Category Archives: Preaching

“Being There Even When You Are Not: ‘Presence’ in Distance Preaching.”

Listening to sermons through digital media is not new. However, the pandemic pressed many preachers into a medium in unexpected ways. The need for immediate solutions did not allow time for preachers to reflect on what was happening theologically. This paper explores theological presence. The question of how one creates connection and presence when no one is even in the same room, city, or country is not new. The rhetorical concern of being “present while absent” shows up in the writings of ancient rhetoricians, opening the door for theological conversation. Recognizing there are ways to employ rhetorical techniques for non-virtuous ends, the pandemic also revealed that some virtuous attempts failed the ecclesial need to build relationships online. Digital platforms and social media give churches and ministers opportunities to hold space for developing relationships and witnessing the Gospel.

See the full article — “Being There Even When You Are Not: ‘Presence’ in Distance Preaching.” Religions 202314(3), 347; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030347

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Preaching in Season: Galatians

Preaching in Season Podcast

A series designed to help ministers in their work of interpreting the Bible and preaching the Word throughout the seasons of the Church’s life. Subscribe to the podcast. The second of eight podcasts is linked below. See the whole series here.

Preaching Galatians 1

In this episode, homiletics professor Dr. Tim Sensing leads us to consider how to preach the first chapter of Galatians. 

Preaching in Season Home

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Preaching Ephesians: The Fourfold Fountain of God

“Preaching Ephesians: The Fourfold Fountain of God” was originally a presentation at the F. Furman Kearley Conference for Biblical Scholarship: Biblical Ecclesiology: Text, History, and Culture, October 18, 2019. The audio is found on Youtube Link

The print version is published here: “Preaching Ephesians: The Fourfold Fountain of God” Restoration Quarterly 62 (Second Quarter 2020): 81-97.

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The Body of Christ

Recently, I was asked to teach the adult Bible class at the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene. Highland is my home church and I regularly teach the Living in the Promise class. Covid-19 has moved our class online.

1 Corinthians 12

The Body of Christ

Video Link

 I am glad to be with you, Highland church, even if it is within this limited virtual media. 1 Corinthians 12 is a loved text that describes us, the church, as the unified body of Christ. While not Paul’s only metaphor for the church, the body is Paul’s best-known image of the church, especially when Paul speaks of unity within diversity. [READ TEXT]

Within our one community, God has unified the body. From the wholeness of God, God gives a variety of gifts to people which produces diversity in the body of Christ. Within this one community there are different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; and there are different ministries but the same Lord; and there are different activities but the same God. The wholeness of God, by one Spirit gifts the one body of Christ for the purpose of (v. 7) the common good.  Paul will double down on the purpose of building up the body of Christ in chapter 14. And in the middle of the discussion of spiritual gifts in chapters 12-14, Paul will encourage us all to pursue the common good by a more excellent way, the way of love.

1 Corinthians 12 addresses unity in the midst of diversity in order to establish the significance of each individual member’s contribution to the body. While churches often disagree, disagreement within the body of Christ is not objected to by Paul. Paul is not against disagreement, but division. Disagreement often comes with diversity. And Paul not only values diversity within the unity of the body of Christ, Paul proclaims diversity is God ordained.

The unity of the Christian body is not based on ethnicity, social standing, or culture but on the idea that we all [were] baptized in one Spirit into one Body…and we were given to drink of one Spirit. We are related to, connected with one another not by DNA but by our baptism in the Spirit into the church. The Spirit gives life to the body of Christ. Furthermore, Paul values the weaker and more vulnerable parts. Paul wants those who are (self-) important to see their obligation to the most vulnerable in the community.

 Once again, Paul uses the plural you when he says, you are the Body of Christ, namely, the community of believers. Even though the Spirit equips individuals for particular tasks within the body, it is the community collectively that the Spirit gives life to. Individual gifts are subordinated to the operation of the Spirit in the group as a whole. So, just as in the previous chapter about the Lord’s Supper not being an individualized or private practice, the Spirit gifts individual members for building up the whole. The Spirit is not a private commodity or something for one’s individual spirituality but for the common good of the church.

So, how does a diverse body of Christ work together as a unit for the common good? Let me give you some implications.

We all have our place in the body of Christ.

    1. 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. Or, you use a screwdriver instead of a chisel or prybar. And I break off the tip of the screwdriver. You drive a screw into the board instead of a nail and you wonder why the two boards did not hold tight.
    2. Paul says, You are the body of Christ and parts of each other (12:27).

We all have our place, and we honor everyone’s place.

    1. Laura, a few years back bought a mirror that magnifies everything by 10. I took a long look into the mirror. What did I see? Ugly. Why in the world would I want to magnify ugly? I put the mirror down and have not used it since.
    2. We spend our time each day trying to fix up the outside. In my case, fixing up ugly. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.

So, we honor everyone’s place. And such honor produces mutual concern for one another.

    1. How much more so do we see the need for mutual concern in the midst of a pandemic.
    2. The virus flourishes among those most vulnerable, people of color, essential workers, people with underlying conditions, and those who cannot afford to take preventive actions. This virus does not respect folks forced to choose between working in public and paying rent; those without health insurance or access to basic care; or those living in crowded spaces or long-term care facilities.
    3. The pandemic provides the church the opportunity to express its mutual concern not only for one another, but our neighbors and city.

1 Corinthians is all about how the message of the cross unifies us all. We all have the “one mind” the “mind of Christ.” Our unity is because of the action of God. God unifies us in Christ and in the Spirit. God placed us into this body when we were baptized into it. All of us entered into this body by the same Spirit. And Paul emphasizes how God has arranged this body as God sees fit. Four times Paul asserts:

    1. All of these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and the Spirit distributes them to each one, just as the Spirit determines (1 Cor. 12:11).
    2. God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them as God chose (1 Cor 12:18).
    3. God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it (1 Cor 12:24).
    4. And God has appointed in the church… (1 Cor 12:28).

Within in this one community, this diverse and wondrously different body, God has unified us. And you, all of you, have your place in the unified body of Christ. Therefore, we honor everyone’s place. And such honor produces mutual concern for one another.

Questions (Only questions 1, 2, and 4 were posted at Highland)

  1. We believe that God is one God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. How does the church reflect God’s nature (1 Cor 12:4-6)? If humanity was created in the image of God (Gen 1:27), name ways you see that image expressed in other people?
  2. If God has arranged the body of Christ just as God discerns, where do you fit? Describe a time when you most felt included and affirmed that you not only belonged to the body of Christ, but that you “fit” and you were useful in the body of Christ.
  3. While not often emphasized, 1 Cor 12:12-13 describes “we all [were] baptized in one Spirit and into one body.” No matter how many or how diverse, every believer has baptism as a shared story. The “body” is Paul’s best-known image for the church. Does being baptized “into the church” change your understanding of baptism? If so, how and why? [NOTE: “baptized by one Spirit” is an odd translation. “εν” one Spirit agrees with the Gospels, e.g., Matt 3:11].
  4. Name ways you have seen the body of Christ “honor” one another, especially those who are often overlooked.
  5. How can disagreement and unity co-exist?

 

 

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Timely Quote

While preparing for my sermon I read the following.

Today people are fundamentally consumers: they want what they want when they want it, even in the church. If they do not like what is happening or what they hear, they leave and start shopping for a better deal. Meanwhile, the pressure is constantly on preachers to increase attendance, to raise the budget, to grow a church–to do whatever it takes to improve market share. Be nice; be funny; make promises; do not offend. There is an inordinate desire for approval, for applause, for appreciation on the part of pastors today. To Paul’s queston, “Am I seeking human approval, … am I trying to please people?” (Gal 1.10), many preachers today would have to answer, in all honesty, yes. When preachers are captive to public opinion, when churches too easily become purveyors of gospel gimmicks, offering the religious goods and services people want, what is sacrificed is the ability to be a slave of Christ in service to his unchanging gospel.

–Heidi Husted Armstrong

“Galatians 1:1-12,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3, pg. 90.

I am not planning to use the quote in my sermon because it does not fit the congregational context. I’m the visiting preacher and the church spends most of its energies reaching out to the local deaf community and African refugees. Yet the quote resonates with other voices I am hearing lately. For example, Chris Seidman at the Branch Church was a guest lecturer in my class on practical theology. I asked him to talk about his ministerial identity and relate how it connects to practice. He spoke about Jesus’ baptism and how Jesus began his own ministry after the word from heaven, “This is my son whom I am well pleased.” Chris spoke about how ministry springs forth from the blessing and grace of God and not from the approval of people. The examples he gave convicted us all.

I am part of a team that facilitates healthy matches between churches and ministers. It is satisfying work. Yet there are times when both parties would do well to commit themselves to the ability to be a slave of Christ in service to his unchanging gospel. The church might actually get smaller if such matters were practiced. As Fred Craddock often noted, It is not bad preachers that people will not listen to; it may just be very good ones.

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Graduate Chapel, August 2016

A Word of Exhortation

Hebrews 13

Call to Worship

Welcome to Grad Chapel. Our text today, for those of you who grew up like I did, always brings a smile to my face. I grew up at church. My grandfather was an elder, my father was an elder, my mother was a Bible school teacher four quarters out of four both Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. I grew up in a home where babysitters came to my house so that my parents could go to Cottage Meetings to watch filmstrips. I started preaching when I was 13. Anytime I had a sermon and the preacher okayed the message, I could preach on Sunday nights at Elmwood Avenue Church of Christ in Lafayette Indiana. So if you grew up like I did, and I know some of you didn’t, there emerges insider language. I’ve used quite a bit of insider language already. Our text today makes us insiders smile for it is the text about entertaining angels in their underwear. And for a little kid, an angel wearing boxers or briefs is funny.

  • I didn’t grow up where the insider language, “our text for today,” referred to a lectionary, a set of Sunday readings laid out not only for your church but also for all the churches that embraced the Christian Year as its liturgical calendar.
  • Continuing for the fourth year, Grad Chapel is going to follow the lectionary in order to provide us a rhythm that for all of you who come regularly to this place through the academic year can worship our God and in the words of last Sunday’s lectionary text you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.
  • The Lectionary does not follow the academic year. The academic year begins towards the end of the Christian Year, during the season of Pentecost, Ordinary Time of Year C, Proper 17. And our text for this coming Sunday is Hebrews 13.
  • Our text exhorts us with “a word of exhortation” to welcome you here in mutual love, for who knows, there might be angels among us… And they might be wearing their underwear.

Message

22 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly.

  1. “A Word of Exhortation” – it would not be Hebrews if we did not go back to the OT for some examples. The Deuteronomist places Moses with his GPS saying, “You are Here.” The little blinking dots says, “You are on the border between here and there and before you go forward, let’s look back to where and why you’ve been.” And Moses offers words of exhortation to the camp of Israel, words of memory and hope. Throughout the Deuteronomic history, words of exhortations, preaching, carries the story forward. Words that not only remind God’s people of God’s promises and mighty acts, but also words of warning, words of hope, and words of possibilities. Hebrews 13 reminds me of Moses and the Children of Israel who lived in the safety of a camp, protected by community and family, and who were exhorted to embrace the challenges and opportunities before them.
  2. And the preacher in Hebrews replicates that tradition with his word of exhortation saying, “Hold on to your faith in Jesus, the author, pioneer, and perfecter of our faith.” And the preacher here makes an allusion, 10 We have an altar from which those who officiate in the tent have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood. 13 Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. And those who know the insider language know that “going outside the camp” is an exhortation that calls them to a different kind of ministry, a cruciformed ministry, a ministry of challenge and possibility. Words that call them, in his words, “torture.”
  3. And, as all good preachers do, this preacher gives us a list of concrete expressions of those challenges and possibilities. Listen again to his list…

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels unaware. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid.
What can anyone do to me?”

Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

This preacher chooses this list because these challenges and possibilities connect to the audience’s immediate context. As you begin this academic year, may this old list of challenges and opportunities guide you. Let this word be a word of exhortation.

  • Who among does not need to hear about … Mutual love in a divisive world so full of “we” versus “them” rhetoric, discriminatory and hateful words that only build walls.
  • Who among does not need to hear about … Hospitality in a wall building society where the strangers are cast in the role of enemy and fear of others is highly prized.
  • Who among does not need to hear about … Remembering those in prison especially those who are systemically profiled as undesirable and disproportionately removed from our neighborhoods.
  • Who among does not need to hear about … keeping our marriages and other covenant relationships pure and undefiled. In the midst of so much temporary and mobile connections, where “hooking up” is glorified.
  • Who among does not need to hear about … contentment, especially when all we hear about security is only in terms of social, national, or financial.
  • Who among does not need to hear about … leaders who are worthy of imitation because of their faith.

So as we begin this academic year together, with two final exhortations …

15 Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Benediction

20 Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, working among us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

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Sermon– Available Powers

Available Powers

Reading: James 5:13-20

This chapter is James’s anti-money sermon. Only in a rich country do you have to take the time to qualify or justify preaching an anti-money sermon. And you especially don’t like a guest preacher coming into town and railing against your checkbooks. So we preachers justify. “I’m not talking against being rich. Abraham, Job, and Joseph of Arimathea were all godly rich dudes.” You’ve heard the old worn out joke about the preacher who constantly preached about those folks who own two cars. Then one day, he got a second car. And next week he preached about owning two cars … and a boat. So we preachers justify ourselves because we know folks do not like anti-money sermons. None of us like sermons about our pocketbooks.

I know I’m the guest preacher, but James 5 is the chapter that came next in my preaching calendar. I’m preaching through James. Last time I was here, you got James 2. This week, James 5 continues a theme that cycles throughout the book of James: The rich were oppressing the recipients of James’s letter. The rich are the folks that represent unbelief, immaturity, and instability throughout James. The rich are James’s rhetorical foil; his straw man that he sets up just to knock down.

And it is in chapter 5 that we find out why. James 5:1-6. The rich in the community were persecuting Christians. The rich put their primary trust in riches and not in God who gives us all things. James condemns the rich severely due to their injustice (4-6); selfishness in gratifying their own lusts (5); and murder. Do not envy them!!!! Money cannot buy health; Money cannot buy happiness; Money cannot buy a good name; Money cannot buy trust; Money cannot buy respect; Money cannot buy love. Money cannot secure your security. Money cannot protect you. Money cannot buy you God’s favor. And $ is the representative metaphor of all the powers of the natural world that oppose God and oppose God’s people.

The rich were oppressing folks in James’s church. And in the reading today, James’s asks

  • Is there anyone of you in trouble?
  • Is there anyone of you happy?
  • Is there anyone of you sick?
  • Is there anyone finding that your faith is wavering?

The sources of our troubles are manifold. I do not know your stories. But when you are alone at night, what keeps you awake? What are the anxieties that you put on a list? When you pray, what dominates your requests to God? When you open up to your best friend, what is on your heart? What is tearing up your days? Do you have your list?

And here’s the question. When you have your list completed, what resources do you depend on to address your troubles?

In James, there are two possible resources people turn to in order to address their list.

  • Money represents a natural power source.
  • The powers of the world, the structures and supporting beams of society, the pillars of the world, are powers/idols that work against God’s way in the world thus opposing God’s people. Paul’s description of this reality is “principalities and powers.” For James’s, it is money.

Let’s keep these powers in perspective:

  • God is the first cause power, the prime mover, the originator and sustainer of all life. Human laws, rules, traditions, institutions, and other human activities are second cause powers. Such second cause powers as financial structures, commerce, unions, exchange of goods & services, educational or political institutions, and technologies are unable to address the items on your list.
  • For graduate students, those powers press in on them in the form of debt.
  • When second cause powers usurp God’s power, they become corrupt.
  • When we move these powers to first place, the powers will oppress and overcome. We think we can handle and control these powers and use them for our own good, but these powers, left unchecked, dominate the world for their own good. They oppress the poor, the powerless, and the disenfranchised. When these powers usurp God in society, these powers not only hide God, they are at war with God. All these second cause resources complicate our lists; they do not address them.
  • Christ dethroned these powers of injustice and death. God placed them under the footstool of Jesus. In their proper place as second cause powers, they can be used for the glory of God but only if they remain under the footstool.

But there is an alternative power source.

James’ church, they did not have banking systems, armies, computers, and modern advancements. They depended upon God, they trusted in prayer, they trusted in Jesus’ sacrifice. James is all about FAITH and he writes to this community in order to protect this church from the powers of this earth. His answers to the powers and principalities that oppress are: perseverance and fellowship.

James has been giving valuable lessons on how to respond during trials, suffering, and persecution. The mature man and woman of God will respond with a lifestyle that will be pleasing to God. James concludes his sermon with the same theme that he began in chapter 1: perseverance, patience, and endurance. James 5:7-11.

Patience: Until the Lord comes. Our victory may not be evident until then. Then our understanding of how God works will be made complete.

James gives three examples of patience:

  1. The farmer takes care of his equipment. He plows, weeds, and fertilizes. This is active waiting–and he will be ready for the harvest.
  2. The prophets spoke with no response. We now consider them great exemplars for God.
  3. Job endured, unlike many of lesser character who would have lain down and cursed God.

Take out your list. You do not have to endure alone for your dependence is not on the rich or on the powers of the world, but instead, your dependence is on God and one another. When James gives concrete practical advice about how to access the power of God, he roots that advice in prayer, worship, and community. The Scripture reading this morning asks,

  • Is there anyone of you in trouble? Pray (See Elijah vs. 17-18).
  • Is there anyone of you happy? Sing. Don’t forget the Lord during the good times.
  • Is there anyone of you sick? Call the elders–let the family of God support you through troubled times. Rely on each other in all areas of trouble. Confessing and praying with each other is good practice (vs. 19).
  • If any of you wander from the truth, then let us all gather around that person and restore that person gently. What a wonderful display of the forgiveness of God.

I agree–I do not like anti-money sermons, because our trust is in the power of God.

 

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Preaching Bibliography 2015

Preaching Bibliography 2015

NOTE: The following bibliography has several sections. It begins with several annotated entries compiled in 1994 as a class assignment at Duke University. Afterwards, there is a list of resources, journals, and websites. Finally, I have compiled a list of books that I have read since 1994.

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Graduate Chapel

Gleaners 2.0

 

  1. A quick Google search for “being holy” reveals the cartoon caricature of a sanctimonious person wearing more than one halo, a prudish glare, and primly pious look of someone who is holier than thou. Or it reveals a guru on a mountain or shaman in a cave who is far removed from people. What could God possibly mean when God speaks, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy”?
  2. Today’s reading from Lev 19 is the only occurrence of Leviticus in the Common Revised Lectionary. In the words of Kimberly Clayton, “If you have never preached from Leviticus, and most of us have never preached from Leviticus, this may be just the opportunity you were not looking for.” Lev 19 presents God’s vision for loving community where civil and just dealings dictate how we relate to one another whether they are in community or sojourners. I check my identity papers, my baptismal certificate, that identifies me as a citizen in God’s kingdom, a family member in God’s household, and it states a fundamental criterion for my life. I am created in the image of God, re-created in the image of Jesus, and called to be a reflection of God’s image, to be holy as God is Holy.
    • Holy Living: define here as a call to imitate God in terms of everyday, often mundane, and a Ten Commandment kind of way. For example, allowing the most vulnerable in the community access to your property in order to glean. And that is in the context as neighbors dealt with honestly, wages paid promptly, disputes settled fairly whether it is in the field, home, business, friends, sojourners, worship, or courtroom. When I’m holy, I insure the welfare of others. Whether you are inside or outside, highbrow or outcast, politically acceptable or socially taboo, God’s holiness calls us to love our neighbor. My holiness will be defined by my love and not according to my pedigree, genetics, official papers, or portfolio. Being holy is the condition of our head affecting the conduct of our relationships. To be holy is to roll up your sleeves and express active love.
    • Churches that practice the art of providing for the gleaners are not limited to food. While organizations like gleaners.org are worthy of imitation, other areas of life call for holiness too. There are voices in our nation today that are saying there are some who are not entitled to mercy; not entitled to the gleanings. Who gets medical care? Who gets mental health assistance? Who gets a job? Who gets a place to live or something to eat or a fair wage? Who has equal access to education? When you get out of jail or prison, who really gets a chance? These voices are determining who is eligible to be a gleaner. And I thank God the church operates differently.
    • For example, the woman who accused an elder of adultery. She didn’t point the finger and say, “You are the man” but used innuendo and insinuation to spawn her malicious gossip. He was the one giving an African-American woman a ride to church. And you can connect the dots…
    • And again, what about the prison parolees who had difficulty finding a place to worship after their release? They were given a Christian halfway house not only to meet their needs to integrate back into society but also to be a place of worship on Sundays so that the full house of God could maintain etiquette and decorum; decency and order. And you can connect the dots…
    • And the church that did not want to reach out to poor children in the community because 1) they would be disruptive to the classroom, and 2) they would contribute to the wear and tear on the facilities. And 20 years later I heard the same rationale, “You just ask the school teachers here at this church. They will tell you how disruptive those kids are in the classroom.” And you can connect the dots…
    • Connect the dots…Loving the neighbor, the sojourner, and in Jesus’ community, loving your enemy… do the dots connect to the holiness of God? Or do we keep the gleaners in our fields at arm’s length?

I am reading Mark Scandrette’s Practicing the Way of Jesus: Life Together in the Kingdom of Love. An apt description of the holiness of Lev 19. Scandrette is advocating an activist form of spirituality. Doing kingdom work activates a person’s spiritual formation. He encourages holiness by asking people to join together in experiments of practice. The first he describes is “Have2Give1.” I thought about the 3 sets of clubs I own and lack the ability to use one. Even the rules of golf won’t let me use more than 16 clubs. I claim that I’m a lowly schoolteacher, but I still have the luxury to dabble at an elite game. You see, I have these fields that are well cultivated in order to produce a harvest for the stewardship of my home. But where do the borders of my fields invite practices of love, hospitality, inclusivity, and mercy? Where do I engage the most vulnerable, the sojourner, the orphan and widow, so to embody my love for one another, for love of my neighbor, and for love of my enemy? I’m trying to connect the dots for my own practice. In Scandrette’s words, Practicing the Way of Jesus: Life Together in the Kingdom of Love.

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

The church cannot leave God’s call to love unanswered. Who are those folks that are our gleaners in our midst? God says, Be Holy, for I the Lord your God am Holy. And you are called to connect the dots. Mt 5:43-48. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. ‘But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” –The Word of the Lord.

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Teaching Preaching

Recently on the GST Blog site, I posted the following note about Teaching Preaching.

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