A Hell of Our Own Design

What do you do when you have a week like last week?  How do you labor through a sermon that is meaningful and meets people into the world?

That was the difficulty of last Sunday.  The Kavanaugh hearings were really fresh in my mind, and to not say something would have been a failure in my mind.  What you don't hear in this sermon is the conversation I had earlier in the service where I mention that as a pastor, my role is to provide pastoral care no matter what one has gone through, and that you will be believed when you walk through my doors.  

The "red thread" here today was maybe a little difficult to keep track of - I thought a lot about how poorly we treat one another and how in times like this week where we need to have grace and see each other and whole people we lack the resources, but I found myself thinking heavily about our cultural understanding of sex and the other, as well as what liturgical functions can help us understand who we are.  My hope is that it helped people no matter where they were this week.

Notes:

1:44 - Yeah, talk about a shock.

2:33 - I was glad that it had been perceived as a joke, but I think there's something in here that every younger adult must wrestle with as they and their parents age: they're not invincible.  There's a time my dad had a nail become lodged in his shoulder after it had flown out of a lawn mower, and I remember how nonchalant my dad was (I was probably all of 7 or 8 at the time)... as if even a nail couldn't stop my dad.  A tree'll stop most folks.  But in the week this week as I was caring for my family, that was a feeling that kept cropping up, as it had when my grandfather passed right around this time last year.  We're all mortal, and we all face it more often than we'd like.

3:59 - This is an initial hook to the whole sermon: we need to be with our family.

4:35 - Seeing those folks sing has been a highlight of my early ministry at Old Stone.

6:23 - I think that is hell (and I'll get more there later): being reduced to a singular idea.

6:48 - My first Amen.  I'll cherish it.

7:24 - In all of the conversation culturally, this seems to be something that is lost right now: we talk about all the things around sex and sexuality, but I'm not sure we actually talk about the actual expressions of sex beyond coarse physical humor.  For as much as we want to think about progress in this area, I feel like we're still relentlessly puritanical about an act in our lives that has such deep reverberations spiritually and emotionally.  And if we don't talk about it (as puritanical as this may sound), I worry that YouPorn will.  This is a conversation I hope to write about this more.

7:42 - And this as well.  It has been something that has not stopped bothering me since I saw an ad on Facebook.  It's a terrible capitulation.  However, I went back and forth about mentioning it because I wasn't sure it was helpful to the conversation.  However, I noticed some nods of affirmation, so maybe it was after all.

8:25 - I think what I wish I would have done more here with this recap of the gospel is speak more on the "proud tone" - trying to get an affirmation from Jesus.

8:47 - Here's hoping those are always fictional hashtags.

9:46 - I think it's funny because it just sounds like I am exclaiming "Jesus!" and I think subconsciously I might be - this topic is one that has bothered me personally for awhile, but it's meant to just move to the next statement.

10:13 - The cup of water motif was really helpful for me to think through it, but I think I didn't spend enough time on the direction of the cup of water: to giving it to those following Jesus.  It would be an interesting angle the next time around.  Is the giving towards a common goal the most important thing?

11:44 - It is the other way in Scripture, too... let's not forget that.  But the context is different.

11:52 - Avoiding the word "hermeneutic."

12:20 - So here's a perfect example of a place that in shifting from manuscript to outline I struggle.  That sounded to my ears like word salad for about 5-10 seconds.  This might be a time where my mind got ahead of my mouth.

13:05 - Facebook is not Christian, in case you didn't know.

13:23 - I think this is something that will factor in a little bit into this coming week's message... we struggle with grace for ourselves and for the other.

14:49 - I think that my quoting should suffice for reference.

15:32 - Unnecessary joke?  Maybe - but have you seen that billboard?

15:56 - Yep.

16:15 - I think that is a more provocative claim than I thought at first.  Does social media take us away from God?  It's easy to see the other.  At the very least, I don't think it brings us closer to God all that often.

16:43 - Out of someone's hand.

16:55 - Self-Care is important.

17:54 - I suppose that this could be accused of being more works-oriented, but that's not the point I'm trying to make.  It may be that our faith, with its different hues, still creates a colorful work.  We shouldn't devalue the faith that got us there.

18:36 - Here's the hook from the first stories.  I don't know if it was effective.

19:00 - I don't know if this feels like a hard turn, but thought it was important - there is wholeness in our liturgy.

20:00 - This is drawing from "Inside Out" Shattauer book.  The missio Dei can be centered in liturgy.  The depth matters.  So maybe worship on Sunday can be a little slice of heaven on earth, and can teach us something about the ways we can work towards restoration in the world.  I'd like to think so, otherwise why do we do it at all?