Category: Preaching (Page 1 of 24)

Not Up to the Task

The title of today’s post is about preachers on Easter Sunday, but it’s also an appropriate description of the Dallas Stars as they begin the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs the day after tomorrow. The Stars closed out the regular season in Nashville last night by losing their seventh straight game. It’s the longest losing streak in more than a decade for a team most considered favorites to represent the Western Conference in the Stanley Cup Finals.

They’re in a bad way right now. Through these dreadful seven games, the Stars have been outscored 34-18 and out-shot by an average of 36-26 per game. They got Tyler Seguin back last night after he’s missed almost five months following hip surgery, but they lost Jason Robertson for the last half of the game with a fluke knee injury.

I don’t think you can just flip a switch Saturday and immediately remedy everything that’s gone so wrong the past three weeks with the Stars’ defense, their power play, their penalty kill, and blowing third period leads. I think momentum means something heading into the playoffs, especially when you’re facing the dreaded and feared Avalanche.

I’m hoping Robo’s knee issue is minor and won’t limit him for the postseason. I’m also hoping that my attitude and expectations will improve between now and Saturday night’s playoff opener. Right now, none of it feels very good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reinhold Niebuhr is quoted as saying that he would always attend a “high church” on Easter Sunday where there would be great music but very little preaching. In his view, “No preacher is up to the task on Easter.” I think he’s probably right.

John Updike wrote a poem called “Seven Stanzas of Easter” that perfectly and beautifully captures every preacher’s frustration leading up to Easter Sunday. One of the lines is “Let us not mock God with metaphor and analogy / sidestepping transcendence / let us walk through the door.”

It is a waste of time to try to explain the resurrection of Jesus. Some things can’t be reduced to an explanation and are greatly diminished in the process of trying. The task on Easter is proclamation, not explanation. On Easter, we preachers should offer an invitation to walk through the door, into a brand new world, where the ultimate reality is not death and dying, but everlasting life in the God Almighty of love and grace who brought our Lord Jesus out of the grave.

Proclaim the resurrection–that’s what the apostles did. And that’s what we need to do Sunday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m really looking forward to our annual 4Midland Maundy Thursday service this evening, hosted this year by our brothers and sisters at First Methodist. We’re changing things up a bit tonight with more of a Tenebrae vibe than a Maundy Thursday vibe. We’re not sharing the communion meal, deciding instead to focus on the events following that last supper, from our Lord’s prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, through the trials and the crucifixion, to his burial. The service will flow from the Scriptures, lots and lots of Scripture, punctuated with dramatic visual and audio effects to immerse us in the sacred story. The combined choirs of our four churches will bless us with some special music, but we’re also going to sing some old familiar hymns together like O Sacred Head, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, and Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.

Anytime our four churches get together for worship or service, it’s a powerful witness to our city that our Lord lived, died, and was raised to eternal life to break down all the barriers between us and him and between us and one another. That will happen again tonight and it will be glorious. By God’s grace and his Holy Spirit, we’re also going to be drawn closer to our Lord this evening. And to each other.

If you live anywhere in the Permian Basin, I invite you to join us at 7:00 this evening at First Methodist in Midland.

I thank God for our 4Midland partnership, for the holy friendships I enjoy so much with these three pastors, and for the ways our churches are learning from one another and growing together in Christ.

Peace,

Allan

Magic Carpet Ride

Okay, I’ve got a new little weird obsession that I’m really excited about. I am substituting the word “sermon” or “preaching” whenever I see the word “poem” or “poetry” and it is opening my heart to new ways of expressing what it’s like to be a preacher. The exhilarating anticipation. The tyranny of the Sunday sermon. The dread. The burden. The indescribable joy and blessing. The honor. The eternal power of the Word that is impossible to harness. The frustration. The surprise. Poetry and sermons have much in common, and so do those who write them.

I’ve come across a short poem from someone named Bill Knot. The poem is entitled “To Myself.” The first word is “poetry,” which I have changed to “preaching.”

Poetry
can be
that magic
carpet

which you say
you want,
but only
if you

stand willing
to pull
the rug out

from under
your own
feet daily.

Doesn’t this poem speak deeply to the sense of adventure there is in preaching? Yes. The mystery. The possibility. The certainty that your apple cart is going to get turned over without warning. The paradox of entering a sacred text hopeful for answers, only to come away with more questions. Continually feeling off balance. Daily.

Peace,

Allan

Poems (Sermons) Hide

I was recently introduced to a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye entitled “Valentine for Ernest Mann.” I know nothing about the poet or the context of the poem or the title. But the poem struck me as important truth. It’s about poems and poetry but, more than that, it’s about life and living. It’s about perspective and intentionality. Oh, it’s good.

While reflecting on the truth contained in these short verses, I naturally thought about preaching. And sermons. I replaced the word “poem” in the composition with the word “sermon,” and the whole thing became more profound and much more personal.

Here it is, with my unauthorized substitutions. Where you see the word “sermon,” Nye used the word “poem.” Same thing, in many ways.

You can’t order a sermon like you order a taco.
Walk up to  the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a sermon,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell you a secret instead:
sermons hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”

And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the sermons that had been hiding
in the eyes of the skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us,
we find sermons. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.

And let me know.

I pray this poem inspires you like it does me, to commit to “live in a way that lets us find” the sermons and the poems that are hiding all around us in plain sight.

Peace,

Allan

Can I Get an “Oh, Yeah?”

Jeff Walling preached for us at GCR on Sunday. Yes, that Jeff Walling. He was in town to speak at Midland Christian’s chapel and First Priority, and it was a huge blessing to have him complete the hat trick by bringing our sermon on Sunday. Of course, he was wonderful. He connected well with everybody in the room. He made us laugh, he made us think, and he gave us easy ways to remember the lesson. He was exactly as you would expect Jeff Walling to be. Simply wonderful.

Carrie-Anne, Whitney, and I went to lunch at a favorite restaurant after church. We talked together about football, about our plans for the week, and other mundane things. Then, out of nowhere, Whitney made an out-of-the-blue observation:

“Seems like Jeff Walling knows how to get people to say ‘Oh, yeah.'”

“Yes, he does. That’s right.”

“Maybe you should try that, dad. It doesn’t seem like people want to say ‘Amen,’ but they like saying ‘Oh, yeah.'”

“No, that’s not true. People say ‘Amen’ when I ask for it.”

“I don’t know, dad. Seems like they’d rather say ‘Oh, yeah.'”

“Eat your food, Whit.”

Peace,
Allan

The Preacher is a Member

Here’s the last thing in this short series of posts about preachers, myself in particular, and all preachers generally. These thoughts have come from reflection and introspection I’ve done generally over the past 17 years and specifically over the past five or six weeks as to why I keep doing what I do. I pray these thoughts have helped you better understand me. If I’m not your preacher, I hope they help you better relate to your preacher at your church.

The preacher is a member of your congregation. He is not a hired gun brought in to preach and grow the church, he is not a fundraiser or a change-agent, and he is not a motivational speaker. He and his family are committed members of your congregation.

The preacher does not enter the pulpit on Sundays from a secret door backstage or sit by himself on the front pew until it’s time for him to perform. The preacher is a fully invested and equal member of the church body. He rises from the midst of the congregation to proclaim what the church believes and what the church needs to hear. Typically, the preacher has moved his whole family to this town to be a member of this church and to give himself to the relationships and the mission of this church.

He is gifted by God and ordained by his fellow Christ-followers to faithfully study and pray and speak his Word to them. As one of them. He challenges them and teaches them; they keep him straight and encourage him. It’s a partnership. He worships and serves and shares life with the other members of the community of faith. He needs the church as much as they need him. As much as we need each other. It’s not a one-way deal.

Peace,

Allan

The Sermon is a Holy Moment

The sermon is not a cat video or an epic fail or an advertisement for another new and improved product you just have to have. It is the holy Word of God, proclaimed to the holy people of God, as an act of faith in God. It’s a miracle, really.

It kind of works like the sacraments, I think. Not exactly, but similarly. The sermon is human words spoken by human lips, but those words and those lips are indwelled by God. God works through the proclaimed words to communicate the realities of his love and grace. It’s divine speech. God’s will, his character, his mission, his desires–it’s directly revealed to us by God through the preacher.

It’s not a lecture, not a book report, not somebody telling you what to do, not somebody giving you new information. It’s a direct message from our holy Lord. Preaching is not us talking about God; it is God talking directly to us.

As such, the hearer should come into a sermon prepared to hear that Word from our God. The hearer should have already read and prayed through the sermon text before Sunday, anticipating that the Lord will speak to her or him. There should be an expectation. There should be an openness and eagerness to receive what God wants to give through the sermon. I tell people all the time that the sermon is just as much about the posture and attitude of the hearer as it is about the preacher or the words he speaks or the style in which he or she preaches.

The Sunday sermon is a holy moment of direct communication between the present God and his redeemed people. I wish more of us came to church each week with that understanding.

Peace,

Allan

« Older posts