Sermon Illustrations on
the Christian Walk
Background
Living up to the Name “Christian”
Some years back, on the Today Show, Maya Angelou was asked, with all that she had accomplished, could there be any more objectives, unfulfilled wishes, for her to pursue? Angelou said, “Oh, my, yes. I want to become a better writer…I want to be a better human being. I’m trying to be a Christian, which is no small matter. I mean it – I’m always amazed when (people) walk up to me and say, `I’m a Christian.’ I always think, `Already? You’ve already got it? My goodness.’”
Scott Bowerman
Take Care of your Armor
While not as well known as their male counterparts (The Desert Fathers), there were a number of women who also went out into the wilderness to live a life of solitude and prayer. One such woman was Saint Syncletica, a wealthy woman from Alexandria who gave up her material wealth to become a prayer warrior for the sake of Christ and the Church.
Syncletica Provided helpful instructions for her followers commenting on the need for armor as we face our spiritual battles:
Everything that is extreme is destructive. So do not suddenly throw away your armor, or you may be found unarmed in the battle and made an easy prisoner. Our body is like armor, our soul like the warrior. Take care of both and you will be ready for what comes.
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material from C. Douglas Weaver, A Cloud of Witnesses: Sermon Illustrations and Devotionals from the Christian Heritage
Stories
Course Corrections
A TV reporter became interested in the Apollo trips to the moon—what did they talk about? He was surprised to find how much conversation was devoted to course corrections. Apparently, the lunar spacecraft was off course something like 85% of the time. When I asked a friend who was heavily involved in the Apollo missions if this was true, he told me it was. Once leaving the earth’s orbit, because of limitations of fuel, the spacecraft mostly drifted, unpropelled to the moon. But occasionally, small retro-rockets were fired to correct the course. It’s not a bad description of the Christian walk.
Dave Peterson
Only the Penitent Man Shall Pass
With the recent release of a new installment in the Indiana Jones movie series, our family decided to re-watch the original trilogy (I like to act as though Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never existed), which were some of my favorites growing up. Two of the three (and might I argue, the best) films endeavor to find lost items from Judeo-Christian history, first the Ark of the Covenant, and then the Holy Grail, the cup Jesus drank out of at the Last Supper. Each item is being sought after by Jones, but also the villains of the films, in both cases, the Nazis.
Neither films would pass an intro to Theology course in either the Jewish or Christian faith, and yet there is at least one scene worth considering from a faith perspective. In The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones must pass three tests to reach the Holy Grail (with the stakes raised as his father, played by Sean Connery dying from a bullet wound and in need of the healing waters from the grail to survive).
The first test, called “the Breath of God” is the one worthy of our focus today. Indiana hasn’t figured out the puzzle, but as he approaches with what could be his last steps, he whispers over and over again the one clue: “Only the Penitent Man Shall Pass.” As the wind (breath) begins to blow through the chamber, Indy has only a few moments to pass the test. At the very moment he needs to figure it out (cue high drama) he gets it. Here’s the actual words from the film:
The penitent man is humble before God. The penitent man… The penitent man is humble. Penitent man is humble… [kneels before God] KNEEL!!
The second he kneels, two massive circular saws emerge from the wall, just missing Indy’s head and his famous fedora. As I said earlier, the theology would not pass muster in any seminary, but it does get one thing right: the journey of faith, even for the hero, begins with repentance.
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Practicing in Prison
Liu Chi Kung, who placed second to Van Cliburn in the 1948 Tchaikovsky competition, was imprisoned a year later during the Cultural Revolution in China. During the entire seven years he was held, he was denied the use of a piano. Soon after his release, however, he was back on tour. Critics wrote in astonishment that his musicianship was better than ever. “How did you do this?” a critic asked. “You had no chance to practice for seven years.”
“I did practice,” Liu replied. “Every day. I rehearsed every piece I have ever played, note by note, in my mind.”
Soundings, Vol. D, # 7, p. 23
Analogies
Lifting the Rock
One day a father decided to take his son to play at the local park. The boy quickly gravitated to the sandbox and found himself mesmerized by the colors and textures surrounding him. After a short time, he began digging around to see what treasures might reveal themselves to him.
As his hands plunged under the sand he discovered something rather large, and having pushed enough of the sand away, realized it was a large rock. Instantly he knew he needed to move that rock, no matter how big it was. This rock was the obstacle to his dreams of a sandbox clear of all extraneous matter.
So the boy tried as hard as he could to move the rock. He pushed and pushed and pushed, and finally he was able to get it to the edge of the sandbox. But the next step would be the hardest. How could he get it over the edge? Again the boy pushed and pushed until his energy was completely fried. The rock’s stuckness matched the boy’s feelings of the situation. Eventually he started to sob.
The boy’s father watched all this, and just when the meltdown began, the father went over to his son and began to comfort his overtaxed, dejected son.
“Why didn’t you use all the strength available to you to move the rock?” the father asked.
The boy was confused, “I did daddy, it’s just too heavy.”
“No son,” you didn’t. You didn’t ask me to help.” And at that, the father lifted the rock with a single hand and tossed it out of the sandbox.
Original Source Unknown, adapted by Stuart Strachan Jr.
Sleepwalking in a Dark Wood
For many of us, life can easily become disorienting and discouraging. Existential questions often emerge that never have before. As stressful as modern life can be, it is somewhat comforting to know that we are not the only ones who have experienced the bewildering nature of life itself. The thirteenth century poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri experienced the messiness of life more than most, and when he sat down to write his magnum opus, The Divine Comedy, this is how he began:
In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself astray in a dark wood
where the straight road had been lost sight of.
How hard it is to say what it was like
in the thick of thickets, in a wood so dense
and gnarled
the very thought of it renews my panic.
It is bitter almost as death itself is bitter.
But to rehearse the good it also brought me
I will speak about the other things I saw there.
How I got into it I cannot clearly say
for I was moving like a sleepwalker
Dante Alighieri, Dante’s Inferno: Translations by 20 Contemporary Poets, ed. Daniel Halpern, Translated by Seamus Heaney, Ecco Press, 1993.
Take Care of your Armor
While not as well known as their male counterparts (The Desert Fathers), there were a number of women who also went out into the wilderness to live a life of solitude and prayer. One such woman was Saint Syncletica, a wealthy woman from Alexandria who gave up her material wealth to become a prayer warrior for the sake of Christ and the Church.
Syncletica Provided helpful instructions for her followers commenting on the need for armor as we face our spiritual battles:
Everything that is extreme is destructive. So do not suddenly throw away your armor, or you may be found unarmed in the battle and made an easy prisoner. Our body is like armor, our soul like the warrior. Take care of both and you will be ready for what comes.
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material from C. Douglas Weaver, A Cloud of Witnesses: Sermon Illustrations and Devotionals from the Christian Heritage
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