Tag: Preaching
0 Can Male Preachers Preach Mary?
Every year at Advent, when the Mary scriptures come around, I compose what are generally received as terrible sermons. I don’t intend to but I’m also not surprised by the reaction. You see, Mary’s experience is so unique she is unlike any other character in scripture. It’s also the case that the Protestant Church generally does her a disservice by ignoring her outright. To address the former and remedy the latter, I always try to write sermons that privilege Mary’s voice. I avoid making her an illustration of a larger point. I avoid making her experience analogous to our own. I avoid distilling her narrative down into ‘points.’
Instead I just try to let her story speak for itself, which proves difficult because that requires a lack of explanation listeners can find puzzling or just downright confusing. Of course, with Mary, there’s also the tricky issue of yours truly, an obviously manly man, assuming the voice of a woman but that’s an issue for another day.
For all their failure as sermons, Mary has given me some of the best writing I’ve done (at least I think so.)
Case in point- and definitely in the Final Four for Worst Sermon Ever- is this sermon, ‘The Visitation,’ from a few years ago. The text was the visitation of Mary and Elizabeth in Luke. In it, I tried to narratively imagine Mary’s journey to Elizabeth’s house and the thoughts running through her head, having just been visited by the angel Gabriel. In doing so, I also attempted to weave into the text the many Old Testament narratives Mary’s story hearkens back to- something only bible nerds were able to notice because, again, I refused to stop and explain what I was doing.
So, terrible sermon but decent piece of writing for Advent.
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Her hands kept shaking even after he departed from her.
She gasped and only then realized sheʼd been holding her breath, waiting to see if heʼd reappear as suddenly as heʼd intruded upon her life. His words had lodged in her mind just as something new was supposedly lodged inside her.
He mustʼve seen how terrified she was. ʻDonʼt be afraid,ʼ heʼd said to her.
In those moments after he departed, she just stood there, looking around her bedroom. The posters on the wall, the books on the shelf, the homework on the desk, the dirty laundry on the floor in the corner- in the aftermath of an angelʼs glow, it all seemed very ordinary.
It was an unlikely place for a ʻvisitation.ʼ There wasnʼt anything there in her bedroom to confuse it for a holy place. It was just ordinary.
Looking around her room, she caught a glance of her reflection in the mirror. And so was she: ordinary, not anyone that anyone else should ever remember or notice, not someone youʼd pick out like a single star in all the sky.
Yet, thatʼs just what heʼd told her.
Sheʼd been chosen. Somehow, in the days ahead of her or already right now, God would come to exist in her belly.
The thought made her shake again.
She looked out her window, up at the multitude of stars in the night sky.
ʻDo not be afraid,ʼ heʼd told her.
Those same words, she knew, had been spoken long ago to Abraham.
Do not be afraid, Abraham had been told in the moments before God pointed
to the stars in the sky and dared Abraham to count them, dared Abraham to imagine and believe that for as many stars as there were in the sky so his descendants would be.
She liked the thought, as unbelievable as it sounded, that through her and her baby the whole world would be blessed.
Still, she knew enough scripture to know that the angelʼs words, ʻDo not be afraid,ʼ were auspicious words. She knew the child promised by God to Abraham and Sarah was the same child whose sacrifice God later required.
She knew the story- it was the sort of story you canʼt forget even if youʼd like to- how God one day told Abraham that the promised son would have to suffer and be sacrificed on top of a mountain. How the son obeyed and followed his fatherʼs will all the way up the mount, carrying wood. How they built an offering place up there. How the son was spared only when it was clear how far the father would go.
She used to wonder how God could ask anyone to give up something so precious.
But now, looking out at the stars and rubbing her belly, she wondered about Sarah, Abrahamʼs wife, the boyʼs mother, and what Sarah would have done if God had asked her to follow her boy to his death.
The wondering made her shake again. ʻDonʼt be afraidʼ she whispered to herself.
As the late night turned to early morning she resolved to leave home.
A part of her wanted to see for herself the truth of the angelʼs words growing inside Elizabeth.
A still bigger part of her knew the angelʼs news would make her a stranger now in her own home, perhaps a stranger forever.
Nazareth was a small town; in a town that size thereʼs no room to hide.
And she didnʼt want to be at home when her body started to change, when the neighbors started whispering questions about legitimacy.
And she didnʼt want to remain at home and face her fiance, not yet. The angel could say nothing is impossible but she knew, chances were, everyone would suspect the worst about her before theyʼd believe the truth.
With haste, she packed her belongings into a duffel.
She folded her jeans and some blouses and wondered how long sheʼd fit into them. She zipped her bag shut and sadly glanced at the wedding dress hanging in her closet. Seeing it, she knew it would be too small on her wedding day, should that day ever come.
ʻFavored one,ʼ thatʼs what heʼd called her. Favored one. But now, hurrying before anyone else in the house awoke, it seemed more burden than blessing.
ʻFavored one.ʼ
She hadnʼt known what to make of such a greeting when she first heard it.
ʻFavored one.ʼ
Hannah had received that same greeting. Hannah, who hadnʼt let the gray in her hair or the crowʼs feet around her eyes stop her from praying ceaselessly for God to fill her barren womb with a child.
Eli, the haggard priest, had called Hannah ʻfavored oneʼ just before he spilled the news of her answered prayer.
But packing the last of her things and clicking off the bedroom lights she recalled that even for Hannah a blessing from God wasnʼt so simple. Even for Hannah the blessing was also a summons.
Hannah had prayed holes in the rug for a child but as soon as Hannah weaned her son, God called her to give her boy to Eli, the priest. Hannahʼs boy was to be consecrated.
Tiptoeing through the dark hallway, she wondered how Hannah had explained that to her husband. She wondered what it had been like for Hannah, who lost out on all the memories a mother counts on: his first words, learning to walk, the first day of school, homecoming and his wedding day.
Everything Hannah had wanted when sheʼd wanted a child sacrificed for the purpose God had for her boy.
Hannah- sheʼd been called ʻfavored oneʼ too.
Leaving her house in the cold moonlight, she thought that Godʼs favor was also a kind of humiliation, that Godʼs call was also a call to suffer.
ʻLet it be with me according to your word,ʼ sheʼd told him when she could think of nothing else to say. But if she prayed now for God to let this cup pass from her, would he?
ʻLet it be with me according to your word,ʼ sheʼd said.
Standing out under the streetlight and looking back at the house where sheʼd grown up, she realized it wasnʼt that simple.
Things would never be simple again.
Elizabeth lived in the country outside Jerusalem, several days journey from Nazareth. Sheʼd stop in villages along the way to draw water from their wells.
She knew what others must have thought: a young girl, a single woman, resting at a well all by herself raised eyebrows.
It was in those moments with men and women staring at her, making assumptions and passing judgments, she wondered if the angel knew what sort of family her baby would be grafted onto.
Names like Rahab and Ruth leapt out, a prostitute and a foreigner. Not the sort of family youʼd expect to be chosen.
She wondered what that said God.
And what her boy would one day make of it.
At night she camped out in the fields along the road where the only noise came from the shepherds and their flocks.
She got sick for the first time out there in the fields.
It was then she began to wonder about the stranger she would bring into the
world. Who will this be? she thought. Here is something that is most profoundly me, my flesh and my blood, the sheer stuff of me, depending on me and vulnerable to me. And yet not me, strange to me, impenetrable to me.
Sheʼd asked him there in the room how it would happen. She hadnʼt gotten much in the way of explanation.
“The power of the most high will overshadow youʼ is how heʼd answered. ʻOvershadowʼ was the word heʼd used. She was sure of it.
She still didnʼt know how that worked exactly. She hadnʼt felt anything. But she knew that word, ʻovershadow.ʼ
Itʼs what God did with the ark of the covenant when David brought the ark to Jerusalem with dancing and jubilation and not a little bit of fear. The power of the most high overshadowed the ark.
And before that when God delivered Israel from bondage and led them to freedom through the wilderness, in the tabernacle, the presence and power of God overshadowed.
Now, the most high had overshadowed her, and, if the angel could be believed, God was about to deliver on an even bigger scale.
Sleep came hard those nights on the road. Sheʼd look up at the sky and rub her nauseous belly. It made her dizzy trying to comprehend it: how she could carry within her the sign and the seal of the covenant, as though her womb was an ark; how the hands and feet sheʼd soon feel pushing and kicking inside her were actually the promises of God.
Made flesh.
As soon as she saw Elizabeth in the distance she knew it was true. All of it.
Seeing Elizabeth, it hit her how they were immeasurably different.
Elizabethʼs child will be seen by all as a blessing from God. Elizabeth will be praised, the stigma of her barrenness finally lifted.
But for Mary, as soon as she started to show, it would be different.
A young girl, engaged, suddenly pregnant, with no ring on her finger, no father in sight and her fiance none the wiser? That invited more than just a stigma. She could be stoned to death.
She could see from the end of the road the beautiful contradiction that was Elizabeth: the gray wiry hair, the wrinkled face and stooped back, and the 6 month pregnant belly.
To be sure, Elizabeth was a miracle but it was not unheard of. Sarah, Hannah…Mary had grown up hearing stories of women like Elizabeth.
Mary knew: hers was different.
An unexpected, miraculous birth wasnʼt the same thing as a virgin birth.
With Mary, it was as if the angelʼs message- Godʼs words- alone had flicked a light in the darkness of her womb.
Life from nothing- that was the difference. Not from Joseph or anyone else.
From nothing God created life.
Inside her.
From nothing.
The same way, she thought, God created the heavens and the earth: from nothing.
The same way God created the sun and the sea and the stars. The same way God created Adam and Eve.
From nothing.
As though what she carried within her was creation itself.
The start of a new beginning.
To everything.
A Genesis and an ultimate reversal all in one.
As she walked up Elizabethʼs driveway, she considered the costs that might lie ahead, and with her hand on her stomach she whispered to herself: “The Lord has done great things for me.”
3 Questions about Christmas? Come On, You Know You Have ‘Em
Ever since year zero, Christmas has been a season for questions:
Why a virgin birth? And seriously, a virgin birth?
Why does Jesus come in the first place? Why can’t God just forgive us?
Is Jesus really human or did he just seem human? Is Jesus really divine or did he just seem divine?
What if there’d been no Fall- if we hadn’t sinned? Would Jesus still have come?
Seriously, a virgin birth?
Etc, Etc, Etc.
This is where you come in. For our Advent Sermon Series, ‘Questions about Christmas,’ I want to solicit YOUR questions about Jesus, Christmas, the Nativity Story, the Reason for the Season anything.
I’ll plan our Advent preaching with your questions in mind. If you know someone who’s not a Christian at all, pass this on. I’d love to hear their questions too. And if you/they want anonymity you can email me at jamicheli@mac.com
0 Tamed Cynic Now Available in the iTunes Store
You can now download sermons free from the iTunes store as well receive future ones as automatic downloads. Just search ‘Tamed Cynic’ in the iTunes Store.
2 Sermon Audio (From Yours Truly) Now Available
Sermons are ultimately oral events and something is lost on the page alone.
If reading my lucid, probing prose isn’t enough, you can now listen to my sermons delivered in my sexier than Barry White voice at Spreaker.
You can listen there, on FB or download to your computer/phone where you can make sure my voice survives the zombie apocalypse (See: Eli, Book of)
I’m working to add the sermon audio to a Tamed Cynic podcast in the iTunes store. So stayed tuned.
Click here to listen to Sunday’s sermon.
0 My Grocery Store Freakout
The Way Up is the Way Down- Philippians 2.1-11
It might surprise some of you to hear that, as gentle and considerate as I appear to be, I have a tendency to be contrary.
And while I wouldn’t say that I have a short fuse exactly, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I can be cranky, maybe even a little confrontational.
For example-
There was the recent ‘episode’ that has since come to be known in my house as ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout.’
And before I tell you about ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout’ I should say first that, as a responsible preacher, I try hard, whenever sharing personal stories, never to present myself in a heroic light.
I try hard to avoid stories in which I appear to be the wise or faithful one. I usually avoid any anecdotes where I’m the good example or where I do the right thing.
You can take that as my disclaimer that ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout’ is an exception to that rule. In this instance, it’s the other guy who’s the idiot.
A couple of Sundays ago I fell asleep on the sofa watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince with the boys. I woke up from my nap to Gabriel staring at me, nose-tip to nose-tip, and saying ‘Daddy, it’s almost time for dinner.’
With just a yawn and a stretch, I headed to the grocery store. As I pushed my shopping cart through the entrance I caught my reflection in the glass.
My bed-head hair was mussed every which way.
My undershirt was covered with tomato sauce stains from lunch that looked a little like blood. My eyes were heavy and bloodshot.
And I had what looked like a scar across my face from the zipper of the pillow I’d been sleeping against.
In sum: I looked like a crazy person.
After picking up a few odds and ends, I stood in the produce section staring aimlessly at the bare Sunday shelves and wondering what on earth I could make with just japanese eggplant, jalepenos, and Italian parsley.
And I swear- it’s because I was trying to think of a recipe NOT because I was eavesdropping that I overheard him.
One of the store employees was sitting against the refrigerator, where the cabbage normally goes. Three other, younger, employees were huddled around him.
To protect the identities of the innocent and the idiotic, I won’t go into names or descriptions. I’ll just tell you what I heard.
“My best advice is for you guys to stay completely away from her’ the one leaning against the cabbage section said to the three.
And he nodded with his chin in the direction of ‘her.’
And again, I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop but I couldn’t help it. When he nodded in ‘her’ direction, like gravity was pulling me, I looked over my shoulder to see who the ‘her’ was he had in mind.
‘She’ was near the other side of the store, working a cash register.
‘She’ was a teenager it looked like. She couldn’t have been more than 18.
And ‘she,’ I could tell from the scarf wrapped around her head, was a Muslim.
That’s when I decided to eavesdrop.
‘How do we stay away from her?‘ one of Produce Guy’s three disciples asked.
‘Don’t talk to her. Period.‘ He said without equivocation. ‘Pretend she’s not there. If she says something to you, act like you didn’t hear her. If she needs help with something, tell her you’re busy with something else. If a manager tells you to work with her, say you’re in the middle of something.‘
His three disciples all nodded like receivers watching a quarterback draw up a play.
What I heard shocked me, but I didn’t say anything.
I didn’t say anything until I heard him say: ‘Remember, she worships a false god. That’s a sin, and God doesn’t want you associating with sinners. God hates sinners.‘
Thus began what’s come to be known as ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout.‘
I left my cart and stepped over to their huddle and said, in love: ‘Excuse me, it sounds to me like you don’t know what the blank you’re talking about and maybe you should just shut your mouth.‘
It was his turn to be shocked.
He stood up from the cabbage section and held up his hands as if to say ‘no harm, no foul‘ and said: ‘There must be a misunderstanding; we were just having a religious conversation.‘
And that’s when I lost it:
‘Misunderstanding? I’ll say. You’re telling these poor idiots that God doesn’t want them helping someone else?
That God wants them to deliberately ignore someone else?
That God wants them to treat someone like they’re not even a person?
You’re telling them that God hates sinners?
And you call yourself a Christian?
You’ve completely lost the plot.
If you really believed in Jesus Christ none of those words would ever come out of your mouth.‘
And that’s when I realized I’d been poking him in the chest with my Japanese eggplant.
He gave me a patronizing smile, like I was the one who didn’t get it.
‘Do you go to church?‘ he asked. ‘Maybe if you went to church you’d understand…‘
‘Yeah, I go to church‘ I said. ‘In fact, I go every Sunday. I’m there all the time. Aldersgate United Methodist Church. We’d love to have you visit us sometime.‘
And that’s when I realized that all the other customers in the produce section were motionless, as though suspended in time, staring in shock at me.
And for a brief, sobering moment I was able to see myself as they must’ve seen me: a man with red, bloodshot eyes, wild hair, and what looked like a scar across his face and blood splatter on his shirt, screaming about God near the cabbages, with an eggplant in his hand.
Don’t let the pretty poetry and lofty language fool you.
This song, which Paul cuts and pastes into his letter here in Philippians chapter 2, it’s meant to shock you.
Because those last few lines of the song:
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend…
11 and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Those last few lines aren’t original- not to Paul, not to any other Christian, not to anyone in Philippi.
They’re lifted straight from the Old Testament, from Isaiah 45- which, in case you don’t know it, is one of the Bible’s fiercest statements against idolatry, against worshipping any other god but the one with a capital G.
And what does Paul do with this song from Isaiah?
Paul, a lifelong Jew, who for his entire life at least twice a day would’ve recited in prayer: ‘The Lord our God the Lord is One.’
Paul, a Pharisee, an expert in the Law who you can bet knew that the very first law, the law of all laws, was ‘You shall have no other gods besides me.’
What does Paul do with Isaiah’s song?
He sticks Jesus in the middle of it.
He says that:
Because Jesus knew power and might aren’t things to be grasped at but given up.
Because Jesus emptied himself of heaven.
Because Jesus made himself poor even though he was rich.
Because he exchanged his royal robes for a servant’s towel.
Because Jesus stooped down from eternity and humbled himself.
Because he forgave 70 times 7.
Because he blessed those who cursed him.
Because he went the extra mile for those who cared not for him.
Because he put away the sword and turned the other cheek and loved his enemies.
Because Jesus remained faithful no matter it cost him, no matter where it led him, no matter how it ended.
Because he did that,
God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.
And that’s the shock.
Because the name that is above every name…is Yahweh.
The name that is above every name is ‘I am who I am.’
The name that is above every name is the name that was revealed to Moses at the Burning Bush, the name that was too holy to be spoken aloud or written down.
That’s why, in its place, the ancient manuscripts always used the word ‘Kyrios’ instead: ‘Lord.’
The same word Paul attaches to Jesus here in the middle of Isaiah’s song.
It’s meant to shock you- that this God who appeared in a burning bush and spoke in a still, small voice, this God- the one and only God- comes to us fully and in the flesh as Jesus Christ.
It’s intended to shock you- that Mary’s son is as much of God the Father as we could ever hope to see.
I was in the middle of ‘Daddy’s Grocery Store Freakout’ when I realized all the eyes of the produce section were on me, looking like they were waiting for someone- anyone- to taser me and put me back in my straight jacket.
So I looked up and smiled and it must’ve seemed more creepy than conciliatory because just like that all the shoppers scurried away to safety. So did Produce Guy’s three disciples, who went back to work.
But Produce Guy wasn’t ready to let me leave without proving how I was wrong and he wasn’t.
‘You must be one of those Christians who think we all just worship the same god’ he said dismissively.
‘No’ I said, and just like that I was shouting again.
‘You don’t get it. You don’t get it at all. I
believe our God couldn’t be moredifferent.
I believe our God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
That means you can’t say anything about God that you can’t also say about Jesus Christ.
So unless it makes sense to you to say ‘Jesus hates sinners; Jesus doesn’t want you to serve that person; Jesus wants you to treat that person like they’re not a person; unless it makes sense to you to say that about Jesus, then you should just shut your mouth.’
I said, in love.
But he didn’t follow.
He just squinted at me and said: ‘Maybe you should talk this over with your pastor. Maybe he could help you understand.’
‘Yeah, maybe. I’ll ask him about it.’
I’ve been a pastor long enough to know that when it comes to the Trinity, our belief that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, most of you think it’s a hustle.
You think it’s some philosophical shell game that couldn’t have less to do with your everyday life.
But pay attention-
That’s not how Paul speaks of the Trinity here.
Paul’s not interested in philosophy or abstraction.
Paul’s concerned with your mindset. With your attitude. With your love.
The Philippians weren’t locked in any doctrinal disputes or theological debates.
They were just at every day odds with each other.
And so Paul sends them these words about the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
For Paul, the Trinity isn’t about intellectual games.
For Paul, the Trinity’s more like grammar that governs our God-talk.
Trinity keeps us from saying whatever we like about God, doing whatever we want in the name of God, believing whatever we wish under the umbrella of a generic god.
Trinity is Paul’s way of making sure that we can’t say ‘God’ without also saying ‘Jesus’
I mean, think about it-
Think about how many people you’ve heard, after a natural disaster or a tragic death or the diagnosis of disease, say something like: ‘It’s God’s will.’
Trinity means that for that to be a true statement you have to be able to remove ‘God’ and replace it with ‘Jesus.’
Trinity means that it’s not a true statement unless you’re able to say:
‘My mom’s cancer was Jesus’ will.’
‘Hurricane Katrina was Jesus’ will.’
‘9/11 was Jesus’ will.’
For Paul, Trinity functions not as a philosophical concept but as a grammatical rule. Trinity binds us to the character and story of Jesus.
We can’t say or think or act like God hates ‘sinners’ because we know Jesus didn’t.
We can’t say or think or act like God doesn’t care about the poor because we know Jesus did.
We can’t say or think or act as if God is against our enemies because we know Jesus loved them.
We can’t scratch our heads and wonder if we need to forgive that person in our lives because know what Jesus said about it.
And the doctrine of the Trinity refuses to let you forget that his words aren’t the words of any ordinary human teacher.
Teachers can be dismissed.
But his words are 100%, 3-in-1, the Word of God.
When Jesus says to the woman about to be stoned for adultery ‘I don’t condemn you’ that’s God speaking.
And when Jesus offers living water to the woman at the well, who has about 5 too many men in her life, that’s God’s grace.
And when Jesus says to Zaccheus, a villain and a traitor and a sinner, ‘Tonight I’m eating at your house’ Trinity makes sure we remember that that’s an invitation stamped with the seal of heaven.
For Paul, the fact that this God couldn’t be more different- it couldn’t be more practical.
I don’t freak out on people all that often.
But that’s not to say that I don’t run into people every day whose behavior doesn’t square with their beliefs, whose opinions are dearer to them than the mind of Christ, who are so set in their ways they refuse to conform to the Way.
And so if you want to make me less cranky.
If you want to make your pastor happy.
If you want to make my joy complete.
Give don’t grasp.
Serve don’t single out.
Don’t puff yourselves up with conceit.
Don’t fill yourselves up with ambition.
Don’t act out of selfishness.
Empty yourselves of the need to be right.
Regard anyone as better than yourself.
Pour yourselves out overtime for others.
Stay faithful to the Son’s words because that Son’s the fullness of the Father, and his name is inseparable from the name that is above every name.
And if that’s true then the way up in this world is by stooping down.