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 7th Sunday after Pentecost (year b)
Proper 9 (14)

HumorClergy on the MoveIndependence Day | Peace & Justice
   

    

Texts & Discussion:
 

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 and
Psalm 48 or
Ezekiel 2:1-5 and
Psalm 123
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13

Other Resources:

Commentary:

Matthew Henry,    Wesley

Word Study:
Robertson

 

This Week's Themes:

Challenges of the Ministry
God's Grace is Sufficient

God is in Control

 


click on the building blocks to review this week's resources

 Texts in Context | Imagining the Texts -- First LessonEpistleGospel | Prayer&Litanies |  Hymns & Songs | Children's Sermons | Sermons

  


Sermons:

Independence Day:

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When You Feel Helpless
2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Mark 6: 1-6
by James Chipps

Have you ever felt helpless? That sinking feeling that the world has gotten too big, that events have pushed you down to snake-belly low? That you can’t get there from here? · Journalist David Osborne certainly felt that way. He was excited about the purchase of his new home at 58 Glebe Street in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.

Renovations were nearly complete, and he was due to move in within a week. After work, he drove to his new address to check on some of the final details. When Osborne arrived, he found a "what's wrong with this picture" scenario beyond his ability to believe. His dream home had become a nightmare. A huge crane with a wrecking ball towered over his property. Every floor in the house had been removed. Thousands of dollars in renovation materials including a valuable antique fireplace had been transformed into a large pile of debris.

Standing in the rubble that was his home was New South Wales Housing Minister Frank Walder. The Housing Minister offered this explanation: "The contractor and demolition crew were told to go to 58 Glebe POINT ROAD, but instead went to 58 Glebe STREET." Oops! A minor misunderstanding. Sorry about that.

Imagine that you are David Osborne standing there peering at that mountain of rubble that was your home. How would you feel? Angry, perhaps? Frustrated? Helpless? Some people have experienced what it means to see a home destroyed--by floods, tornados, earthquake. But that is not the only disaster that can leave us feeling desolate. A health crisis--a tumor, or a stroke, or a heart attack, a divorce, the loss of a job, a business failure. There are those events that happen in life which we are powerless to avoid and with which we are helpless to contend.

St. Paul was one of the most influential men who ever lived. He was courageous. He was brilliant. He was a man of unparalleled faith and understanding. But he had a problem he could not conquer. He called it his "thorn in the flesh." Some scholars believe it was epilepsy; others, that it was a painful eye disease, and still others that it was recurring, incapacitating migraines. Whatever it was, Paul, who had helped so many others, was helpless to help himself, just like you and I are helpless at times to help ourselves.

I think of my Dad now, as his health is failing. It all started with a hip replacement that went bad. Infection set in, unnoticed for some time, apparently, until it erupted into massive septicemia that was life threatening. Whether he will recover is still not known.

Such things happen to people all the time. We think we have life under control, but adversity strikes--a disaster strikes our house, our family, our body--and suddenly our plans are washed away. Life can change overnight. As I said last Sunday in my sermon: Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.

Even Jesus knew what it was to feel helpless--and it occurred long before he went to the cross. After he began his ministry, Jesus returned to Nazareth, his home town. The next Sabbath he went to the synagogue to teach. The people were astonished, even skeptical, that he could preach and do miracles, because they had known him all his life: "He's no better than we are," they said. "He's just a carpenter, Mary's boy, and a brother of James and Joseph, Judas and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us." And the citizens of Nazareth were offended that Jesus presumed to teach them!

"A prophet is honored everywhere except in his hometown and among his relatives and by his own family," Jesus said. Now, listen to the next thing Mark tells us: "And because of their lack of trust in God, Jesus couldn't do any mighty miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of trust."

Imagine that! Jesus was helpless because of the people's lack of trust in God. Sometimes like St. Paul we are unable to help ourselves. Sometimes, like Jesus, we are unable to help others. Some of you are or were the parents of teenagers. Is there anyone more helpless at times than the parent of a teenager? Life is filled with so many perils at that stage of life. Hormones and mood swings, defiance of parents and assertion of independence, maybe drugs, or promiscuity, boyfriend/girlfriend problems that mean the end of the world; and always the “I WANT...” What's a parent to do? It is a helpless feeling

Sometime we are frustrated because we are unable to help ourselves. Other times we are unable to help others. We need to recognize that helplessness usually describes an attitude and not a situation. We are never really helpless. St. Paul had his thorn in the flesh. He could not get rid of it, but he didn't let it defeat him. We too need to recognize that it is in our weakness and sense of helplessness where we most readily meet god's strength. [continue]