Preaching | Making Way out of No-Way
I'm in Scotland for vacation. I love it, and also recognize that it probably isn't safe to travel for immigrants and trans people right now.
While I'm seeing historical and geographical wonders, and listening to local music, I'm rerunning an article from March.
-Liz
Preaching To Be Church
When bad things happen in our local community, and in our national news, there is always some social media that demands your outrage. "If you aren't preaching on this, it's time to retire" and "if you go to a church and they aren't preaching on this, get up and walk out" and "if you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention."
I want to say one thing about that: NO.
We can't live our lives angry. Afraid. At the end of our rope. While we do find ourselves in those places, our goal is to avoid living there. Anger and outrage can't be our only emotions. We are in a time when many will suffer. And, as my homeless friends reminded me after the 2016 election, we've always been in a time when people are suffering.
But community gatherings, and church especially, are places we strive to engage all of who we are. To engage all of our emotions. It is a place to make space for the beauty, joy, and glory of this world God created, alongside space for the pain, oppression, and injustice we have created.
As preacher, we can't cover it all every week. As a listener, that would be exhausting. Certainly significant events must be mentioned in the announcements, in the prayers, or in our sermon. We must always notice what is happening to our neighbors, our state, and our nation. Systemic issues that we don't always see without help must come up frequently in our sermons, and our prayers. We must also have some sermons for celebrating God's presence among us.
At Worcester Fellowship, an outdoor church reaching homeless adults, we had a three week lectionary of topics -- God loves you as you are, you find God in community, and God wants us to set-aside violence. (Sometimes we juggled the topics to fit the lectionary.) For that congregation, two-thirds of our messages were meant to build up the members, and one third to call them to improved discipleship.
At a wealthy white suburban congregation I served, three-quarters of my sermons were on discipleship, and one-quarter were interesting theological concepts. Context matters.
Systemic issues like racism, sexism, classism, and the like should regularly be the examples in our sermons. Most weeks, and most stories, will mention these topics, sometimes directly, often indirectly. In this time of danger, care of immigrants and trans folk should be the direct point of some sermons, and should be relevant to many of our sermons. Jesus came to let the oppressed be free.
Dealing with the crisis of the day we hopefully will never find that we've never addressed that issue before. That way, we can decide how and when it is best to address it in the specific context we are part of. For example, Black history month must not be the only time we sing spirituals and spirituals should not be the only form of "Black music" that we sing. Music, prayers, and poetry from Black, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Indigenous peoples should be part of how we worship the whole of who God is. (Consider making a donation to an appropriate organization if you are a white church engaging the arts of other cultures.)
All of the time, worship is about God. There are good sociological reasons to care for one another; during worship we are focusing on how God guides us to that caring. And sometimes we need worship that is simply about how we be with God. Even when the world is falling apart around us, especially when the world is falling apart, we sometimes need a worship space where all we do is breathe in the Holy Spirit and lifted our crying hearts to God.
How is preaching working in your church at this time? Reply to this email to let me know what's happening. (I may not reply until I get back in July.)
The National Museum of African American History and Culture has an online exhibit about "making way out of no way" in the African American tradition. It reminds me that the fact that something is impossible doesn't mean we should do it.
Heather Cox Richardson is a U. S. historian at Boston College. (My husband has done much of her tech support!) She writes a daily blog called Letters from an American about what is happening right now, much of it including historical background. I personally have the free subscription.
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