First Thoughts - Preaching in August, by Tim Mulder
First, allow me to offer a note of gratitude to Barb Schmitz who is taking a well-deserved rest from this site for the month of August. I'll attempt to fill in for her while she's gone. That should be fun because I'll be preaching each of these Sundays on these texts along with you. Barb is an inspiration to us. First, she has a passion for preaching. She discovered our web site and called to VOLUNTEER to write for this weekly sermon preparation web page. We're coming up on her first anniversary of doing this and we really appreciate it. If others of you who read this page would like to try your hand at this for a liturgical season, please write me along with why you think you have something valuable to offer this page at:
The Episcopal Preaching Foundation
Attn: Dr. Timothy Mulder
500 Morris Avenue
Springfield, NJ 07081
The one other time I filled in for Barb, I titled my remarks "First Thoughts" because my intention here is to perhaps jump start your own process. My teacher, Randy Nichols, says, "Let the listener do the traveling." In other words, sermons that are all wrapped up and tied with a bow may be pretty, but rarely turn out to be the gift, which, in the words of Bishop Paul Marshall "change ourselves and change the world."
At the beginning of the summer I read all the lessons for this summer. Sometimes I jot down a line to remind me of a theme or an idea. This part of the process is like the prep work in the kitchen before a big meal. Prep work includes making the stock, peeling and slicing the vegetables, getting all the ingredients ready before the cooking begins.
Now to prove that cooking metaphors break down as quickly as many parabolic allegories, I go directly from prep work to simmering on the stovetop. I just let those lessons sit there for weeks. They simmer in my mind. I may see an article. Something may happen: a conversation, an observation, an experience, a phone call. The week I have to preach I go back to those lessons. They're still fresh, but not raw. They've been on my mind, in my heart. Now, where will these lessons touch us this time? The lectionary will give us another chance three years from now. So how is this striking me now…as I read the paper, go through my own life, listen to those around me? I arbitrarily eliminate wonderful texts from consideration, leaving them behind with little remorse. Next time perhaps, mon petite. I settle on one idea. I've heard great sermons with multiple points. I'm not that adroit. One idea. Take it into the week. Remember it on Tuesday. Let it help. Let it transform. More could be done. Be content with just doing this.
So, let's get started.
Once again this week I would preach on the Old Testament lesson.
August 31 - Proper 17 - Exodus 3:1-15
It used to be that the historical criticism group would locate the story of the “Exodus” in the reign of Ramses around 1200-1300 B.C.E. But more and more the archeologists and biblical scholars have been hesitating about that because there is no “historical” proof that the events of the Exodus ever took place. This is not to minimize its importance to us as “myth” in the most powerful sense of that term. This is the central story of our faith: from bondage to freedom, sin to salvation, death to life.
We are a people whose identity is shaped and driven by the telling of our sacred stories. We tell them to our children, to each other and to strangers to invite them to share our story. Sharing the story becomes a way to share both life and a way of living.
All through July we listened to the stories of Jesus we call parables. During August we have listened to the stories of Jacob, Joseph and now Moses from the Old Testament. Rather that attempt to convince through logic, our faith invites participation through the entering into the stories of God. So this week we come to a story of God’s responsiveness to human agony and need. The interesting thing about our faith is that God is not a divine who waves a wand or snaps a finger to correct problems. God calls women and men to solve problems. It is never the people God calls who act apart from God, but by the empowerment of God they are able to accomplish what would not otherwise be attempted. God gives hope, direction, power and joy in doing the things God calls us to do. And so we come to the opening verses of chapter 3 in Exodus.
God has heard the groans of God’s people, laboring as slaves for the amazing Egyptians. Few in the United States praise communism in this country with all its proven failures, but Labor Day was the child of the Communist party in America when such a thing was possible. It called attention to the laborers; folk few of us know or care much about today. “I have heard their cries. I know their suffering.” Are we on the brink of a new burning bush in America? A new call to liberation, or care, or justice? If so, what does that have to do with us? Moses argued with God about his call. You and I often come up with reasons for not doing what we know God is calling us to do. Finally though, God is irresistible. Moses becomes the liberator. You and I are called to do no less.
First Thoughts - Preaching September 7 - The Rev. Dr. William Brosend
There is nothing more discouraging to a congregation than not being sure what the preacher is talking about. They wonder if they have missed something, or are not well-enough versed in the topic to understand. The truth, we all know, is that it is the preacher’s problem, not the listeners. The preacher’s task is not to speak, but to be heard, and if they don’t, it doesn’t matter what we said.
So a good place to start in preparing for every sermon is with this question: What does the Holy Spirit want the people of God to hear from these texts on this occasion? Not, “What do I want to talk about on Sunday?” but what does God want them to hear.
September 7 - Proper 18 Year A - Ezekiel 33:7-11 (or Exodus 12:1-14) - Psalm 119:33-40 (or Psalm 149) - Romans 13:8-14 - Matthew 18:15-20
The long summer of Romans is coming to a close. In some quarters that is a cause for rejoicing. Years ago, in my first parish, I offered a three month Romans marathon from the pulpit. When I announced on the last Sunday that, “This will be the final installment of my series on Paul’s majestic letter to the Romans” the teenagers, who sat together in the back pew, stood as one and silently applauded. That may have been the beginning of my interest in the Letter of James. Others in the congregation will be surprised to learn that the Epistle reading was consistently from Romans all summer, as their preachers focused relentlessly on the Gospel each Sunday. This Sunday, I firmly believe, the preacher must focus on Paul, like him or not, so that is where I will begin.
“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Jesus and James could not have said it any better, could they? And after the long list of do’s and don’ts in Romans 12, and the long discourse on the strong and the weak to come in the closing chapters that follow, a simple, “Love one another,” is a great blessing. Except, of course, that it can also sound like an old Beatles’ tune – “All You Need Is Love.” Do you remember the line that precedes and follows the title phrase? “It’s easy.” Love? Easy? I don’t think Paul, John, George and Ringo were singing about the same thing as Paul the Apostle. How did Sharon Dowd wonderfully put it in describing the difference between Paul and James? Same vocabulary, different dictionary.
Ezekiel and Jesus, like Paul, knew that love was not always easy. True love means love that is grounded in truth, and in truth-telling. Every parent knows that the truly loving thing does not always involve saying what the beloved child wants to hear. So does every person who loves someone struggling with substance abuse, depression, or other illnesses.
“Get help!”
"I'm fine, I'm fine."
"No, you are not fine. Get help!"
"Leave me alone."
"No, I will not leave you alone! I love you."
Sound Easy?
Jesus says, “When it hits the fan, get somebody you trust and go talk to the sister or brother and work it out.” God says to Ezekiel, “I know you did not sign up for this, but I am appointing you my watchdog, and I want you to tell everybody exactly what you see. If they are sinning, don’t talk about maladjustment, a difficult season in their lives, or any other bit of psycho-babble that may come to mind. Call a sin a sin. Don’t think I like this any more than you do, but it may just be if we call it what it is, they will hear and repent. That is what we’re after, after all.”
Call a sin a sin. That is exactly what Paul goes on to do, isn’t it. After a short recitation of a portion of the Decalogue, he cuts to the chase: “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ….” Put on Jesus. Paul loves that metaphor. Wearing Jesus, not like a hair-shirt but like the silkiest garment we can imagine. Put on Jesus, because as a child of God the fit will be perfect. And it is the only way we can love one another. If the loving thing is up to us we will go with the Beatles every time – free love is easy love. We all remember what Bonhoeffer said about “cheap grace.” Cheap grace is free love. True love, like true grace, is costly. Indescribably costly.
So preacher, standing in the pulpit like Ezekiel the “sentinel,” what are you going to do? This preacher is going to start with Paul, segue to the Beatles, and then dig in. If “love is all you need” and if we need “owe no one anything except to love one another,” I think we need to be exquisitely clear what we mean by “love.” Don’t preach again the sermon you preached as a seminarian who had just discovered the difference between eros, philos, and agape. Tell them what you truly think Jesus and Paul meant by “love.” In this economy you may also want to spend some time thinking about “owe no one anything,” and what it means to “owe” love to anyone.
Here’s the key thing in these readings. Matthew 18 comes across as a scold. The whole chapter seems finally to want to kick them out of the church for everyone’s good. But Ezekiel reminds us that Matthew could not possibly mean that. “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live….” We could spend a lot of fruitful time right here – the understanding of God in mid-6th century Israelite religion sounding a lot like, well, us. Paul shows us what that looks like, a blend of Torah and Jesus. It is not either/or. And it starts, in both testaments, with the love of God.
Looking Ahead: September 14
Next week the Gospel is a parable of judgment unique to Matthew, the “Unforgiving Servant.” It has a major trap you will want to plan to avoid, the trap of generic, topical preaching. We read the parable and start to think about what? Forgiveness. And yes, there is forgiveness at the start. But it is really a parable of unforgivenss, and the consequences of unforgiveness. Read the parable carefully, and ask yourself how you will preach what the text says, and not the simpler topic of forgiveness.
The Rev. Dr. William Brosend is an Associate Professor of Homiletics at the School of Theology at Sewanee: The University of the South. He recieved his M. Div from Vanderbilt University Divinity School and his Ph.D from The University of Chicago Divinity School
First, allow me to offer a note of gratitude to Barb Schmitz who is taking a well-deserved rest from this site for the month of August. I'll attempt to fill in for her while she's gone. That should be fun because I'll be preaching each of these Sundays on these texts along with you. Barb is an inspiration to us. First, she has a passion for preaching. She discovered our web site and called to VOLUNTEER to write for this weekly sermon preparation web page. We're coming up on her first anniversary of doing this and we really appreciate it. If others of you who read this page would like to try your hand at this for a liturgical season, please write me along with why you think you have something valuable to offer this page at:
