Revisiting a Sermon

My Mepkin online journaling group is working its way through Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate.  It's a conference featuring Richard Rohr, James Finley, and Cynthia Bourgeault.  We did the first unit in July, an overview of mysticism through the centuries given by Rohr.  I could hardly rip my attention away--I drank cold coffee when I wanted hot because I didn't want to stop the presentation.

I'm not feeling that way right now with the second session.  It's got some good nuggets, but it's not as fascinating.

It's interesting now that we're doing recorded church that we can go back to see/listen to old sermons.  After we watched the church service recording Sunday morning, my spouse spent some time looking at old services.  We watched the one for Father's Day where I preached.  I have no memory of what I preached or how I approached the process leading up to my sermon.  I found it compelling to watch--as if June Kristin had preached a message of hope in an arid time that desiccated August Kristin would need to hear.  You can go here to watch and listen.

As we watched me read the Gospel for the day, Matthew 10:24-39, my spouse said to me, "You often get the readings that are tough for your sermon days."  I don't see that as a pattern necessarily, but it is interesting to think about the Revised Common Lectionary and ask why some of these texts are there at all.

Of course, having these texts can take us to interesting places, places we wouldn't leap towards without the text.  I talked about the sparrows and the human need for heirarchy, but that God is calling us to a more egalitarian place.  I talked about a God who knows all the hairs of our head, and how some of us are more familiar with our hair than ever before, thanks to a season of lockdown.

But more than that, I talked about hinge moments in history and where they may lead us.  As I look back over my own theology, my own view of the arc of history, I see how often I circle back to the idea that we're almost always at a point where two or more paths diverge, (and yes, often in a wood--I'm an English major, after all), and we can move towards a better world for more of us, or we can move towards a vision that's not as inclusive and likely won't end well for most of us.

I wish I could stay in that hopeful place all the time--perhaps my inability to stay in that hopeful place is part of my theology too.  While I am inspired by all the ways that ordinary citizens have transformed their societies, I am also haunted by all the lives wiped out during non-hopeful times, the lives constrained by those with power, the ones who didn't live long enough to see the change so desperately needed.

We are in a political time where various people are going to compete for our ability to dream, compete for our visions for our world.  I hope we're listening deeply, discerning the movement of the Holy Spirit, in this season of Pentecost.