23rd Sunday after Pentecost

Preaching Commentary

Opening Illustration

In the movie Apollo 13 (1995) we are led through the dramatic mission that was supposed to result in a lunar landing but instead became an epic struggle for the survival and return of the crew.  After the main spacecraft suffered a catastrophic loss of Oxygen stores, the lunar module became the “life boat” for the crew.  One of the pressing problems was that the carbon dioxide filters in the lunar module would soon run out of capacity.

Unbelievably, the carbon dioxide filters in the main spacecraft were square, while the ones in the lunar module were cylindrical.  A team of engineers composed a complicated and detailed fix, from limited materials, to fit the…