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revdorothyl at 12:24pm on 18/10/2004 under favorite sf reading
revdorothyl at 12:24pm on 18/10/2004 under favorite sf readingI went back to the biggest, richest suburban Presbyterian Church in this city for worship yesterday ('cause I had the Sunday off from preaching, and this church was sort of on my way to other places I needed to be Sunday afternoon), and even more than on my previous visit last month, I was totally blown away by the sermon preached by the head pastor.
So much so, in fact, that it inspired me to do some research and further thinking on the subject which I'm trying to put into this LJ entry today.
I should preface these remarks by confessing that I've been prejudiced against this big, rich church and the quality of its preaching, since the first and (until this Fall) only time I'd gone to worship there, in 1996. The preaching seemed to be awfully heavy on sports (especially football) anecdotes and to be preaching a gospel of prosperity and self-satisfaction (which is, like, exactly opposite of anything Jesus ever said, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- so you can see why I might have had a problem with this!).
However, in my one appearance so far this Fall at the graduate students' fellowship group potluck supper, the guest speaker turned out to be the new (as of a couple of years ago) head pastor of ye-olde-tall-steeple-church-with-deep-pockets, and darned if he didn't come across as humble, well-informed, and even semi-profound. Though I hate having to change opinions, ever, I found myself motoring down there for church the following Sunday, and being further impressed at the way an opening sports reference segued into a profound and challenging gospel message about hospitality toward the stranger whose differences and needs make you the most uncomfortable. (That actually played in well with something someone else had mentioned in LJ recently, but I didn't write any of my thoughts down or do the LJ entry I intended at the time, so a lot of it has escaped me since then.)
So, yesterday, the sermon title was "On Not Losing Heart," based on the parable of the widow and the unjust judge in Luke 18:1-8 (to the effect that the disciples ought to pray always and not lose heart), along with Jeremiah 31:27-34 (promise of the new covenant). Opening with what I've come to think of as the obligatory sports reference (the spoonful of sugar and link to normality which is necessary in order to assure some members of the congregation that the message which follows is safe for them to ingest? -- but then, I'm guessing, based on an incredibly small and unscientific sampling), the preacher's second sentence managed to switch to the subject of the death of Christopher Reeve this past week, and of how incredible it seems to most of us that Reeve and others who've suffered near total paralysis or some other devastating loss should still, somehow, manage to keep on going, to not give in to despair.
And so it went.
He managed, by the end of the sermon, to introduce a quote from Corrie ten Boom (The Hiding Place, etc.) about hanging on through the darkest and most dreadful parts of life, a reference to the Shorter Catechism (I think it was) of the Westminster Confession of Faith defining prayer as "offering up the desires of our hearts to God . . . ", and an acknowledgment that to pray with our whole hearts for something is to run the real risk of heartbreak, of our prayers not being answered in anything like the way that we had hoped. The preacher concluded by saying something to the effect that if our hearts are broken enough times, we may find that they have become so large that even God dwells within them.
Besides finding this a very personally relevant Word, given my ongoing struggle with despair and my predisposition always to avoid the risk of heart-break by not asking or hoping for anything much (which only feeds the despair, of course, since to live without hope and the possibility of disappointment is to pretty much invite despair in as a permanent house-guest who never cleans up after him/herself and contributes nothing to the costs of upkeep), I couldn't help but make connections to Lois McMaster Bujold's The Curse of Chalion, as well as to a rabbinical commentary that I heard Madeleine L'Engle mention in an NPR interview almost six years ago.
The preacher's imagery of hearts being broken in prayer (and in the process, enlarged to provide more room for God to live and work there) -- in conjunction with the words of Jeremiah 31:33 ("But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.") -- put me forcefully in mind of this quote from Madeleine L'Engle, from the end of an interview with Margot Adler on Nov. 15, 1998 (the complete interview can be found here):
"There's a story that I love of a student who says to his rabbi, 'Rabbi, in Deuteronomy, why are the words of God placed on the heart, instead of in the heart?' And the Rabbi says, 'Well, we are not yet ready to have them placed in the heart. But if we lay them carefully on the heart, when it breaks, they will fall in.'
"We have to be broken. Abandon power. Listen. Go to unexpected places."
And then there are these quotes from near the end of chapter 26 of The Curse of Chalion:
"I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.
"He knew where it was. It was on the other side of every living person, every living creature, as close as the other side of a coin, the other side of a door. Every soul was a potential portal to the gods. I wonder what would happen if we all opened up at once? Would it flood the world with miracle, drain heaven? . . ." (pp. 403-4)
and
"Welcome to sainthood, Cazaril. By the gods' blessings, you get to host miracles! The catch is, you don't get to choose what they are. . . .
"Betriz had it exactly backward. It wasn't a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you. Could an old siege-master learn to surrender, to open his gates?
"Into your hands, O lords of light, I commend my soul. Do what you must to mend the world. I am at your service." (p. 405)
I have more to say on the subject of reluctant saints (like Cazaril) and prophets (like Jeremiah, who at one point accused God of practically violating him in the act of putting God's words within him and using him to tell the world things that nobody at all wanted to hear), but I've got to get ready to teach my class now.
So much so, in fact, that it inspired me to do some research and further thinking on the subject which I'm trying to put into this LJ entry today.
I should preface these remarks by confessing that I've been prejudiced against this big, rich church and the quality of its preaching, since the first and (until this Fall) only time I'd gone to worship there, in 1996. The preaching seemed to be awfully heavy on sports (especially football) anecdotes and to be preaching a gospel of prosperity and self-satisfaction (which is, like, exactly opposite of anything Jesus ever said, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- so you can see why I might have had a problem with this!).
However, in my one appearance so far this Fall at the graduate students' fellowship group potluck supper, the guest speaker turned out to be the new (as of a couple of years ago) head pastor of ye-olde-tall-steeple-church-with-deep-pockets, and darned if he didn't come across as humble, well-informed, and even semi-profound. Though I hate having to change opinions, ever, I found myself motoring down there for church the following Sunday, and being further impressed at the way an opening sports reference segued into a profound and challenging gospel message about hospitality toward the stranger whose differences and needs make you the most uncomfortable. (That actually played in well with something someone else had mentioned in LJ recently, but I didn't write any of my thoughts down or do the LJ entry I intended at the time, so a lot of it has escaped me since then.)
So, yesterday, the sermon title was "On Not Losing Heart," based on the parable of the widow and the unjust judge in Luke 18:1-8 (to the effect that the disciples ought to pray always and not lose heart), along with Jeremiah 31:27-34 (promise of the new covenant). Opening with what I've come to think of as the obligatory sports reference (the spoonful of sugar and link to normality which is necessary in order to assure some members of the congregation that the message which follows is safe for them to ingest? -- but then, I'm guessing, based on an incredibly small and unscientific sampling), the preacher's second sentence managed to switch to the subject of the death of Christopher Reeve this past week, and of how incredible it seems to most of us that Reeve and others who've suffered near total paralysis or some other devastating loss should still, somehow, manage to keep on going, to not give in to despair.
And so it went.
He managed, by the end of the sermon, to introduce a quote from Corrie ten Boom (The Hiding Place, etc.) about hanging on through the darkest and most dreadful parts of life, a reference to the Shorter Catechism (I think it was) of the Westminster Confession of Faith defining prayer as "offering up the desires of our hearts to God . . . ", and an acknowledgment that to pray with our whole hearts for something is to run the real risk of heartbreak, of our prayers not being answered in anything like the way that we had hoped. The preacher concluded by saying something to the effect that if our hearts are broken enough times, we may find that they have become so large that even God dwells within them.
Besides finding this a very personally relevant Word, given my ongoing struggle with despair and my predisposition always to avoid the risk of heart-break by not asking or hoping for anything much (which only feeds the despair, of course, since to live without hope and the possibility of disappointment is to pretty much invite despair in as a permanent house-guest who never cleans up after him/herself and contributes nothing to the costs of upkeep), I couldn't help but make connections to Lois McMaster Bujold's The Curse of Chalion, as well as to a rabbinical commentary that I heard Madeleine L'Engle mention in an NPR interview almost six years ago.
The preacher's imagery of hearts being broken in prayer (and in the process, enlarged to provide more room for God to live and work there) -- in conjunction with the words of Jeremiah 31:33 ("But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.") -- put me forcefully in mind of this quote from Madeleine L'Engle, from the end of an interview with Margot Adler on Nov. 15, 1998 (the complete interview can be found here):
"There's a story that I love of a student who says to his rabbi, 'Rabbi, in Deuteronomy, why are the words of God placed on the heart, instead of in the heart?' And the Rabbi says, 'Well, we are not yet ready to have them placed in the heart. But if we lay them carefully on the heart, when it breaks, they will fall in.'
"We have to be broken. Abandon power. Listen. Go to unexpected places."
And then there are these quotes from near the end of chapter 26 of The Curse of Chalion:
"I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.
"He knew where it was. It was on the other side of every living person, every living creature, as close as the other side of a coin, the other side of a door. Every soul was a potential portal to the gods. I wonder what would happen if we all opened up at once? Would it flood the world with miracle, drain heaven? . . ." (pp. 403-4)
and
"Welcome to sainthood, Cazaril. By the gods' blessings, you get to host miracles! The catch is, you don't get to choose what they are. . . .
"Betriz had it exactly backward. It wasn't a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you. Could an old siege-master learn to surrender, to open his gates?
"Into your hands, O lords of light, I commend my soul. Do what you must to mend the world. I am at your service." (p. 405)
I have more to say on the subject of reluctant saints (like Cazaril) and prophets (like Jeremiah, who at one point accused God of practically violating him in the act of putting God's words within him and using him to tell the world things that nobody at all wanted to hear), but I've got to get ready to teach my class now.
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