Illustrations Everywhere

Dear Friends

Sometimes, I have found sermon illustrations after I have preached the sermon in which I could have used them! In my All Saints’ Day sermon, I was trying to make the point that saints are not perfect people; they come in all shapes and sizes and colors, and from all countries and cultures. They are people trying their best to make God’s priorities their priorities and some days go better than other days. Even the greatest saints we admire---from the past or in the present, from the apostles to church history heroes, to even you and me---none would survive a background check under a microscope. But we call them saints because they dedicated their lives to God and inspire others by the way they chose to live for God.

A few days later, in preparation for a visit to Monterey for “Cannery Row Day”, I checked out Steinbeck’s book by the same name at the Carmel Village Library. With All Saints’ Day still on my mind, these words from the introduction caught my attention:

     Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole, he might have said “Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men” and he would have meant the same thing.

At the end of a tour of Rickett’s Pacific Biological Laboratories (led by a man channeling the character of Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck’s friend and inspiration for the character “Doc”) he told us wherever we come from, go and find the extraordinary people close by, because they are there.

So, I guess the lesson for me is that every day and anywhere, we may find an illustration or example of a biblical truth or lesson, whether or not it shows up in the sermon we have heard (or preached) on any given Sunday. 

It’s fun to anticipate how God may surprise and teach us.

John