Skip to main content

Obi-Wan and Preaching


If you preach a theologically sound sermon, but it doesn’t relate with the reality of life then it won’t connect. My friend Nadia feels that she has to use illustrations from her life, otherwise it won’t be genuine. Nadia may be one of the best living preachers, but I’m not her. Maybe its my introversion, but I’m not always comfortable talking about myself. 

Five years ago, I met with Bob Moon—one of the most genuine pastors I’ve ever known. Bob was kind enough to sit down with me and have a long talk about sermon preparation. One of the things he said was, “When you tell a story from the pulpit, never make yourself the hero of your own story.”


Stories are important; they connect us and ideas. The illustrations in sermons do not always have to be from our lives—they can come from anywhere we hear the truth: movies, music, plays, TV shows. I’m going to use this blog to share some of the stories and illustrations that have made their way into my sermons. The following one is from Pentecost 2022:


The girls went to the beach Thursday, and since I had the TV remote all to myself, I watched the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+. To give you the premise of the show: Princess Leia is a 10 year old girl and she is kidnapped. Obi-Wan has to come out of retirement to go rescue her. In the second episode there’s a scene where Princess Leia, as a young girl, asks Obi-Wan, “What does the force feel like?” Obi-Wan asks her, “Have you ever been afraid of the dark?” She nods her head. He then says, “How does it feel when you turn on the light?” Leia says, “I feel safe.” “Yes, it feels like that.”


If you ever feel bad like you’re not doing enough, or you’re not being a good enough Christian—that’s not the voice of Jesus. If you’re tired, weary, exhausted, the voice the Jesus says, “Come to me and I will give you rest.”


The Spirit points you back to Jesus, reminds you of the grace of God, and reminds you that the work has already been done on your behalf and you are safe. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Surprised by Mercy: Advent 2

  Matthew 3:1-12 My favorite way to start a sermon is with a song.  Let’s see if you know this one, it’s a little more recent than the one I used last Sunday. “Me and all my friends / We’re all misunderstood / They say we stand for nothing and / There’s no way we ever could / Now we see everything that’s going wrong / With the world and those who lead it / We just feel like we don’t have the means / To rise above and beat it / So we keep waiting / Waiting on the world to change.” Yes, you can add John Mayer to your Advent playlist because this season is all about waiting. John Mayer isn’t the only one waiting for the world to be different. John the Baptist says, “Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming!” He’s looking forward to something that has not happened yet. He’s looking forward with anticipation and excitement to the moment when God breaks onto the scene in the coming of Jesus. I remember when Rachel was pregnant with Ella, people would ask, “Are you ready?” And I would s...

From the Bottom Up

 Let’s play a game of Show-and-tell. Can you guess what this is? It’s a Lego car of an Aston Martin. It’s James Bond’s car. Now, let’s do a bit of trivia. Do you know the actor who played James Bond in the most movies? Roger Moore. And before Roger Moore was James Bond, he in a TV show called The Saint . And the reason we’re talking about this is because there’s an episode in that series called “The Effete Angler” (effete means ineffective and not manly) and that episode has the right name. Because it has the absolute worst fishing scene. As you watch it, it is so obviously bogus that it’s funny. It’s funny because Roger Moore hooks a small marlin and ferociously cranks on a large trolling reel, which, at one point, he’s holding upside down. And we’re talking about fishing because Jesus says he’ll make the disciples “fishers of men.” Before Jesus says this, we hear that John the Baptist has been arrested. To make a long story short, he said some things about the governor that the ...

Jesus, hating family, and a choice?

Rather than being in the pulpit yesterday, I was with my family at the beach. The girls had a fantastic time playing with their cousins. And, to make a confession, I was glad to see that I wouldn’t be preaching on one of Jesus’ most difficult teachings. But I couldn’t escape thinking about this text, and I think I finally discovered something beautiful in it.  Luke 14:25-33 NRSVue  "Now large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish....