two insights. On the first he is correct and on the second he is incorrect. Here they are: First he is correct about the lady. She was known in the community as a sinner. Her sin is not revealed to us but most of us could come pretty close in guessing it. Whatever it was the Pharisee rightly judged the woman’s character. But here is where he failed. His insights and perceptions about Jesus were wrong. He said that if Jesus were a prophet he would know that this woman was a sinner and he would not let her touch him.
The Pharisee was wrong because the character of this woman was not lost on Jesus. And here is the beautiful part of the passage. Jesus knew who she was but he had moved beyond that to forgive the woman her sins. Jesus sizes up the situation and recognizes that grace is needed in this woman’s life.
Now let’s ask ourselves this question. Whether we are looking at an incredibly destructive institution or the loathsome practice of prostitution, whatever sin we find in the world are we able to look beyond the facts, size up the situation, see down the road and know what kind of grace is needed? We can do this if we can:
1. Be honest and call sin sin.
2. Use these moments to teach others.
3. Remember that redemption always wins in the end.
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Like a Waving Flag – Luke 7:36-8:3 by Leonard Sweet
Those of us who live in the United States have no experience with royalty or with “kingdoms” ruled by kings or queens. We have no royal family, so we have to invent our royalty.
We had the “King of Rock’n’Roll,” Elvis Presley. We had the “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson. We had a “King of Soul,” James Brown. We have a Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. We have a “King of all Media,” Howard Stern. We have a Queen of Clean, Linda Cobb. We even have a King of Greasy Goodness” for the Queen of Clean to clean up: Burger King!
But in countries like the Motherland, Great Britain, there is a real royal family. And the public can always keep track of where their monarch is through an ancient tradition. When the ruling monarch is in residence, the Royal Standard, the flag of the ruling monarchy of the United Kingdom, flies above. When the Queen is at Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace, the Royal standard flutters overhead. When she is NOT in residence, the Royal Standard is replaced by the Union Flag (the “Union Jack”).
At her other residences in Scotland the Royal Standard flies above Holyrood Palace or Balmoral Castle when she is present. When she is absent from the grounds, the ancient Royal Standard of Scotland is hoisted. Long before there was reliable news sources, just one glance overhead would let the citizens of the kingdom know if their monarch was present, or where “the king was in the kingdom.”
Maybe it is our lack of any historical connection to a “royal residence” that makes us so clueless about the concept of the kingdom of God when Jesus talks about it. We are not very educated in being a “kingdom” or even what “kingdom come” means.
Like Simon the Pharisee in today’s gospel text, we think in political terms that involve reciprocity based on what we can provide for others because of what they may provide for us. “Tit for tat.” I owe you, you owe me. We’re “even” as long as we’re evenly indebted to each other. As long as everything “balances out,” we feel things are fair and just.
But that is not how a “kingdom” works…
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Listening to the Noise
Some years ago I served as a campus pastor at Oregon State University, and one of the activities we had each week was a Wednesday noon study. From time to time we would pick different topics to discuss, and sometimes we would be hooked. At one of those luncheons we were discussing the book "The Courage to Teach." We were asked by our facilitator on that day to share an experience of a teacher who influenced our lives. Vicki Collins, an English professor, shared an experience of a teacher who changed her life during high school. She says the classroom in which her teacher was teaching was located on the side of the building where a main thoroughfare of the city ran. Traffic was constant, including the sound of emergency vehicles, throughout each day. At the beginning of each class, the teacher would complain to the students about the noise from the traffic. The emergency vehicles especially annoyed him with their sirens.
After one weekend, the teacher addressed the class at the beginning as he usually did. This day he said he wanted to apologize to the class. He told them that this weekend his wife had an emergency situation. The service that the ambulance provided saved his wife's life and his baby's life. He told his students, "I want to apologize because I was listening to the noise instead of thinking about the lives."
The disciples looked at a sinner in the community; they did not see the woman who in her life was reaching out for help.
In his external world, the teacher heard noise. The experience with his wife and child caused him to inwardly see that lives were being cared for by those noisy vehicles. As a result of his experience, he gained a better perspective of his experiences with the emergency vehicles. He apologized to his students.
Friends, Jesus is helping these disciples, and us, to see that there are lives that need care. Sometimes the "noises" of selfish desires, self-centered desires, greed, or bigotry, keep us from seeing beyond the sin or the wrongly perceived experiences of life. The opportunity we have is that of seeing Jesus' way of seeing people, seeing the possibilities for righteousness in them, forgiving them when they fall short, encouraging them to go in peace.
Isaiah Jones Jr., Seeing Beyond the Sin
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Getting Out of the Pit
There is an old legend about Judas that Madeleine L'Engle tells. The legend is that after his death Judas found himself at the bottom of a deep and slimy pit. For thousands of years he wept his repentance, and when the tears were finally spent, he looked up and saw way, way up a tiny glimmer of light. After he had contemplated it for another thousand years or so, he began to try to climb up towards the light. The walls of the pit were dark and slimy, and he kept slipping back down. Finally, after great effort, he neared the top and then he slipped and fell all the way back down to the bottom. It took him many years to recover, all the time weeping bitter tears of grief and repentance, and then he started to climb up again. After many more falls and efforts and failures, he reached the top and dragged himself into an upper room with twelve people seated around the table. "We've been waiting for you, Judas," Jesus said. "We couldn't begin till you came."
So many people are looking for a community of forgiven and forgiving sinners. Would they find what they are seeking here?
Jimmy Moor, A Place of Welcome
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A Way to God
Before the Reformation Martin Luther was in his monk's cell weeping because of his sins. His confessor, a young man, simply didn't know what to do, so he began repeating the Apostles' Creed.
"I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
"I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church; the communion of Saints; the forgiveness of sins; the . . . ."
"Wait!" Luther interrupted his confessor. "What did you say?"
"What do you mean, what did I say?"
"That last part. What was it again?"
"Oh, that. I said, ‘I believe in the forgiveness of sins.'"
"The forgiveness of sins," Luther said as if savoring each word. "The forgiveness of sins. Then there is hope for me somewhere. Then maybe there is a way to God."
There is a way to God. Jesus Christ died to provide that way. We may not be a woman of the city but there are sins that break our hearts as well. And there is One who sees those broken hearts and cares, and forgives, and heals, and makes whole.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.eSermons.com
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So I Could Stand Beside My King
There is an old story about the Greek Marathon. Muscular, conditioned runners paced nervously near the starting line for the long-distance race. The time was near. They "shook out" their muscles, inhaled deeply, and put on their "game faces." In the midst of it all, a young stranger took his place at the starting line. His physique was awesome. Taking no notice of the other contestants, he stared straight ahead. Two prizes would be awarded the winner of the Marathon: a magnificent bouquet of flowers and the honor of standing beside the king until the conclusion of other contests. There seemed to be no question among the runners about who would win the prize. It is alleged that the stranger was offered money not to run. Someone else attempted to bribe him with property. Refusing the offers, he toed the mark and awaited the signal to run. When the signal was given, he was the first away. At the finish line, he was the first to cross, well ahead of the rest. When it was all done, someone asked the young man if he thought the flowers were worth as much as the money and property he had refused. He replied, "I did not enter the race for the flowers. I ran so that I could stand beside my king!"
Again, the woman who "intruded" into the Pharisee's house apparently had one thing on her mind. She wanted to stand beside her king.
Larry Powell, Blow The Silver Trumpets, CSS Publishing Co.
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As Grace Opens Up
I recall the first time I got a glimpse of the pyramids of Giza on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. I made the van driver stop so I could take a picture, but after a while as we got closer, I asked that he stop again for another shot. Several times we went through the same process as the three grand pyramids opened up before us.
Grace is like that. It opens up wider and wider, more and more grand. Our first glimpse seems so small compared with now.
Jerry L. Schmalenberger, Lectionary Preaching Workbook, Series VII, Year C, CSS Publishing
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Thou art my righteousness and I am thy sin
Martin Luther
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A Kiss of Love
The great pianist, Paderewski, had a friend whose little girl was going to give a piano recital. Out of respect for his friend, Paderewski accepted the girl's invitation to her recital. When she saw the famous pianist in the audience, she got stage fright, forgot her piece, and broke down in tears. At the close of the concert, Paderewski said nothing to her but went up and tenderly kissed her on the forehead and left. If she had not made the mistake and failed, she would not have received a kiss of love and understanding from the master pianist. Likewise, it is when we stumble and fall into sin and are complete failures that the mercy of God in Christ is experienced in terms of forgiveness.
John R. Brokhoff, Lent: A Time of Tears, CSS Publishing Company
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The Odor of Sanctity
When you enter a synagogue or a church, you know it is one that is prayed in, because it has the odor of sanctity about it. You also can tell when you've entered a happy home -- there's something in the atmosphere. If there has been continual fighting, even the smiles that are put on for you won't fool you. And so the pain must be addressed.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as quoted in Colin Greer, Without Memory, There Is No Healing; Without Forgiveness, There Is No Future, Parade, January 11, 1998, 6.
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The Cookie Thief
Today's gospel reminds me of the story of the cookie thief. A woman at the airport waiting to catch her flight bought herself a bag of cookies, settled in a chair in the airport lounge and began to read her book. Suddenly she noticed the man beside her helping himself to her cookies. Not wanting to make a scene, she read on, ate cookies, and watched the clock. As the daring "cookie thief" kept on eating the cookies she got more irritated and said to herself, "If I wasn't so nice, I'd blacken his eye!" She wanted to move the cookies to her other side but she couldn’t bring her self to do it. With each cookie she took, he took one too. When only one was left, she wondered what he would do. Then with a smile on his face and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half.
He offered her half, and he ate the other. She snatched it from him and thought, "Oh brother, this guy has some nerve, and he's also so rude, why, he didn't even show any gratitude!" She sighed with relief when her flight was called. She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate, refusing to look at the ungrateful "thief." She boarded the plane and sank in her seat, reached in her bag to get a book to read and forget about the incident. Next to her book was her bag—of cookies.
The cookies they ate in the lounge were his not hers. She had been the thief not him.
The cookie thief story reminds us, as we see in today's gospel, that it often happens that the one pointing the accusing finger turns out to be the guilty one, that the complainant sometimes turns out to be the offending party. In the cookie story, the woman believed she was such a wonderful person to put up with the rudeness and ingratitude of the man sitting beside her. In the end she discovered that she was the rude and ungrateful one and the man was wonderfully friendly. In the gospel the Pharisee thinks he is the righteous one who is worthy to be in the company of Jesus and that the woman was the sinful one unworthy to be seen with Jesus. In the end Jesus showed each of them where they really belonged and the woman was seen as the one who was righteous and more deserving of the company of Jesus than the self-righteous Pharisee.
Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com,
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The Wrong Number but the Right Time
Wallace D. Chappell tells that following one of his sermons a little girl came to the front of the church to meet him. He was the guest evangelist in the church for the week, so he did not know her nor her older sister who stood close by. The older sister was encouraging her to tell something to Chappell, the nature of which was not immediately clear. Finally, after considerable coaxing, the little girl told that on the day before she had received a telephone call from a lady who was visiting in the city from out of state. The lady had dialed the wrong number. Although the little girl did not know who the lady was, she began to talk to her. Reaching to make conversation, as children often do, the girl remembered that there would be preaching at her church that evening so she passed along that bit of information and invited the lady to attend. The little girl, warming to her story as she told it, said, "The lady said she hadn't been inside a church in 20 years." Then, with excitement in her voice, the child said, "She was at church tonight. I talked to her. And when you asked for people to accept Jesus, she was one of those who came forward."
The lady was from out of state. She was in that particular city for a particular purpose and had her own agenda. To go into a strange church and hear a visiting evangelist preach was not a big item on her list of things to do. It was not a good time. But something about the little girl's invitation led her to take advantage of the opportunity. Probably a dozen reasons why she could not go raced through her mind: the circumstances were not right, she didn't have time; you can imagine the other reasons. At some point, however, it came to her that although things were not as she would have arranged them, it was an opportunity and she would seize it.
When you are waiting on the "right time" to come to Christ or if you are delaying your commitment until circumstances are "right," remember the woman in Luke's story who was so full of joy and gratitude that she would take advantage of any opportunity to praise God for what he had done for her through Christ Jesus her Lord! Those who are resolved will "catch as catch can." Those who have no resolve will never catch up to just the right opportunity. It will always be the wrong time.
Larry Powell, Blow The Silver Trumpets, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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Nothing Bad That I Do Is My Fault
That precocious little boy from the comics, Calvin, walked into the living room where his father was sitting in a chair reading. Calvin announces: "I've concluded that nothing bad that I do is my fault."
Dad's curiosity is peaked, so Dad says, "Oh?"
Calvin continues: "Right! Being young and impressionable, I'm the helpless victim of countless bad influences! An unwholesome culture panders to my undeveloped values and pushes me to malfeasance. I take no responsibility for my behavior! I'm an innocent pawn! It's society's fault."
Dad is totally unimpressed and says, "Then you need to build more character. Go shovel the walk."
In the last scene, Calvin is shoveling snow and complains, "These discussions never go where they're supposed to go."
Many of us are just like Calvin, we don't want to take responsibility for our actions. We don't want to be accountable. We don't want to own up to our faults and our sinfulness. We delude ourselves by blaming the stink of sin on others.
Billy D. Strayhorn, Slapping the Skunk
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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL
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Tenacious Grace
A lot of what God had done throughout history hasn't seemed fair to people. Why was Jacob not denounced by God for his conniving ways? Why was David not disowned by God for his disgraceful actions? Why was the adulteress not condemned by Jesus for her open disregard of the moral laws? Why was Peter not disavowed by God after his blatant denial of Christ in the courtyard? Why was Paul not banished by God forever because of his persecution of the Christians early in his life? Why? That is the question: Why? And the answer is because there is nothing in the world so tenacious and resolute as the grace of God. The Gospel of John tells us: "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (John 3:17)
Leighton Farrell, Cries from the Cross, Abingdon Press 1994, pg. 25
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Morbid Pleasure in Other's Faults
"Unfortunately, we enjoy thinking about other people's faults: and in the proper sense of the word 'morbid,' that is the most morbid pleasure in the world."... "and while we are governed by this vice, there can be no Heaven for you, just as there can be no sweet smells for a man with a cold in the nose, and no music for a man who is deaf. It's not a question of God "sending" us to hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is nipped in the bud."
C.S. Lewis, "God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics," Eerdmans, 1970 pg. 154
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Prayer
O God, you do not wish any sinner to die, but want all people to turn from their sins and live. We pray for our sinful brother, forgiving all his wrong-doing and turning his heart towards you. By his own merits he deserves only punishment, but in your mercy we pray that you will bestow upon him eternal life.
Dimma, a 7th century Irish monk
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Acceptance Changes Lives
A child psychologist told about a boy who was brought to him who was labeled "incorrigible." The child was supposed to be "uncontrollable." He was moody, and at first wouldn't even talk to the psychologist. There simply seemed to be no "handle" with which to take hold of him. The boy's own father, said, "This is the only child I've ever seen who doesn't have a single likeable trait, not a single one." The psychologist realized this was his starting point. He started looking for some one thing he could approve. He found several. The boy liked to carve and he did it well. At home he had carved up the furniture and been punished for it. The psychologist bought him a carving set, a set of carving knives, and some soft wood. He also gave him some suggestions about how to use them, and didn't hold back his approval. "You know, Jimmy," he said, "you can carve out things better than any boy I ever knew." To make a long story short, the psychologist soon found other things he could approve, and one day Jimmy surprised everyone by cleaning up his own room without being asked. When the psychologist asked him why he did it, Jimmy answered, "I thought you would like that."
Acceptance changes lives. You and I have seen it happen in other situations with adults as well as young people. This is the strength of groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and other support groups. When people feel accepted, they find the power to change.
This was one of the secrets of Jesus' ministry. He accepted people just as they were and he changed their lives.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.eSermons.com
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Something Which Time Cannot Efface
Life is a matter of building. Each of us has the opportunity to build something -- a secure family, a good reputation, a career, a relationship to God. But some of those things can disappear almost overnight due to financial losses, natural disasters and other unforeseen difficulties.
What are we to do? Daniel Webster offered excellent advice, saying, "If we work on marble it will perish. If we work on brass, time will efface it. If we rear temples, they will crumble to dust. But if we work on men's immortal minds, if we imbue them with high principles, with just fear of God and love of their fellow-men, we engrave on those tablets something which time cannot efface, and which will brighten and brighten to all eternity."
Brett Blair, Collected Sermons, www.eSermons.com
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Going To Impress
I read once of a super salesman going to lunch at the fashionable Delmonico's in New York's Wall Street district. As he entered the busy restaurant and walked across the crowded dining room behind the maitre'd, he purposely knocked a glass-laden tray out of a waiter's hand. Within a split second every executive eye in the place was on the super salesman who drank in the attention, hoping he would never be forgotten. Other salesmen by the hundreds came and went to Delmonico's unnoticed, but not this man. He wanted to call attention to himself, to gain recognition and thus potential customers.
Most of us enter fashionable restaurants more modestly, if not more timidly, than that salesman. Nevertheless, as we gather with friends and acquaintances, our egos may be just as large and starved as his. Some people go to dinner parties to impress rather than be impressed, to talk rather than to listen, to be confirmed in their prejudices rather than to be changed.
Maurice A. Fetty, The Divine Advocacy, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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We Are Accepted
As Paul Tillich put it so eloquently: "Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness . . . It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign with us as they have for decades . . . Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: " ‘You are accepted. . . .'"
We are accepted. Now we must accept others. The greatest need some people have is to be accepted. Acceptance changes lives. Let's you and I work together to make this house of worship known as a place where people can discover the acceptance of God and of the Christian community.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.eSermons.com
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Offending the One You Love
When you offend one you love, you are more than willing to apologize and say you are sorry. In the popular TV program, All in the Family, Archie and Edith had a marital spat. He deeply offended her when he said that she was not human. She declared that in the twenty-three years of their marriage, he had never said he was sorry, and until he did so, she would not be friends with him. For two weeks they did not talk to each other. Then Archie brought up the subject. Edith asked, "Are you saying you are sorry?" Grudgingly, he grunted an affirmative answer. He really loved Edith, and he had to swallow his pride by saying that he was sorry.
This shows us the meaning and horror of sin. It grieves and offends God, one we love with our whole being. Sin re-crucifies Jesus. When we hurt him by our sins, we break his heart, for you remember that on the cross, blood and water flowed out of his heart, a sign of a broken heart. When Peter realized what his triple denial meant to the one he loved the best, he wept bitterly. When we look at the cross and see that our sins continually put him there, it causes us to tremble.
John R. Brokhoff, Lent: A Time of Tears, CSS Publishing Company
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The New Narcissism
The most exciting dinner parties I have attended are those where people genuinely are interested in one another. The most disappointing are those where everyone is playing one-upmanship, or where people are blasé and really not open to one another.
Writing in Harper's magazine, Peter Marin once suggested our country is characterized by the latter mentality more than the former. There is a new narcissism in the land, says Marin. Self-love has been elevated to the ultimate. Genuine human community and reciprocity are lacking. It is so easy for the self to replace a sense of community or genuine relationship with others or with God. Thus we lose any sense of the real presence of another self, and with it, our sense of identity and reciprocal relationship. There is no give and take, only take.
Maurice A. Fetty, The Divine Advocacy, CSS Publishing
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Damaged Goods
Bass Mitchell, my preacher friend from West Virginia, tells about the damaged goods bin at the grocery store where he worked in his first job. He says:
"I started out as a bag boy but soon was promoted - given my own aisle to stock. Trucks brought in hundreds of boxes of food every week and we had to unpack them and put the stock on the shelves. Almost every week, however, we would open a box and find that some of the cans or cartons had been damaged. Some of the cans, for example had lost their labels, had dents, were crushed, and sometimes so badly that some of the contents had come out.
"Well, we were told by the manager not to put these on the shelves because no one would buy them. So, we often would place them in a large basket in the front of the store. And on the basket was a large sign that read, "Damaged Goods. Cheap." But not very many people bought them. Most just ignored them. Often we ended up sending them back to the manufacturers.
Bass Mitchell adds, "It seems to me that a lot of people feel like this. Whatever the reason, things they've done, things life has done to them, things beyond their control, have made them feel like damaged goods...bent out of shape, crushed, of little value to themselves or anyone else."
Rev. Mitchell once saw a woman being interviewed on television. She was a single parent with two children and had been divorced several years. She was being asked what it was like being a single parent and if there was any romance in her life now. "I look at myself," she said, "as damaged goods." She did not think anyone could love her again. Her sense of worth was zero.
I wonder if the woman in our text for today felt that way about herself? Did she feel like she was damaged goods, valued by no one, ignored by many and perhaps looked down on by the rest?
Bass Mitchell, quoted by Mickey Anders, Damaged Goods
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Faith Is The Rare Courage
Faith is the rare courage to act on that which you cannot yet prove to be true.
Faith is leaving a fresh grave with enough hope to carry on.
Faith is writing a song of thanksgiving when the rent is due.
Faith is accepting forgiveness when it seems nothing more than a distant dream.
Faith is proclaiming peace while you still feel the turmoil inside.
Faith is letting your hair down enough to receive the mercy of God.
J. Howard Olds, Faith Breaks: Thoughts On Making It A Good Day, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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Grace Is Like Water
Some have noted that grace is like water. It always flows downhill. It may snow at 29,000 feet at the top of Mount Everest but eventually that moisture flows down to the sea. In the same way grace always goes to the lowest places in our lives. God is seeking the lost to save them, to search for the outcast, to forgive the secret sins which we do not like to recognize or acknowledge. God in Christ is seeking just those sinful, shameful places which we hide from others to reconcile us.
James D. Kegel, Saved by Faith
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Is Big Bird In Here?
A 4-year-old was at the pediatrician for a check-up. As the doctor looked down her ears with an otoscope, he asked, "Do you think I'll find Big Bird in here?" The little girl stayed silent. Next, the doctor took a tongue depressor and looked down her throat. He asked, "Do you think I'll find Cookie Monster down there?" Again, the little girl was silent. Then the doctor put a stethoscope to her chest. As he listened to her heart beat, he asked, "Do you think I'll hear Barney in there?"
"Oh, no!" the little girl replied. "Jesus is in my heart. Barney's on my underpants."
Peter L. Haynes
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Love Has No Tears
You probably remember the best-selling book and very popular movie, Love Story. The repeated theme was, "Love means never having to say you are sorry." Is it true or false? Love has no tears? In our text, we have a wicked woman who, out of love, says through her tears that she is sorry, and a "righteous" man who never says he is sorry. Which of the two should we be?
John R. Brokhoff, Lent: A Time of Tears, CSS Publishing Company
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That Woman Is You
As many of you know, we are looking for an office administrator. One of the candidates I interviewed caught me a bit off guard when she asked what the members of the congregation would think about a secretary who was divorced. I hadn’t really thought about that question. Then a fellow pastor told about the secretary at his church whom he learned had been a prostitute. She was a very good secretary, and very few members of the congregation knew anything about her former life. But she did not feel very good about herself. She despised what she had done and she despised the men who paid her for the use of her body. She also despised the people she believed would condemn her if they knew of her former profession. She was desperately looking for love and acceptance.
One week my friend preached on the Gospel lesson for today, and it was the secretary’s job to type up his sermon. When she finished typing it, she asked to talk with the pastor. She didn’t understand the statement he had made that Jesus accepted all people knowing who and what they were. For she could not believe that God or God’s people could accept her, knowing who she was and what she had done. The pastor read her from this text from Luke 7. The secretary got tears in her eyes. "How I wish I was that woman," she said. "That woman is you!" he replied and she cried. "Would you baptize me, knowing what I am?" she asked. He did, and her baptism was one of the most moving events in his ministry.
Frank Rothfuss, Begrudging God’s Grace.
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Extravagance
Senator William Proximire (D-Wisconsin) regularly delights the general public by awarding his now-famous "Golden Fleece Award" to some government committee or agency which, because of some redundant high-dollar project, has achieved recognition for excelling in flagrant, wasteful, unnecessary spending. Senator Proximire gets our attention because he illuminates a subject of interest to us all: how money is spent. We do not like to spend more than we have to and have little tolerance for irresponsible, reckless spending wherever it occurs. "Throwing money out in the yard" and "pouring sand down a rat hole" are expressions which we hope to successfully avoid having applied to ourselves. It really doesn't matter whether we speak of it as stewardship, frugality, or practicality. Wasteful spending is offensive to anyone who attempts to be responsible with personal resources.
Extravagance, or even what appears to be extravagance, does not go down well. We need to remember that whether we read of the woman anointing Jesus' head (Matthew 26:6f) or the woman anointing his feet (Luke 7:36f).
Larry Powell, Blow the Silver Trumpets, CSS Publishing Company
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A Good Judge of Character
A certain young woman was nervous about meeting her boyfriend's parents for the first time. As she checked out her appearance one last time, she noticed that her shoes looked dingy. So she gave them a fast swipe with the paper towel she had used to blot the bacon she had for breakfast.
Arriving at the impressive home, she was greeted by the parents and their much-beloved, but rotten-tempered, poodle. The dog got a whiff of the bacon grease on the young woman's shoes and followed her around all evening. At the end of the evening, the pleased parents remarked, "Cleo really likes you, dear, and she is an excellent judge of character. We are delighted to welcome you into our little family."
It seems that perhaps Cleo was a better judge of bacon grease than she was a judge of character.
The Pharisees believed that Jesus wasn't a very good judge of character. Think back to our scripture reading for today.
King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.eSermons.com
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The Expansive Spirit
A newspaper carried the story of a man who bought a new Cadillac. Every time the car hit a slight bump there was an awful thumping. Twice he took the car to be examined. But they never could find the cause. Always there was the thumping. Finally, the servicemen narrowed the problem to one door of the car. When they took the door apart, they found a coke bottle inside. In the bottle was a note which read: "So you finally found me, you wealthy (blankety-blank)." You see, a worker was so filled with resentment he thought he could destroy the satisfaction of the person who had enough money to buy a Cadillac. Actually, the worker's grudges and resentments had infested his own mind and his everyday job. The satisfaction being destroyed was his own. Thus he made his work-life a slave to his perceived enemies.
The greatness of Christianity lies not in its development of small pockets of congenial intimacies. The greatness of Christianity is in its expansive spirit that overthrows resentments, takes in enemies, embraces rivals and seeks the good in all sorts of people across all barriers that class and race can erect.
Harold C. Warlick, What to Do When Everyone's Doing It, CSS Publishing Company
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A Warm Welcome
My mother shared with me an email she received with this "Affirmation for Today", by an unknown author. In part it reads, "Today I will find the grace to let go of resentments of others and self-condemnation over past mistakes. Today I will not try to change, or improve, anybody but me. Today I will act toward others as though this will be my last day on earth. Today I will be unafraid. I will enjoy what is beautiful, and I will believe that as I give to the world, the world will give to me." As children of God, we can trust that we can find our grace, freely offered, by God who loves us so much. Full of faith, full of grace, we can begin to give - give to God, give to our church, give to our families, give to our neighbors, rejoicing in the love of God that knows no bounds.
Beth Quick, A Warm Welcome
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ILLUSTRATIONS FOR 2 SAMUEL 11:26--12:10, 13-15
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Sermon Opener
A few years back country singer Gene Watson crooned:
Slip into something soft,
And then come slip into my arms again.
Strip away your conscience and
Take off your wedding band.
Cheating has become America's national pastime. Statistically, 65 percent of men have affairs by age forty. For women, it's 35 percent. A pastor who had quite the ministry due to sexual misconduct, made the following confession, "I never thought it could happen to me. But it did. For fifteen minutes of rolling in the sheets I sacrificed everything precious in my life -- wife, children, reputation, ministry, even my health." Another friend confided to me after adultery, "It just happened! It just happened!" I said, "No, it didn't just happen. You let it happen!" For in every affair there is a choice, steps taken, road blocks crashed, red lights run.
For a very poignant look at the process that leads to an affair read 2 Samuel 6-12. There the anatomy of David and Bathsheba's affair is laid bare before one's eyes. In walking through this epic story of wrong, I want to make my points with all E's.
Estrangement
Encounter
Empathy
Enjoyment
Expression
Stephen M. Crotts, Wearing The Wind, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.
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What Do Want In Marriage?
Syracuse University has spent considerable time researching marriage. Of the ten most important things couples say they want in a marriage, sex is ninth. Caring, a sense of humor, and communication are tops.
Among men, the top five things they want in a wife are:
(1) Respect. "She makes me feel capable." "She is proud of me!" "She is willing to follow my lead."
(2) Domestic support. A home that is a refuge from the stress of the world. A home that's fun, pleasant, and tasteful.
(3) Companionship. As in walks and talks, entering one another's world.
(4) Sexual fulfillment. "She responds to me. She studies what is mutually pleasing, gets good at it, makes time for me, takes sex seriously." And
(5) an attractive wife. She is clean, does her hair, cares how she looks, stays in the best shape she can. Naturally, all of these values are constantly coming in and out of focus; but a good wife is always monitoring, adjusting, caring, trying. She keeps her marriage fresh.
So, if these are what a man wants of a wife in marriage, what then does a woman want of a husband:
(1) Affection. The first thing Genesis 1-2 says God didn't make out of dirt is woman. Ephesians 5 explains that wives are made to be "cherished." This means romance, a steady stream of hugs, pats, compliments, kisses, and courtesies. At an airport, I saw a woman wearing a button that read, "This is my husband's idea of jewelry." Contrast that with William Jennings Bryan's hair over his ears. When asked why he wore it so since it was unfashionable, he said, "When I was courting my wife, she thought my ears stuck out funny and asked me to grow my hair long to cover them, so I did." To which his pal replied, "But that was years ago!" "Sure, " Bryan said, "but the romance is still going on!"
(2) Women want Conversation on a "feeling" level.
(3) Honesty and Openness. Not sullenness. "A man who won't close the door on me."
(4) Financial support.
(5) Family Commitment. Not a Dagwood Bumstead who passively sleeps and eats, but an active man who puts time and energy into the marriage, the children, the family.
Stephen M. Crotts, Wearing The Wind, CSS Publishing
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