 St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Friday, June 30, 2023 A wedding you’ll care about The Sunday Readings About the art and struggle of preaching A Wedding Many of you will remember one of our favorite SBU students, Tobi Barta! Here’s her wedding picture. Congratulations! She and Ethan Collins were married last Sunday, June 25, and will live in Shawnee, Kansas.  The Sunday readings Zechariah 9:9-12 Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.  Romans 7:15-25 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is in no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I will do what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do that is no longer I that I do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am!Who will rescue me from this body of death! Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 Jesus said to the crowd, “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated in her deeds.” At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  About Preaching There are at least three different sermons in that single text from Matthew! And a couple in the Zechariah passage and several in the Romans reading. Every week as we proclaim aloud several different pre-appointed portions of the Bible, it means the preacher has to either ignore one or two, or has to try to see how they fit together. And it’s always an interesting exercise to figure out which reading should be focused on (and no, I don’t always think it’s the one from the Gospel.) Sometimes it’s a challenge. Some readings are obscure and easily misunderstood. Some, like this passage from the epistle to the Romans, have been over-used and often over-generalized, so that really bad theologies have developed – like what results if you are taught to seriously believe that “nothing good dwells within me.”. I never assume my study or my exegesis, however carefully I do it, is the only one that can be valid. But this I do promise you: I always work hard to read and study and then interpret the passage I choose in the best possible way, consistent with the good news of the Gospel. And that is sometimes means an interpretation is unfamiliar, or simply one you hadn’t considered. There’s not a whole lot of point in educating clergy in Greek and Hebrew, church history, theology, Biblical interpretation/exegesis just so they will repeat whatever you heard – or thought you heard – as a child! And I do thank you for understanding this, and for your comments that let me know you’re thinking outside whatever box you grew up with, too. So am I. The extraordinary good news that the whole Bible sings is ever new; it reveals a God who is always better than we imagine; and it’s very often shocking to our cultural sensibilities and assumptions – and to our own!   |
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