Reflections for Advent, especially if this is a hard one for you, posted here. 

Advent blessings, everyone.

We recently completed a preaching class for laity here at Calvary.  One of the assignments for each participant was to write an essay addressing the question, “What is good preaching?”  Without exception, all the essays were well thought-out and quite insightful–reading them made me wonder what I possibly had to teach participants!  From time to time I will be posting some of these essays, as I think you will find them thought-provoking as well.  Special thanks to Susan Sevier for permission to print her essay here:

I must confess that I’m not really a big fan of preaching as a literary genre. I am more of a nonfiction reader, personally.  I’m sure that in the course of my too-many-degreed life, I’ve read countless famous sermons, even more countless excerpts from important sermons.  And I know for a fact in a good 40 years as a church lady, I have mostly likely heard 1500 or more sermons from the pulpit (yes, I did deduct for the years in which I took a sabbatical from my church-going ways).

And, I have been fortunate.  Many of these sermons have moved me, made me think, caused me to question, given me comfort, and some, particularly since I have come to Calvary, have allowed me to cry and truly experience for at least a moment my condition as a member of the human race.

This brings me to my first point about what, for me, makes an excellent sermon.  My first question is:   do I hear in the words of the person preaching, their humanity?  Do I hear their struggle with life, with faith, with the experiencing the Divine in their life?  At this point in my life, the only thing that I know with any certainty is, that we all struggle with life, with faith, with experiencing the Divine…but I am only interested in the thoughts of someone who is humbled enough by that uncertainty to admit it.  I have no use for someone who has all the answers, because I know that it just is not true.

My second question is (if I am in my observer mode, not my experiential mode):  do the words of the speaker include me or push me away? This is a continuation actually, of the first question, but I think it would be possible to accomplish the goal of displaying your humanity in your sermon and still give the impression that it is only the speaker’s experience or that somehow the speaker’s experience is “special”.   A good sermon opens a door and invites the listener in; I need to feel that it is possible for me to be part of the story unfolding before me, if I will just walk through the door.

My third question is:  as I listen, am I experiencing the act of creation along with the speaker?   I certainly don’t mean that I only enjoy sermons delivered without notes. By creation I mean a sense of excitement, a sense of discovery, a sense that what the speaker is sharing with me bears the mark of new insight – that somewhere along the way the writer experienced an “aha” moment that they now share with the listeners.  One of the reasons we exist and learn in community is because each of us is an individual expression of divinity – it’s the beauty of life on the human plane – our common divinity is filtered through our individual human expression, and therefore when we bring the message to the world it comes as if through a faceted jewel – and you never know which facet of light will fall on which soul and bear fruit.  A sermon writer has to be able to turn the jewel, and view the message from its many facets, and present as many facets as possible to reach as many different people as possible.  That requires the ability to examine the text from a wide variety of perspectives, and frankly, that requires both an act of  creation and an act of empathy, the ability to question from the perspective of the Other.

My fourth question, and this may seem a silly one, but here it is:  does the speaker really understand what they are talking about?  I realize that if we really understood scripture, there might not be a need for sermons, but by “understanding” I actually mean, have they gotten the intellectual work out of the way?  I think you will never get to the “aha” moment if you don’t get the intellectual work out of the way –  the historical and cultural must be processed and out of the way; yes, these pieces of information can fuel a revelation, but it is not interesting to listen to these things delivered as the revelation itself.  I can read a history book myself, and I can read the notes in my study Bible.

In closing, what is most interesting to me after asking myself the question “What is Good Preaching”, it is fascinating to me that my evaluative guidelines are similar to those I would give if you ask me the question “What is a good singing?”  There are all the technical responses:  well-prepared, good vocal technique, good diction and language skills, accuracy of delivery.  But it is the less tangible qualities that make for a great performance:  does the performer display a sense of understanding of the music, are the inviting me as the audience member into the process, am I witnessing an act of creation before me (because in live performance music only lives for an instant).

In both singing and preaching, for me, the most important evaluation is:  does the conversation continue once the sermon (performance) is over – did it inspire, stir up questions, cause me to want to seek and question more, to listen more, to read more, to change, to grow, to reach out, to stretch.  Because it is in the quest that I as a listener feel alive and included.  Now that’s a sermon that works.

Since I am the one always blathering on about community, it seems ridiculous that the events of the last few days have shocked and amazed me.  Well, you know what they say about the blind leading the blind–I guess in the case of Calvary Baptist Church it’s more often the blind leading everybody else who can see just fine, thank you very much.

I realized early Thursday morning that my lofty goal to move this weekend with the help of my incredible sister, Katie, was realistically unattainable.  It was only a unit to unit move, not a major geographical relocation, so I guess I was lulled into thinking it would be a snap.  I sent out an SOS to our church moderator, Amy Dale, who waved some magic church moderator wand or something, and team after team of congregation members showed up with boxes and food and strong backs to move all the accumulation of life from one place to the other.

Today I woke up in a totally moved in, painted, decorated, organized new home, and my gratitude is so overwhelming I can hardly express it.  In fact, this has been an ongoing theme in my life lately, as I tried to express here. 

This past week, I needed a little help from my friends.  No, really, I needed a lot of help from people who are so much more than friends.  Thank you, church family.  Thank you so much.

All of you pastors out there who regularly lament the disinterest and apathy of congregations, all I have to say is: be careful what you wish for.

I help facilitate a small group on Wednesday evenings here at church.  This fall we’ve been studying a different theological term each week—defining it, understanding its scriptural context, and exploring how it shows up in our own lives.  I worried a little bit at first: What if people weren’t interested in theological terms?  How would I handle it if I unveiled all the exciting things about, say, “BAPTISM” and nobody thought it was near as exciting as I did?

I shouldn’t have worried; I already know there are many opinionated people here who are more than happy to share their thoughts on anything from the snacks in coffee hour to the controversy over the authorship of the book of Hebrews.  And, I should have remembered this when we began to explore the theological word “SIN.” 

I went into the session thinking we would try to define sin, then briefly discuss the Doctrine of Original Sin, move on to confession as a spiritual practice, then read a Psalm and go home. 

Wrong.

We barely got into doctrinal matters by the time the hour ended.  With so much more to cover, I decided we needed one more session on SIN.  Upon hearing the news everyone groaned and made the predictable jokes (more sin??!?) but I knew they were secretly as happy as I was.

The second sin session was just last night.  Just to mix things up I decided to make us all relive the controversy of the 5^th Century church between Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, and Pelagius, a British monk.  Using 1 John 1:5-10 as our platform, we defended the positions of both Augustine and Pelagius using the same scripture, hoping that by the end of the evening each of us could more clearly articulate our own personal positions on the doctrine of sin.

You might think that your average church people might be intimidated when their pastor throws around the names of early church fathers and other thinkers long labeled heretics, but not my church people.  Thoughtfully planting themselves in their respective camps, heated discussion ensued around critical topics like: “Do we have a choice whether or not we sin?”  “Are we born sinners?”  “What does it mean to be created in the image of God?” “How do we articulate what we all recognize to be our inability to live up to God’s standards?”  “What do with thing about the theology of atonement?”  “Where does Jesus come into the picture?”

The list of heated debate topics could go on for awhile, but eventually I had to call time when the hour was over.  I think the group would say we did not fully decide whether we want to stick with orthodoxy and Augustine or whether we’re fully ready to try to redeem Pelagius.  Regardless, I think I can safely say that none of us who attended were anywhere close to bored last night.

For engaged, committed, thoughtful church members, I am giving thanks this morning.  And, I think we might just be needing at least one more session of sin, to which I will wear a referee’s shirt and maybe even bring a whistle!

I’m sharing my thoughts all over the place these days.  Recently I pontificated on the new Coen brothers’ movie, A Serious Man, on the Associated Baptist Press website: http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4547&Itemid=9.

This notoriously bogus excuse from elementary school came back to haunt me the other day, when I printed out my sermon manuscript Sunday morning just before leaving the house only to discover my 10-page manuscript had somehow become one page plus one sentence.

Rushing to get everyone to church, which is common for me on Sunday mornings, I had little (no) time to explore my computer to find out where said sermon manuscript might have gone while I slept.  For those of you who already know my facility with computers and my tendency to rush everywhere, it’s probably unnecessary to say that I was unable, in fact, to accomplish any of the following: to find my original manuscript through some magical document recovery process; to discover why and how this horrible turn of events had taken place; to rewrite, in entirety, at least some facsimile of my original sermon.  To add insult to injury, when I got to church I remembered that I had a meeting to attend, further limiting my time to solve this little dilemma before the organ prelude kicked in at 11:00 a.m. 

The brain-wracking that ensued is the process that eventually led me to revisit the whole “dog ate my homework” possibility.  What would happen if there was no sermon?  Would the world end if I got up and carefully explained what happened to me?  Would the Calvary congregation grant me an extension? 

I did not know.  I do not know, in general, what one does in a situation like this, as its likelihood has only been the stuff of nightmares heretofore.

As my mind coursed through all the possible excuses I could imagine (“God’s Spirit told me that we should have approximately 16 minutes of silence in worship today instead of the sermon”?) I finally ended up where my children would probably tell you was inevitable: firmly ensconced, that is, in the land of “the show must go on.”  This is where I ended up after I sat down in my office and had a firm talk with myself in the 3 minutes of quiet I had before we were to line up for worship.  Oh yes, there would be a sermon, manuscript or not.  It’s my job . . . and, anyway, I am the one who is always blathering on about how God shows up in spite of us, etc., etc.

I would just have to figure out how, exactly.

I began by figuratively talking myself down off the steeple: “Amy, you studied this text for hours all week long!  Remember, you actually wrote a whole entire sermon, carefully choosing words and phrases, crafting paragraphs to lead to a (hopefully) compelling point.  If you can’t put something vaguely acceptable together on the fly, then, (I sternly lectured myself), how can you call yourself a preacher?

This painful self-taunt was enough to get me going (as if I had a choice).  I marched up front and led worship, as usual.  I carted up my one page plus one sentence notes, I started the sermon, and then  . . . I just did the best I could. 

In the end, I lived. 

And, predictably, I also heard many, many comments like: “Wow, that sermon was amazing!” and, “I’ve never seen your delivery better!” (Pull out hair here.)

I am a manuscript preacher.  I think I will probably always be a manuscript preacher.  But this experience of preaching without a manuscript at the last minute without my consent taught me a few things:

It taught me that God is here, and God’s Spirit is working, even when I drop the ball. 

It taught me (again!) what I always try to teach everybody else: that worship happens in many different ways, and that elements like liturgy and music and scripture deeply connect us with God—not just the sermon (duh). 

It taught me (once more, again) to save documents five billion times and never, ever trust my computer. 

It taught me that the Calvary congregation is kind and forgiving and maybe not really that good a judge of sermon quality . . . . 

And, finally, it taught me that my heart may be getting older, but it can still withstand a prolonged bout of high blood pressure every once in awhile.

Thanks be to God. 

No, really.  Really.

Thanks be to God. 

Amen.

I fainted in church Sunday.

Fainting in church has always been a secret fear of mine.  I’d always imagined, when it inevitably happened to me, that it would happen at a very inopportune time—like, in the middle of preaching or while I was standing in a full baptistery.

Honestly, I did feel rather woozy during the sermon itself, but it wasn’t until I was already standing at the back door shaking hands with visitors that I knew I was a goner.

It was all very dramatic.  One minute I was shaking a visitor’s hand, and the next I was sitting, slumped over on a back pew, with a whole bunch of people standing over me looking really worried. (I’ll be curious to see if that visitor visits again . . . ).   To make a long story short, it took about twenty minutes for some color to come back to my face, and for that clammy, sweaty feeling to go away enough for me to feel like I could make it all the way back to my office.

During those twenty minutes everyone kept asking in many different expressions: What’s wrong?  Why did you faint?  Are you sick?—good questions, all, but I had answers to none of them.  I reviewed all of this in my mind—Not enough sleep?  Forgot to eat breakfast?  Flu shot I got right before worship?  Probably a combination of all three, I decided, as I walked gingerly back to my office.

When I made it into the church office, our front desk attendant Wardell took one look at me and said, “What happened to YOU??!?” 

“I fainted in church,” I explained.

Without missing a beat, Wardell asked me the one question no one in church had asked yet, and a possibility I confess I had not considered.  “Was it the Spirit?” he asked, with all seriousness.

I giggled, I’ll admit, and he looked at me strangely. 

Later, though, I thought perhaps that possibility should at least have appeared on my list for consideration.  After all, I was in church when it happened. 

Honestly, I think it was the flu shot in the end.  But Wardell’s question made me wonder if I wander through life sometimes—wander through my faith—never considering the possibility and presence of God’s Spirit. 

Maybe I didn’t feel the Spirit so close to me Sunday that I fainted in church.  But maybe I miss the Spirit more often than I should.  So I am thinking from now on: awareness, intention, listening—all those, plus a healthy breakfast and no more flu shots before preaching . . . I don’t want to miss any time I feel the Spirit.

Amen!

Recently Calvary staged a talent show, during which we learned (if we didn’t know already) that we have quite a talented congregation.  One of the highlights of the day was a song, written and performed by Eric Bebber.  This musical masterpiece is a fitting tribute to this crazy, wonderful community of faith.  Enjoy.

A different kind of Baptist
Folks like me and you
Some people call us hippy church
But we call it the zoo!

You won’t find any animals here
Only a diverse community
And from extremely odd situations
We have no immunity

(Chorus)
We’ve had…
Arrests in worship
Sirens in the sermon
Loud outbursts
And even a few hairy little vermin

We’ve got…
Republicans and Democrats
Superhero visitors
A man on a banjo
And three female ministers

You know, the staff at Calvary
Are a crazy bunch of folks
I’ve never laughed so hard in the workplace
As I have at Harold’s jokes

(Chorus again)

We have so many ministries here
To care for our sisters and brothers
But the best part about Calvary
Is our love for God and each other
. . . It’s why I love the zoooooo!

I dare not fully describe the day I’ve had here.  Not only would no one believe the extremes of this day (from a generous, unexpected gift to the church to two of my children in a school bus accident (they are fine)), but I suspect more than a few readers might question my sanity if I tell you everything.  Not that that would be anything new . . . .  Suffice it to say that you will understand the basic feeling of my day by reading the first paragraph of this entry and also by hearing about an experience I had at the end of the day. 

This particular adventure began when Wardell, the very nice young man who works at our front desk in the evenings here at church, called me in my office to tell me there was someone here who needed to talk to a pastor.

I think nice, virtuous pastors take a call like this one and either think, “Oh, I am so glad that someone in need found their way to the church.  I hope I can be the presence of Christ for him or her” or, they kneel to pray before heading out to greet said person. 

I, conversely, immediately began formulating the reason why I could not see the person in question and began to tell Wardell to kindly invite the person to make an appointment for another time.  I had to teach a class in about 45 minutes, after all, and surely everybody knows the pastor should not be disturbed while she studies . . . ! 

But then I got almost knocked over by guilt so I grudgingly and with an admittedly bad attitude, went out front to talk to this person.

Because Calvary is a large, downtown church, usually when situations like this one arise, the person asking to speak with a pastor is homeless and asking for some kind of financial assistance.  The trick is to be patient and compassionate and at the same time make sure you’re not getting taken for a ride.  So I admit I was surprised to see that, when I met Robert, he didn’t immediately appear to be someone who was living on the street.  On the surface he seemed pretty clean, fairly well dressed, not too unkempt.  But as he began to talk I realized this was one problem was I not going to solve by listening thoughtfully and offering a voucher to the nearest shelter.

“They’re after me,” he said in a panic. 

(This also happens a lot in this city, the center of our government, where many people who struggle with paranoia come to try to get to the bottom of whatever secret government plot is currently ruining their lives.  Yet another situation not addressed in seminary.) 

The more Robert talked, the more my minimal psychiatric diagnostic skills kicked in.  “They’re controlling my mind!  They are following me and trying to make me crazy!  There’s a huge conspiracy out there to ruin my life!”  (I knew enough, of course, to know this was not a time for jokes.  But it did briefly cross my mind that sometimes I say the same exact things about my kids.)  Paranoia, I quickly labeled him, probably Schizophrenia, too, and asked, “Robert, do you take medicine?”

Robert paused and kind of looked at me with some measure of scorn.  Medicine, he explained, dulls his senses and takes away his dignity.  He just won’t take it anymore. 

I sighed.

This is a classic situation for someone living on the street.  I knew that Robert probably can’t function in regular society because he’s struggling so much with mental illness.  I also know there’s no magical pill that will instantly make things better.  And, I agreed with him when he told me he just didn’t want to get into the mental health system again because he felt like he just got shuttled from one agency to another. 

I told Robert I didn’t have the answers to his questions, that I didn’t know the solution to his dilemma, and his face fell.

“All I want is to live a normal life, to have a regular job and a family, to be happy.  But I am so afraid all the time.  I feel like my life is over.  Everyone listens to me like you are listening to me—I can tell you are a compassionate person and you feel sorry for me.  But then they tell me they can’t help me.  I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.  There must be some power in this world that is stronger than what I am facing—don’t you represent God?  Can’t God do something?  I just want to know why.  I want to know why this is happening to me.  I want somebody to give me a real answer.  Please.  Can’t you tell me why?”

As tears ran down his face, I suddenly realized that though Robert clearly was very sick, his questions made a lot of sense.  In fact, his questions are questions all of us ask at some time or another, and that feeling of desperately reaching out for God, hoping beyond hope that you can find some peace in the middle of pain–it’s a feeling we humans share.  Even through the fog of sickness, Robert’s tortured questions made up a perfectly sane lament.

I couldn’t help Robert.  I couldn’t answer his questions.  He left the church yesterday without learning the answer to why.  What he probably didn’t know was that I don’t have the answers to those questions for my own life, much less anybody else’s. 

I hope Robert slept somewhere safe last night.  I hope he found just a little bit of peace.  I hope asking the questions and wailing the lament along with someone else who is also wondering why gave him a shred of hope to hang on for awhile longer.  I hope Robert knows that God doesn’t reside in pat answers and easy solutions . . . that God is right there, in the questions. 

And I hope I know that, too.

I know this is a dangerous admission for someone in my field, but there really are plenty of good reasons not to read the Bible.  

The Bible’s format is imposing, and usually the text is too small.  Many of the words are hard to pronounce.  It’s often boring, repetitive, violent, nationalistic, full of imperfect characters, often offensive.  There are so many different versions of the Bible, how is one supposed to know which is the best?  And, where do you start?  Actually looking up passages in the Bible is a mystery to a lot of people . . . even people I know to be good people of faith sometimes sheepishly admit that their Bibles gather more dust than they should. 

We talked about this on Wednesday night at our small group here at church.  I tried to make the case for why reading the Bible is good discipline for us all, but I don’t think I did it nearly as well as Frederick Buechner does in his book Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC:  “[The Bible] is a book about the sublime and the unspeakable, it is also about life the way it really is.  It is a book about people who at one and the same time can be both believing and unbelieving, innocent and guilty, crusaders and crooks, full of hope and full of despair.  In other words, it is a book about us.  And it is also a book about God.  If it is not about the God we believe in, then it is about the God we do not believe in.  One way or another, the story we find in the Bible is our own story.” p.  9

Also with Fred’s help, I compiled a list of how one might attempt to begin the task of reading one’s Bible.  Add your own tips in the comments!

Tips for Reading the Bible

1. Don’t start at the beginning and read all the way through.  Read the high points first.  Ask people you know who love the Bible which parts are their favorites.  Read some of the juicy stuff, like 2 Samuel, or a good story, like Esther.  Try the end of Genesis, or one of the Gospels, like John, to start out.  Google a list of favorite Psalms and read one every morning.  It’s like keeping a list of movies you mean to see . . . there’s no special virtue in reading the entire thing straight through in order.  Some parts are really boring.
2. Pick up a Bible commentary if you want more background, or go onto a good website like www.textweek.com to find background about what you’re reading.  You guys are smart—you know how to research something!  Just make sure you stick with reputable websites your pastor recommends to you.
3. Try reading the Bible in a foreign language, if you know one.  The Bible has been done to death for some of us.  It’s so familiar that we tune it out and can’t hear the meaning behind the words.  Sometimes reading it in another language can provide perspective and insight into the meaning behind the words.  If you don’t know another language, then you should probably learn one anyway.
4. Try a new version of the Bible that might be easier to read than the King James Version you got at your confirmation 40 years ago.  The New Revised Standard Version is a good, solid translation.  The New International Version is a little easier to read.  A great paraphrase can be good, too, like Eugene Peterson’s The Message
5. Close your eyes, open your Bible, and point to a place to begin reading.  You know you’ve done it before, don’t lie.
6. Listen to the Bible.  In your car, or on your ipod or something.  Really, it’s worth a try.
7. Don’t be scared.  It won’t bite you.