Tag Archives: sermon prep

Three, Two, One…

Posted on by Sare

So I’m at my colleague group this morning and we’re doing what we do: talk about the scripture readings for this Sunday, talk about what we may or may not preach about, bounce ideas off of one another, but also we’re doing what we do: talking each other down from the ledge of killing particularly annoying, destructive, and toxic parishioners as an act of charity for the rest of the community.  (It’s the killing that is the act of charity, or so we sometimes assume.)  One of my colleagues in particular referred to a parishioner as ‘Grendel, Eater of the Dead.’  But this is besides the point, because we’ve already acknowledged that this Sunday we’re all asked to do the impossible: Explain the Trinity.

You see, last Sunday was Pentecost, which means that this Sunday is Trinity Sunday.

Ah, the Trinity.  Every metaphor you can think to use to explain what it is falls short – some fall short sooner than others.  Sometimes we just take refuge in our actual experience of God: It’s mystery. It’s ineffable, meaning there literally are no words that explain it sufficiently.  We can describe the effects and affects of that momentary encounter, but that’s all shaded and colored by our own understanding of the world – our culture, our history, our baggage, our issues.

I was sitting pretty, thinking and talking and taking a few notes on my customary index card, but all the while I thought I didn’t have a gig this Sunday.  I don’t mind preaching on the Trinity, but ::cue snicker and giggle:: I didn’t have to!  After the meeting I actually checked my calendar and realized that I did have a gig (for which I’m grateful, as I do enjoy paying my bills, ykno?) and so now I’ve got to do some hardcore thinking about this whole Trinitarian-Unitarian thing.

There was a lot of conversation, some of it blissfully heretical (because really, what is a theological conversation without a little fun-loving heresy? Honestly, people.  Everyone needs to have a favorite heretic. Mine is Pelagius…) but the place I came to (with a little help from my friends) that feels the best today goes like this… Continue reading →

Good Friday

Posted on by Sare

So, my rector preached the best sermon I’ve heard from him yet. You can find a text copy of it on his blog, here: Cam’s Good Friday Sermon .

The following entry will make much more sense if you take five minutes and go read the sermon. I promise you that it will be worth your while.

So, we had a conversation afterwards and after I told him that, in fact, this was the best I’d heard from him, etc, and I talked to him about what I see as my calling, or dharma, if you will. He knows this already, and you probably have put two and two together, but surprise: I write. I need to write. I’m called to write. It’s my dharma to write. And I don’t do near enough of it. Okay, whinging aside, I mentioned to him that part of what I see that writing is to be is to use my storytelling and my own imagination to write what the world could be like, should we, the human race, make an effort. And while I didn’t say it outright, I was thinking: fiction. Novels. SciFi. Romance. Magial Realism. Even fanfic, really. Really, all those things I do when I’m not at work.

And he was thinking: Sermon.

He said as much, and he pointed out that I don’t do any storytelling in my sermons. And I realized that I looked at sermons as a genre apart, and one I was none too good at, considering my ability in other genres. He pointed out that I could make the genre into whatever I wanted, and that I really needed to not be him. (Sure, easy to say and easy to agree with, but the truth of the matter is that, of course, some part of me says, “Wow, he does it really well, I want to be like him. He’s really inspiring, and I think he’s got it right; I want to be like him.”)

So, I’m thrown for a loop:

a) the sermon was good and challenging, and hopeful (in that way that hearing it gives me hope for the church as an institution – if we can bust out with stuff like this, there is hope for us yet), and really set me to thinking about what traditions are unhelpful in our church and in our culture, and how deeply ingrained some of the unhelpful stuff is. And what, exactly do I want to do about that? Yes, I’m only one person, and no I feel absolutely NO CALL to be a politician and change the church or the world in that way, but I do feel called to be a storyteller, and so how do I propose to change the world in that way?

b) I think I might need to integrate my storytelling with my preaching. It’s the bud of an idea, but beyond it, I’m utterly and completely at a loss. For some reason I find repugnant the idea (a possibly good suggestion of Cam’s) to read some Barbara Brown Taylor and see how she does it. Maybe it’s just the flush confusion of the moment. …But I know that I have a tendancy to absorb the voice of another author and then, if I wish, parrot it back with something like precision. That can come in handy if you write fic (not that I’ve done it in a while with fic, mind you). And I don’t want to do that with the Rev. Taylor. (If I’m going to copy someone, dammit, it’s going to be Rev. Miller!) But I am, after all, trying to find my own voice. (Erm, I suppose that would be, Rev. Gordy’s voice.) I feel like I’ve done that, to a certain extent, in my fic. Granted, it only took me 15 years to do get to that point. But I wouldn’t mind being able to do it over night – to find my voice more or less instantly – with my sermons. Really, I wouldn’t.

So, it’s Good Friday. And there’s pain, there’s angst, there’s an eyes-wide-open look at ourselves and the world. There is confusion, a broad path, a cross-roads, and provisions for the way forward, though which particular way forward has yet to be discerned.

It’s Good Friday. And somehow, it feels like our world has been living in Good Friday since the first Human bashed the second Human with a big rock to steal his fire. And it feels, somehow, like it will remain Good Friday until we can all, somehow, decide to use rocks only for building and not for bashing, whether or not we agree with one another. Only then will Easter be true in the here and now sense, which of course is how we generally celebrate it, either here and now or proleptic and escatalogical (a tiny taste in the here and now that tells something of the after-life experience), neither of which seem true. Only then will Easter not be a false prophet in the truest sense: if the prophesy doesn’t come to pass, it wasn’t true. Until then, to celebrate Easter like we’ve done it, we managed it, we’ve fought the good fight and won, won, won – that seems like vacationing along the banks of Denial and taking a dip when it gets too hot out.

And until then, there is much to think about, and much to be written.

…And I’m still in my cassock. It’s a ‘paint it black’ sort of day. I’m still gonna eat, tho. A food-less Sarey is an unconscious Sarey.

The Quantum Particle Prologue to John

Posted on by Sare

So. I was trying to consider my sermon for next Sunday, and I had the following written conversation with God. …And while I think perhaps I’ve never shared these sorts of conversations, believe you me, they’re more or less every day occurences for me.

In considering John 1:1-18, and drawing an odd line and arrow diagram that looks likes a Worshac inkblot, Sare wrote:

What is John trying to explain?

The mystery of God

He’s failing spectacularly.

You try, then.

After thinking about the prospect of explaining the ineffible niftyness of God, possibly to a bunch of people that don’t care one way or the other, plus taking a moment to consider the ins and outs of the Greek philosopical mindset that has largely shaped the West and how the niftiness of God according to, say, the current Dalai Lama, or Deepak Chopra sounds so different (and yet isn’t) from say, Plato’s understanding of the world, to say nothing of Augustine’s, Sarey writes this:

::sigh:: It’s all about your audience, right?

Something like that.

And then Sarey starts drawing waves and particles, because you can’t see God, but to know God through seeing the Son, or so says the Gospel of John. It’s like that with quantum bits: we know the waves exist, but as soon as we try to see the waves, particles appear that weren’t there before. You can’t actually see the wave, even though you know it exists – we see evidence of its existence, but we can’t see it. We can only see the particles. So the waves are a mystery, but the particles are manifest – but only when you look at them, like the tree in the forest and that cat in a box – Shrodinger might have missed his cat, but let me tell you, mine still exist and will be pissed if you enclose them in a box. Anyway. God is a mystery, but here we have a lovely manifest version: the J-man. (And arguably, every other atom that has ever been manifest, including you, me, the computer screen and the tree outside with which you are currently not communing.) And so Sarey writes:

…It always comes back to quantum mechanics, doesn’t it?

You have Legos. I have quantum particles.

And then Sarey has a warm fuzzy feeling, because really, it’s nice to know you share interests witih your God, like… making stuff. I like to make stuff. God likes to make stuff. We have that in common.

However, I’m not sure I can write a sermon about Quantum particles that will make sense. After all, I am a liturgical groupie and fan of physics, but when the chips are down, I’m more mystical than mathematical. (But just barely.)

Hm. Worthy of more thought. Like, tomorrow.

Sermon Prep

Posted on by Sare

::grin:: I’m having one of those moments. One of those, “I love my job” moments. Check this out – it’s the prayer my mentor wrote that will start out next sunday’s service. the regular type will be said by me. the bold, said by the entire congregation.

There is a time to be born and a time to die.
And this is a moment in which to be transformed.
So we turn to you, Beloved,
Our times are in your hands.

As we gather in song and prayer and hope, hear us Gracious God:

For those of us too much into obedience,
let us be reborn in the freedom of the gospel.
For those of us too much into self-indulgence,
let us be reborn into the service of your love.
For those of us too much shaped by cynicism,
let us be reborn with street-smart hope.
For those of us too much caught by fear,
let us be reborn with courage to challenge injustice.
For those of us too much crippled by guilt,
let us be reborn in the confidence of your generous mercy.
For those of us too much weighted with despair,
let us be reborn with the wisdom of your promise.
For those of us too much into control,
let us be reborn into the vulnerability of the cross.
For those of us too much into victimization,
let us be reborn into the power of Easter.
For those of us too much into fatigue,
let us be reborn into the energy of Pentecost.

We dare to pray that you will do for us and among us and through us what is needed for rebirth and renewal;
Give us the power to be receptive, to take the newness that you give, and to move from the warmth of the womb into the light of a world we have been called to change. Amen.

Come on. It’s wicked cool.