When I took Greek, my instructor gave us a list of the ten things she wanted us to remember. On the list were nine basic survival rules for dealing with Greek. The tenth thing to remember was "we had fun."
Maybe "we had fun" should be the number one thing, though, because if you remember having fun with what you learned, you're more likely to use the knowledge, be passionate, grow and learn more. Or at least try not to lose it.
Since I'm teaching "Gospel Proclamation for Deacons" again I thought I'd reprise that list, for preachers. So dedicated to this year's crop of deacons-to-be, here is the top ten list of things I want them to remember:
1. You can prepare all you want, pray and craft a homiletic gem; but if you don't speak clearly and project your voice to the whole room, nobody but you will benefit from your work. A beautiful sermon, muttered, is wasted.
2. You can speak eloquently and even receive many compliments and still have a lousy, pointless, or even heretical sermon. Prepare with fear and trembling and a heart rent before God.
3. Most jokes told during sermons are not nearly as funny as the preacher thinks they are. There's a reason professional comedians tend to get paid more than we do.
4. When in doubt, leave it out. If you're not sure about an illustration or you haven't chased the implications of a bright idea through to their end, please don't force your congregation to wonder what on earth you are talking about. Likewise, not everything you learned about a passage needs to be in the sermon.
5. Don’t shy away from difficult texts; sometimes, that’s where the most profound discoveries are to be found.
6. Take passages in context. Assume that the original writer did not have attention deficit problems and really meant the text to come out with that flow of thought.
7. The Holy Spirit can inspire you in the pulpit on a Sunday morning. The Holy Spirit can also inspire you in your study during the week.
8. Talk to the congregation, when appropriate even to individuals within the congregation. It helps them pay attention, and put you at ease.
9. Sermons age rather more like fish than like wine. No matter how good they were the first time, leftover sermons almost always stink. Fresh preparation grows you and helps you own the Scriptures afresh each time, no matter how busy your week was.
10. And yes, remember that we had fun. Love preaching and the people will more likely love listening.
31 August 2010
01 August 2010
Finishing a thought...
Faithful cross above all other,
one and only noble tree,
none in foliage none in blossom,
none in fruit thy peer may be.
These ancient words came to mind this week as I was percolating my sermon for today. As I read the lesson in Ecclesiasties about vanity and the trinkets we gather, my thoughts turned to slavery and what life looks like without Christ. The preacher is clear that without the Word the life is lost from before conception. And Paul, in Colossians 3 sets the comparison image in even better focus, put off the evil ways and put on the fruits of the Gospel. And as my mind wandered deeper, into meditation and out of sermon, I pondered the fruits of the two different trees in the Garden. Knowledge of Good and Evil, that ancient tree, brings forth the blighted fruit Paul warns against, immorality, deceipt, evil desire, greed. That ancient tree brings forth the wrath of God and stands between us and the tree of life. Genesis 3 makes it clear, man cannot eat from both trees, either he must grow accustomed to the sticky sweet of rotted fruit, or he may eat freely of the tree of life. Never both; for to allow man to live in blighted rottenness forever, consuming both evil and immortality is cruelty.
So in the garden, God removed the tree of life.
The tree of life is promised to us again in the new heaven and earth. In the final two chapters of the Bible, as in the first two, the tree stands prominently in the midst of the Garden, man eating freely of it.
But what about today? I pondered Paul's words, put to death that which is earthly in you... put it to death. Why such severe language? It is because death is the prerequisite for resurrection. Because you are so far from your old slave masters as to be dead to sin, dead to death. So put to death the old master's blighted fruit. Put to death the fruit of the old tree.
But if the tree of life, the new tree to which we are promised access is only in the renewed Kingdom, then all we have is pie-in-the sky religion, and practical everyday spiritual starvation.
But it is the nature of God to take the symbols of this broken world and turn them upside down; thus it is that an instrument of death, of curse, -- cursed, says the Law, is him who hangs on the tree-- to become the tree of life and blessing. The dead wood of the cross becomes the tree of life, the son of God becomes accursed that we might be blessed, death gives way to resurrection and immortality.
It makes sense, then, doesn't it, that Jesus says in John's Gospel that whoever does not eat his flesh will have no part in him, for the fruit which hangs on the tree of life is the Lord himself. He who does not not eat of the tree of life, will surely die. There is no other option.
All of this leads, no doubt, to some very interesting Eucharistic theology, does it not?
one and only noble tree,
none in foliage none in blossom,
none in fruit thy peer may be.
These ancient words came to mind this week as I was percolating my sermon for today. As I read the lesson in Ecclesiasties about vanity and the trinkets we gather, my thoughts turned to slavery and what life looks like without Christ. The preacher is clear that without the Word the life is lost from before conception. And Paul, in Colossians 3 sets the comparison image in even better focus, put off the evil ways and put on the fruits of the Gospel. And as my mind wandered deeper, into meditation and out of sermon, I pondered the fruits of the two different trees in the Garden. Knowledge of Good and Evil, that ancient tree, brings forth the blighted fruit Paul warns against, immorality, deceipt, evil desire, greed. That ancient tree brings forth the wrath of God and stands between us and the tree of life. Genesis 3 makes it clear, man cannot eat from both trees, either he must grow accustomed to the sticky sweet of rotted fruit, or he may eat freely of the tree of life. Never both; for to allow man to live in blighted rottenness forever, consuming both evil and immortality is cruelty.
So in the garden, God removed the tree of life.
The tree of life is promised to us again in the new heaven and earth. In the final two chapters of the Bible, as in the first two, the tree stands prominently in the midst of the Garden, man eating freely of it.
But what about today? I pondered Paul's words, put to death that which is earthly in you... put it to death. Why such severe language? It is because death is the prerequisite for resurrection. Because you are so far from your old slave masters as to be dead to sin, dead to death. So put to death the old master's blighted fruit. Put to death the fruit of the old tree.
But if the tree of life, the new tree to which we are promised access is only in the renewed Kingdom, then all we have is pie-in-the sky religion, and practical everyday spiritual starvation.
But it is the nature of God to take the symbols of this broken world and turn them upside down; thus it is that an instrument of death, of curse, -- cursed, says the Law, is him who hangs on the tree-- to become the tree of life and blessing. The dead wood of the cross becomes the tree of life, the son of God becomes accursed that we might be blessed, death gives way to resurrection and immortality.
It makes sense, then, doesn't it, that Jesus says in John's Gospel that whoever does not eat his flesh will have no part in him, for the fruit which hangs on the tree of life is the Lord himself. He who does not not eat of the tree of life, will surely die. There is no other option.
All of this leads, no doubt, to some very interesting Eucharistic theology, does it not?
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