love is patient, love is kind ....

This coming Sunday brings us back in the three year lectionary cycle to the famous and well worn verses from the apostle Paul's first letter to the quarrelsome congregation in Corinth. The last time I had the privilege of proclaiming this text came nine years and three cycle ago at University Hill. The text can be found at "In a Riddle".

preaching ephesians

Those who are following the Revised Common Lectionary have an opportunity to preach from the Letter to the Ephesians on successive Sundays this month. Here are preacher's notes on the readings from Ephesians this July ...

                July 11 - Ephesians 1:3-14
                July 18 - Ephesians 2:11-22
                July 25 - Ephesians 3:14-21

does it matter if you call it a sermon, a reflection or a meditation?

Lately I have noticed that what was once called a "sermon" is now described in many an order of service as a "reflection" or a "meditation." I suspect this is the result of the term sermon falling out of favour because it evokes an image of a stereotypical boring and lengthy monologue from a pulpit. When people use the word "preach" in conversation it is usually to say something like "Don't preach to me." Preaching is taken to be a moralistic, even aggressive, in your face type of speech. Of course, good preaching is none of this. It is never boring and, if lengthy, one only realizes how long the sermon has been when you look at your watch after and wonder at how the time flew by. As Walter Brueggemann has said when asked how long a sermon should be: "A good sermon is never long enough ... and a bad sermon is never short enough." A good sermon is, like the gospel, surprising and challenging. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: "A truly evangelical sermon must be like offering a child a beautiful apple or holding out a glass of water to a thirsty person and asking: Wouldn't you like it?" With the recent commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination we were reminded once again of the power that preaching can have for inspiring and uplifting a people. Martin's preaching was anything but reflections or meditations. His were powerful orations that can only be described as sermons.

Which leads me to wonder about the wisdom of the move to abandon the title sermon in favour of reflections and meditations. On first glance this move seems more invitational. A sermon is meant to be an announcement delivered by a breathless messenger who has important life changing news to share. Reflections and meditations suggest something less urgent, calmer. In avoiding the stereotypically negative reaction to a sermon these alternatives may change the congregation's expectation of the moment when the Word is proclaimed. Of course, just as the preacher may preach a bad sermon so a reflector or meditator may well offer a good reflection or meditation. In the end, it is not what it is called but what is delivered that matters. Nonetheless, I fear that this shift in name will lead congregations to forget the purpose of preaching - namely, that it is intended to be a daring proclamation. In response to bad memories of preaching in the past I suggest not abandoning the sermon but surprising the church with sermons that delight and engage with a Word that is unusual, unexpected and inviting - the good news in Jesus Christ.

not to talk about scripture but from it

"Preaching must be exposition of holy scripture. I have not to talk about scripture but from it. I have not to say something, but merely repeat something .... Our task is simply to follow the distinctive movement of thought in the text, to stay with this, and not with a plan that arises out of it." (Karl Barth, Homiletics, p. 49.)

Not long ago a friend made the comment that my last sermon at University Hill Congregation revealed just how much Karl Barth influences my preaching. It surprised me when he said it because I simply thought of that sermon as how the text (Mark 4:35-41) speaks now, how it demands to be proclaimed. I didn't realize how obvious Barth's influence might be.

Reading some of Barth's thoughts on preaching today I was reminded of that sermon - "To the Other Side". Yes, it is fair to say that while my journey as a preacher began with a desire to make the text as relevant as possible it inevitably shifted to listening for the odd Word of God revealed through scripture. I found my way to this mode of preaching through teachers like Walter Brueggemann and Will Willimon who trace their roots directly to Karl Barth. For that I am grateful.

speak your word of life

A prayer before preaching (based on Isaiah 55:8-12). A sermon based on this text can be found at like rain and snow.

You whose thoughts are not our thoughts,
You whose ways are not our ways,
as You send forth the rain and the snow
       to water the earth
            giving seed to the sower
                 and bread to the eater ...

velcade (round two - cycle seven)

Life on bortezomib (Velcade), cyclophoshamide and dexamethasone continues as I am now well into another thirty-five day cycle of weekly doses. Did I say that I am just a little tired of the weekly mood and energy swings caused by even my relatively mild dosage of dex? Oh, yes, I did. Nothing new on that front. However, my struggles with dex are offset this month with the good news that the free light chain count dropped from the last report of 145 to 95 - under 100 for the first time in awhile. It is a welcome Christmas gift to receive. After the slow and steady increases in the free light chains it is a bit surprising to see this reversal. It will be interesting to see if it continues following cycle seven and cycle eight. That will be the end of this round on Velcade. We have been assuming that the ever increasing numbers meant shifting to a new treatment plan in the Spring. But if the numbers stay low perhaps there will be the possibility of gaining approval for another round of this treatment. In the meantime, we carry on ...

not talking about the bible, not using it, but listening

quoted from "Karl Barth's Emergency Homiletic" by Angela Hancock (pp 212-213) ...

"Sermons, Barth argued, must be tempered, shaped, qualified by God's Self-disclosure. What did this mean for these young preachers?

emergency homiletic

I just finished reading Karl Barth's Emergency Homiletic, 1932-1933: A Summons to Prophetic Witness at the Dawn of the Third Reich by Angela Dienhart Hancock. A very interesting, careful study of the homiletics class that Barth taught in the midst of a chaotic year in Germany for the nation and for the church. Lots here for students of preaching and of history to engage. The class itself was an act of resistance with Barth stepping onto the homiletical turf of his colleague whose sympathies lay with the rise of National Socialism and Hitler. Hancock points out the significant inadequacies in the published version of the student notes from these classes ("Homiletics") with the appendix pleading for a new text of that book. Of the student notes from Barth's preaching class, Hancock writes:

kerygma - the message

Kerygma, one of five marks of the church, is at the heart of the church’s life. Kerygma means “proclaiming”, “announcing”, “preaching”. A congregation lacking kerygma is a community without the extraordinary news – “The Message” – that is the church’s reason for being. The kerygma is not simply a neighbourly commitment to generic values of hope, faith and love or to peace and justice. The gospel is not the best of humankind’s attempts to reach out to God. It is, instead, the incredible announcement that, in Jesus Christ, God has broken into history to save and redeem the Creation. The good news is a cruciform story of God’s capacity to bear the world’s suffering and to overcome the powers of death. A kerygmatic congregation is learning that the glory of the God it meets in Jesus Christ is, paradoxically, revealed in weakness. To paraphrase Paul, believers long for proof that God is real (signs) while unbelievers expect a reasonable contemporary spirituality (wisdom) but the church announces Christ murdered (crucified), a scandal to believers and idiocy to unbelievers (I Corinthians 1:22-23). The church that God grows springs from the seed of the cross and resurrection. Where this message takes root and comes to flower one finds a people undeterred by hardship, unsurprised by tragic loss, unprepared to give up on the least and the last because it is coming to trust in the power of God to make new.

not my job to defend, explain or comprehend jesus

I know that some people find the lectionary to be a pain. But this Sunday you have to love it. I wonder how many of us preachers would actually choose to preach Mark 9:38-50 if it wasn't set to be read this Sunday in the common lectionary? I think the answer is pretty clear. Not many! On first glance you would think that this is a natural for a Christian preacher. After all, it is among the few passages in Mark that include teachings of Jesus. Most of Mark's gospel is a narrative about Jesus' ministry, healings and encounters with disciples, crowds and opponents. Yes, there are a few parables told. Here in chapters nine and ten we find actual teachings just before he arrives at Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Heaven knows I have run into so many people who tell me that they aren't fans of the God of the Old Testament or of Paul and even that they struggle with Jesus' divinity and with the resurrection. That doesn't leave much but it does leave the teachings of Jesus. And many people tell me that it is Jesus' teachings that they find most powerful in the Bible. hmmm. That brings us to Mark 9:38-50. Teachings of Jesus that are not easy to comprehend. These are the teachings that leave me wondering if the fans of Jesus as a teacher have actually read his teachings. This Sunday we are in the shoes of the disciples who Mark has just said: "did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him" (Mk 9:32). The good news for me is that it is not my job to defend, explain or comprehend Jesus. For so long I felt that I needed to protect him and to make sense of him so that the congregation could be re-assured that this all makes sense, that our minister is doing his job and that all is well. Now I realize that my work is to not hide Jesus from the congregation but to let them be confronted by him just as the disciples were confronted by him. Yes, I may have some insights to offer and some helpful explanations or interpretations. But if I don't understand Jesus I will say so. I am also a disciple struggling to see and to hear. I expect that there may be someone in the congregation who sees and hears in a way that I do not. It isn't my calling to have it all figured out before preaching or to wrap the sermon up in a nice bow with a wonderful ending that resolves all of the problems. Having said that, I am working away on a number of parts of this text that are problematic and that will surely need to be addressed on Sunday ...

before the gospel is a word, it is a silence

"The preaching of the Gospel is a telling of the truth or the putting of a sort of frame of words around the silence that is truth because truth in the sense of fullness, of the way things are, can at best be only pointed to by the language of poetry - of metaphor, image, symbol - as it is used in the prophets of the Old Testament and elsewhere. Before the Gospel is a word, it is a silence, a kind of presenting of life itself so that we see it not for what at various times we call it - meaningless or meaningful, absurd, beautiful - but for what it truly is in all its complexity, simplicity, mystery. The silence of Jesus in answer to Pilate's question about truth seems such a presenting as does also in a way the silence of the television news with the sound turned off - the real news is what we see and feel, not what Walter Cronkite tells us - or the silence the Psalmist means when he says, 'Be silent and know that I am God.' In each case it is a silence that demands to be heard because it is a presented silence, and the preacher must somehow himself present this silence and mystery of truth by speaking what he feels, not what he ought to say, by speaking forth not only the light and the hope of it but the darkness as well, all of it, because the Gospel has to do with all of it.

an act of relentless hope

I was up early this morning in order to beat the traffic on my way to my weekly chemotherapy treatment. It was dark, reminding me that the sun is working its inevitable way towards the southern hemisphere. On the way out the door I remembered to grab something to read while waiting for my treatment. A dog-eared book on my shelf called out, its binding no longer any use, with the pages falling out - "Finally Comes the Poet: Daring Speech for Proclamation" - Walter Brueggemann's 1988 Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale Divinity School. It is not uncommon for me to seek inspiration - to be reminded of the reason that I take up the call to preach - in the midst of the full weeks of ministry that arrive in September. The tattered state of my copy of "Finally Comes the Poet" reminds me that I have returned over and over to its pages. It is not alone among published volumes of the Beecher Lectures. Three others in my collection are underlined, dog-eared and well worn. I remember being captivated by Frederich Buechner's "Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale". Reading it again now I can see the arc of my ministry prefigured in its pages. Along the way my apprenticeship included learning from Fred Craddock whose Beecher lectures were published as "Overhearing the Gospel: Preaching and Teaching the Faith to Persons Who Have Heard it all Before". Then in recent years a new favorite came along in the form of Richard Lischer's "The End of Words: The Language of Reconciliation in a Culture of Violence". These books are trusted companions on the way, friends that remind me of the challenge and gift that is the call to preach the good news of the gospel in this time and place. In the midst of what may seem a time of dispirited decline in the church these voices remind me of the vitality, energy and wonder that is present among the company of preachers for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.

When I opened "Finally Comes the Poet" once again this morning I was not disappointed. For one thing, I had forgotten that the first chapter - "Numbness and Ache: The Strangeness of Healing" - is an extended meditation on the way in which Jeremiah provides preachers with a model of poetic speech that opens the community to the painful yet needful path to healing. Reading Jeremiah, chapter by chapter, in our Wednesday morning breakfast conversation is, at once, painful and instructive. We are tempted to turn away from the harsh rhetoric and, yet, are drawn in by the longing and grief of God. But, before chapter one's meditation on Jeremiah, Brueggemann situates his argument in this way in the Introduction ...

building up the church

The practice of preaching constitutes a people with a distinctive identity in the world. In congregations that suffer from chronic anxiety, apathy and fear as well as in those that are tempted by idols of success and security preachers glimpse symptoms of collective amnesia. Whenever the church is in danger of forgetting who - and whose - it is the vocation of the preacher is the building up of the church (I Cor 14:3-4).

Preaching that seeks to shape congregational identity invites the congregation into a world that is being re-described by the Bible. Hearing such preaching is akin to being immersed in a foreign culture. It assumes that the church exists to be a witness to the odd customs and surprising ways of life in the kingdom of God. Its central concern is how scripture intends to shape the people of God. The sermon that results does not ask what a text means to individuals or how it speaks to social issues. It is confident that a congregation that learns to live these texts will faithfully address the needs of individuals and the issues it faces in society.

preaching revival

Travelers to Atlanta are inevitably drawn to the World of Coke, home of Coca-Cola. A tour through the story of Coke concludes at a massive indoor fountain with each visitor invited to receive an endless supply of the sacramental beverage. Coming to the font a chant can be heard over the sound system: “Life … life … life”. This is the font of Life? Of course, it is not only the World of Coke that promotes its products as replacements for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Contemporary culture is a crowded marketplace of idols, all vying for our service and praise.

we preach not ourselves

A couple of years ago I happened across a book on preaching in the Regent College bookstore. Stumbling across books at Regent Books is a habit of mine that comes from having an office so close to temptation. I had not heard of the book or the author before: "We Preach Not Ourselves: Paul on Proclamation" by Michael P. Knowles. Published by Brazos Press in 2008 the book cover reported that Michael Knowles is a Canadian, an Anglican priest and professor of preaching at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton. What most caught my eye is that the book is an offer for preachers rooted in a careful reading of II Corinthians 1:1-6:13. I continue to find myself drawn back to the book over and over again. In part, that is because I have been drawn to Paul over and over again in recent years. Paul's letters speak with power to the struggle to build up a sustainable, faithful congregation in a time when we are struggling to see the way ahead. But I also return to "We Preach Not Ourselves" often because it is the kind of book that I can open on most any page and find sustenance.

Here are a few quotes that spoke to me yesterday, while waiting in the hospital for my second weekly dose of chemotherapy to be delivered (on that score so far, so good). The nurses regularly ask what book I am reading, expecting the latest novel. I suspect that not too many patients arrive with books on preaching. The following quotes are taken from the section on II Corinthians 4:16-5:15 (the verses from which we have a lectionary reading upcoming on Sunday, June 10 and from which I intend to preach) ...

seven assumptions for preaching in a missional church

What difference is there in preaching for a missional church? The congregation I serve notices that my preaching has changed. But what has changed? It is not simply the way in which these sermons are constructed. The change has less to do with technique (with the 'how to') as it does with the intent (with the 'what for') of this preaching. The biggest difference in preaching for a missional church rests in the assumptions that are made by preachers facing this new context.

Missional preaching is not a new method of preaching. Missional preaching is a different genre of preaching (within which a variety of methods and styles may be faithfully employed). Once the preacher and congregation change their operative assumptions about the purpose of the sermon and the role of the preacher and the calling of the congregation, everything about the occasion of preaching shifts. The following seven working assumptions currently govern every sermon that I preach. And, according to the testimony of the congregation, this changed preaching accounts for significant change within our life together at University Hill Congregation.

preachers must not be boring

"Preachers must not be boring. To a large extent the pastor and boredom are synonymous concepts. Listeners often think that they have already heard what is being said in the pulpit. They have long since known it themselves. The fault certainly does not lie with them alone. Against boredom the only defense is again being biblical. If a sermon is biblical, it will not be boring. Holy scripture is in fact so interesting and has so much that is new and exciting to tell us that listeners cannot even think about dropping off to sleep."

- Karl Barth (Homiletics, p. 80)

the joyous cry of Christ

"Nevertheless, the sermon itself is not a personal performance by the pastor for the purpose of displaying his ability to produce something from hard texts. The sermon is first and foremost the 'joyous cry of Christ' (Luther)."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Bonhoeffer: Worldly Preaching", p. 159)

it is not a good sign

"It is not a good sign when someone says that the sermon was beautiful or moving. It is a good sign when the congregation begin to open up their Bibles and to follow the text."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer ("Bonhoeffer: Worldly Preaching", p. 157)

wouldn't you like it?

"We can neither understand nor preach the gospel tangibly enough. A truly evangelical sermon must be like offering a child a beautiful red apple or holding out a glass of water to a thirsty man and asking: Wouldn't you like it?"

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer ("Bonhoeffer: Worldly Preaching", p. 16)