All we have is our lives.

Preparing a sermon after a week of excellent preaching at the Festival of Homiletics is a good way to reflect on what I heard. I found it curious that, all week, the focus was not on homiletical maneuvering, styles, or techniques but instead on the relationship of the preacher to the text. And to Jesus. It was a week of feeding the preacher instead of teaching the preacher.

I'm not sure what was best. Anna Carter Florence is magnificent and I felt she was preaching directly to me. When she lectured it was the same thing. This statement stands out: "God's Word in the presence of God's people strips us bare. We can't hide." And then, "Testimony is what we have left when it (homiletical tricks) aren't working."

She ended with this -- does preaching every get easier? Well, she said, after the first time you know it won't kill you. But every sermon is like dying and being raised. Every time.

That would have been enough. But that evening was Walter Wangerin, whose writing I have enjoyed very much. Several of my colleagues struggled to follow him, but he was sharing the power of the story in preaching. But even he said "preaching is an awful private matter, confronting the text, allowing the deity to confront me."

Walter Brueggemann the next morning taught us to reframe our narrative to the narrative of God using the Nicene Creed, the Apostle's Creed, and "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" (which never sounded so good with 2,100 clergy singing it together.) Drawing on the texts for this Sunday he drew a frame with [God's extravagant generosity/God's gift of inexhaustible well being.] That frame is for the preachers, he told us -- we must live understanding God's generosity and the inexhaustible well being of a life of faith. Isaiah 49. Matthew 6. Today's sermon.

Wednesday afternoon Barbara Brown Taylor gave us the secrets to preaching (and/or writing):
1. Establish a routine and stick to it.
2. Show. Don't tell.
3. Use body language, and the five senses.
4. Welcome provocations.
5. Don't lie.

William Willimon spoke Thursday morning and Barbara Brown Taylor preached on the Great Commission. The last note I have written in my notebook is, "All we have is our lives."

So, taking all that together, preaching is about:
laying ourselves bare in front of the text and God
being truthful to our congregation as we make public what happened in that very private work
depending upon nothing but the everlasting goodness of God
bringing all we have, and nothing more, to the task

(No wonder I always need a nap.)

Bizzaro

A scrap of floor will do

Yesterday Theo didn't want to get out of bed. "I'm so very sick," he said.
"No, you don't have a fever."
He thought a moment. Here was a new possibility. "I do have a fever."
"No, you don't." He had a cold but did not qualify for the classic mother's rule for staying home: fever or various inappropriate body fluids.
"I don't want to go to school."
"I'm sorry babe, but it's Walter Brueggemann today. You are going to school."

He will probably grow up with an undefinable anger toward biblical scholars.

Walter Brueggemann was in the lineup for the Festival of Homiletics. I got there too late to get a chair but in time to hear him (actually, in time to hear Jearlyn Steele sing "His Eye is on the Sparrow" which was another gift.) I found a spot on the marble floor up front, wishing I had my camera, leaned back against the ornate wooden column, and listened.

He is one of the pre-eminent biblical scholars. His perspectives on the text have shaped a few generations of preachers. He is prolific and wise. He looks like Santa Claus with a dark suit and red tie except he delivers biblical overviews, insights, and preacherly hints instead of toys. After a few minutes I knew I needed to change Sunday's sermon, move in a different direction. Of course in his last three minutes he tossed out several pointers for this week's lectionary texts (which have not come up this time of year for several decades.)

After a few more songs from Ms. Steele and a break Jim Wallis was up. I had a chair by then -- Becky Jo found a few -- but over in the spot I had been Dr. Brueggemann was on the floor, leaning up against a wooden column. I hopped up and went over to him.

"Prof. Brueggemann, thank you for your lecture today. Would you like my chair?" I pointed to the open chair a few rows away.
"Take your chair? No, I couldn't do that."
"I sat on the floor to hear you, I can certainly give you my chair."
"No, but thank you."

Well, I had found an excuse to say hello anyway. Someone else did convince him to take a chair and we all heard Jim Wallis for awhile.

Well, 8:30 a.m. and I have to go tell Theo that Barbara Brown Taylor is preaching this morning. I won't have a chair again, but a scrap of floor will do.

Give me Jesus

I found my spot at about 6:40 p.m. in the back corner of the church. Two pillars blocked part of my view but luckily preaching is about sound and not visuals. Grant, a young Lutheran clergy from Cincinnati, was in Minneapolis for the first time, sitting to my left. Jeanine, a long-time clergy friend, was to my right and several friends were crushed together in front of us. Next to them was Brian, my last senior pastor, and his friend from seminary. In front of them were several Lutheran guys from my lectionary group in Duluth. We and about 2083 other clergy were settling in for the Festival of Homiletics.

I hadn't worked nearly as hard as many of my colleagues to get there -- I heard folks talking about the hordes (gaggles? clusters?) of clearly-they-must-be-clergy traveling on shuttles and lightrail from the airport. But, as I ran through the details yesterday of picking up my kids and finishing the newsletter Kelly said, "You are trying to go to a major continuing education event and still do everything you normally do." Well, yes, and I had been frantic most of the day trying to get everything organized.

The National Lutheran Choir was singing and -- if we hadn't been so politely crowded -- one might think we had wandered into some form of heaven's waiting room. (Would heaven be crowded with clergy?) And then the service started.

When the choir sang "Give Me Jesus" I took a deep breath. And then Anna Carter Florence got up to preach about Mary and Martha and Jesus. No one preaches to the secret whines of clergy quite like she does. When she started in on Martha's "I have to do it all" speech, and the "worried and distracted by many things" response from Jesus I said, "Ah. Hmm."

And I wasn't alone. We all just sank in to the hope and glory of being fed by worship, by excellent preaching, by the Word heard anew, by the voices of a hundred score of people singing together. They gave us Jesus last night.

And the rest of the week is yet to come.

Not the best way to take photos, but...

I preached with my camera in hand today. I talked about my macro lens and how it makes me see differently (see previous post). The text today was Genesis 1, the story of Creation. We had so much in the service today we should have been finishing about the time we read the scripture (the 8 people who read today did fabulously) and I got around to preaching, so I tried to be focused (get the pun?) and quick to the point.

Not only did I talk about my camera, I took several pictures while I preached. My flower shots did not turn out at all -- I couldn't take the time to get still enough, and I really needed my tripod. The people shots did work, but I can't post them because I don't like to put photos of people here without their permission (except my kids, I suppose.) But they are interesting -- me looking at people looking at me with perhaps a bit more amusement than is on their faces most Sundays. I'll print them up and put them on my door.

And next week preach looking at everyone with both my eyes. And take my photos with my mouth shut.

Looking through the macro

My 60mm Micro (macro) lens lets me see things differently. Part of it is in the framing, taking everything else away.














Or seeing detail that is overlooked when presented with an entire bloom.














This tulip is spent, but more lovely at the core than expected.














And stamens, loaded with pollen, capture the attention.














Light at the edge of a petal...




















is not the same as seen through it.














Obviously up close flowers are amazing.
But so is ash.














And my son's eye.

David Bard

I was honored to be invited to write a testimonial for my friend and colleague David Bard as he offers his name for bishop for our United Methodist Church. The process will take him to the North Central Jurisdictional Conference in July in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

You can read what I said here. David brings such good gifts to our church right now and I wish him well in this process. I said he would be Minnesota's gift to the larger church as bishop -- it means we would lose his work and leadership here in Minnesota, but I would love for his humble yet strong, clear and genuine leadership to be offered to the whole church. David is one of the most completely consistent clergy I know -- he is completely himself, with integrity and grace, all the time. I like that in a leader. He is smart too, in many many ways.

As always I pray that God's guidance will be felt as the church continues its work by electing bishops again.

Thursday morning sermon prep

It's Thursday morning, which means time to get the sermon percolating. It is a nearly perfect spring morning, finally: wisps of clouds arcing through the sky, a cool 48 degrees but with a hint of a warm day, tulips standing smartly in the yards and the vibrant shock of that first tree-green settling into a darker shade for summer. I notice the sun has moved quite a bit north as it rises this morning -- summer must be coming.

I'm preaching on the Creation story in Genesis, the first one, Chapter One. I don't have a plan yet. It is time to get one.

I've kicked around the idea of looking at evolution's story of the beginning, which -- as some scientists describe it -- is about as poetic as the Bible's version. But I preached a slightly controversial sermon last week, said a word or two people don't always say in front of their little kids (did anyone have to go home and explain or did the children tune out like I expected them to? -- Zane could not tell me what I preached on last week) so I don't think it is time to take on another "Big Topic."

Then of course there is the gift of Creation and the concern for Global Warming -- oh wait, see the previous paragraph.

Three years ago I looked at what happened when God separates things -- that word shows up five times in the text. The light and dark need to be separate and distinct. The earth and the heaven are separate and distinct. This moves us from chaos to order. I had just come from the Festival of Homiletics in Chicago and was nervous about preaching after hearing the best preachers in the country (I am going next week to the same event, here in Minneapolis. Next Sunday will be hard again, I expect.) I'm sure I ended with Romans 8 -- nothing can separate us from the love of God. I can't remember if that sermon worked or not. I'm not going to take that tack this time.

So I walk, block after block, up to Summit, west a few blocks, dog at my side, wondering how I will come to an idea, wondering if this week, after all these years, I will not have an idea, wondering if I am spent after all, and when it is that that will finally happen, and

then I have an idea. Hmm. I try it on as we round the corner to Grand Avenue. By Snelling I am excited again.

And Sunday is coming...