Yesterday was a good day at church, which was a relief, because my energy level was lower than usual, what with the time change and all the traveling I have been doing. I've put a recording of my sermon here on my YouTube channel. If you'd like to read along, this blog post has the sermon manuscript.
My Ash Wednesday sermon went well, I think. I always try to say something I haven't said before, and on church festivals like Christmas Eve, Easter, and Ash Wednesday, it's more difficult. Last night, I was successful. If you'd like to see it, I posted a recording here, on my YouTube page. It talks about my shift in thinking, from Lenten disciplines to Lenten enrichments.
If you want to read along, I put the sermon manuscript in this blog post.
It's been an interesting process, preparing for this widespread winter storm. In some ways, it's reminded me of hurricane prep, especially in terms of making sure we have the supplies that we need, in case we're cut off from the world for several days.
It was a good Reformation Sunday at Faith Lutheran, in Bristol, TN. I preached a sermon that was typical, in some ways, circling back to Luther. But I took a different approach this year, my third Reformation Sunday with this congregation. I urged us to compare ourselves to the older Luther, who spent the last part of his life translating the whole Bible into German, not to the younger Luther who nailed those 95 theses to the Wittenberg door.
You can view the sermon here on my YouTube channel.
You can read the sermon manuscript in this blog post on this theology blog.
Yesterday, as I was thinking about past meditations on Sunday's Gospel, I came across the video that I made three years ago. You can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaEnD28iG1c&t=85s
I remembered making it, filming short segments during my morning walks and stringing them together. I couldn't do much in the way of editing--the sound quality was what it was. I couldn't remember much about the specific segments, so I watched it again. Overall, I was pleased.
I described it this way: "A different kind of sermon on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. Part parable, part video meditation, part poetry, part found art, part questions, part ambiguity and mystery, and hopefully some inspiration."
It's a much more meditative sermon than many will get this Sunday, and it's much less cerebral, much less of an exegesis. I think that many people out there would like something more like this, less like the 20 minute+ rambles through a Gospel that many people get on Sundays.
As we think about how to do church differently, thinking about vastly different approaches to the worship service should be front and center. Are my little videos vastly different? Or maybe this question is better: Are they different enough?
Last night was the last night of my seminary class; I spent yesterday working on writing my final exam essays, which turned out to be easier than I expected. Indeed, the hard part was choosing the movies I wanted to use to answer the writing prompts. Once I settled on the three films, the writing flowed quickly. Hurrah!
Yesterday we went to the graduation of my spouse's youngest brother. We spent time with extended family, some of whom had come all the way from Indiana. We reflected that it was great that we gathered for a graduation rather than a funeral.
Once, I went to graduations once a quarter, as a faculty member and then as an administration member. At times, I found it tiring, but at the end of the event, I was always glad to have been a part. There's something so thrilling about seeing people at this happy event that celebrates a major accomplishment.
Because I need to head back to seminary today to close up the seminary apartment, we drove back to our Lutheridge house last night. It was an easy drive; it could have been otherwise, as we are in road construction season.
We had a great conversation on the way back. We started with a topic that we often circle back to: what is the purpose of church, of the Christian church? We mean that both in terms of worship service, the church of Sunday mornings. We also mean that in terms of big C church--what is the purpose of Christianity? Can we get what Christianity gives us from some other source? When Jesus says "I am the way" does Jesus mean he is the only way?
I believe the church fills a need that many of us have, a need to know the Divine or perhaps it's a need for transcendence, to know something bigger than oneself. Can we get that from somewhere else? Sure. Can we get that consistently--from Church or somewhere else? Maybe.
I gave some of my standard possible answers: Church is good for those rites of passage, death and joining lives together kinds of things. Church is also good for helping us deal with the random chaotic nature of life. Then I gave the answer that comes closest: we live in a soul crushing empire, one that wants to stamp out most of what is good and life giving. Being part of Church helps us resist that empire. Does it guarantee success? No, of course not. But it gives us the tiniest fighting chance, and Church molds us into people who can resist empire.
Are there other ways to resist? Sure--and those ways also give the tiniest fighting chance.
By empire, I mean all kinds of things: governments, systems of economics like Capitalism, all the ways that socialization warps us, all sorts of domination systems. By Church, I mean both the community and the worship, but I find what I need to resist the domination systems more often in the community than in the worship service. I don't see God needing our worship in the ways that so many people conceptualize it--but we need elements of it. And there are elements of worship that are less important to me, but we keep them in because others might need them to be formed into people who can resist empire.
We got home, sat on the deck, drank in the evening light, and then went inside to watch my spouse who was part of his brother's last seminary project on Frankie San, who did important prison ministry in Columbia, SC in the last part of last century. I said to my spouse, "What are the odds that this man, Frankie San, born in Japan, affected by the nuclear bombings, would come across the world and end up at Southern Seminary in Columbia, SC? He would do prison ministry, where you would meet him while you were teaching Philosophy to inmates at CCI, after having written a thesis on just war and nuclear deterrence. Thirty years later, you would be able to help your brother who was preparing for prison ministry. What are the odds of this???!!!"
Sometimes, you just have to say, "Well done, God! Well done!" And I imagine God saying, "Well done, dear ones. Keep up the good work of resisting empire and domination systems of all sorts!"
About a month ago, my pastor from my South Florida church asked me if I wanted to do an Advent sermon; it would be recorded, of course, because making a trip to South Florida isn't feasible in these days of the end of the semester. At first I said no, but then I realized I was creating a sermon from the Advent lectionary (on Isaiah 2: 1-5) for my Foundations of Preaching class--so I proposed that I deliver that sermon, only a bit later than it comes in the lectionary. My pastor said yes.
I am in a bit of a funk this morning. Yesterday morning, I was having fun, thinking of my approach to this seminary assignment:
Pretend that you are Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Stephen Colbert, Maria Bartiromo, Tavis Smiley or some other TV/radio host and you are going to interview the prophet Jeremiah on your show. What question would you ask him and why? How do you think he might answer that question and why? Be creative AND be sure to include texts/quotes from Jeremiah and information from the assigned readings to support your points as either the interviewer or Jeremiah.
But this morning, I am second guessing myself.
I spent much of yesterday afternoon working on a video. I typed out the script I planned to follow, and then I spent some time practicing. I knew that 4 minutes max was the guideline for the time we had, so I wanted to be sure.
I must have done at least 20 videos--grrr. In a way, though, it was a plus, because I had the script mostly memorized by the time I did the final take.
What's got me in my funk right now is that the final take doesn't have to be the final take. I did already submit it to the Discussion thread, but I could submit another version. I have spent the past few hours thinking of how I could have done it differently.
I have also spent some time thinking about the video that I was planning yesterday morning and what I ended up with. I had this idea for costume changes, but I gave up on that. In the end, when Jeremiah talked, I had on a pair of sunglasses; I took them off for the announcer speaking.
I tried to walk a line between explaining too much and leaving some things unexplained. For example, I wrote lines for Jeremiah when asked about Jeremiah and God having lunch on a regular basis:
"You were expecting what? A burning bush? That would upset my neighbors. Sure, we have lunch. There’s a great kosher deli that you should check out before you leave. They have the best strudel. It’s like the word of the Lord made into pastry."
I didn't explain that Jeremiah had a vision of eating the words of God. Was I too subtle?
I did do what the assignment required in terms of referring to the book of Jeremiah and the readings and lecture videos. Did I do enough to to explain the why of the question? I no longer know.
I could spend the morning creating an alternate version and not be any more reassured. I like my final video, but I do see all the ways it could be better. I know that I could spend the whole morning and not end up with something that would take away all my doubts.
And here is the larger issue: I have other seminary work to do. This discussion post is not a larger project. I know that on one level, I'm overthinking it. On another level, I am still so unsure of my ability to deliver what my professor wants, particularly when it comes to video. I am much more comfortable with my writing skills.
I will likely leave my effort as it is and trust that it will be O.K. Time to move along.
Two weeks ago, my church went back to meeting remotely. While I do miss seeing everyone, it's clear that this Omicron variant is everywhere and so very communicable. My church is made up primarily of older folks and people who are immunocompromised, so it's wise to meet remotely.
Another plus: I get to make the occasional video sermon. I do it differently than the taped Zoom call kind of sermon delivery. I make small segments, and I think about what I'm filming as I deliver the words and what images would go well with those words. It's an interesting exercise in creativity that I don't get to experience often.
For today, I created a video sermon that considers Simon Peter's mother-in-law. You may or may not remember that she is healed by Jesus, and then gets up to serve everyone. My first and more traditional response is to see her as an oppressed woman. But since I spent much of the week thinking about her, this thought bubbled up: what if she's a wise elder, teaching Jesus, showing him a new direction for ministry? Here's that video segment.
Yesterday, my pastor asked me to record a piece for a pre-recorded service for Ascension. I was happy to say yes. He sent me a prayer of thanksgiving for baptism.
When I saw the words, I realized it was the perfect opportunity to showcase our new rain chain:
Here are the words; I did repeat "Breathe your peace on your church" in two additional places, so that I didn't have to start recording again.:
THANKSGIVING FOR BAPTISMMy pastor asked me if I wanted to preach on Sunday, April 11--which for us right now, meant a pre-recorded sermon. I did a quick search, and when I realized the lectionary had us at Doubting Thomas, I quickly said yes.
As always, the sermon itself is too big to embed here. But you can go to my YouTube channel to see it here. And while you're there, you could explore my other sermons.
Let me see if I can embed a segment, to give you a taste for the sermon:
It's been an interesting year full of interesting sermon experiments. I'm glad to have had a chance to use technology in new ways, and I hope to continue to do so.
I was happy that my pastor let me do the video sermon for Palm Sunday. We are still meeting remotely, so it needed to be pre-recorded. This time, I used still photos and wrote out most of the sermon before, so that I could record segments and put them together.
I still have much to learn, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. It's too big to post here, but you can go here to my YouTube channel to see it.
And because I wrote it out, I can paste the sermon below:
Palm Sunday 2021 Sermon
In some ways, it seems strange to be celebrating Palm Sunday again, here in year 2 of our pandemic. When we had to cancel in-person services last year, so many of us probably assumed we’d be back to “normal” again soon. And here it is, a year later. In some ways, nothing has changed. In some ways, so much has changed.
Palm Sunday reminds us of the cyclical nature of the world we live in. The palms we use on Palm Sunday traditionally would be burned to make the ashes that will be smudged on our foreheads in 10 months for Ash Wednesday. The baby that brings joy to the manger at Christmas will suffer the most horrible death--and then rise from the dead. The sadnesses we suffer will be mitigated by tomorrow's joy. Tomorrow's joy will lead to future sadness. That's the truth of the broken world we live in. Depending on where we are in the cycle, we may find that knowledge either a comfort or fear inducing.
Palm Sunday reminds us of life's journey. No one gets to live the triumphal entry into Jerusalem day in and day out. If we're lucky, there will be those high water mark periods; we'll be hailed as heroes and people will appreciate our work. Our friends will be by our side. We won’t grow disillusioned with our loved ones.
If we’re lucky.
But we know where Palm Sunday is taking the story of Jesus. As we move through Holy Week, we’re reminded that today’s adoring crowds can turn on us quickly and demand our death just a few days later.
Palm Sunday offers us some serious reminders. If we put our faith in the world, we're doomed. If we get our glory from the acclaim of the secular world, we'll find ourselves rejected sooner, rather than later.
If we put ourselves in the crowd on Palm Sunday, we’ve got lessons there, too. Those first century people with palms in their hands, welcoming Jesus—they, too, were expecting something totally different. They weren’t interested in spiritual liberation. They wanted a conquering hero, someone who would kick the Romans out of Jerusalem, someone who would restore the Homeland to Jewish rule. They didn’t want to be free to love each other. They wanted to be free of the rule of dictators.
Our world has not changed that much. The rule of government can still be tyrannical. We still live in a culture that will choose crucifixion over death. How can we live in such a place? How can we not yearn for freedom?
The passage from Palm Sunday to Easter tells us to take heart. God will not leave us abandoned in this crucifixion worshipping culture. God who has been working through time and outside of time to transform this human condition. We don't always see it, but Easter assures us that the process is in place and that resurrection will break through, even in the most unlikely circumstances.
