Curated Sermon Illustrations on Messiness

We find hope in the ancestry of Jesus that no matter what we’ve done or where we come from, we too can be included in Jesus’ family. Jesus does not look for people who are perfect and have never faile...

The Texas-based pastor Matt Chandler spent a decade working with teenagers, and during that time, he realized how a specific change takes place between sixth graders and ninth graders. As Chandler say...

The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account...

In this excerpt, Frederick Buechner shares a meditation on the vulnerability of Jesus’ birth: The child born in the night among beasts. The sweet breath and steaming dung of beasts. And nothing is...

Where do you turn for marriage advice when you aren’t religious? This is becoming an ever-increasing question as western cultures become more and more secular. One option is to turn to the London-base...

In the sixteenth century, Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci journeyed to China, bringing religious art to share the Christian story with those unfamiliar with it. The Chinese readily embraced images of t...

Kevin Blue has spent much of his ministry career serving the poor in inner-city Los Angeles. In this excerpt he describes working with a war vet named Clarence: Richard, Tim, Caroline and Ellen move...

The Gospel doesn't reveal to us that life isn't messy. In fact, God, in the Incarnation, joins us in the mess. Consider this illustration to highlight how the Incarnation transforms our expe...

Status quo, you know, that is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.

One Ash Wednesday a decade ago, when I was new to Anglicanism, I knelt at a rail as Fr. Thomas, my priest, smeared a black cross on each forehead. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall ret...

Martin Heidegger said that being is presence. Whatever else this means, it suggests that in some way presence is a basic property of simply being. Everything that exists has presence by virtue of its ...

I became interested in the subject of transition outer changes around 1970 when I was going through some difficult inner and outer changes. Although I gave up my teaching career because of those chang...

Garry Smalley was a Christian counselor and prolific author. He was known for one particular illustration about the intrinsic value each of us has as children of God. Speaking at a large event, he ask...

In an interview discussing her most recent book Hamnet, the novelist Maggie O’Farrell shares a great analogy on grief. It started with research she needed to do on embroidery, an area in which she was...