HomileticalSensings

Author: Tim Sensing

  • Grace Is An Action Word

    Sunday, January 6, was Epiphany Sunday. I have always considered Titus 2:11-14 a key Epiphany Sunday text. On this particular day I used the opportunity of teaching the adult Bible class in order to set the scene for Titus 2. My sermon notes are below.

    Focus: God’s grace not only saves us, God’s grace enables us in the present tense.

    Function: To embolden God’s people to access God’s grace in active ways.

    Plotline: God is a God of grace and God’s grace saves us. *And God’s grace teaches us. *And throughout life, God’s grace sustains us. *The appearing nature of God’s grace enables us to live lives of grace. [For those familiar with Buttrick’s Homiletic, you will note the sermon is in the mode of immediacy.]

    11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11-14)

    When I was in High School, there was a TV showed called, A Touch Of Grace.  The wife and mother of this family was named Grace.  The stories centered on how Grace touched all of their lives.  Today, children are still being named Grace, however, the Greek derivation is more common—Charis, Charisa, etc.  But there is more to Grace than just a name.  —Retell the Gospel story …

    *God is a God of Grace. And God’s grace saves us. *But God’s grace is more than that, God’s grace also teaches us.

    • For example, two foundational stories:
      • Abraham was declared righteous by faith before his circumcision and before the giving of the law. (Rom 4)
      • “I brought you out of the land of Egypt” –Then the giving of the Ten Commandments. (Exod 20)
    • But Israel did not remain in the loving arms of God’s grace. But that was not the end of God’s story.
    • Out of God’s grace, God promised …
    • And after years of waiting, God’s grace appeared in Jesus Christ…
    • And grace appeared to each one of us…

    *Paul writes about this grace—a saving grace. But grace is more than that.

    —Read Text Again

    >This grace is active, it teaches us.

    >FIRST—to deny ungodliness and lust.

    >SECOND—to live self-controlled and upright lives.  To be godly.

    To deny:                     To live:

    • grumbling                    encouraging
    • complaining                 exhorting
    • gossip                          uplifting
    • hate                             loving
    • anger                            compassion
    • anxiousness                 peaceful
    • worry                          joyous
    • Do you prefer to wear sour clothes from the hamper or new clean clothes?  Even after washing clothes can become soured again. But grace teaches us to say no to soured clothes.

    To say no:                   To say yes:

    • jealously                      concern
    • envy                            service
    • pride                            humility
    • selfishness                   selflessness
    • To live self-controlled lives (disciplined lives)

    *God’s grace not only teaches us, it sustains us.

    • “Sustainable” (key word in research, industry, school).
      • Markets
      • Green Earth (sustainable resources, sustainable energy)
      • Kids in school
      • And our faith.
      • As we live here on the earth, we look forward to the blessed hope and glorious appearing of Jesus.  Just as Israel of old waited for the coming of the Messiah, so we are called to wait. It is grace that enables us to wait. Grace sustains us.
      • Child waiting for Christmas—getting part of the gifts early to enable that child to wait. Then & Now.

    *God’s grace appears to us in order that we might live gracious lives. Grace is not a figment of our imagination or an abstract concept for philosophers to contemplate. God’s grace is tangible, concrete, and alive. Paul describes two appearings of grace. The initial appearing of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ and the final appearing to all of God’s people. In between, from “back then” to “out there then”, God’s grace is still active in order to enable us to live now.

    • God’s grace teaches us. I saw grace teach a young man when…
    • God’s grace sustains us. I saw grace sustain a mother when …
    • God’s grace enables us to wait for that appearing. But not wait on a couch. God purified for himself a people. We are a people eager to do good works by taking hold of God’s grace now, in between the two appearings.

     

  • New Page

    I’ve added a new page to the homileticalsensings web site entitled Homiletics. The page is located in the right sidebar. The new page has links to three unpublished essays on my preliminary understandings of preaching. The two essays “A Turn Toward the Listener” contain a brief history of preaching’s concern about the listener, my definition of preaching, and a preliminary pragmatic homiletic. Through the next several years, I intend to expand these essays into a homiletical textbook. … I’ve also updated the practical theology bibliography and added an OT Resources for Preaching link. Both files are found under the page Resources.

  • God’s Glorious Ministries

    A few years ago, my family and I were traveling in the southeast on vacation. Late Saturday night, a storm covered the entire area with a sheet of ice. Power lines and branches lay scattered throughout the region. Nevertheless, being proud Hoosiers who knew no fear of snow, we went to church. We arrived with six other brave souls. The song leader knew the situation. He traversed two hymns, a prayer, communion, and announcements in ten minutes. Even then, our eyes watered from the fumes of a kerosene heater. After the invitation song was announced, a guest speaker began his 45-minute dissertation. His subject was … can you guess? Of course, “church attendance.” What is more relevant to those who braved the harsh elements in order to attend? These are moments that define the phrase, “preaching to the choir.” And these are the moments that cause us to laugh because they are sad and too typical. Sometimes church is discouraging. Sometimes we all lose heart. Sometimes we just want to quit. Where is the glory?

    Much of contemporary church life does not appear glorious. Preachers and teachers disappoint us. Infighting, sectarianism, meanness, and selfishness become our identifying marks. Sometimes the mire is public for all to see. The indecent exposure of the volunteer at the youth retreat is broadcast by the local news. The man who converted my father committed adultery with an elder’s spouse. The deacon curses in the foyer at the nursery attendant for being late. But mostly, the bitterness and bickering of folk are hidden corrosives that gnaw and bedevil. Insinuations and whispers occur in the corner more often than Twitter. Sometimes we just want to quit. Where is the glory?

    At ACU, I hear story after story of churches picking apart young ministers who leave school with such high hope and confidence only to return with disappointment and despair. The church appears to be just one of many human institutions filled with the gunk humans are prone to display. I remember one congregation where a group of men decided to build a play set for the kids. Fathers, carpenters, handymen, and a preacher came together on a Saturday to start the project. Also on the scene was a “Systems” engineer. He started measuring every board so that five screws could be evenly spaced before attaching. Every board was stamped with the five spots of a dice. He stopped anyone who missed the mark. Next, he demonstrated how to use a router so that every edge would be rounded and freed from splinters. He made a measuring stick to ensure the proper depth of the ground cover. And as the morning unfolded, he successfully took over the administration of the entire project. By noon, only three helpers remained. On the next Saturday, he was the only worker. Church can be discouraging. Such disappointments undermine our own confidence that God is at work in the context of the church. It is enough to cause us all to lose heart. Even the mundane and the boring are better than what is seemingly our lot. Where is the glory?

    If only we could see the kind of glory that is described in the “mountaintop” experience of Sinai! Now Moses had a glorious ministry (Exod. 34:29-35). Imagine the scene where the ministry is so glorious that the minister’s face glows with God’s presence. Images of Charlton Heston fill our minds. Wow! What a ministry? Moses leads his people from bondage to freedom. Moses gives his people Torah, a way to walk in the paths of God. Who would want to be compared to Moses? If only Paul’s ministry had glory like Moses’.

    And Paul agrees (2 Cor. 3:7-18). He states that the old covenant “came in glory.” Paul knows the misgivings of some about his local ministry. And that is when Paul changes the conversation. The Israelites could not even bare to look at Moses’ face (3:7). The central issue with Moses’ shinning face was not its glow, but its fade. Moses’ glory was passing. The central focus of 3:7-11 is not the denial of the glory of the law, but the comparison of the Sinai covenant with Paul’s own ministry of the new covenant. Indeed, Paul refers to the two covenants as two ministries. Moses’ ministry was glorious. But Paul says he knows about an even greater glory, a glory that will not pass away.

    Despite the appearances, Paul’s ministry is even more glorious than that of Moses. Moses veiled his face to hide its fading glory. He placed a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from seeing the end of the glory. As Paul changes the conversation from Moses’ glorious ministry, he does not set himself up as the point of comparison but speaks instead about the local church at Corinth. Paul allows the church to shine with an unveiled face as evidence of God’s glorious ministry. “We all” refers, not only to Paul himself, but to all who have “turned to the Lord.”  This community of faith, as Paul’s letter of recommendation (3:2) beholds the glory of the Lord (cf. Exod 16:7, 10), just as Moses did. However, unlike Israel, the Christian community beholds the glory of the Lord “with unveiled faces.” As we turn to the Lord we are “being transformed into the image from one degree of glory to another.”   Despite the appearances of ineffectiveness, the testimony to our ministry is the transformation of the church into God’s divine image. By the message of the cross, we are transformed into the image of Christ. It is the church that stands as God’s letter of recommendation, the fact that you have believed, you have responded, you have become people of God.

    Despite the appearances, we have seen God’s glorious ministries in the face of Jesus Christ. We see transformation taking place wherever we see a cup of water given in his name, a people who sacrifice themselves for the poor, a people who care for the bereaved, and a people who show hospitality to a stranger. God’s glorious ministry is an effective practice when God’s ministers partner with God to apply theology in all its forms in contemporary contexts in order to transform the community of God into the image of Jesus. God’s glorious ministry is seen at a church of all places when the people actively practice theology as a way of life for the sake of the world.

    I don’t know your stories. Nonetheless, let me venture to guess. If your church conducted an evening service with an open microphone where various congregants were asked to come and share stories of times when they experienced the loving face of Jesus shinning in the face of one of their brothers and sisters, then all in attendance would behold the glory of the Lord. The Effective Practice of Ministry shares several stories of glorious ministries. This book is a microphone for storytellers of God’s kingdom to share what God is doing among other faithful people. Elders are appointed in God honoring ways. Leaders are trained to serve with integrity and grace. Teachers are prepared to open new eyes of faith. Parents are formed to raise their children in the Lord. Strangers are welcomed with the peace of Christ. And pew sitters are prepared to hear the Gospel with new ears. Whenever we see people abandoning themselves for the sake of others, we see the transformation of lives from one degree of glory to another (3:18). Because of God’s glory, we do not lose heart (2 Cor 4:1-6). Because its God’s glory, we plunge in with both feet and eyes wide open. And that’s the call of the gospel.

    From the Introduction to The Effective Practice of Ministry, forthcoming, June 2013.

  • God’s Incarnational Ministry

    “In the beginning God…” Genesis assumes God. God does not have to be introduced. God is the primary character. And God acts. God creates, blesses, gives laws, judges, grieves, saves, elects, promises, makes covenants, provides counsel, protects, confers responsibility to humans, and holds them accountable, all before Abraham shows up on the scene. Genesis is all about God. The Bible begins with a testimony to the universal activity of God. And God is the hero of every story.

    Before time began, God existed in community. The mysterious doctrine of the Trinity confesses God’s oneness as a relational and communal being. Fellowship in love within God’s being describes God’s existence prior to any word about the world. “In the beginning God…”

    In God’s loving fellowship, God desired to create a place where God would extend fellowship to God-like beings. In the first chapter in the book about God, the word for “God” is used 32 times; “God said” 8 times; “God saw” 7 times. God ordered chaos and filled emptiness. God is God and freely brings into being that which is not God. The created depend on the Creator God for their existence and continuing life. The male and female together created in God’s image are both given authority to govern creation (1:26-31). God’s creative activity not only brought the world into being, but also effectively engaged in the lives of people long before Israel came into being.

    However, not long into the story about God, people broke relationship with God. The story begins in loving fellowship, but the plotline of God’s story unfolds by God acting in the world in order to restore God’s relationship with creation and especially with humanity. God’s redemptive purposes are universal. And though people sin, they remain God’s good creation, created in the divine image (5:1-2, 9:6). God’s love for humanity carries the story forward in dramatic, often tragic, ways. For instance, God begins showing up in the story less and less. With each patriarch, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, God’s words and God’s actions are more reticent. God steps back from human history so people can step forward. Skip your rock across the pages of God’s story in the Hebrew Scriptures and God’s grand appearances slowly fade into the background. At times, it feels like a drought. As the story of God unfolds, smaller and smaller audiences witness God’s attendance. And repeatedly Israel is stunned by God’s silence. The Psalmist cries out more than once, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps 13:1). And in some stories, the drought stuns us. God is not even mentioned in the story of Esther. During the Babylonian period of captivity, God only reveals God’s Self in a vision to an odd fellow living in a refugee camp. And the people waited and longed for God to show up again. While Israel is asked to “Behold God” (Isa. 40:5, 9-10) during Second Temple Judaism, the people lost sight of God’s promised restoration. Even though God was present (Hag. 1:13, 2:4), the people could not see. And after Malachi, drought lasted around 400 years.

    That drought is why John’s words are so stunning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. … The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-4, 14).

    God became flesh. God was made visible and audible in the person of Jesus. The incarnation changes everything. God in Jesus was now made known fully in ways never before seen or experienced. As Paul says, “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15a); And again he says, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col 2:9). Or as the Hebrew writer says, “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being” (Heb 1:3). The relationship between the divine and the human is transformed. Humans now can see, hear, and know God in ways never before possible. God did not stay distant or transcendent, remote or isolated; rather in Jesus, God chose to live with humanity in the midst of human weakness, confusion, and pain. To become flesh is to know joy, pain, suffering, and loss. It is to love, grieve, and someday die. Jesus lived among God’s people, and they saw his glory. The glory Moses beheld on the mountain and Ezekiel saw at the Kebar fully dwelt in Jesus. And God’s glory set up tent in their midst. God ended the drought and tabernacled with people in context. The glory of Jesus’ ministry exemplified his effective practice. Good news was preached to the poor, release to the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, and liberation to the oppressed (Luke 4:18). By faith and through sacrament, God continues to inhabit God’s people and minister through them in glorious ways today. The climactic denouement is the greatest story ever told. God recreates relationship with humanity by becoming human, dying, and rising back to life. Eternal loving fellowship closes the revelation of God’s story.

    Excerpt from the Preface of The Effective Practice of Ministry, forthcoming, June 2013.

  • Advice to New Pastors

    I recently read a blog entry posted by Jason Goroncy “William H. Willimon: Advice for New Pastors.” The link for the post is here.

  • The Function of Sermons

    I am currently writing a text A Turn towards the Listener. The following is an excerpt from the section entitled, “Changing the Function of the Function.”

    In homiletics, the terms “aim,” “purpose,” and “function” are often been used to describe what the preacher intends the sermon “to do.” Preachers intend that sermons accomplish certain ends; realize particular consequences. Preachers intend to persuade hearers to become and consequently to act. The most oft used definition of a function statement comes from Tom Long, Witness of Preaching. Quoting David Kelsey: “Part of what it means to call a text ‘Christian scripture,’ is that it functions to shape persons’ identities so decisively as to transform them … when it is used in the context of the common life of Christian community.”[1] Advocating that biblical texts say things that do things, and the sermon is to say and do those things too. Content and intention are bound together (focus and function), and no expression of proclamation is complete without them. Long writes, “A function statement is a description of what the preacher hopes the sermon will create or cause to happen for the hearers. Sermons make demands upon the hearers, which is another way of saying that they provoke change in the hearers. … The function statement names the hoped-for change.” [2] Function statements raise the question of how the preacher’s words will be taken up, acted on, or become embedded in the practices of the congregation.

    For a pragmatic sermon, let me propose that all function statements only use behavioral or affective verbs. I’m not against cognitive acts. Let’s assume that what we are doing makes sense. We are using clear and meaningful language. Let’s assume that our words communicate content in clear and logical ways that increase congregational understanding. Let’s assume that our words will “remind,” “clarify,” “teach,” “analyze,” “enlighten,” “illuminate,” “investigate,” “examine,” and a host of other words that are appropriate for thinking people. And for Peirce, understanding a concept is the same as belief that will lead to practice. After the congregation understands, then what? Select a strong verb that reflects the answer to the question, “So what?”

    Affective and behavioral functions go beyond feelings and reactions and become a way of being for people. Let’s use active verbs like “affirm,” “exhort,” “warn,” “challenge,” “encourage,” “delight,” “inspire,” “support,” “promote,” “hearten,” “stir,” “motivate,” “arouse,” “provoke,” “aggravate,” and a host of other words that prompt the hoped for change in people’s lives. Only then does the message have “meaning” in a peircian sense. Subsequently, the function of sermons will be judged by their transformative effect “over time” in the life cycle of a church.

    People can have bad habits that they sustain for a surprisingly long time. These habits are funded by “inadequate definitions, misleading theories, and other bad interpretations.”[3] Since bad habits die hard, our function statements must activate intentional and concrete practices. If our aim is to “fix” belief so that people are prepared to act, then our functions must be effective and affective from the outset and our teaching must become proclamation.

    [1] In: Thomas Long, The Witness of Preaching (Westminster John Knox, 1989), 106.

    [2] Ibid., 108-109.

    [3] Lyne, 87.

     

     

  • iPad Research Project

    Recently, a GST student James Prather and I received a grant that would enhance students using iPads while engaged in ethnography.

    A pdf version of the ACU Press Release      A PDF version of the Davidson Proposal

     

  • Growing Up with Ordained Habits

    The Eucharist in an Unarticulated World

    Mikhail Bakhtin’s understanding of dialogism and heteroglossia implies that all discourse communities are located in historical situations that involve complex interactions. To address what teenagers within Churches of Christ believe about the Eucharist, there exists the need to return to the naked immediacy of experience as it is felt within the utmost particularity of a specific life. Subsequently, an ethnographic journey of what teens believe and practice about the Lord’s Supper will involve other conversation partners. Seeing and participating in a weekly observance of communion gives these teens access to a larger conversation. For teens to experience “deed” (in Bakhtin’s system), they will need to mediate between their lived experiences of the Lord’s Supper and their reasoned representation of the act. The question this research asks is: are teens able to account or give meaning to the act of participating in weekly Communion? Or as Bakhtin says, “For as much as I have experienced and understood in art, I must answer with my life, so that what I have experienced and understood in art does not remain without effect in life” (Art and Answerability, 56). Can these teens “answer with their life” in the context of the act of the Eucharist?

    In the book, Soul Searching, author and researcher Christian Smith wrote a detailed analysis of his findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion. In it he wrote:

    In our in-depth interviews with U.S. teenagers, we also found the vast majority of them to be incredibly inarticulate about their faith, their religious beliefs and practices, and its meaning or place in their lives. We found very few teens from any religious background who are able to articulate well their religious beliefs and explain how those beliefs connect to the rest of their lives.[1]

    Within any denominational setting, teens enter an ongoing conversation about the Eucharist. Churches of Christ have a deep commitment to a weekly observance of the ordinance. The following articulation of the Eucharist is summarized from Dr. Everett Ferguson’s The Church of Christ: A Biblical Ecclesiology for Today.[2] Ferguson begins the discussion of the Lord’s Supper in a subsection entitled “Activities of the Assembly,” located in chapter 4, “The Church and Her High Priest: Worship and Assembly.”[3] Ferguson is indebted to Scripture as his primary source for authority. He describes the Lord’s Supper as the central act of the weekly assemblies of the early church that occurred on the first day of the week. “The Lord’s Supper is expressive of the central realities of the Christian faith and of what the church is about” (250). He subsequently describes the Lord’s Supper under the headings of biblical words and descriptors.

    1. Thanksgiving or eucharist is the term used to express thanksgiving for salvation the congregation uses to address God.
    2. Lord’s Supper describes the meal Jesus hosts in his honor. The giving of the bread and wine is a symbol of the gift of salvation. Jesus gives the meal on behalf of the people. Lord’s Supper is the most common expression used by Ferguson.
    3. Communion or koinonia points to the sharing congregants have in Christ’s sacrifice and its benefits. Participants are identifying with his life and death. Bread and wine are tokens of Jesus’ pledge of continual fellowship with his people. The breaking of the bread signifies the sharing of the meal together indicating the congregation’s unity and mutual sharing.
    4. Memorial or anamnesis indicates a commemoration. Remembrance brings to mind the Passover Feast’s function in the minds of Jewish celebrants. The remembrance is greater than mere recalling of past events but locates by faith each person who celebrates in the act as a participant in the ongoing event. “Thus, instead of simply calling the past to mind, the past was brought into the present and its benefits made operative” (252). The memorial is thus a re-enactment or “the action portrayed and shared in the reality being enacted. In the same way, Jesus’ actions at the Last Supper enacted the giving of himself soon to occur” (253). In other words, “By repeating the actions of Jesus in breaking the bread and distributing the cup, believers participate in what he did; by the symbolism, they bring those past events into the present and make them living reality” (253). Additionally, the memorial functions by anticipating the messianic banquet by proclaiming a future event. Prolepticly, the memorial brings the future event into the present through joyful expectation.
    5. Covenant Meal connects the Lord’s Supper with the new covenant that is based on the forgiveness of sins. The Lord’s Supper is an act of renewing one’s covenant allegiance to the lordship of Jesus.
    6. Sacrifice is seen through the congregation’s prayers and thanksgivings as acceptable “thank offerings.” The Lord’s Supper reminds believers of the realities of the resurrection as a promise of the power of a sacrificial life. The church shares in the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice, but also offers its own self-sacrifice to God.
    7. Sacrament or mystery are words often associated with the Lord’s Supper in other traditions but are loosely tied to the event in the Bible. In broad ways, the words do connect with what is happening but Ferguson is reticent to incorporate a mystical experience in the proceedings.

    Finally, Ferguson lists four attitudes or spiritual exercises that believers practice during their engagement with the Lord’s Supper. Primarily, these exercises relate to mental processes that lead to communal actions. The attitudes are self-examination, confession, reconciliation, rededication, and joy.

    Ferguson too comes from a dialogic place in his understanding of the Lord’s Supper. To contextualize Ferguson as a representative articulation of the Eucharist within Churches of Christ, I “cross-checked” his understanding with the entry “Lord’s Supper” in the Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement.[4] The essay substantiated Ferguson’s understanding while also supplementing it with details of the historical development of the doctrine within the larger tradition from which Churches of Christ emerged. The authors highlighted the emphasis on “every first day of the week” and the centrality of the event. Developmentally, they spoke of a consensus that centered on the centrality of both preaching and the Lord’s Supper, unfermented juice, multiple cups, communion meditations, and open communion. While practices may vary from place to place, the social location of the participants in my ethnographic research all adhere to these activities. However, the entry also detailed the lack of consensus about how people understand the Lord’s Supper. While early pioneers of the movement emphasized the memorial or “emblematic” nature of the Supper, a more sacramental or mystical understanding was also present among some leaders.

    Ferguson represents this tension by acknowledging the function of anamnesis in detail, but also by his reticence to use the terminology of sacrament or mystery. Ferguson notes how Christians celebrate the presence of Christ as the celebrant and host of the meal, but avoids using mystical language. Ferguson elaborated on his understanding of what Churches of Christ believe about the Lord’s Supper by noting that memorial has been the predominant view in most churches and he emphasized anamnesis and other aspects in order to “broaden the perspective.”[5] A predominate view of memorial, but not as anamnesis, indicates a wholly rational approach to the event. Ferguson desires to broaden the perspective because of his personal convictions. He states, “As to my personal view, I believe that the eating of the bread and drinking the cup is the occasion when Christ and the Spirit impart spiritual nourishment to the believer, somewhat comparable to the way baptism is the appointed time when God acts to forgive sins.”[6]

    In my experience, the unspoken difference between memorial and a more sacramental view pervades the pews. While an observer would notice little difference in the outward activities or practices of churches, the significance of the Supper’s theological import as either memorial or sacrament is unarticulated. Communion meditations may comment on these fundamental tenets of faith, but may unknowingly contradict one another from week to week. Most members, and especially teens, do not formally process these meditations as mediation between their acts and their accounts of their acts (Bakhtin: accounts + acts = “deeds”). Furthermore, my experience as a third generation member of Churches of Christ would contradict what these resources have claimed to be normative. While I do see the Supper as a central part of our liturgical practice today, I was not raised to think such. I was raised to see a “flat” view of all the liturgical practices, one not being more important than any other. Subsequently, I think many congregations hold to the notion that preaching, reading Scripture, collecting money, singing a cappella, praying, and taking the Lord’s Supper are of equal importance.

    Research protocol: Various graduate student researchers will ask baptized teens who regularly attend Churches of Christ assemblies the following:

    1. Beginning: Note their age and gender. Thank them for agreeing to participate in this project and assure them that their responses will be confidential. Ask, “May I have permission to record this interview?” “What is your first name?” “How long ago was it when you were baptized?”
    2. Ask and record the following: “Reflect for me about your experiences taking communion.” If their answer is short, ask the following prompts: “Tell me about your first experience taking communion.” “Tell me about what your most recent experience taking communion.”
    3. Thank them for their help with this project.

    Data Analysis:

    • Recordings will be transcribed.
    • The transcribed notes will be coded according to the themes that emerge.
    • The themes will be analyzed to see convergence and divergence intertextually, intratextually, and from the larger discourse reflected by Ferguson.
    • Silences in the teen’s discourse will be highlighted through a comparison with the larger discourse reflected by Ferguson.

    Paper outline:

    1. Introduction: Statement of the question for investigation.
    2. A description of a discourse analysis based upon a Bakhtinian hermeneutical lens.
    3. The articulation of the Eucharist in Churches of Christ informed by tradition and text.
    4. Ethnographic data collected from baptized teens who are members of Churches of Christ.
    5. A Bakhtinian analysis of the discourse using the themes from part three, slippage, and silence. [A critical correlation of text, tradition, and experience.]
    6. Conclusion.

     

    [1] Christian Smith, Soul Searching (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 131.

    [2] Everett Ferguson, The Church of Christ: A Biblical Ecclesiology for Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) 250-257. Dr. Ferguson is a renowned church historian and professor emeritus of Abilene Christian University. The following summary of the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper believed by Churches of Christ was “member checked” and edited by Dr. Douglas Foster, professor of Church History at Abilene Christian University, and by Dr. Ferguson.

    [3] Ferguson, when giving feedback about my summary of his work states, “You capitalize Supper, but I follow the NRSV in leaving it lower case. That immediately expresses a different understanding. Lord’s supper is not only the term I used most but also the term most used in churches of Christ.” Note that he also does not capitalize “churches” when referring to Churches of Christ seeing the former as a description rather than a name. Private communication, February 25, 2012.

    [4] Paul M. Blowers and Byron C. Lambert, “The Lord’s Supper,” in Douglas A. Foster, Paul M. Blowers, Anthony L. Dunnavant, and D. Newell Williams (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004): 489-496.

    [5] Ferguson, private communication, February 25, 2012. Doug Foster emphasized the difference between a rational understanding of memorial versus a more nuanced or sacramental view by stating that Ferguson’s explanation of memorial by using the word anamnesis is an ‘”ideal” statement of remembrance that would not be present in the understanding of many people in the pews of Churches of Christ.” Doug Foster, private communication, February 26, 2012.

    [6] Ibid.

  • Mutual Encouragement

    Mutuality Leads to the Harvest of God

    Focus: God calls us to participate in the advancement of the Gospel.

    Function: To encourage the church to mutually edify one another for the advancement of gospel intents.

    Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to faith and obedience for his name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles. I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.

    Introduction

    1. HGTV—House Hunters International. American agents may know the fundamentals of real estate markets, but what works at home may not translate cross-culturally, e.g., different styles and neighborhoods. An American agent begins with a huge disadvantage.
    2. And Paul is in that position with the Roman congregation. A church he had not visited, yet due to his apostleship to the Gentiles, he is compelled to serve and minister. From the last chapter we know he had several good relationships at Rome but there was even more they shared in common—and what was true for Paul and the Roman Christians, is also true for us in our relationships.

    God has set us apart for the advancement of God’s cause

    1. God called Paul to his ministry to the Gentiles, and through the preaching of the gospel, God had called all the Christians in Rome to be part of his cause
    2. From the creation of the world where God created humans in God’s likeness, God has desired a relationship. God’s activity, the primary plot to God’s storyline, is God desires to be our God and we become a chosen people. We become a mirror of God to the world. So as God is, so are we. For example, as we see God’s faithfulness, we reflect God’s faithfulness.
    3. Paul, the Roman Christians, you, me, all of us are called both to do and to belong to God. We share together with Paul and the Roman Christians our place together in Christ and our mission together to serve Christ.

    And God’s cause is rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ

    The gospel God promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding the Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, God became flesh, one of us to accomplish this mission. Jesus Christ our Lord who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead ultimately accomplished God’s plan.

    • And you would think, built on the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, all would be well. But church history tells another story. And it wasn’t in Rome. Too many humans involved–Humans who somehow do not let the gospel penetrate their hearts. You see there was a deep ethnic rift between the Jews and Gentiles. The rift was built on the false notion that God’s favor on the Jews some how would exclude God having favor on anybody else. So, the Jewish Christians treated Gentile Christians as second class, as ugly ducklings in God’s household.
    • When you get married, you acquire another side of the family. Now I get it when we buy birthday presents for my cousins, but now I’ve got to buy presents for the other cousins. They are family too. A member of congress treats citizens in the district the same even if they live in different cities. Rain nourishes everyone’s lawn the same. So, we do not treat folks differently. Love of brothers and sisters, neighbors, and enemies emerges from the same gospel of Jesus Christ.
    • While the gospel should bind us together in our common cause, we often thwart, disadvantage, run counter to the very gospel we serve. We far too often allow our differences, to cause a compartmentalization of our worship and service.
    • So, Paul writes a letter to the Romans to call them and us to faith and obedience for his name’s sake.

    So that all are mutually encouraged 

    And [Paul] prays that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. Paul desires a reciprocal relationship where everyone involved gives and receives with justice and respect for one another. A place where we look not only after our own interests but the interests of others. Not in vain conceit but in humility we value others above ourselves.

    • Where economic, academic, political, national, racial, gender, social, barriers that bias and hinder our being together in worldly contexts are not just put aside for the sake of the kingdom but are transformed. It is not accommodation or tolerance but honor and respect for the other, a love that treats the other as significant and valuable.
    • Mutual prayers—Ask the congregation to write prayer notes to be put in a basket. [Re-read text to prompt similar expressions of prayer; as a model for prayer topics]
    • Paul prays that their f2f encounter will accomplish mutual fellowship. You cannot replace time spent together whether that be a meal, a work day, leadership, a ministry project, playing games, worship, prayer, etc… My arrival here as a guest speaker has the intent to edify you here in this place. Yet, you have edified me.
    • And that permeates all the strata or levels of our community: from leadership to teen activities.
    • And then we will be all mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, and that is truly a gift of God.

    And as a united body of Christ, we participate in God’s harvest

    Mutual encouragement, deep relationships, true friendships between brothers and sisters in Christ bring about a harvest.

    • A harvest of spiritual fruit/virtues: peace, joy, patience, courage, faithfulness, hope, kindness, hospitality, gentleness, affection, etc.
    • And a harvest of a richer fellowship where our relational needs are met.
    • Harvest in your life?

    Basket of prayers: “Father, these are the prayers of your saints  … Hear our prayers.”

    [Homiletical Note: My students asked me to model Buttrick’s mode of immediacy using a Pauline text. If you follow the headings, reading them as one paragraph, the plotline emerges. The plotline follows Paul’s logic and is undergirded by the narratival substructure of three narratives. 1) Paul’s story, 2) The Roman Christians’ story, and 3) God’s story in salvation history that culminates in Jesus. Finally, my sermon notes are a play script more than a word for word manuscript. The paragraphs in these notes prompt fuller elaboration in the actual preaching event.]

  • A More Excellent Way

    On Sunday, September 4, 2011 I will be preaching at the Maryneal Church of Christ. Below is the sketch of my sermon. The focus of the sermon is simple, God’s oneness creates a future for our diversity. The function follows: To encourage the body of Christ to demonstrate its ontological oneness even in the midst of its vast difference. The sermon was entitled, A More Excellent Way based on the text in 1 Cor. 12:1-27.

    Times are changing. In a 1990 book on Educational and Psychological Measurement and Evaluation, the editors noted, “You probably once learned, and then mercifully forgot, the barbarous, tedious procedure for calculating the square root of a number. The computations are so time-consuming that in our opinion it is an unwarranted expenditure of time to relearn the computational mechanics. In 1965, a calculator with the square root feature cost $1400. Today, hand calculators that give square roots silently and more quickly are available for under $10! Stop squandering your riches on things of lesser value and get yourself one.”

    The purist will remark, “today’s generation will lose more than just a method, they will lose understanding!” But the generation that calculated square roots long hand criticized the generation who introduced the new fangled slide rule. Maybe we should bring back the abacus? Things of lesser value often cause tensions and divisions between colleagues, families, generations, and Christians. How can we hear anyone speaking in the midst of thundering multiple voices? If there is diversity, change, and subsequent argument on simple things like math equations, is there hope for us in a world of political gridlock, ethnic hatred, and religious division? There is a more excellent way.

    1. The more excellent way begins with the Shema:  “The Lord Our Lord is One.”

    a)    1 Corinthians 12:4-13. From the wholeness of God, God gives a variety of gifts to people which produces diversity in the body of Christ.

    b)   From a creative God we have Eagles that soar but don’t migrate, Parrots that talk but don’t swim, and Ducks that swim but don’t climb. And somewhere, someplace we have the weird duckbill platypus. God has a wild, creative, and fun imagination.

    c)    “Some years ago, there was movie about a family reunion. The family was a contentious bunch. They scrapped and split and never got along. Yet, every year, they scheduled a party, a family reunion. At a long table, they’d all sit down together. But, you couldn’t help noticing the sidelong glances, the cold shoulders, the obvious slurs. Perhaps that’s the way it was in Corinth. Though they gathered at one table and shared one cup together, they were at odds. Corinth was a divided church. At the table of the Lord in Corinth, the gift of diversity displayed their shattered unity. These folks did not love one another. At the supper table of the Lord, some struggled with issues of polytheism, others struggled to feed their families. They claimed to possess knowledge, yet could not discern the body of Christ.” [Buttrick, Homiletic, 85]

    d)   The Lord Supper texts in 1 Cor 10 & 11 exemplify a similar scene. At the table of the Lord in Corinth, the gift of diversity displayed their shattered unity. These folks did not love one another.

    e)    There is a more excellent way. The Lord our Lord is one. And from his Spirit God has formed each of us differently to his good pleasure due to his great love.

     2.   Therefore, the table of the Lord is a place where the whole body of Christ is celebrated.

    a)     Have you ever tried to do a job where two hands were just not enough? You try to use your elbow, and then your knee, and if you become desperate, you use your chin. Maybe if I put the nail in my lips while my knee holds the picture, my left hand holds the level, and I swing the hammer with my right.

    b)   We spend all our time each day trying to fix up the outside. Trying to fix up what Nature has given to us. We wash, comb, powder, spray, brush, floss, cleanse, cut, manicure, tease, curl, shave, primp, apply, and all over again. The face is the most important.

    i)     I rarely think about my liver. I have not taken the time, as far as I know, to do anything for my liver lately. But if the Dr. asks for a liver profile, then that which is of greater value takes on greater value. I cannot live without it.

    c)    Yes, my face, this is what you have come to see — but are there not some things of greater value? And that’s the way it is with the body of Christ.

    d)   God placed us into this body when we were baptized into it. All of us entered into this body by the same grace. And Paul emphasizes how God has arranged this body as God sees fit. Four times Paul asserts:

    i)    The one and the same Spirit gives to each, just as God determines (1 Cor. 12:11).

    ii)   God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as God wanted them to be (1 Cor 12:18).

    iii) God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it (1 Cor 12:24).

    iv)  And in the church God has appointed (1 Cor 12:27).

    e)    God has not only created diversity within the body of Christ, God has ordered and arranged the body of Christ, therefore we gather around a table because there is a more excellent way—the way of Love.

    And what is true of the whole body of Christ, I believe exemplifies what is true for all God’s creation. The church represents a way forward for our neighborhoods, cities, and nations. There is a more excellent way.