conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

in the preaching

"Humanity must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

As I said yesterday, sometimes my sermons get edited on the fly. So, fortunately I cought some rather silly grammar and syntax on the fly. One of the other things that happened was a little riff on the I Have a Dream speech...I spoke in the sermon about how I was standing in the pulpit as someone born after Martin Luther King died. The riff was about being one of those children...those little white children who played with little black children. I have never seen a segregated bathroom (unless High School cliques count). It was all of 25 seconds worth of riff. I always try to stop myself when I am tempted to do this. My trouble in preaching is not making the conncections. My trouble is in sticking with one idea. So, I limit myself right now. Some day I hope to be able to allow myself to riff more...well, at all.

So, this is something I did not say. My grandfather the Baptist minister, when he was a young man, preached in black pulpits and would have black ministers preach in his pulpit. This would have been in the 1950's. He had great hope for the work of the Gospel and tremendous courage to enable such a ministry in Orange, VA and Charleston, WV. It is his legacy I share in. It is this kind of hope that emboldened me to go into the ministry. When I think of that as pastoring, as ministry, then I have an alternative to thinking of ministry as the morality police...keeping the purity lines in check.

Being a pastor is about being professionally hopeful.

Anyway...that was something that did not get said. And though I may have been unclear even here, I needed to say it.

Speaking of Legacy, go here for one story on legacy, and here for another. And The Winged Man is speaking about not feeling Lutheran.

Finally, I wanted to share this hymn with you. Lift Every Voice and Sing is one of my favorites (Note: an early typo read "Lift Every Vice and Sing." Nice.). It is often called "The Black National Anthem." I assume there was not great caucus to elect it as such, but that is the word on the streets. The second verse is the greatest indictment against the US in hymnody, I think. We sang it as the opening hymn yesterday. I think I may preach on it next week. We'll see what the lectionary allows...or if I play the Baptist card.

Lift every voice and sing, till earth and Heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise, high as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet,
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered;
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Thou Who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou Who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,
True to our God, true to our native land.

“They cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.” Exodus 2:23

Posted by tripp at January 15, 2007 08:53 AM