Romans 10: 5-15 (links validated on 2/3/22)
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Sermon Starters (Proper 14A)(2023)
In an earlier commentary, Scott Hoezee reflects on one aspect of Marilynne Robinson’s breathtaking novel, Gilead (Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2004). Hoezee points to one refrain in the reflections that the Rev. John Ames addresses to his young son: what will happen to all the boxes of his old sermons in the attic after he is gone? Were they ever worth saving in the first place? Would anyone have the slightest desire to read those boxes of his old sermons in the future? What finally is a sermon once it is delivered? In the end Ames’ reflections come down to the following: “I’ll just ask your mother to have those old sermons of mine burned. The deacons could arrange it. There are enough to make a good fire. I’m thinking here of hot dogs and marshmallows, something to celebrate the first snow. Of course she can set by any of them she might want to keep, but I don’t want her to waste much effort on them. They mattered or they didn’t and that’s the end of it.”
Illustrated Resources from the Archives
Sermon Starters (Lent 1C)(2022)
Adolf Eichmann was apparently more forthcoming about his profession of faith. In her by turns fascinating and chilling book, Eichmann Before Jerusalem: An Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer, Bettina Stangneth relates a story about the man who was an architect and executor of Nazism’s “final solution. “‘I still have a very devout saying from my youth,’ Eichmann explains, ‘and I always do it when I find something horribly unpleasant and I can’t stop thinking about it. And in order to forcibly distract myself, do you know what I say? You’ll laugh! I believe in God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, died under Pontius Pilate, suffered and so on and so on’.” Father Anton Weber, one of the people who helped [Nazi] fugitives obtain new identities in Rome, said there was a trick he used to check that they had found their way back to the Faith. ‘I made them say the Our Father. Then it quickly emerged who was genuine and who wasn’t’.” “Eichmann,” Stangneth drolly adds, “would certainly have impressed [Weber] with the pace of his creed, managing it in five seconds.”Sermon Starters (Proper 14A)(2020)
Makmun was a successful lawyer in Jakarta, Indonesia. While on a business trip to his hometown, he stopped to visit a friend who was also a lawyer. Since he arrived at his friend’s office a bit early, he had to wait for a few minutes. As he waited, Makmun, as many of us who wait in an office do, he paged through reading materials someone had left there. Among them he found a small book entitled, Yesus Juruselamatmu, which means “Jesus Your Savior.” It included passages from the gospels that recount Jesus’ life and teachings. Initially the Christians who had the audacity to distribute a book with such a provocative title irritated Makmun. He was, in fact, still fussing about it when his friend walked out into the waiting room to meet him. Because he was embarrassed to have his friend see him reading such a book, Makmun slipped it into his pocket...Sermon Starters (Lent 1C)(2019)
In his article, “’A Rather Antinomian Christianity’: John Updike’s Religion,” in the March 13, 2015 edition of Pubic Discourse, Gerald R. McDermott calls Updike ‘a man of many contradictions. Though he was both spiritual and religious, he was also a serial adulterer. Widely celebrated as one of America’s greatest writers, his work was dismissed by some critics as stylized pornography with nothing serious to say. Although he recognized the devastation the sexual revolution was wreaking on families, he abandoned his first wife and children to marry one of his mistresses… As [author Daniel Ross] Goodman pointed out, Updike was stubbornly religious throughout his life. He told an interviewer, “I’m a religious writer . . . I try to show people stuck with this kind of yearning [for other men’s wives and for morality and religion].” He was a regular churchgoer, recited the Lord’s Prayer with his children when he tucked them into bed at night, and defended Christian theism from his days at Harvard in the early 1950s until his death almost sixty years later. Even Couples is shot through and through with religion…Proper 14A (2017)
Fans of Marilynne Robinson’s luminous and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gilead, know that a refrain in the novel-long reflections of Rev. John Ames—addressed to his young son—is what will become of all those boxes of his old sermons in the attic after he is gone (which he anticipates will be sooner rather than later). Were they ever worth saving in the first place? Would anyone have the slightest inkling to read them in the future? What finally is a sermon once it is delivered? In the end his musings come down to the following: “I’ll just ask your mother to have those old sermons of mine burned. The deacons could arrange it. There are enough to make a good fire. I’m thinking here of hot dogs and marshmallows, something to celebrate the first snow. Of course she can set by any of them she might want to keep, but I don’t want her to waste much effort on them. They mattered or they didn’t and that’s the end of it.”...Beautiful Feet
For more than a year, her son in California had been sending her money. Finally she felt she had enough, and she paid all of it, more than $2000, to a man who promised he could get her and her three younger children across the Rio Grande safely into America. Shortly after midnight they had crossed the river, and the guide had said, “Wait here!” and disappeared into the night. Three hours have passed, and he hasn’t returned. She becomes convinced he has abandoned her, taken her money and fled. What is she going to do? She is lost and alone in the desert, with three children (the oldest is only twelve), and the sun will be rising soon. She suddenly understands that if they are lucky ... they will be captured. If they aren’t lucky, they will die out here. She prays--desperately, with no hope--but still she prays.... Suddenly a shadow looms against the night. A man is coming. Not her guide. Someone else. As she watches she realizes he is walking with a limp. So he can’t be someone to help them, he must be another wetback, another refugee who got lame on the journey and was left behind. “Mother Rosita?” he whispers. “Yes, how do you know my name?” “I am the man sent to help you. We have a truck two miles away. Are you and your children strong enough to follow me?” “Yes,” she says. “We will be stronger, now that we know there is help. Did you injure yourself looking for us?” “No,” says her new guide. “I was born with a club foot. No one ever suspects that I, with my disability, would ever be out walking in the desert, helping fugitives across the border.” And in that moment Mother Rosita realized she would never look at a crippled person in the same way, ever again. Even limping, this man ... had beautiful feet...and another illustration
Lent 1C (1998)
If you ever want to find out how much you don't know about something, take a walk in the park with a real birdwatcher. As you make your way down the path, you will notice that your birdwatcher friend pauses now and again, as definitely as if someone had called her name. She stops, her attention focuses, and she seems surprised by your questioning look. "Can't you hear the Carolina wren?" She asks, mimicking its song for you. "Teakettle, teakettle, teakettle!" You try and listen, but before you even have your ears tuned to the right frequency, she has spotted the actual bird. "Right over there in the underbrush," she whispers, almost motionless. "See the white eye stripe?" You are still trying to figure out which bush she means, sweeping your gaze over the mass of greens and browns, of leaves and sticks, when your companion hears a mourning dove cooing and moves on...Beautiful?
Approximately one in a thousand people would disagree with Paul as he wrote to the Romans. In the section for this week, Paul declares that the feet of those who bring good news are beautiful (Romans 10:15). But approximately one in a thousand people are affected by podophobia, and those people probably wouldn't find any feet beautiful. Podophobia is defined as a persistent, irrational fear of feet (podos "feet" + phobia "fear). For some, their podophobia means they will not touch their own feet. For some, the sight of any feet is disturbing. Some do not want anyone else to look at their feet. Bringing good news or not, those feet would not be appreciated...Lips and Hearts
The now classic motion picture GANDHI starred the actor Ben Kingsley as the central character. Rarely has an actor made so convincing a film portrayal as Kingsley did in GANDHI. He spent months preparing for the role, visiting Indian locales Gandhi had frequented. He even learned to spin cotton thread on a wooden wheel, as the Mahatma did, while holding conversations with any who wanted to see him. He took on his mannerisms, speech patterns, humor, and his respectful gentleness with other people. After a time, the physical resemblance between Kingsley and Gandhi became startling. It was nearly impossible to tell where Gandhi left off and Kingsley began. At one point, after filming a scene in a village south of Delhi, Kingsley stepped out of his car. An elderly villager standing nearby knelt to touch Kingsley’s feet as the actor walked by. Embarrassed by this gesture of unbridled devotion, Kingsley stopped in his tracks. Raising the villager to his feet, Kingsley hastily explained that he was merely an actor playing the Mahatma. "We know," replied the villager, "but through you he will surely live again."...Five Steps of Faith
On his night job at Taco Bell, 17-year-old Nicholas was taking orders at the drive-up window. He heard a woman scream, turned, and saw very pregnant Deborah Anderson standing in front of him. The high-school student pulled off his headset, called the paramedics, and tried to make the woman comfortable. But the baby wouldn't wait. "The baby's head just popped out into my hands," Nicholas said. Paramedics finally arrived and took baby and parents to the hospital. Nicholas cleaned up, "sterilized my hands about a thousand times," and finished his shift but later when he talked with reporters he was still radiating with exhilaration...