Submitted by rlp on Mon, 09/15/2008 - 17:02.
On Monday afternoon Foy stopped by the church. Monday was his day off, but sometimes he came in anyway. He nodded at Judy who was on the phone. She smiled and raised her chin in a greeting without stopping her conversation. He went down the hall to his office and found his battered copy of the Common Lectionary.
Let’s see. Proper 19, year A.
He flipped through the pages until he found the right Sunday. He scanned through the available texts. The Old Testament text was from Exodus chapter 14. He skimmed it quickly, reading parts of it aloud.
“The angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud…Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The LORD drove the sea back…At the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire…”
Foy made a rumbling noise at the back of his throat.
Okay Paul, what have you got for me. Romans.
“Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions…Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables…Those who eat must not despise those who…”
Foy made the rumbling noise again. He reached over to a corner of his desk and picked up a Nerf football. He used two hands moving opposite directions to flip the ball into a spiral. He quickly caught it and did this a few times. Then he turned back to the book and skimmed further through the Romans passage.
“Who are you to pass judgment…we do not live to ourselves…for it is written, every knee shall bow…”
He let his head fall back until his hair touched his collar. His mouth popped open, and he rolled his head around a little, trying to make his neck click. He shot the Nerf football like a basketball toward his trash can. It hit the side of the can and bounced crazily around the floor. Foy groaned, long and slow and deep, letting his voice rumble slowly. He put his chin in his hand and let his gaze drift over to a stack of papers on his desk that had been growing for several months. He was avoiding the stack because he knew that if he started digging into it, going back in time with the layers like an archaeologist, he would find something he should have done and did not.
He took a deep breath and looked at the gospel text.
“Matthew, give me something good this week. You’re my only hope. Help me Matthew-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope. And I do not want to fight with the text this week. I need something smooth. Something I can see."
“Chapter 18…Then Peter came and said to him, Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy times seven.”
Hmm. Maybe. Yeah.
He read further.
Oh yeah, that parable about that one guy whose debt was forgiven but he didn’t forgive that other guy. Yeah, I can work with that.
Foy’s eyes dropped quickly to the end of the parable.
“And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
“Oh shit.”
Foy sighed. It had been so much easier when he was a Baptist, preaching revivals right out of seminary. Preaching whatever text he wanted.
“Well, Matthew it is. Okay Matthew, Sensei, I will let you thoroughly kick my ass all week…”
He put his hands in a mock Kung Fu position and made a silly, high-pitched martial arts whine, like something in a Bruce Lee movie.
“Hoo waaaaah”
He spoke in a deep voice, like a badly translated Kung Fu movie. “But in the end I shall master you and you shall deliver to me everything that you know.”
There was a tiny tap at the door and Judy said, “Foy, are you talking with someone in there?”
“Just having a little chat with Matt. C’mon in.”
Judy peered around the corner of the door. Her eyes traveled across the room. The Nerf ball was at her feet. There was an Etch a Sketch on the corner of his desk. On the floor by the bookshelves was a Hungry Hungry Hippos game. It looked like someone had been playing with it.
"Who's Matt?"
Foy held up the Bible.
“You know, Matthew, Mark, Luke…Olivia, Newt, and John.”
“Oh,” she said, as if she understood, but she left just enough lilt in the “oh” to express her concern.
“Jenny wants you to call her.”
She backed out of the room.
Foy smiled. Judy had been the secretary at the church since the Han Dynasty. She didn’t approve of the toys and some other things which he had to admit were a little odd.
That’s as far as I need to be on a Monday. Matthew it is.
He got up and turned off the light. He looked back at the Lectionary book on his desk. He held up the index and middle fingers of his right hand.
“And I forgive you, Matthew, for putting such a terrible ending on that passage. What WERE you thinking?”
He laughed.
“Another week of the Bible messing with my mind.”
rlp
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That's the story of me and
That's the story of me and the lectionary! It made me smile, Foy always does. Thank you.
Yeah, sorry no pictures!
Yeah, sorry no pictures! What I didn't mention in the post is the downright creepy resemblance the mermaid has to his wife...It's scary.
Thanks for reading!
wingnut
I know that it is a personal
I know that it is a personal question, and you need not answer if you dont wanna,
but do you sometimes think you'd make a better episcopalian than you do a Baptist?
there is no wrong answer of course, and I know that Foy isnt you, I just thought I'd ask.
Every Christian group has
Every Christian group has its problems. When you are an Episcopalian, you have to do what "the Man" says. You've got a bishop. On the other hand, you have someone looking out for you if you need to find a church. On the other hand, what if you find yourself with a bishop who doesn't like you or whose beliefs are very far away from your own? On the other hand, isn't it a good thing to have to stay together and also - at times - to learn to submit to the process.
If you are a Baptist, almost the exact opposite of these is true. So the blessings become the curses and vice versa. Every church is autonomous, so every church can be whatever it feels it should be. On the other hand, without "the man" there is no one to take care of you. Get fired and you are now a minister with no church and no way of finding one. On the other hand, you can always start a church if you are a Baptist and do exactly what you want to do. On the other hand, it has not been good for The Church when she breaks apart over every issue and everyone just runs off and starts their own church.
I'm happy in my particular Baptist church. It fits me and I fit them, I think. If that fell apart and I wasn't sure what to do, I probably would look into being an Episcopalian. There is much in their tradition that I admire.
On the other hand, I don't really know what I'm going to do later today. I'm not much of a planner. So I'm not spending too much energy thinking about it.
this, I love.
this, I love.
Only from a Preacher
RLP,
I don't think anyone but a preacher could have written this. Regardless of your tradition or beliefs, I have found all preachers share a common bond around the pulpit. And you summarized this well in Foy's line, "“Well, Matthew it is. Okay Matthew, Sensei, I will let you thoroughly kick my ass all week…”
If a man or a woman is really a preacher, regardless of tradition, the text really does "kick your ass" all week. While the congregation only wrestles with the text for 30 minutes or so, we must wrestle with it for five or six days. And while it is difficult it is also good. We are forced to deal with the text and let the text deal with us. I think this is one of the joys and challenges of preaching.
It seems to me most people in the congregation do not really understand this and do not see this burden. Yeah, there are some lazy ministers out there who rip sermons from the internet or something like that (yuck). But good preaching is hard, hard work. Many times I have felt like Foy and thought too, "Oh shit."
Do you agree or have any thoughts on this?
By the way, are you going to do the post on Hell soon?
the hell thing. Uh, yeah. I
the hell thing. Uh, yeah. I really am. Just kind of caught trying to do too many things. I'm doing a series of videos. finished the first one.
What makes you think that?
Scott, What makes you think that 'the congregation only wrestles with the text for 30 minutes'? In my church we all have bibles and some of us even read it at home ourselves! It seems a little arrogant to suggest that only 'preachers' engage with and try to understand the bible.
Whoa!
Liz,
I never said that only preachers engage with and try to understand the Bible. You have seriously misread me and put words in my mouth. My comments were in the context of the sermon. Unless your pastor (as some do) publishes his or her sermon texts in advance or uses the lectionary you would not know what text she is preaching upon. In this case, the preacher wrestles with it all week and you get it on Sunday morning.
Now, I would hope that most people in the congregation would take it home and contemplate it longer. I'm certain some do. I'm more certain more do not. And this is not a criticism. It is just the way it is. I do it too. Most people, in my observation, wrestle with the text that morning, God does His work in their hearts, they leave and hopefully try to apply what they have learned. They think about it some that day and maybe throughout the week, but most do not engage in any kind of serious study with the text the following week. This is not arrogant, it is just the way it is for the most part.
Liz, if you and the folks in your congregation do more than this then you are to be commended.
I know that many people are involved in Bible study. Excellent! And I do not think that preachers are the only ones who do study or are capable of serious study of the Bible. I was only referring to the sermon.
Sorry
I didn't mean to misconstrue what you said, just to challenge you a little. Perhaps it came across more aggressively than intended - this medium isn't very good for conveying subtleties is it?
I think maybe my experience of church is different to yours. We don't have one preacher, different people give the talk at different meetings, so while I wouldn't call myself a 'preacher', I have wrestled with the bible while preparing the talk for our Sunday (evening) meeting. We also have a meeting we call 'Sunday Skool', where we've been working our way through Luke, a chapter at a time, where the focus is everyone reading, learning, discussing, understanding, engaging with the text, and what God might be saying to us through it.
Wrestling with text
And don't forget lay people who teach classes on Sundays. If the class is for adults or for kids old enough to ask hard questions (which isn't very old!), prep often involves "wrestling."
Absolutely
Kurt,
You are absolutely right. Many people are wrestling with the Bible each week. My comments were made in reference to the sermon.
Football and Etch a Sketch
Sounds... to me... like this was lived... before... it was written. : )
[marvelous]
lectionary
I came to the lectionary late in my preaching life, although it was presented in my preaching course at seminary as "a garment of celebration." I love it for several reasons. One, thousands of us preaching on the same text at once, communion of sinner saints. Two, at least four squirrels in the forest. You know, you go hunting a text even on Monday and can't find one. At least this way, you got some choices. Three, I can always blame the lectionary for why I chose to preach that this week, and it offended who it was supposed to. And, four, this is the biggie, I kept finding that the lectionary exegetes me, my life, my church. Many Sundays, I couldn't have picked a more relevant text. Or it's the precisely right text I never would have thought of. Or it's the last text I'd be willing to wrestle with. Anyway, brother, stand in the council of the Lord and they'll know a prophet has been in their midst. (A mixed reference, send me to hell). Peace. John
Every Tuesday afternoon the
Every Tuesday afternoon the clergy in my Episcopal parish spend an hour reading (and often wrestling) with the upcoming Sunday's texts.
In my own preaching, I find that I usually pick the really hard texts, because the more I have to wrestle, the more my sermon comes from study (and not whatever I already think). Of course, I'm 27, still newly ordained, and only beginning my second trip through the three-year cycle, so we'll see how long I keep that up.
"We are told by the Holy Fathers that we are supposed to see in everything something for our salvation. If you can do this, you can be saved." Father Seraphim Rose, His Life and Works
http://www.jaredcramer.com
Insight
I liked that. It was very humanizing.
Preaching
RLP,
I was wondering if you could give me your opinion on preaching in general. I have probably heard hundreds of sermons in my life, but it seems that few have really changed my life.
It's not that I'm against preaching (or real live preachers), it just seems that pastors put way too much time into sermons and sermon preparation and congregants spend way too much time listening to sermons.
Shouldn't the Church in America - both congregants and pastors - put more time into things like small groups or service or other types of worship?
Hmm...complex subject. If
Hmm...complex subject.
If done right, preaching is wonderful. A community of Christians values the scriptures. They ask one of their community to invest a lot of time wrestling with the scriptures and then sharing the results of that struggle with his or her friends. It's not a person giving a speech. It is a person saying, "I worked hard with the text this week. Here is what I think it is saying to us."
The point would not be some immediate, life-changing moment, as if the community were relying on the preacher to manipulate emotions and bring people to decisions. the goal is for the community to take the Bible seriously over a period of years. How one sermon sounds or moves you isn't really the point.
That's what I want and that's what I try to do.
If the sermon is a show, has to impress people, is supposed to manipulate emotions, is meant to attract people from other churches because, "ooh, look what a good preacher we have," then I'm with you. Scrap it. don't need it.
But then again, the former is real preaching. The latter is something else...I don't know what. So let's agree that the latter isn't what's needed, but let's not say that preaching isn't what is needed.
Cool. Thanks for
Cool. Thanks for responding.
I like the idea of preaching being a way for a community to wrestle with Scripture over time.
I guess I'm just used to preachers pushing an issue/idea/agenda and using scriptural prooftexts to back it up. Even if what they're pushing is good, maybe preaching's just not the place to do it. Thanks.
I'm sad to say that you're
I'm sad to say that you're probably used to it because that is what you have seen. That's what most of the big, popular preachers do. Most of the ones on tv, certainly. And who knows why? Maybe because that's what people respond to. It's easier to give a pep talk sort of thing with scriptures backing it up, and it's easier to listen to that sort of thing perhaps.
Your last paragraph tells me that you know something about this. (using the term prooftexts for example) So I can tell you're asking some of the same questions I have asked of myself. Because I put a lot of work into preaching, a lot of my life. And I have wondered MANY times if I was giving my life to something that just wasn't worthy of an entire life and not worthy of the community's investment.
I'm slow to drop things that are ancient and traditional, so I kept preaching while I worked on this idea. I've come to believe that preaching can be a good thing, but it should be a very personal thing between a called person and the community that called her. And the preacher should hold to sacred code as strongly as, say, a wizard to a wizard's code, or a craftsman to an ancient guild's code, or a Jedi to their code.
1. Your job is to make clear the text. That is your only job.
2. Your job is to find the point of the hottest impact between the text and your culture. You should try to find an idea that is new or make an old idea come to life again.
3. Your job is not to hide from the text when it is hard.
4. Your job is to be interesting and not boring.
5. Your job is to avoid allowing #4 bring too much attention to yourself.
6. Your job is to make communication beautiful, within the strict guides of the code.
7. No jokes or canned illustrations. Humor is wonderful if it is woven in carefully.
and so on. That's just off the top of my head. Follow your rules and you become the practitioner of an ancient and esoteric art. Bend the rules to benefit yourself OR YOUR CONGREGATION, and you do so at great peril.
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