Ministry Matters in Nashville, Tennessee, United States for Wednesday, 22 August 2018 "What is Exodus preaching?, House church homiletics, and Faith and the flag"
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What is Exodus preaching? by Kenyatta R. Gilbert
Times are dark. But hope remains in reach. Among the many things that leave the preacher’s lips, no Christian preacher escapes the obligation to set this declaration before the people. Why? Because preaching is what hope looks like in our age of compassion fatigue, conspicuous consumption, and deadly violence. Though not an end in itself, preaching is a means by which God reminds a society of God’s concern for community wellness, life, human dignity, and freedom in a less-than-perfect world. This is why preaching and preachers matter.Times are dark. But hope remains in reach. Among the many things that leave the preacher’s lips, no Christian preacher escapes the obligation to set this declaration before the people. Why? Because preaching is what hopelooks like in our age of compassion fatigue, conspicuous consumption, and deadly violence. Though not an end in itself, preaching is a means by which God reminds a society of God’s concern for community wellness, life, human dignity, and freedom in a less-than-perfect world. This is why preaching and preachers matter.
African American prophetic preaching (alternatively termed Exodus preaching) is “interpretation” that brings clarity to the sacred (God, revealed truth, highest moral values, and so on) and articulates what should be appropriate human response to the sacred. The preacher who preaches prophetically does not treat social justice (or other sacred values) as something independent from God but as being rooted in and emanating from God. Exodus preaching does not take place in a vacuum, nor is it self-generated discourse; rather, it is daring speech that offers a vision of divine intent. It reveals a picture of what God intends and expects of God’s human creation—a picture that enables persons and faith communities to interpret their situation in light of God’s justice, and to name as sin activities that frustrate God’s life-giving purposes.
African American prophetic preaching is meditational speech. It bears no fundamental distinction from prophetic preaching in general, except to the extent that it is seen as God-summoned speech clothed in cultural particularity.[1] Contextual awareness in preaching helps us to see that we bring ourselves to the scriptural texts we interpret, and our seeing, if we see anything at all, is revealed through the lens of our lived experience. Regarding context and culture, one must keep in mind that Jesus of Nazareth was a poor Palestinian Jew—a revolutionary figure nonetheless—who lived more than two thousand years ago in a living community. In other words, Jesus had a specific ethnic and religious identity, and this is not insignificant given Western culture’s enduring fascination and general depiction of Jesus as a Nordic messianic martyr. A Jesus separated from his Judaic heritage and social location renders Jesus ahistorical, mythical, and incapable of saving.
Because human beings are literally thrown into traditions and communities from which they take their personhood and socializations, racially and ethnically blind preaching can only exist in the colonized mind. This is fact, not fiction. As God-summoned proclamation that lifts and values the reality that sociocultural context shapes preachers and their sermons, Exodus preaching sees the homiletical life through the religious practices and lived experiences of Gentile Christians of African descent in North America and is written from this perspective...
"Exodus Preaching: Crafting Sermons about Justice and Hope" (Abingdon Press, 2018). Order here: http://bit.ly/ExodusPreaching
Exodus preaching is concrete and daring discourse that names God and offers a vision of divine purpose. Preaching of this kind serves an emancipatory agenda. Through criticism and symbols of hope about what God intends and expects of God’s human creation, Exodus preaching lands on the ear of the despairing and is dedicated to help them interpret their situation in light of God’s justice and the quest for human freedom. As long as people desire to be free, Martin King's insightful query will never ring hollow.King once asked, “Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings of people more than the preacher?” Such a question hoists a burden upon every minister who hopes to do something of consequence in partnership with God. To shun the beckoning task of preparing listeners to stand and be counted as co-participants with a promise-bearing God at work in the world is to tighten Egypt’s grip and undermine a several-centuries-old quest for freedom. The Exodus saga’s correspondence with today’s victims of history has added legitimacy to the preacher’s speech about God’s will toward justice. Likewise, the Hebrew prophet’s evocative cries for moral accountability to God and community beckons preachers toward high standards of moral and ethical responsibility, just as the salvific agenda and incarnational witness of Jesus remind preachers that the vocation of prophetic truth-telling often co-occurs with personal suffering. Such orienting biblical touchstones invite today’s preacher-prophets to stand against the forces of death and evil in both the public square and the church. This is why the enduring pursuit for human dignity and overcoming spiritual and social forces that work against the collective good and welfare of all persons remain so important. In today’s culture of trauma and numbness, if the preacher is silent potential pathways to human flourishing will be blocked.
But what might these pathways resemble? I have argued elsewhere that prophetic proclamation is not self-generated discourse but summoned word taking its beginning and ending in God[2]. Yet because preaching is both a divine and human activity, which calls upon a preacher’s gifts and faculties, I believe hints to push a preacher to stretch her theological imagination can aid the preacher’s growth, especially as it relates to developing a prophetic consciousness given the current state of the world.
[1] Kenyatta R. Gilbert, A Pursued Justice: Black Preaching from the Great Migration to Civil Rights (Waco, TX: Baylor Press, 2016), 6.
[2] Ibid.
Excerpted from Exodus Preaching by Kenyatta R. Gilbert. Copyright © 2018 Kenyatta R. Gilbert. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kenyatta R. Gilbert
Dr. Kenyatta R. Gilbert is Associate Professor of Homiletics at the Howard University School of Divinity in Washington,read more… 
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Methodist House Churches: Homiletics by Dave Barnhart
In a house church, people talk back to the preacher. Preaching in a living room, instead of a pulpit, requires preachers to have a conversational homiletic. “Homiletics” means the theory and art of preaching, but the Greek root, “homiletikos,” means a friendly conversation, not a monologue.The following article is part three of a ten-part series exploring all aspects of organizing, worshipping, and growing as a house church community. Read the previous parts here.
In a house church, people talk back to the preacher. Preaching in a living room, instead of a pulpit, requires preachers to have a conversational homiletic. “Homiletics” means the theory and art of preaching, but the Greek root, “homiletikos,” means a friendly conversation, not a monologue.
The origins of preaching were conversational. When Paul talks all night long, so long that a young man named Eutychus falls asleep and falls out of a window (Acts 20:9), the word used is “dialogue.” The church was not passively listening to Paul drone on and on, but engaged in back-and-forth.
In 1995, John McClure’s Roundtable Pulpit described a move away from “sovereign-style” preaching toward a more participatory style of preaching. He outlined a process for group Bible study that would inform the sermon. Lucy Atkinson Rose’s Sharing the Word (1997) anticipated the growing postmodern suspicion of authority and advocated including voices from the margins in preaching. (For more recent books about conversational preaching, see O. Wesley Allen’s Homiletic of All Believers (2005) and the homiletics anthology Under the Oak Tree (2013)).
Conversational preaching is an answer to our culture’s growing suspicion of authority, its critique of religious exclusivism, and the awareness of voices at the margins. It takes seriously the theology of the Incarnate Word, who enters our community not as a conqueror but as a lover and servant. It is an invitation to listen and be heard, and to pick up the threads of a conversation about God’s involvement in our lives that is thousands of years old.
In our house churches, we have a strong focus on discipleship and participatory leadership. Preaching, therefore, is not primarily to persuade nonbelievers to come to a confessional moment nor to teach passive students doctrine. Instead, preaching in our house churches has two main goals: 1) Form community, and 2) model holy conversations people will have at work, school, and in public.
Since our discipleship goals are also about developing leadership, the homiletic method we use needs to be easily-replicable, just like everything else. While I appreciate poetic, profound, intricate sermons, I need to be able to teach novice preachers, both lay and licensed, to do what I do quickly.
Preaching to Form Community
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says in Worldly Preaching, “I preach because the church is there; and I preach that the church may be there.” He taught that preaching is almost sacramental, because by preaching, human words invite the Divine Word to be present, walking among the congregation.
A recent study from the Pew Research Center indicates that preaching is still the main reason people choose a place of worship. As a church planter, I’m very aware that most people show up for those first few church gatherings because they want to hear something I say. Something about preaching has to be compelling enough to get people to show up.
But getting people to show up is not the goal; making disciples is. Our objective is to get people not just to listen with rapt attention, but to turn to each other and begin conversations with their neighbors. While I or the house church host likely have relationships with most of the people in the room individually, we want them to develop relationships with each other. The aim of the sermon, then, is to create an opportunity for conversation.
For me as a preacher, this meant changing the way I structured sermons. Early on, I found that sermons I wrote that ended with a powerful conclusion or declaration of faith, the kind of sermon that would get shouts of “amen” at the end of a conventional church service, fell flat in a house church. Listeners would just blink at me. Perhaps they were moved, and they might even say they appreciated the sermon, but there was a sense that I had said all that needed to be said. Conclusions that wrapped up everything in a neat bow did not leave room for conversation.
When someone preaches a conventional sermon in a house church, it’s like watching an expert soccer player do solo drills. It’s impressive, but so what? House church sermons need to finish by kicking the ball to the congregation.
This means that the sermon is not over when the preacher stops talking. It means that the preacher has to be skilled at improv and comfortable with letting the congregation develop the conclusion on the fly. I usually end with a question in mind. I may state the question explicitly, or I may let it be implicit in the conclusion.
Structure
Because I was nurtured and mentored in David Buttrick’s Homiletic, I still use this approach in house churches. I tell would-be preachers to storyboard their sermon, or think of it as a series of comic strip panels. Each panel has a single dominant image. Instead of explaining theological ideas, we let the images do the heavy lifting of the sermon. We could also say that each panel (a “move” in Buttrick’s language) makes a theological claim, and when you string the panels together, it should sound like a coherent paragraph.
In this way, the sermon has a clear direction. We have a starting point and an ending point. The conversational sermon is not aimless; it has a trajectory and a method. We should wind up in a place that invites congregation members to share their own experiences, to reflect on the text, and to strategize for how this Word of God will influence how we live together as a community.
There are other ways to structure a sermon, of course. We can do expository preaching or narrative preaching. Sermons might be teaching or confessional. But in a house church, if they do not move toward participation, they miss an important opportunity.
Scripture itself is a conversation: that’s why we have four gospels, two histories, multiple prophets, two creation stories, and any number of authors who comment on and reinterpret each other. The structure of the sermon aims to recreate this holy conversation within the congregation, so that they can take it into the world.
Structure
Because I was nurtured and mentored in David Buttrick’s Homiletic, I still use this approach in house churches. I tell would-be preachers to storyboard their sermon, or think of it as a series of comic strip panels. Each panel has a single dominant image. Instead of explaining theological ideas, we let the images do the heavy lifting of the sermon. We could also say that each panel (a “move” in Buttrick’s language) makes a theological claim, and when you string the panels together, it should sound like a coherent paragraph.
In this way, the sermon has a clear direction. We have a starting point and an ending point. The conversational sermon is not aimless; it has a trajectory and a method. We should wind up in a place that invites congregation members to share their own experiences, to reflect on the text, and to strategize for how this Word of God will influence how we live together as a community.
There are other ways to structure a sermon, of course. We can do expository preaching or narrative preaching. Sermons might be teaching or confessional. But in a house church, if they do not move toward participation, they miss an important opportunity.
Scripture itself is a conversation: that’s why we have four gospels, two histories, multiple prophets, two creation stories, and any number of authors who comment on and reinterpret each other. The structure of the sermon aims to recreate this holy conversation within the congregation, so that they can take it into the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dave Barnhart
Dave Barnhart is pastor of a new church named Saint Junia, whose mission is to become a diverse community of sinners read more… 
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Faith and the flag by Thomas G. Bandy
This article is featured in the Summer 2018 issue of HeartBurstsChurches left, right, and middle are experiencing another wave of controversy over American flags in the sanctuary. These tend to occur in times of unusual cultural stress (wars, election years, economic uncertainties, denominational conflicts, etc.). But different lifestyles have different perspectives on the relationship of faith and flag. It’s not so much theological, as cultural. If you understand the lifestyle representation in your church and community, you can understand the underlying stresses about the presence of the flag in the sanctuary.
Heartbursts: Churches Empathizing with Cultures is a regular column helping leaders plan, implement, and evaluate credible and relevant ministries based on cultural trends. Learn more about the lifestyle groups and leadership styles described below by ordering Thomas Bandy's new book "Sideline Church: Bridging the Chasm between Churches and Cultures."
Churches left, right, and middle are experiencing another wave of controversy over American flags in the sanctuary. These tend to occur in times of unusual cultural stress (wars, election years, economic uncertainties, denominational conflicts, etc.). But different lifestyles have different perspectives on the relationship of faith and flag. It’s not so much theological, as cultural. If you understand the lifestyle representation in your church and community, you can understand the underlying stresses about the presence of the flag in the sanctuary. With that information you can interpret…
the conflicts among church members (local or denominational)
the criticism of some in the community of the relative faithfulness or patriotism of the church
your personal stress and preaching strategy
If, for the moment, you set aside ideology and spend time understanding the motivations of the lifestyle segments in church and community, you can reduce confrontation and build bridges for reconciliation.
The Flag and the Cultural Middle
The Cultural Middle (or Culturally Passive as I describe them today) tend to be older, rooted, rural and small town and mid-market city people who expect the church to live in harmony and acculturate newcomers. Their quest for God is often driven by anxieties over aging, death, and a sense of displacement and abandonment. The flag is a positive symbol for belonging and safety that speaks to their anxieties for the future.
For them, the flag is an expression of gratitude. As they see it, America has protected religious freedom (among other liberties) with great sacrifice. Some of the Culturally Passive are veterans; others are minorities or immigrants. If it weren’t for the flag, so to speak, they wouldn’t be able to worship as they choose. They would risk discrimination, persecution, and cultural abuse; they would be vulnerable to manipulation, coercion, and sectarian intolerance. The Culturally Passive see the flag in the sanctuary as a guarantee of safety. The state protects religious freedom.
On the other hand, the Culturally Passive are well aware of the limitations and failures of the state. The best the state can do is shape policy and enforce laws, but they all know that the best policies go astray and that what may be legal may not be right. There are many less noble reasons to take big risks than protecting religious freedom, so the flag in the sanctuary also reminds them that the state is as much a penitent looking for forgiveness and wisdom as each individual in the pew. The state must also accept the justice of God and listen to the prophetic witness of the church. It can’t leave the sanctuary without first hearing the sermon.
There are two sermons to preach that help the Culturally Passive understand the inevitable tension between faith and flag. The first sermon is about gratitude. Religious freedom is not easy to find in our world and a state that guarantees such freedom deserves our thanks. The second sermon is about humility before the justice of God. The state has a habit of compromising freedoms and catering to special interests, biased opinions, and selfish desires. The church also has a duty to criticize and correct its abuses.
The Culturally Passive are often undecided about the flag. Leave the flag in, or take it out of the sanctuary. If you take it out, they will find other occasions to express their gratitude to the state, often on Thanksgiving and Memorial Day. And whether it is in or out of the sanctuary, the church will not hesitate to critique the state according to their discernment of God’s will.
The Flag and the Cultural Right
The Cultural Right (or Culturally Righteous as I describe them today) tend to be multiple generations of hard working people, living among extended families and close communities with a sense of family values and local traditions. Their quest for God is often driven by anxieties over purpose and meaning, guilt and broken trust. The flag is a positive symbol for continuity, purposefulness, and the promise of personal fulfillment.
The Culturally Passive may perceive faith and flag in creative tension, but the Culturally Righteous see faith and flag as flip sides of the same coin. This perception is rooted in the 19th century belief in “manifest destiny”. The destiny of America is to expand its political, social, and economic influence around the world. The destiny of the church is to multiply Christians in all cultures. For them, to be Christian inevitably leads people to adopt American values and way of life, and to adopt American values inevitably leads people to become Christian. The flag belongs in the church. The faith belongs in the White House.
Among the Culturally Righteous, however, this perception should not lead to confrontation or intolerance, since that in itself would contradict traditional American values for hospitality and tolerance, and traditional church values for peace and compassion. Instead, they are confident that future generations of immigrants from other countries and faiths will gradually become more and more acculturated to American values and religious traditions. It is a kind of enlightened colonialism applied to our own neighborhoods.
"Sideline Church: Bridging the Chasm between Churches and Cultures" (Abingdon Press, 2018). Order here: http://bit.ly/SidelineChurch
In the real world this may not be automatic. Both church and state may use social policies and mores, and religious boundaries and role models, to nudge the public (especially the youth) in the right direction. At times the influence of the state or the church might seem oppressive or misguided, causing the one to correct the other, but this is usually a peaceful process. The Culturally Righteous tend to assume that we can all talk together in a Town Meeting and settle our differences. They trust the political process. They trust the integrity of religious leaders. The Culturally Righteous are usually clear about their preference — the flag stays in the sanctuary. Any difference between church and state can be settled by exercising one’s right to vote and holding both political and religious leaders to accountability.There are two sermons that help the Culturally Righteous understand the intrinsic connection of faith and flag. The first sermon is about calling: God calls the state to lead the world toward peace, justice, equal opportunity, healthy community and more. God calls the Christian to reveal the fruits of the Spirit that include love and joy, peace and patience, kindness and generosity, self-control and more. The second sermon is about trust: Trust between the church and the state implies mutual confidence in the each other’s integrity, competency, and teamwork. If any combination of these breaks down, then both state and church are in trouble.
This very problem has encouraged an extreme movement among the Culturally Righteous that I describe as the Conservative Cultural Wedge. For them, the flag does not symbolize partnership, but oversight of political correctness and moral certainty. The state has the duty and the power to enforce religious norms and codes of behavior. For them, the flag must be in the sanctuary because the trust between church and state is broken. Pastors and church leaders can no longer be trusted to support the manifest destiny of the country or Christianity. In much the same way as Emperor Constantine tried to impose his own interpretation of the creed and claim power to decide between orthodoxy and heresy, so also the Conservative Cultural Wedge expects the state (influenced by lobbyists) to determine right and wrong. The flag is in the sanctuary to monitor the content of the sermon. It is difficult to find any positive outcome for this perception of the relationship of faith and flag. The more the Culturally Passive and the mainstream of the Culturally Righteous see this trend, the more worried they should become.
Life within the Conservative Cultural Wedge can be highly competitive and stressful. Betrayal and disillusionment always lurk around the corner. The challenge in preaching (or blogging, texting, or any kind of communication media) is that the Conservative Cultural Wedge are very selective about who they will hear and who they will ignore. They may respond, however, to a hero of faith who emerges from the culture wars without thoughts of revenge and feelings of disillusionment. This is a person whose heart is at peace and whose lifestyle models humility. They may seek out this person, not for preaching, but for mentoring.
The Flag and the Cultural Left
The Cultural Left (or Culturally Ambivalent as I describe them today) tend to be baby boomers and their upwardly mobile, adventurous children living in or around major cities, or along the multi-cultural east, west, and gulf coasts. They eagerly explore ideas, technologies, cultures, careers, and relationships. The quest for God among older generations of the Cultural Left is often driven by a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness, and among younger generations by a sense of anger and shame. The former often feel lost in ethical relativity and the latter often have low self-esteem because they lack meaningful work, cope with personal experiences of abuse, or identify with oppressed people. Simply stated, the boomers tend to be confused by what has happened to the state and the faith, and their children tend to be angry that they are left with a mess.
The Cultural Left are not only ambivalent about the flag, but also about the church. They generally believe that the flag should not be in the sanctuary, but they also question whether they themselves should be in the sanctuary. Neither faith nor flag have much meaning. Corporate logos have replaced flags and personal religion has replaced faith. When they see any national flag, they think of political corruption. When they see any religious building, they think of moral hypocrisy. The lack of political confidence and religious credibility has forced many among the Cultural Left to stop voting and exit the church; or vote cynically and immerse themselves in sports and other entertainments; or occasionally rally around a favored cause and “cherry pick” ideas and spiritual practices for their wandering spiritualties.
Unfortunately, there aren’t any sermons that are likely to help them reconsider the relationship of faith and flag. They are probably not in the sanctuary anyway, and if they are they are probably not paying attention. So the real question for clergy is not what to preach, but what to blog, tweet, image, sing, or share on social media. These are going to be short, pointed data bytes rather three-point lectures or essays. The sharp points, however, will be about hope, human potential, and the possibility of being surprised by joy. The chronic depression or underlying anger of the Cultural Left, however, creates a fog of skepticism or a storm of frustration that is difficult to overcome.
This very problem has encouraged an extreme movement among the Culturally Ambivalent that I describe as the Liberal Cultural Eclectic. For them, flags and faiths are always forms of coercion and intrude on their entitlement to live as they choose. Ego is everything, and everyone should get out of their way. Having lost trust in everything, they trust only themselves. In much the same way as Robinson Crusoe salvaged a wrecked ship, created an island kingdom, and decided for himself what was right and wrong, so also the Liberal Cultural Eclectic live life on their own terms and desperately hope to one day see the footprint of a potential intimate relationship. For the Liberal Cultural Eclectic there seem to be only two alternatives in life: either seize life entrepreneurially and succeed economically, or live life apocalyptically and make the best of the coming global disaster. The more the Culturally Passive and the mainstream of the Culturally Ambivalent see this trend, the more worried they should become
Life within the Liberal Cultural Eclectic can be very lonely and highly stressful. The Liberal Cultural Eclectic may not believe in God or go to church, and may not believe in the state or vote. What they do seek are heroes. A sermon won’t impress them… but a hero of hope might. A role model who can demonstrate a disciplined spiritual life one-day-at-a-time and have the courage to participate in partnerships rather than competitions can give them hope. They may seek out this person, not for preaching, but for mentoring.
* * *
If you know the proportionate representation of lifestyles in your church membership and your community, you can anticipate where people stand on the issue of flag and faith and why. That presumes, of course, that you have uploaded your membership list to create a “People Plot” on MissionInsite (which is the only way I know to get such information). Read the reports and study the comparisons and contrasts. You can help them understand and respect their differences. You can be a role model for peace and patience, and you can build reconciliation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thomas G. Bandy
Tom Bandy is an internationally recognized consultant, conference speaker, and leadership coach for Christian read more… 
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Practices for empathic preaching by Lenny Luchetti
Consider Concentric ContextsA sermon that faithfully expounds a biblical text in its literary and historical context but never grounds the exposition in the congregational context is really just a Bible study. Paul Scott Wilson’s The Four Pages of the Sermon presents a thoughtful strategy for first locating God’s action in the text and then connecting it to what God is doing in the congregational context. Preachers who empathically locate a corresponding plotline between the trouble and grace in the text and the trouble and grace in the context are well on their way to offering sermons that are “faithful and fitting.”[i]
Considering concentric contexts transforms biblical exposition into sermonic expression. When I was preaching on a weekly basis, I devoted Monday and Tuesday to exegeting the biblical text, listening on behalf of my congregation for a “word from the Lord” from the word of the Lord. Once the sermon focus (some call it the “theme sentence,” “main point,” or “big idea”) came into view, I prayerfully and empathically considered how the main thrust of the sermon intersected the various contemporary contexts of the preaching event.
I started close to home and then worked outward. First, I considered how the sermon focus confronted and/or comforted me. In other words, I engaged the text devotionally. I started to notice that the sermons I preached with the most power are the ones in which I wrestled personally and devotionally with the angel of the text. When that happened, I usually came away enthusiastically limping with Jacob under the weight of a word from the Lord.
Then, I considered how the “word” for the coming Sunday intersected the realities in our congregational life together. How does the sermon focus correct and/or confirm our theological convictions and communal practices? I tried to imagine how specific people might hear the trouble or grace in the sermon. Peter Jonker is spot on. In Preaching in Pictures: Using Images for Sermons That Connect, he writes, “Putting yourself in a specific listener’s shoes can make certain parts of the text leap out at you, it can bring certain gracious promises to the surface; it can stimulate new questions.”[ii]
"Preaching with Empathy: Crafting Sermons in a Callous Culture" (Abingdon Press, 2018). Order here: http://bit.ly/PreachingWithEmpathy
On the heels of that consideration, I reflected on how the sermon addressed the larger community around the church. I empathically asked, “Where is the gospel in this sermon for our community?”There are national situations, struggles, and trends that can be probed through the lens of the sermon focus. How does this sermon focus offer hope for the hurting in our nation? How does this word from the Lord counter unexamined but harmful national trends?
Technology, immigration, and ease of travel have “globalized” us. What happens globally impacts us locally. A careful consideration of how the sermon connects to world concerns is warranted. What good, bad, or ugly global phenomenon is countered or confirmed by the gospel voiced through the coming sermon?
Usually on Wednesdays I allowed the sermon focus to wander empathically through my life, the congregation, the community, the nation, and the world. Most of the time, I found many points of contact between my exegesis of the text and my exegesis of the contexts. I came away with more sermon illustrations, implications, and applications than I could possibly use. I never had to run to those books promising fresh illustrations that thousands of preachers have already used. Considering concentric contexts turns a Bible study into a relevant sermon, putting contextual flesh on the exegetical bones.
Picture Your People
At some point before you finish writing the sermon, pause to picture your people. Pray the sermon focus through the pictorial church directory. If you don’t have pictures of the people who attend your church, you can picture them with your imaginative eye. Or, even better, you can bring back the pictorial directory! “A thumbing through the church’s pictorial directory” can help pastors “summon to mind all manner of life’s hard knocks.”[iii]
Work alphabetically through the directory of people who attend your church. Prayerfully imagine how specific people might respond to the sermon focus based on their particular situations. How might Joanne, a divorced mother of three small children, hear this sermon focus? How might Al, a seventy-year-old with lung cancer, connect with this word from the Lord? How might the sermon focus present good news to Erin, a sixteen-year-old whose parents are addicted to heroin? Simply work through the church directory in alphabetical order, praying for a dozen or so people and families each week you preach.
This thirty- to sixty-minute exercise, more than any other, did the most to increase my empathy for the people to whom I preached. I prayed for as many people as I could, but I wasn’t in a hurry. I paused and prayed longer for those people who might find the impending sermon particularly difficult or hopeful. When I went back to finish writing the sermon, I made sure to edit out esoteric mumbo jumbo and replace it with language that earthed kingdom reality in the real lives of the real people to whom I preached.
[i] Tisdale’s phrase to describe the importance of sermons being faithful to the biblical text and fitting for the local context.
[ii] Peter Jonker, Preaching in Pictures: Using Images for Sermons That Connect (Nashville: Abingdon, 2015), 93.
[iii] Scott Hoezee, Actuality: Real Life Stories for Sermons That Matter (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014), 96.
Excerpted from Preaching with Empathy: Crafting Sermons in a Callous Culture by Lenny Luchetti. Copyright © 2018 Abingdon Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lenny Luchetti
Dr. Lenny Luchetti is Professor of Proclamation and Christian Ministry at Wesley Seminary of Indiana Wesleyan read more… 
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Wonderstruck by Jake Owensby
Calling from the pay phone in our dorm lobby, I told my mom that I had decided to major in philosophy. Some parents would fret about their son or daughter studying something so impractical, but not my mother. She reacted as if I were announcing my engagement to a member of the royal family.A week later we were having another long-distance conversation. My mom said, “I didn’t know what philosophy was, so I looked it up. It means love of wisdom. That’s you. You love to learn.”
Hearing anybody suggest that I love wisdom would have brought the house down with laughter among my old high school friends. Not a few of my college classmates would have rolled their eyes at the idea.
When a friend since childhood found out that I had been ordained to the priesthood, he said something like, “How did a cynical hedonist like you end up doing that?” Ouch. The truth can sting.
As I entered my late teens and young adulthood, I had gradually developed a Timon-like attitude toward the world. You may recall that Timon is Simba’s meerkat companion in The Lion King. His philosophy of life is summarized by the phrase “hakuna matata.” No worries. No worries because nothing really matters.
To clarify, Timon put it this way, “When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world.” Cynics expect the world to let them down; they refuse to get suckered by any of the world’s promises.
I can’t speak for any other recovering cynics, so you can take or leave what I’m about to say about the roots of my own cynicism.
My parents divorced. Living with a profound speech impediment left me feeling isolated. I was ashamed of our perpetual financial struggles. And I hid from everybody the dark secret that a neighbor had sexually abused me as a child.
For me, the world wasn’t what it pretended to be, and I wasn’t about to let the world get it over on me one more time.
"A Resurrection Shaped Life: Dying and Rising on Planet Earth" (Abingdon Press, 2018). Pre-order here: http://bit.ly/2K2M3wB
Initially, I mistook my cynicism for wisdom. In my hands, philosophy functioned like a sort of scalpel. Reason revealed untruth and uncovered hypocrisy lying just beneath the intellectual skin — other people’s skin that is.With some embarrassment, I admit to feeling a sort of smug satisfaction at dismantling other people’s naive beliefs or rubbing their noses in their intellectual and moral inconsistencies.
In the midst of my campaign on behalf of intellectual anarchy, I guarded a dirty little secret (especially from myself). Even while I delighted in showing people that only a chump would put their trust in something, I was struggling to believe in me, to believe that my life really mattered.
Cynicism, as it turns out, is the opposite of wisdom. Cynicism distances us from one another and erodes the sense of our own worth. By contrast, wisdom imbues life with meaning by drawing us into ever deeper relationships. No wonder the young king Solomon asked God for wisdom above all things. (1 Kings 3:9)
Solomon didn’t ask for wealth or long life or military success. As the leader of God’s people, he asked for wisdom. Over his long reign, he did many unwise things. Nevertheless, he ascended the throne asking for wisdom. In this, he points to a path that beckons us all. The path of wisdom. The way of Jesus walks.
In the Psalms and in Proverbs we read that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. As I’ve explained elsewhere, the Hebrew word rendered as “fear” is better translated in this case as “awe.” Awe is the beginning of wisdom.
Anne Lamott helps me understand the experience of awe when she discusses the third basic kind of prayer in her book Help, Thanks, Wow. Wow is the prayer we utter when we encounter something or someone whose beauty and grace and goodness exceeds our capacity to think, much less to speak.
In other words, “Wow” is what we say when we experience wonder. To be in awe is to be wonderstruck. When we encounter God — whether in a sunset, a starry sky, the Holy Sacrament, the lines in an old woman’s face, or the immensity of the sea — we experience wonder.
Some philosophers like Immanuel Kant have used the word “sublime” to refer to encounters like this, when a finite heart and mind crosses paths with the infinite. When an incomprehensible magnitude stretches to bursting all the limits we place on our thinking and our feeling.
Wow! We don’t have the words. And we are not the same after such an encounter.
But being stretched by the infinite is only part of the story. Awe reveals to us that we matter to this infinitely good and beautiful and powerful being. The divine has brought us into being and sustains our existence as an act of inexpressible love.
In the nanosecond that awe holds me in its grasp, I realize that — in my Maker’s heart — I am irreplaceable. I cannot be interchanged with anyone or anything else. I am peerless. I am the Aretha Franklin of the creation. Just like every woman, man, screech owl, goldfish, and proton.
We feel awe as the Infinite Love stretches us — stretches us to receive more of God. More of each other.
I once was mostly immune to wonder. These days I’m susceptible, at least in my better moments, to being wonderstruck.
"Wonderstruck" originally appeared at Looking for God in Messy Places. Reprinted with permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jake Owensby
Jake Owensby is the fourth Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana. Jake is the author of several books read more…
How does our decision affect a local church? by Tom Berlin
This article is featured in the Decision 2019: One with Christ, One with each other, One in ministry to all the world (Aug/Sep/Oct 2018) issue of Circuit RiderFor eighteen months, I served as a member of the Commission on a Way Forward. Commission members worked in good faith and good will even as we expressed the range of opinions held by members from different continents and countries. Lay and clergy, male and female, gay and straight represented different cultures and ethnicities and covered the ideological waterfront of The United Methodist Church. It was intense and tiring. Many meetings ended with a dash to the airport to get home to my normal life, where I serve as the lead pastor of Floris United Methodist Church in Herndon, Virginia.
The local church is the focus of my ministry. Floris is a large multisite congregation that has become multicultural as our majority Anglo membership has welcomed a growing number of members from India, Pakistan, West Africa, Mexico, and Central and South America. Our goal is to share the good news of life in Christ with our diverse, multicultural community. We are thoroughly United Methodist. Our members fill all the corners of our ideologically big-tent church. We are located near Washington, DC, and many of our members are connected to the work of the federal government. I knew something special was happening when I learned that economic advisors for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump met for brunch after attending church together.
The more we pursue a Pentecost-based calling to allow the love of Christ to unite diverse people, the more complicated our life together becomes. We learn from our varied cultural and political viewpoints. However, those differences can also frustrate and lead us to question how we can collectively hold the same faith while sometimes supporting completely different policies. We have enough legitimate reasons to break community to marvel at the grace that keeps us together.
Like most United Methodists, our faith compels our service. We have a twenty-year mission partnership with the Sierra Leone Annual Conference. Our members have also built relationships with Methodists in Haiti, Cuba, and various UMCOR projects in the United States. The majority of our service happens in our local community, where we address important concerns with our nonprofit partners.
Our church is like yours. Everything that I have described, and much more, depends in some way on the connectivity of The United Methodist Church. If our relationships break up, the ministry that serves the physical and spiritual lives of many goes with it. There is a lot at stake here.
Floris UMC is about ten minutes from Dulles International Airport, requiring a quick transition after the plane lands between the deep, thoughtful work of the Commission on a Way Forward and the broad concerns of our church. Here are some things I learned to remember that may help you with perspective.
Whatever the General Conference decides will not address many critical issues related to the future of the local church. If either side gets the exact outcome they desire, it will have little impact on the number of people who are motivated to regularly worship God, exhibit committed discipleship, or offer service in the name of Christ. We are holding this called General Conference because LGBTQ persons matter to our church and we need resolution to an ongoing conflict over their inclusion. I hope that resolution will bless LGBTQ persons and enable us to redirect energy expended on conflict to a renewed strategy for church vitality. The future of our connection depends on a sustained focus on the ministry of the local church.
Local churches do not enjoy the near unanimous agreement about LGBTQ inclusion found in renewal and advocacy groups on either side who wield the largest megaphones in the dialogue. This is why we must keep the context of the typical local church in mind. As a pastor preaching at four worship services every Sunday, I am a bit jealous of the apparent unanimity in these groups. It would be wonderful to craft messages that easily result in the collective head nodding of a crowded room or get people fired up without anyone walking out. How nice to build your budget by having people agree on a select group of key issues and mutual frustrations without all the complexity found in the shared life of a congregation. While others benefit when people get wound up to act swiftly, most pastors spend time helping people cool down to think deliberately.
The church I serve is like yours. We have unity in Christ. We have a love for one another demonstrated in a thousand acts of grace and kindness. But the only time we experience full harmony or unison is when we sing. Even then, we can get a little off key. We need a resolution that the broadest number of people in our local churches finds compatible with their shared life together.
There is no plan that will make everyone happy. During the last day of the Commission meeting, I felt a profound sadness realizing that, in the end, we had not found the seamless solution that would honor the principles of all parties. While I never consciously thought that possible, I realized it was my deepest hope. Settling back into life when the Commission’s meetings concluded, I remembered that few plans in our local church satisfy all parties. Relocating the church, starting a second site, altering ministries, ending events, updating the website, and other changes create tension, conflict, and even lead some to leave. Like you, I have many stories of compromises made, proposals altered, people gained and lost, and imperfect plans that have brought us unexpected blessings in the messy world of the local church.
No matter what plan prevails, we will need to understand that LGBTQ persons will continue to be born and, hopefully, continue to call The United Methodist Church their home. Because of this, the question of their inclusion will remain long after 2019. General Conference delegates cannot get caught up in the rarified heights of denominational deliberation. They will be wise to consider and learn from the often untidy and chaotic community of the local church when considering our future together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Berlin
Tom Berlin is senior pastor of Floris United Methodist Church in Herndon, Virginia. He is a graduate of Virginia Tech read more…
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Kenneth L. Carder
Thoughts of splitting The United Methodist Church trouble me for a host of reasons — some theological and some missional.This polarized and violent world desperately needs the witness of a community that grapples with disputes and differences with humility, mutual respect, and compassion. While divisions have been part of our heritage since the beginning, they never bode well for our commitment to oneness in Christ Jesus.
We need one another, whatever our labels. God has already reconciled us! We have been made one, whether we like it or not. So, I don’t quite understand why we can’t live the reconciliation already accomplished in Christ. If Christ has made us one, should we not live that oneness?
But I’m also troubled for personal reasons.
I’ll always remember that fateful Sunday morning almost sixty-five years ago when this son of Appalachian tenant farmers and textile workers walked shyly into a Sunday school class at McKinley Methodist Church.
Mrs. Mahoney greeted me at the doorway with a warm hug. I remember the Bible story she told that day. It changed my image of God and set me on a lifelong quest to love, trust, and serve God. It was the story of the Good Shepherd. I can still hear her say, “God is like that shepherd.”
That was radically different from the messages I had been hearing in the church of my early childhood. I had the notion that God was like that cruel landlord who once dangled me over a rain barrel to “teach me to respect” him. God was the strict judge who expected, above all else, our respect and obedience. Eternal damnation awaited those who lacked such deference and compliance.
Mrs. Mahoney introduced me to a God who delights in rescuing little lost lambs, a God who invites us to share in the search and saving of the least, the lost, and the wayward. She invited me into friendship with Jesus, a friendship rooted in love not fear.
McKinley Methodist Church became my spiritual home as an adolescent. There I was baptized and received into membership. It was there that I:
- Received a new identity (beloved child of God)
- Learned I didn’t have to take the Bible literally to take it seriously
- Was elected to my first church office (president of the MYF)
- First spoke publicly before a group
- Had my first for-pay job (janitor)
- Taught my first class (Vacation Bible School)
- Was called into ordained ministry
- Introduced to the church as connectional (we were on a circuit)
- Selected to attend the National Youth Conference where I heard an African-American preacher for the first time (James Thomas)
- Approved for candidacy and granted a local preacher’s license
I’ve been privileged to serve eight wonderful congregations and two strong episcopal areas. Additionally, I have taught in a United Methodist seminary, sat on the governing boards of numerous United Methodist related institutions and agencies, experienced the world-wide mission of the church while visiting in Africa, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
All of this is to say, it’s impossible for me to sever my life from that of the denomination in which I have been and continue to be formed.
To me the reasons being advanced for splitting the denomination seem extraneous to the core Christian gospel and the church’s mission in this polarized and violent world filling up with lost lambs.
When I entered McKinley Methodist Church as a child of poverty, I wasn’t looking for dogmatic pronouncements. I was longing for a community in which I was accepted, valued, and loved. I wanted a place to grow in my understanding of and friendship with God. And, I needed a purpose worth my life.
The church I joined gave me room to grow, and I’m still growing. It moved me beyond provincialism, challenged my racial prejudices and patriarchal practices, gave me a theological lens through which to view every aspect of life, anchored me in sound doctrine while encouraging continuing theological exploration, extended the horizons of God’s salvation to include the healing and transformation of human hearts, communities, nations, and the entire cosmos.
I’m not worried about the survival of the Church. The Body of Christ has been raised from the dead and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And, I know the institutional form which the body of Christ takes is always changing.
But dividing The United Methodist Church into “Progressives” and “Traditionalists” is just plain wrong. As the late Will Campbell said about the death penalty, “I just think it’s tacky!”
"Splitting the Church Is Just 'Tacky'" originally appeared at Shifting Margins. Reprinted with permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kenneth L. Carder
Bishop Kenneth L. Carder is the Ruth W. and A. Morris Williams Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Practice of read more… 
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Taking our freedom for grantedWhen Judge Clay Jenkins saw the news that thousands of migrant children were being separated from their families at the U.S./Mexican border, he wanted to do something. Working with the Reverend Elizabeth Moseley, a deacon at his home church, Highland Park United Methodist Church, Jenkins put together an interfaith team to provide faith-based services for children being held at a detention camp near El Paso, Texas. On July 8, they made the first of their now weekly trips from Dallas to lead worship with about 400 teenagers housed at the Tornillo camp.
As the Reverend Owen Ross, director of church development for the North Texas Conference, told United Methodist Insight, it was awkward at first. “How do you lead worship for 360 Latino boys who don’t know you?” Eventually the team connected with the youth, who asked for prayers for the welfare of their family as well as for their own release from detention.
The Reverend Martha Valencia, lead pastor at Elmwood-El Buen Samaritano United Methodist Church in Oak Cliff, Texas, has accompanied the group twice. “The first time I did not know what to expect,” she said. “The second time . . . made me realize that I could go back home and back in and out of the facility unlike the children. Though I remembered the travel from the week before, experiencing it a second time reminded me how often we take our freedom for granted.”
Other detention centers
Immigration detention centers aren’t the only places where churches are ministering to people behind bars. From the early Methodists in the Holy Club to the support of chaplaincy ministries, United Methodists and other Christians have a long history of reaching out to those who are incarcerated.
In Virginia, Methodists join with Baptists and other faith partners to support GraceInside, a statewide organization working to provide full-time chaplains at all of the commonwealth’s prison facilities. “For over 80 years, the churches gave chaplaincy as a gift to the state,” said the Reverend Lynn Litchfield, director of development for GraceInside, because the state wouldn’t fund it. A change early in the millennium allowed for the profits from commissary sales to be used for funding chaplains, and now the state provides a little over half of GraceInside’s budget.
Litchfield noted that prison chaplaincy is a critical ministry because over 90 percent of those serving time will eventually be released into the general population. According to the Virginia Department of Corrections, over 13,000 prisoners are released from prisons by the Virginia Department of Corrections each year. Litchfield quoted one prisoner who told her, “We’re going to get out eventually, and don’t you want somebody who knows Jesus mowing your lawn?”
Who should do prison ministry?
Before her current position, Litchfield served as the first and only chaplain of the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women. It was here that she saw firsthand what was happening in prisons: the increase in the number of incarcerated persons following Virginia’s abolition of parole in 1995; the growing number of people who wound up in prison when mental health resources dried up in their communities; the huge growth in incarceration rates for women across the country; and the thousands of women serving long terms for nonviolent offenses at a tremendous cost to themselves, their families, and the state. According to the Justice Policy Institute, Virginia currently spends around $1.5 billion a year to incarcerate people.
Litchfield works to help others understand the realities of life as an inmate through regular speaking engagements at churches and other locations. At these events, she wears the ubiquitous orange jumpsuit of prison life and takes on the dramatic persona of Hope, a composite character based around a number of women she has known. Through these dramatic portrayals, Litchfield hopes to raise awareness and funds for chaplains, whom she describes as “really poorly paid.”
Due to the decline in denominational support, chaplain ministries, like most ministries, are scrambling for resources. Church giving has been on a steady decline since the 1980s. Five years ago, when Litchfield took her current job, she was handed a list of just 200 supporters. She’s grown the active donor list to 894, but she knows there’s much more work to do.
“I often hear Christians say, ‘Why isn’t somebody else paying for this?’ and I respond, ‘Well, who should pay for it?’ State funding is limited and might inhibit chaplains from addressing areas that need reform. Inmate families usually can’t afford to give. Lots of people take care of other shiny causes like clean water. Christians are specifically asked to care for prisoners, and that’s a cause many others won’t take on,” said Litchfield.
“A Borderless God”
Owen Ross said he was struck by the power of the singing at Tornillo. When the worship team began a song called “Our God Is Almighty,” the boys sang out and clapped. “They sang with such hope that an Almighty God can deliver them from their current circumstances,” Ross told UM Insight.
Christians have often seen prisoners and those longing for freedom as a powerful symbol of how humanity longs for God. In Philemon 1, the apostle Paul, who experienced long periods of imprisonment, called himself a “prisoner for the cause of Christ Jesus,” using his imprisonment as a way to witness to a greater liberating power.
Speaking to the Texas Methodist Foundation, which helped support the North Texas mission, Ross said, “Everyone should be able to worship God, and everyone needs hope.” Ross himself found hope in the worship and prayers they shared with the boys in Tornillo that day. “There is a kingdom of God factor that connects us all; when we worship together, we are powerfully reminded of a borderless God.”
Be sure to check out FaithLink, a weekly downloadable discussion guide for classes and small groups.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Joyner
Alex Joyner is Superintendent of the Eastern Shore District of The United Methodist church in the Virginia Conference 
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Weekly Preaching: August 26, 2018 by James C. Howell
This week’s Gospel concludes our intriguing five-week run on the 4th Gospel’s extended narrative of the feeding of the 5,000, which I’ve covered in general (and included details for this week’s thoughtful conclusion) in my blog on John 6.
* * *
The Old Testament, 1 Kings 8:22-30, 40-43, helps us envision the dramatic production that was the completion of, entry into and dedication of Solomon’s temple. The construction of this fabulous edifice must have dumbfounded the small band of citizens in this fledgling nation. The ark was brought from the city of David (where exactly was it stored?) not far up to the crest of Mt. Zion to the new temple. In what feels like theological propaganda, the moment was so stupendous a cloud of glory descended, so thick the clergy couldn’t carry on their ministerings.We see even more self-evident propaganda when we read Solomon’s prayer. After getting off to a solid start by praising God at length, Solomon’s real subject comes into view: himself, and his lineage.
I’d suggest two preaching angles:
As you may have done just last week, explore the tension between the high-mindedness of what may have been theological BS and the more tawdry political reality hiding in plain sight. Verse 27, for instance, is exciting and promising theologically: “Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” But G.H. Jones was prompted to observe, “This does not fit well into its present context.” Indeed. We find here a tension between lofty dream and hard reality, which is what we have in every nation, every denomination, every church, and even every individual. Jerome Walsh says “Solomon’s speeches contain a rich and sophisticated theology” — and yet, “On the other hand, the words the narrator puts in Solomon’s mouth suggest two less attractive characteristics. The first is his self-absorption… The second is Solomon’s apparent obliviousness to his own responsibility for obedience,” which is pathetic to non-existent. We might find fault in a politician, or even in denominational leadership, but the fault line runs through all of us, requiring mercy, healing, better behavior, and then way more mercy.
It might also be a helpful approach to reintroduce the concept — forgotten, neglected or downright bizarre in our culture — of a holy place. “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence” (Habakkuk 2:20). Annie Dillard asked if we should wear crash helmets to church. Amos Wilder picturesquely spoke of the sanctuary as a chamber next to an atomic oven. Reverence, awe, a real belief that a holy, awe-some God, not sung about in chipper tones, but the kind of God that makes your knees tremble: this is worship in a sacred space, which is a time-honored and faithful way to love, believe in and serve God.
* * *
"Weak Enough to Lead: What the Bible Tells Us about Powerful Leadership" (Abingdon Press, 2017). Order here: http://bit.ly/2rYxHac
Our Psalter reading undergirds this notion of a holy place that makes your jaw drop. “How lovely is your dwelling place,” not surprisingly set to music in grand ways by Brahms and many others. Pilgrims would sing this Psalm while they travelled in their caravans toward the holy city for the great festivals. The emotional, deep-souled yearning and rush of emotion are stunning, as is the radical hospitality of the place, embracing all of creation: “Even the sparrow finds a home.” We might want to swoosh the sparrows away, but all are welcome in the Lord’s house. Jesus pointed to plain birds and wildflowers, promised God’s tender care, pointing out that “even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like these” (Matthew 6:29).I may explore this idea that “Blessed are those in whose hearts are the highways to Zion.” I was born in Savannah, Georgia, where we lived until I was seven. I didn't return there until a few years ago, and I found myself quite sure that Oh, my elementary school is to the left a couple of blocks, and This is the way to the beach, and My friend David lived over there. The roads, the ways, were deeply imprinted on my heart. What would it mean for the ways to God — maybe the roads to the church, or to an old church your grandparents took you to — or the more metaphorical ways — the prayers or devotional books or Bible verses or hymns that once took you toward God — to be embedded in the map of your soul?
* * *
And then our Epistle reading, Ephesians 6:10-20. Thielman explores the idea that our passage borrows elements from the pre-battle speeches that generals gave to their soldiers to encourage them to fight bravely. So many were familiar to the public in the ancient world, and we have even more: Shakespeare’s version of the king’s “St. Crispin’s Day” speech rallying the troops before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 in Henry V, Churchill’s unforgettable World War II speeches (“Victory at all costs,” “We shall fight on the beaches,” etc.) and President Whitmore’s July 4 speech in Independence Day. I always suspect preachers would preach more fruitfully if they mimicked and practiced such rousing techniques.Paul’s rousing words feel militaristic — but are they? Do they really support the talk we hear among some Christians about “spiritual warfare?" Or does Paul envision a non-militaristic sort of struggle that isn’t triumphalistic? We put on the armor (the Greek word really is panoply!); this is not the first time Paul has used getting dressed as his controlling image. Colossians 3 advises we put on meekness, kindness and forgiveness. Paul saw Roman soldiers everywhere, so we can understand his use of the image... or did he have old Goliath in mind?
Is Paul telling us how to fight? Or what we do instead of fighting? Isn’t his panoply non-metallic, non-harmful, and even non-protective? Paul, after all, writes as “ambassador in chains” (v. 20). When I read about the girding about the waist, I think of the cincture I wear with my alb on Sundays — a symbol of my being bound and tied and committed to Christ, but also a recollection of St. Francis of Assisi donning the garb of the poor. How was he armed when he marched off to the Crusades? At the battle of Damietta, he walked across no-man’s land, barefooted, unarmed, laughably vulnerable. This was so odd that the Arab soldiers re-sheathed their sabres and took him to the sultan, with whom Francis became a friend. The whole image of being “armed” with “peace” is paradoxical, which had to be Paul’s very point.
A sermon could explore this being “an ambassador in chains.” Charles Colson, Special Counsel to President Nixon and one of the Watergate Seven, found out that “I can work for Him in prison as well as out.” Paul and Silas sang at midnight and impacted their jailer profoundly (Acts 16). Sojourner Truth spoke boldly and prophetically as a slave, famously asking “Ain’t I a Woman?”
In the Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King asked, “What else is there to do when you are alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers?”
Consider Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons, which envisions St. Thomas More in Henry VIII’s prison, explaining to his daughter why he wouldn’t back down: “When a man takes an oath, Meg, he’s holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his finger then — he needn’t hope to find himself again.” Or think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s stunning ambassadorship in prison — not only his remarkable writings but also his compelling behavior, which moved the guards and fellow prisoners.
Paul reminds us that what we are dealing with are the “wiles” (the Greek is methodeias) of the devil. Christians are wise to contemplate the sneakiness, the trickiness, and seductive deception that is the work of evil in the world. C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters captures this in humorous and telling ways. Someone (it gets attributed to lots of people) said “The devil’s greatest wile is to persuade us he does not exist” — though Thomas Merton countered by suggesting that the devil wants to get credit for everything since what the devil wants above all else is attention.
"What can we say come August 26? 14th after Pentecost" originally appeared at James Howell's Weekly Preaching Notions. Reprinted with permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James C. Howell
Dr. James C. Howell has been senior pastor of Myers Park United Methodist Church since 2003, and has served read more…
Ministry Matters
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