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p/c Filpe Simo via Unsplash
What is a sermon?
Assuming for the sake of this reflection that we are considering only biblically faithful creedally orthodox sermons, what is this event we have in mind?
It is a kind of public address… But it is a particular kind of public speech whose value is not the degree to which it matches-up to other forms of public speech. After all, one can go and listen to more entertaining kinds of public address (like stand-up comedy)…
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…The list goes on. Everywhere, it seems, on God’s green earth heroes, gods, angels, divine sages, are given haloes as a sign of their being hallowed…. There just seems to be something universal about being clothed in living flame…
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I woke up later than intended from a dream
of finding at long last a building for our church
but being overlooked and out-bid at the end
by much a far greater offer made than the ask
by a local mid-size construction company…
It has become a tradition during the Trinity term of the Fellows Program at Theopolis to hold a feast in the style of a Georgian keipi. Food, served in courses, rounds of toasts orchestrated around specific themes (e.g. “eros” “death” “mothers” etc.), led by a tamada (kind of master of ceremonies meets hierophantic celebrant…
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p/c Chris Blair via unspalsh
My family is doing a read-aloud through C.S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader right now. We just completed the chapter in which Lucy enters the library of the magician Coriakin and reads through a portion of his book of spells.
The book is wondrous, it is alive. As one reads new words appear, the illustrations begin to move, smells and sounds begin to pour-forth from the pages… the book, in other words, comes alive…
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In The Poetics Aristotle makes the claim that a good story —a really good story— must satisfy two conditions that seem mutually exclusive:
a good story must satisfy the hopes and anticipations which it cultivates in us.
AND a good story must surprise us; it cannot merely conclude or resolve; we can’t see it coming.
Think of the way we critique movies…
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Shakespeare notes the way in which “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose” (Merchant of Venice, I.3). This is what the Devil does when he tempts Jesus in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11; Mk. 1:12-13; Lk. 4:1-13). This is part of his much larger deceiving and perverting craft of simultaneously ruining good things and making evil things appear good. As Shakespeare again notes “O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
It is the devil who, for instance, makes a violation of God’s instructions for kings of Israel (a military census) appear like prudence and wise leadership…
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What’s with all the services where Christians worship under branches? We hang greens in the sanctuary in Advent, we decorate Christmas Tress, we burn branches for ashes on Ash Wednesday, and we wave palms on Palm Sunday. Is there any Biblical reasoning behind these practices?
You betcha! It’s all about being a part of God’s Big Story…
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No Japan Travelogue yet. I’ll be working on that this week for both you all and for Theopolis and have it out early next week.
Today I just want to share a scene from my fiction reading (which has been sparse as of late). As I tell each fellows cohort at Theopolis: be careful of becoming the kind of person who only reads non-fiction theology, or you risk becoming the kind of person who only reads non-fiction theology...
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This week Landon and I will be travelling to Japan on the first formal international missions trip of All Saints Honolulu with the main goal of establishing long-term missional relationships there.
What follows is a loose itinerary of our trip —at least, what our itinerary looks like right now. As you think of us in the days ahead, and as you pray for us, this itinerary can help give you and idea of where we are at as you pray…
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