Hebrews Sermon – Writing a Better Story

Here is my sermon for class.  A couple things to note.

This passage appeared in the Common Lectionary on World Communion Sunday, so I prepared it with a view towards preaching it on that Sunday.

This sermon was written for Reconciliation United Methodist Church, my local church here in Durham, NC.  I didn’t preach it there but prepared it for that community.  The church strives to promote racial reconciliation in Durham and has embraced different styles of worship in order to foster that vision.

Writing a Better Story

I recently read a book by Donald Miller titled A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. In it he describes the process for turning one of his books into a movie. Along the way, Miller learns the aspects to crafting a good story and discovers, to his dismay, that he is living a boring story. The rest of the book tracks the decisions the screenwriters make with the movie alongside the decisions Miller makes with his life so that he can live a better story. Which made me wonder: what if communities also have stories? What is the story of this community? How do we make it a stronger story?

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12

This was the text for my first sermon assignment in my preaching class this semester.  I’ll put the passage after the jump, so you may want to go read it and then come back for my reflections.  I’ve included two translations, because the differences highlight an important

Clearly the author of Hebrews thinks very highly of Christ.  The account of creation and the Son’s eternal nature follow the same pattern seen in the prologue to the Gospel of John, although it’s unlikely the two authors would have been familiar with one another.

One of the trickiest parts of the passage is how to handle the psalm quoted in the middle.  Hebrews 2:6b-7 is actually Psalm 8:4-6.  The vagueness of the Hebrew in the psalm creates some interesting questions.  The pronouns are masculine singular, which is why the author reads this psalm as looking towards Christ.  However, Jewish tradition read this text as referring to humanity in general, which is why the NRSV translation opts for the plural pronouns.  Both readings are accurate but unfortunately the NRSV’s use of pronouns clouds how one could read the psalm as Christ centered.

One of the phrases sure to give theologians throughout history fits comes in 2:9.  Jesus was “lower than the angels,” if only for a period of time.  Given the church’s early history of fighting against viewing the Son as lesser than the Father, this passage can be uncomfortable.  It has been explained in various ways over the years, usually in reference to Jesus’s suffering and death since the other eternal beings do not experience such things.  In order to faithfully portray Christ’s nature, this part of the passage must be carefully examined.

Children and Communion

The United Methodist church I attend in Durham has communion every week.  So it’s rare that the experience feels unique but yesterday was special to me.  The children usually leave for the bulk for the service but they always return for communion.  Throughout the liturgy I could hear the children but rather than being aggravated, I felt they added something to the service.  All the grown-ups were going through the responses very orderly and reverently (which I appreciated since I take the sacraments very seriously) but from the back of the sanctuary came all these sounds of life.  It reminded me of going over to a friend’s house for a party and discovering there was food.  Such excitement at getting to share a meal with friends.  Yesterday I honestly could not find a better metaphor for the act of communion.  Christ, our close dear friend, invites us to share a meal at his table with other good friends.

Have you had a similar experience with children in worship?  What other metaphors would you suggest for communion?

(I should add that while I affirm the presence of children in worship, I did not grow up around kids so I don’t always know how to respond to them, especially in church.  So this was definitely a grace-filled moment for me to view their presence in a new light.)

I’m Published… sort of

Confessio, the Duke Divinity School online student journal, has resumed posting articles.  A more polished and finalized version of my article on the Sign of the Cross went up this morning.  I invite you to go check it out!

http://confessio.org/?p=267

Seminary Rivalries

I know that schools develop rivalries, which is probably unavoidable.  And I know that competition can be a good thing when it inspires people to improve.  But I still wonder about its place in the church, especially among seminaries.

Last Wednesday, the preacher in Goodson Chapel drew unfavorable comparisons to two rival seminaries.  Now, he did say beforehand that they were unfair statements.  They were done mostly for humorous effect and yes, I laughed.  But they bothered me in the moment and still do.

For starters, it was the first chapel service of the year.  This was the first message the incoming students heard in Goodson Chapel.  For the rest of the student body and staff, this sermon helped set the one for the year.  A tone that I feel was inappropriate.

What possible good can come from maligning the education that our future peers in ministry received?  I still remember hearing a pastor take several shots at my choice to attend Duke, simply because he went to a different school.  It deeply bothered me, especially because his alma mater is no longer closely associated with the United Methodist Church, which was a major factor in my decision of which seminary to attend.

The majority of students from these three seminaries (Duke and the other two mentioned) will go on to serve in the United Methodist Church.  Why should we fracture the denomination based on school affiliations?  Even worse, all graduates of these schools, regardless of whether they get ordained, will go on to serve the church universal and Jesus Christ.  We talk a lot about reconciliation, here at Duke and in the church.  But reconciliation will never occur if we continue to create arbitrary and potentially damaging divisions amongst ourselves.

Preaching Twice on Sundays

This summer I had the opportunity to preach two Sunday services.  Because so many people visit the Cashiers area in the summer months, the church expands to offer two services on Sunday at 8:30 and 11:00.  It’s rare that I ever attend two services on the same Sunday and certainly had never preached twice in the same day.

It was definitely a unique experience.  While I enjoy the art of preaching, it can be very draining.  Having to do it twice can leave one honestly exhausted.  I’m fairly certain I took a nap each afternoon, even though I had gotten plenty of sleep the night before.

I remember feeling worried that the 8:30 crowd was getting short-changed.  Yes, it was the same sermon.  Yes, I had practiced my sermons before Sunday.  But still, 8:30 sometimes felt like a dress rehearsal for the 11:00.  In some ways, this makes sense.  It’s hard to get practice in front of an audience, so the 11:00 delivery always has that advantage.  In some ways, this is inevitable as extra practice never hurts.  But it still bothered me.  Maybe the only answer is to have the sermon better established before Sunday.

My delivery at 11:00 had one other advantage; I had some idea of how the congregation would react at certain parts.  But what do you do when the reactions are different?  Handling unexpected laughter I feel is fairly easy.  Pause, smile, and consider repeating yourself if necessary.  But what do you do when you were expecting a reaction and there is none?  Do you try and force it, by admonishing the congregation?  My supervisor will do this on occasion, albeit playfully.  I tried it myself once and it seemed to work fairly well.  Although I did learn to be flexible when using audience participation.  You may not the answers you expected.  You may also get many more than you expected.

Something I did learn with pulpit humor is that the punchlines were sometimes earlier than I expected.  More than once people laughed at what I considered still part of the set-up, as opposed to the joke.  Having not watched the sermons yet myself, this may have been an issue with my delivery.  Or perhaps that’s simply part of preaching.  Like many of my questions in this post, only experience can provide the answer.

I also discovered an odd personal temptation.  The few times I’ve heard multiple sermons from established preachers, they changed between services.  The basic message was the same but the order of the sermon might be different, details elaborated on.  So my first Sunday in Cashiers I tried to do the same.  Nothing too elaborate, just a few little extras.  I was surprised by how much that threw off my rhythm.  Changing things at the last minute impeded my flow without adding anything substantial to the sermon.  I may hold this up as a goal for the future but for now, I think changing sermons at the last-minute is a bad idea for me.

For any preachers out there, what has been your experience with preaching the same sermon twice?  For any non-preachers, have you ever heard the same sermon twice?  How was that experience?

“Judge Jesus” Sermon

Have you ever stopped and considered the number of television shows that are about our legal system?  We have Law and Order with its spin-offs.  Other police dramas like Southland, Dark Blue, Cold Case, and Miami Vice.  Then the shows about lawyers: Boston Legal, The Practice, Perry Mason, and Matlock.  The FBI gets Numbers, Criminal Minds and Without a Trace.  The military has NCIS and JAG.  And of course, who can forget all the forensics shows?  CSI with its two spin-offs and Bones.  That’s 19 shows and I’m just getting started.  Furthermore, these are just the ones following the good guys.  We haven’t even touched the shows about criminals.  Quite simply, we’re a culture obsessed with the legal system.

Have you noticed what’s missing from my list?  In all of these shows, judges are an after-thought if they show up at all.  Where are the shows about judges?  I can only think of two that featured a judge as a main character: Judging Amy and a short-lived drama on the Supreme Court.  Of course, we have all the sensationalized day-time TV judges: Judy, Joe Brown, Mathis, and others.  Hardly indicative of the average judge, case, or courtroom these shows reduce our legal system to sound bytes and witty quips.

So why no interest in judges?  Are we scared of them, imagining an imposing figure in black robes sitting behind a high bench banging a gavel?  Or do we just consider their stories less exciting, missing the adventure of cops and lawyers?

I wonder.  Is this how we view what the Bible says about judgment?  God as an imposing figure ready to sentence the unrepentant sinner?  Do we hurry past these passages in search of happier topics?  Or is it no longer a concern after what Christ did for us on the cross?

“Judge Jesus” Text

I was on the docket to preach my last Sunday at Cashiers UMC.  The church was still on it’s trek through the Apostle’s Creed.  My sentence was “[Jesus] will come again to judge the living and the dead.”  Not exactly what first comes to mind when saying goodbye and thank you to a church after ten weeks.  But in the end I think everything went very well.

I preached on two passages.  The Old Testament passages was from Amos.  I hadn’t realized that one of the main Methodist communion liturgies borrows language from this passage.  Since it was also a communion Sunday (first Sunday of the month), I thought that was an interesting tie-in.

The Gospel was from John, the story of the woman caught in adultery.  This was a change from the Matthew passage on the sheep and the goats.  The only downside of that change is that the John passage has nothing to say about Jesus’ return.  So both my passages focused the sermon on the topic of judgment.

“Second Family” Sermon

Like the Acts 16 Sermon, this one also opened with a clip.  This time from Band of Brothers.  Click here for the clip.  The sermon is titled “Second Family.”

            Last week Larry talked about becoming a part of God’s family.  This week we’re looking at those people in our lives who are like family, maybe even closer than family, who we’re not related to.  The clip we saw is from the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers.  It has quickly become one of my favorite shows.  Not only does it portray the amazing heroism of the men of Easy Company, but it also shows an unvarnished picture of World War II.  The highs and lows, the victories and tragedies.  Perhaps most importantly, it shows the incredible bonds the men of the unit have with one another.

            There’s something about being in combat that binds people together in ways that few can understand.  Trusting another person with your life and knowing that he or she trusts you with theirs.  The shared experience of being faced with one’s own mortality.  And, in truth, while I hear their descriptions, I can’t fully comprehend that bond having never been in that situation.

            But I have my own experience with the idea of a second family.  In high school I found a second mother, Mrs. Cook.  Her two sons, James and David, were with me in Boy Scouts.  I became son #3, eventually of 5.  I’d be at their house some days after school or on weekends.  The three of us, along with Mr. Cook, were virtually inseparable on outings.  In short, I was family.

Ruth 1 Text

My second sermon for the Wednesday series “All in the Family” dealt with the topic of those people who are as close to us as family but aren’t related.  The sermon text was Ruth 1.  Again, I used the Message for this sermon.  I was surprised to discover that it highlighted part of the Hebrew better than any other translation I consulted.  I think I’ll be consulting the Message translation before sermons more frequently now.