We are now at the 3 year anniversary of my being the Synod Authorized Minister at Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bristol, Tennessee. I still find it very fulfilling. I've enjoyed the weekly worship, along with the high water moments, like baptisms and Confirmation. I've learned so much. I've wished that I could go back to apologize to some pastors when I was too tough in my judgments. I'm amazed at how being the minister in charge has enriched my Sunday worship and sustained me through the week in ways that I both anticipated and did not.
But that's not what's on my mind this morning.
Three years means that we're back at the beginning of the lectionary reading cycle.
There's been repetition before, of course. Christmas Eve is Christmas Eve--how to make it new every year? But now we're back at the beginning.
I will continue to write something new every week. I'm paid a specific amount, $100, to do that; the preaching and presiding is at a different rate. I don't feel a temptation to use the sermon from three years ago.
I did pull it up to look at it. It's a good sermon; I understand the temptation to use old material without revising it.
I am a bit relieved that while I'll be using some of the same ideas, it will be a different sermon. I am also sad that some of the ideas about the ways that empires function by making outsiders and pitting us against each other sadly are even more relevant.
It will be an interesting new phase of weekly ministry, finding ways to make the lectionary readings new in a place where I have preached them before.
No comments:
Post a Comment