easter sunday

[beachpsalms]

The jumping off point for this sermon was a piece in an article about sermons (Celebrating the Incarnation, C. Morse) which asked the question: "To what extent is the sermon saying to the world what the world is already capable of saying to itself?"  And then it went in an odd direction.

Comments

[fierylight78]

Great message. Thanks for posting.

[beadattitude]

I have a grin so big because this is fantastic with a thread of hilarious running through it, with the dancing zombies and all.

[beachpsalms]

My poor congregations - they just laugh at me sometimes, or get this collective "Where on earth is she going with this???" look on their faces. It's how I know they're really listening.

But I also know that a really odd hook at the beginning of the sermon can be effective - because if they want to know where I'm going, how I'm possibly going to tie it in - then they listen.

Anyway - thank you so much, so much, so much for taking the time to read and comment on them. It means an awful lot to me!

[beadattitude]

Oh, no problem, they are very good for me to hear!

Weird hook or no, this tied together very nicely. Once I was at a Christmas service where there was a long meditation - I should say by no one related to me, but the local poet/shepherd turned UCC minister - on what if Jesus was the son of Mary and a Roman centurion and it went on and on and I was thinking, "OMG, this is waaaay to esoteric for the (majority) of the congregation who comes once a year."

And he had a point in that the forgiveness of Joseph to Mary was like God's forgiveness of our transgressions but really, he could have done that in a way that didn't leave the congregation thinking, "Mary and a Roman soldier? WTF???" And he took far too long getting to that point that I was going to wonder if he was going to openly question the divinity of Jesus. On Christmas. To a congregation 7/8 new. ::booggles::

Not that it still bothers me or anything. Ahem.

[beachpsalms]

I have a theory that people who only come to church at Christmas and Easter want to hear a pretty tradition message. And most of the regulars want that too. So I aim for a more edgy/challenging message in the season of the high holidays, but not on Easter morning or Christmas Eve.