Sermon Illustrations on Safety

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Background

The Importance of Monkey Bars

As much as we laugh at it, trying to keep kids safe, avoiding failing or falling, has its own consequences. My friend, Dr. Tim Ellmore says that the removal of monkey bars on playgrounds is perhaps the clearest example of this. The monkey bars teach us something about controlling our bodies, learning to take calculated risks, and still avoid the nasty falls. Even though there is always the potential for an injury, a child who learns to play on the monkey bars experiences the feeling of accomplishment that most other pieces of playground equipment cannot provide. Taking away the monkey bars has led to the walking contradiction we see in this risk-averse, overconfident generation of young leaders.

Clay Scroggins, How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge (Zondervan, 2017)

Refugees: Searching for a Home

In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home, Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel focuses on what life is like without a home:

Fiction isn’t our only witness of home; the front page is. In the most recent European migrant crisis, for example, desperate families, forced by war and poverty, leave home. The tragedy of these asylum seekers isn’t only material loss, although it certainly is not less than that. When they crowd into rafts and trains, when they walk for days, history heavy on their backs, even when they arrive by plane like the many Syrian refugees now arriving in Canada, they take the future into their hands, hoping to find safety and stability for their children. Sometimes their arrival is cheered by smiling crowds readied for the work of hospitality. Sometimes their assets are legally seized by the government as the price of their welcome.

The Safest Place on Earth and the Spirit

The Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway bills itself as “the ultimate insurance policy for the world’s food supply,” storing 1,214,827 seed samples from every nation on Earth. The seeds are stored at -18°C (about 0°F) in a concrete bunker deep underground. Because of its location in the far north, it stays cold outside all year, and because of the permafrost, even if the power goes down, the seeds will stay cold. The location was picked because of its remoteness, lack of tectonic activity, and altitude (which means that it is not threatened by even a dramatic sea level rise). It is quite possibly the safest place on Earth for the collection.

The seeds are safe as they can be, in case a manmade or natural disaster wipes out a food crop, it can be started over again from the samples in the Vault.

Our sealing in the Holy Spirit makes safer still.

Summary by William Rowley, source, Max Lucado, Help Is Here: Finding Fresh Strength and Purpose in the Power of the Holy Spirit (Thomas Nelson, 2022).

Stories

Putting Life on Autopilot

There’s a true story about a couple who dreamed of one day driving across America during their “golden years.” They sold their home and bought a top-of-the-line RV. They took the trip seriously, investing time in lessons on how to drive, park, and navigate their massive vehicle as they prepared for their great journey. The husband began the drive but eventually became tired. He asked his wife to take the wheel while he rested.

The wife got behind the wheel, turned on the vehicle, put on the cruise control, and began down the road. At first, everything was going fine-the wife stared out the window enjoying the scenery. Eventually, however, she decided she needed to go to the bathroom.

She didn’t want to disturb her husband, so she got up, and walked to the back of the RV…Now…if you were listening carefully, you may be asking yourself, “Wait a second…her husband is still sleeping…who’s driving the motor home?” This is a good question. Because after the RV crashed and was completely totaled (thankfully, the couple was unharmed) and the police showed up, the wife told them she placed the vehicle on auto-pilot. There’s only one problem with that decision, their RV did not have “auto-pilot.” Sometimes we do the same thing with our spiritual life-turn on the auto-pilot.

Stuart Strachan Jr.

Someone With Skin

Ronald Rohlheiser begins his excellent book, Our One Great Act of Fidelity, with a story of a young girl. She had awoken from a nightmare, convinced that monsters had invaded her room and were coming to devour her from all corners. She escaped the darkness at just the right moment, running into her parent’s bedroom for safety.

Her mother slowly carried her back to her own room, turned on the light, and showed her that there was nothing there to spook her. After a few more reassuring words, the mother said, “You don’t need to be afraid. You’re Not alone. God is here in the room with you.” The child responded, ‘I know that God is here with me, but I need someone here who has some skin!”

Stuart Strachan, Source Material from Ronald Rolheiser, Our One Great Act of Fidelity: Waiting for Christ in the Eucharist (Image, 2011)

Analogies

The Importance of Monkey Bars

As much as we laugh at it, trying to keep kids safe, avoiding failing or falling, has its own consequences. My friend, Dr. Tim Ellmore says that the removal of monkey bars on playgrounds is perhaps the clearest example of this. The monkey bars teach us something about controlling our bodies, learning to take calculated risks, and still avoid the nasty falls. Even though there is always the potential for an injury, a child who learns to play on the monkey bars experiences the feeling of accomplishment that most other pieces of playground equipment cannot provide. Taking away the monkey bars has led to the walking contradiction we see in this risk-averse, overconfident generation of young leaders.

Clay Scroggins, How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge (Zondervan, 2017)

Togetherness & The Genius of the Gold-Saddle Goatfish

The gold-saddle goatfish is a small fish native to Hawaiian reefs with a distinctive coloring. In the past few years, divers in Hawaii have come across a fascinating phenomenon. During their regular dives, they’ve begun to notice a large fish with the same brilliant colors as the gold-saddle goatfish. Upon closer inspection, the divers realized this wasn’t one large fish, but in fact a school of gold saddle fish swimming together in such impressive unity and in such a perfect fish-shaped pattern as to appear like one imposingly large fish, not to be trifled with. It turns out, when the gold-saddle fish feels threatened, they join together, unified in fish formation to appear much larger.

The gold saddle goatfish provides an important lesson for those facing threats. Do we turn inward, trusting only ourselves? Or do we “huddle up” with our neighbors, our friends, or even our churches to face the oncoming storm, be it a global pandemic or something of a local variety?

Stuart Strachan Jr.

Humor

Jonathan Swift’s Exhortation for Two

While primarily known today as the author of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift also served as an Anglican priest in his home country of Ireland. While his writing gained significant traction throughout Britain, his ministry was not quite so successful.

While serving a small parish in Laracor, Ireland in 1709, the author and clergyman regularly drew less than a dozen souls to Sunday worship. His prayer meetings were even less well received, where he could only depend on a “congregation of one,” his clerk and bell-ringer Roger Cox. Apparently, it was recorded at the beginning of one of these meetings, “Dearly beloved Roger, the Scripture moveth you and me in sundry places …’

Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material from Hesketh Pearson, Lives of the Wits, 1962