Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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This year, in the pavilion, we have a caricature artist.
I feel sorry for him.
He is a real artist, but he is bombarded by kids who have our artwork on their faces and our exploding balloons in his hands.
He does a really good job.
It takes skill to make a likeness of someone that is distorted enough to be comical, but accurate enough to be recognize-able.
Maggie and I had a caricature artist at our wedding.
He was a hit.
My hope was to get our likeness done here, seven years later, but it hasn’t happened yet.
OR, I am so glad we did, and we look so much older.
Did you know that we get the word, caricature, from France?
I won’t attempt to pronounce the French word, but it meant “to exaggerate”.
A caricature artist takes a person and exaggerates certain characteristics to create a comic effect.
They are a lot of fun.
People love watching a caricature artist at work.
Comments that are made are normally about how talented the guy is, which is true.
However, we are all caricature artists.
I am not talking about how we view ourselves physically, though that is probably true.
I am talking about how we view each other emotionally and spiritually, our characters too often become caricatures.
Pray
How we view others
Let’s think about it.
How do we often view those around us?
We are human.
We are constantly assessing those around us based upon what we see, compared to ourselves.
That assessment is never completely true.
It is always a caricature.
Better than they are
Sometimes, we look at someone and we see them better than who they are.
Turn to someone near you and say “Wow!
You are awesome!”
I think about the prophet Samuel when God told him to anoint the next king of Israel.
Samuel follows God’s directions and finds himself at Bethlehem talking with Jesse and his sons.
Jesse had eight sons, but only brought seven.
Samuel looked at each of those seven and thought that they would be great kings.
But, this prophet of God was wrong.
God said
We may think that we are looking at someone’s heart, but we are not.
We are only looking at what we can see, and that perspective is very flawed.
Samuel had Jesse bring the youngest, David, and God said that this was the man who would be king.
Sometimes, we look at each other, and for some reason, we see each other through rose-colored glasses.
Perhaps we are jealous of certain character qualities, or perhaps someone is a mentor, someone we look up to.
Maybe the person in view is a pastor.
Maybe someone is being a hypocrite and hiding their sin.
Whatever the case, we see them better than they really are.
Unfortunately, when we see someone better than they really are, we are bound to be disappointed and hurt when we are smacked in the face with their sin.
Whether we see it or not, they are sinners.
Paul is very clear about this.
Sooner or later, a person’s humanity will shine, glaringly, for all to see.
That’s one reason why I try very hard to acknowledge my faults, even from the pulpit, so that people will not see me better than themselves.
I am sinner, just like everyone else.
I should not be put on a pedestal or viewed through rose-colored glasses.
We see caricatures of each other.
Sometimes, we see the good exaggerated.
Worse than they are
Sometimes we look at someone else and we see them worse than they are.
Turn to someone near you, wrinkle your noise and say “ugh”.
Yes, everyone is a sinner, but that doesn’t mean they have to be defined by that sin, exaggerated to be this distorted, grotesque picture.
I think about Jesus.
He developed quite the reputation for himself.
He spent time in the home of what the religious elite, the Pharisees, called sinners.
These were tax collectors, Jews who had sold themselves to the service of the Romans for money and for a privileged existence.
These were prostitutes.
These were Jews who were not the most faithful in following the teachings of the Pharisees.
Good Jews did not hang out with people like Jesus hung out with.
People began to talk.
He was a great teacher.
With his words, he led people to God.
But, with his actions, he spent time with people who seemed to be running from God.
The Pharisees were confused.
That confusion boiled over when “a woman who lived a sinful life” came and anointed Jesus’ feet with oil, while weeping.
Jesus tells him a parable about someone who owed a lot of money and was forgiven that debt.
Luke continues
Sometimes we see people as sinners, because of their past actions, but we forget that they can be loved by Jesus Christ and they can be changed by that love.
When someone comes to Jesus in faith, as Jesus said, they are saved.
Their sins are forgiven and their past does not define them anymore.
We have a hard time with that, because many times we have grown up with someone.
We have been hurt by someone else.
So, we see the caricature.
We see the sin, exaggerated before our eyes, instead of seeing the whole picture.
Turn to someone near you and say “I’m sorry.”
Caricatures.
It happens all the time when we look at others.
When we look at ourselves
It happens all the time when we look at ourselves.
Better than we are
It is the normal human condition to see ourselves better than we are.
Say “Aren’t I great?”
Now say it with feeling.
Which is why Jesus said:
We normally see all the sin around us and forget that we are just as depraved as the person next to us.
We forget that we lie, cheat, and steal.
We forget the laws in our area are because of us, instead of the person that lives across the street.
We forget that speed limits are laws and should be followed.
We are sinners, desperately in need of Jesus Christ.
We are the ones that Paul is talking about when he says:
Let’s step away from looking at ourselves from our perspective, and see God’s perspective.
The Bible speaks of God creating the world a long time ago.
The culmination of his creation was humanity.
He looked at everything that he created and said that it was very good.
Humanity was special in that we were made in his image.
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