Anatomy of a sermon
Commentary
Here's a riddle. What is both common and precious? Both priceless and free?
The Word of God is the answer. And the Word of God is the theme that rises to the top of this week's three lections taken together.
In the Nehemiah passage, the post-exilic Jews gather to hear the scriptures read and explained to them. In the Luke passage, Jesus himself reads from -- and fulfills -- the scriptures in the synagogue in Nazareth. And in the 1 Corinthians passage, the prominence of the Word of God is somewhat more subtle, yet still notable. Paul suggests a ranking of the gifts or roles within the church (12:28), and the first three -- apostles, prophets, and teachers -- are all primarily concerned with the proclamation of the Word.
In our supply-and-demand culture, things that are common and readily available are not generally considered very valuable. We do not typically cherish as precious the dime-a-dozen things around us.
And in our particular supply-and-demand culture, the Word of God seems to be common and readily available. Bibles are easy to come by, and the preaching and teaching of the Word can be found not only in the churches that pepper the landscape, but also on hundreds of radio stations and dozens of television programs. Indeed, a cynic might contend that the supply of preaching and teaching of the Word actually exceeds demand in contemporary American society.
The proclamation of the Word of God in America is a constant 24-7 flow. It is common, and it is free. It may be easy, therefore, for average Americans, trained consumers that they are, not to recognize the value of the Word.
If we preachers formed a cartel, or if we functioned with the shrewdness of some businesses, we might collude to reduce supply. Let's stop giving away Bibles to children, preach rarely, and teach sparingly. That, it seems, might increase the market value of our product.
But, instead, we go on doing what we do. Our proclamation is constant and free. We preach and we teach more than the majority of folks in our culture seem to want. Indeed, if the attendance-to-membership ratio is any indication, we preach and teach even more than the majority of our own members seem to want. But, undaunted, we continue with confidence -- the secret confidence of knowing that our "product" has real value, and that value has nothing to do with the market.
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
It was a simple recipe. There were no PowerPoint presentations, no overhead projectors, no multimedia spectacles. There was no proof-texting for the sake of some dogma, and no text contortions for the sake of relevance. It was simply the people of God gathered together, eager and receptive to hear the Word of God -- the whole Word of God -- read and explained.
The picture is lovely in its simplicity, and it stands very much in contrast to our contemporary scene. We are so encumbered in our day with techniques and technology designed to bring the Word to life for the people. We preach to a people accustomed to getting their information in highly visual formats. We preach to a distracted generation with a notoriously short attention span. We preach to individuals who are used to clicking and surfing, to reading crawls while listening to talk and watching footage all at the same time on the same channel.
We stand in Ezra's spot with Ezra's assignment, but we do not stand before Ezra's audience.
The Jews of Ezra's day were a people in profound transition. Some decades earlier, their parents and grandparents had been overwhelmed by a foreign army, uprooted from their land, and taken captive to Babylonia. Now they were back in the strange land called home. Strange because they had only known Babylon. And strange because the landscape of neglected ruins must have looked very different from the gilded stories they had heard about this land flowing with milk and honey.
Such a homecoming, with its attendant complex of emotions, must have prompted the people from one extreme experience to another. There was the joy of so many answered prayers mixed with the bitterness of remembering all that the Babylonians had done. There was the thanksgiving for God's providence and deliverance coupled with the remorse for generations of sin and rebellion.
And hearing the Word of God read aloud brought all of the emotion to the surface.
In our moments of greatest clarity, the Word of God rings especially true. We nod and we weep as we read. The wisdom of God's commands, the beauty of his promises, and the candor of his warnings all make perfect sense to us, and they elicit our praise and our tears.
I suspect the returning exiles enjoyed great clarity about the past and the present, and perhaps even the future. In that state, they were particularly receptive and particularly responsive to the Word of God.
Unlike Ezra's audience, our congregations are full of people who are at different places. The returning exiles of Ezra's day had a commonality of experience that American congregations seldom experience, except in instances of great local or national tragedies. Our people on an average Sunday morning, however, are not all going through the same experience in life, and so a uniform or unanimous response to the Word is unlikely. But wherever our people are individually, and whatever their present experience, we preach with the assurance that God's Word is what each of them needs to hear.
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
In the Rorschach test, a patient is asked to tell what he or she sees in a series of inkblots. Perhaps it would be revealing to ask our members to tell what they see when they look at a picture of a church.
Based on my years in the local church, I would guess that the results would be quite varied. Some look at the church and see a business -- a beneficent business that, in their minds, ought to be more businesslike. Other folks look at the church and see a family, and their emphasis is on relationships. Some folks categorize the church with other non-profit community organizations from the Boy Scouts to the Rotary Club. And still others think of the church mostly in terms of its facility -- a building and piece of property to be maintained and improved.
When the Apostle Paul looked at the church, he saw a body. And in 1 Corinthians 12, he offers his timeless image of the church, illustrating it in terms of the interconnectedness of its parts.
The picture is, first of all, an image of unity. Now admittedly, to the outside observer, "unity" might not be the first word that comes to mind when thinking of the church. He sees a different church every few blocks. He sees several versions of the same denomination in one town. And from time to time he hears reports that some of these churches are not in communion with one another, are in disagreement with one another, or even are in severe disagreement within themselves.
Likewise, the insider. If the outside observer does not see unity when looking at the church, the church member or pastor might lament, "It doesn't look any better in here!"
Still, the primary feature of Paul's picture of the church is one of unity. Not similarity. Not single-cell simplicity. But unity -- "one body," and "no dissension within the body."
Second, Paul's depiction of the church is an image of functionality. The image is not static and fixed, but active and purposeful. The one body is composed of many parts, and every part has a function. No limb hangs limp or lifeless. No member is without point or usefulness. Rather, the church is marked by this ingenuous design: unity of purpose and multiplicity of function.
It's an interesting proposition that each church member's identity is portrayed in terms of gifts or roles. The categories of "new" or "longtime" members are not relevant here. Age and gender are not issues. Lay and clergy are not explicitly identified. Rather, every member has an identity that comes from God and is manifested in the church. The relationships are implicitly cooperative. And variety is embraced as essential, rather than merely tolerated or, worse, discouraged.
Accordingly, Paul's portrait of the church as a body is an image of indispensability. The whole cannot do without the parts, and the parts cannot do without the whole. That, of course, is the healthiest formula for a relationship. If the need flows only one way -- or is perceived to flow only one way -- that creates an unhealthy imbalance.
No part can say to another, "I have no need of you." Imagine the lovely congregation where everyone knows that. Where there is a prevailing awareness that we do indeed need each other, and we embrace and cherish one another accordingly.
The great shame in so many American churches is that the members don't realize why they are needed. They have the impression that they are needed because the budget needs their giving. (Admittedly, it is no mystery why they have that impression.) For some that becomes a turnoff, while for others it becomes a power trip. But what a refreshing breakthrough it would be if our members understood that they are needed because of their gifts, not their giving.
Finally, Paul's picture of the church is an image of hierarchy. Hierarchy is a concept easily misunderstood by folks born and raised in a democracy. Our democratic system is marvelous, but it is backwards by the standards of most systems of authority. Those in authority over us in a democratic system are ultimately subject to us, for they answer to us as voters. Authority flows from the bottom up. Those in authority serve at our pleasure.
The church, as the body of Christ, however, is a top down operation. There is no voting when it comes to the lordship of Christ. He is the head, and we serve at His pleasure.
Luke 4:14-21
When video cameras were still a relatively new phenomenon, I remember my father-in-law getting a great kick out of videoing himself in a mirror. "Through the miracle of videotape," he would narrate, "I am filming myself filming myself."
We used to tease him about his childlike playfulness with a new toy, but the truth is that he had discovered a pretty cool homemade special effect.
Something similarly reflexive occurs in this passage from Luke. Here we read a scripture passage about Jesus reading a scripture passage. The passage Jesus reads is a passage about Jesus. And as he reads it, he fulfills it.
This episode in Luke's account of Jesus' life marks a transition. It is the first detailed story from Jesus' public ministry following his baptism (Luke 3:21-22) and temptation (4:1-13). It also marks the beginning of public opposition to Jesus. Previously, Jesus "increased ... in divine and human favor" (2:52) and he "was praised by everyone" (4:15). Following the episode in the Nazareth synagogue, however, the people were so infuriated that they attempted to kill him (4:28-29). That would continue to be the response to Jesus of at least some people from that time forward.
As we focus this week on the theme of the proclamation of the Word, it is interesting to note how central to Jesus' mission that proclamation was. The Isaiah passage (61:1-2) that Jesus chose to read includes four infinitive verbs, and we might use those to identify and outline a four-part mission. Jesus was "to bring good news" (euaggelisasthai), to proclaim" (kerusso), "to let free" (apostello), and "to proclaim" (keruxai) again. Three of those four purpose verbs are directly related to the proclamation of good news.
Moreover, kerusso is the most common New Testament word for "preach," as well as the source of the term "kerygma." Meanwhile, euaggelizo is the word used so frequently in Acts and the epistles to refer specifically to preaching the good news, and is of course the basis of our word "evangelist."
We don't presume that Jesus' whole mission was fulfilled there in that Nazareth synagogue, of course, but perhaps two particulars were fulfilled. First, the scripture itself was fulfilled in the sense that the one anointed (literally, the Christ, the Messiah) by the Lord had come. And, second, perhaps one part of that four-part mission was also fulfilled.
It is noteworthy that Jesus did not continue to read further in the Isaiah passage. There are several more specific "to dos" in the remainder of Isaiah 61:2 and the first part of verse 3. Jesus stops in the middle of verse 2, however -- "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" -- and perhaps that is the part of the mission fulfilled in that moment. Like the referee blowing the whistle to announce the two-minute warning in a football game, the Anointed One has announced that the beginning of the end had finally come. Corresponding to Matthew's summary of Jesus' first preaching -- "The kingdom of God has come near" (Matthew 4:17b) -- Jesus has officially given notice that God's appointed time was here.
Application
Do you remember transparent telephones? I never had one, but it seems to me that I used to see a lot of them in stores some years ago. The casing on the phone was clear plastic, and so you were able to see all of the wires, components, and connections inside.
Perhaps we might invite our congregations into a transparent telephone this Sunday -- that is, a transparent communication process. Let's invite them to look with us at the wires, components, and connections of a sermon.
I don't propose that we spend a Sunday talking about our sermon writing process, although that might be interesting to some and enlightening to many. Rather, what I have in mind is a look at the anatomy of a sermon as it is revealed in our three lections for today.
First, there is the place of the sermon -- or the preacher -- within the larger anatomy of the body of Christ. Apostles, prophets, and teachers are all members of the body responsible for proclaiming the Word. And, at least in the case of prophecy, Paul offers a very specific sense of purpose: "so that the church may be built up" (1 Corinthians 14:5).
These members of the body who proclaim the Word are listed first, but they are not the only ones listed. The body is not fully functioning if they alone exercise their gifts. And, too, the individual church is not fully operational if the preacher preaches and it goes no further.
Second, there is the anatomy of the content of a sermon. The proclamation of the Word in the Nehemiah passage seems to have two component parts: "the book ... with interpretation" (8:8). Such is the simple summary of our purpose in the pulpit. If we do not add interpretation, then we abdicate our responsibility to help the people understand and apply what's in the book. ("They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.") If, on the other hand, we set aside the book in favor of our interpretation of other (inevitably lesser) things, then we have forfeited our high calling, and we've left a part of the body malfunctioning.
Finally, there is the anatomy of the congregation. The Nehemiah lection details it: their ears (v. 3), their eyes (v. 5), their hands, heads, and faces (v. 6), and, by implication, their hearts (v. 9). Taken together, we have a lovely picture of attentiveness and reverence, of enthusiasm and responsiveness. And, in contrast to the exemplary congregation in Nehemiah, there is the disappointing audience in Nazareth. They hear the Word -- indeed, they have the Word in their midst -- yet when they hear something they don't like, they respond with anger and rejection. Preacher and people alike must face the likelihood that we will, from time to time, hear something unwelcome from God's Word. We will never be challenged or changed by his Word, however, if we instinctively elect to throw it out and throw it over.
Alternative Applications
1) 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a. If you are accustomed to recognizing your teachers during some Sunday of each year, perhaps you could use this Sunday as the opportunity to honor them and to preach about teaching.
I receive a good many newsletters from various churches, and each August and September I see the same plea appearing in almost all of them. "We need teachers!" As our local churches struggle to staff their Christian education programs with volunteers, however, we may send a mixed message about teachers and teaching in the church.
On the one hand, we extend such an open invitation that we may not properly affirm the gift of teaching. Teachers in the local church may seem like a dime-a-dozen group -- anyone can do it.
To put the matter in perspective, imagine how the newsletter article would read if we were seeking people to fill the roles listed on either side of teachers (1 Corinthians 12:28-30). How would we invite people to step forward and volunteer to be prophets? To be miracle workers?
On the other hand, the ubiquitous plea for teachers also sends a positive message. Our ongoing need for more teachers, you see, affirms the importance of teaching by revealing how much teaching goes on in most of our churches. We have more classes than worship services. We have more teachers than committee chairs. In my church -- and perhaps in yours, too -- we "teach" more than any other single thing we do.
So we may do well this Sunday to recognize the teachers in our congregations, and to help our congregations recognize the importance of teaching.
2) Luke 4:14-21. Since Jesus so specifically identifies himself with the selected passage from Isaiah, the Luke lection offers a good opportunity to preach about the person and work of Christ. There is his humanity, symbolized by Nazareth ("where he had been brought up") and their recognition of him as Joseph's son (Luke 4:22). Then there is also his messianic role, which the people of Nazareth clearly do not recognize or accept. While "Christ" is certainly a familiar term to the people in our pews, its equivalence to the Hebrew "Messiah" may be unfamiliar, as well as the underlying image of "anointed," which is key in this passage. Finally, there is the four-part work of Christ (mentioned above), which is outlined in the infinitive verbs he adopts as a description of his mission.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 19
Psalm 19 celebrates two different media through which God has revealed himself -- nature and the law.
The first part of the psalm calls our attention to the presence of God in nature -- "The heavens are telling the glory of God." The word glory is the Hebrew kabob and literally means weight or heaviness. The derived meaning is something akin to "reputation." God's reputation is evident in the heavens.
But reputation for what?
Herein lies the difficulty of relying only on nature for our understanding of God. The message of nature is not clear, and in fact may contradict what we believe about God from other sources of revelation. For instance, we can infer from the sheer magnitude of creation, especially as we now understand the universe, that God is magnificent, capable of enormous creative and life-giving power. From the great variety of life forms, not to mention their sheer numbers and the ingenious way in which our world supports this life, we realize that God is a great nurturing presence. All of this seems to point to a God who cares deeply for both creature and creation.
But there is a dark, violent underside to creation. In the billions of years since the formation of the universe, there has been tremendous violence in the heavens and on earth. In the course of the development of life on our planet there have been innumerable losses. Entire species have appeared and then disappeared forever. Even among the existing life forms there is a "dog eat dog" quality to life that seems to suggest something violent and dangerous. What does this reveal about God?
The psalmist helps us by pointing us to the law. The law provides the content of God's character. The law is the lens through which the psalmist sees the glory of God in the heavens. God's reputation for order, for mercy, for caring, is learned in the law and only then discernible in the heavens.
The appearance of Jesus allows us to take this process one step further. As the fulfillment of the law, Jesus fills in the parts of God's character that even the law was incapable of making known to us. For what the law could not do, and what nature cannot do, Jesus did fully. The appearance of Jesus makes clear the character and purpose of God not only in the heavens, but also in the law. In the incarnation, heaven and earth come together perfectly to proclaim the glory of God in the face of the Son.
The Word of God is the answer. And the Word of God is the theme that rises to the top of this week's three lections taken together.
In the Nehemiah passage, the post-exilic Jews gather to hear the scriptures read and explained to them. In the Luke passage, Jesus himself reads from -- and fulfills -- the scriptures in the synagogue in Nazareth. And in the 1 Corinthians passage, the prominence of the Word of God is somewhat more subtle, yet still notable. Paul suggests a ranking of the gifts or roles within the church (12:28), and the first three -- apostles, prophets, and teachers -- are all primarily concerned with the proclamation of the Word.
In our supply-and-demand culture, things that are common and readily available are not generally considered very valuable. We do not typically cherish as precious the dime-a-dozen things around us.
And in our particular supply-and-demand culture, the Word of God seems to be common and readily available. Bibles are easy to come by, and the preaching and teaching of the Word can be found not only in the churches that pepper the landscape, but also on hundreds of radio stations and dozens of television programs. Indeed, a cynic might contend that the supply of preaching and teaching of the Word actually exceeds demand in contemporary American society.
The proclamation of the Word of God in America is a constant 24-7 flow. It is common, and it is free. It may be easy, therefore, for average Americans, trained consumers that they are, not to recognize the value of the Word.
If we preachers formed a cartel, or if we functioned with the shrewdness of some businesses, we might collude to reduce supply. Let's stop giving away Bibles to children, preach rarely, and teach sparingly. That, it seems, might increase the market value of our product.
But, instead, we go on doing what we do. Our proclamation is constant and free. We preach and we teach more than the majority of folks in our culture seem to want. Indeed, if the attendance-to-membership ratio is any indication, we preach and teach even more than the majority of our own members seem to want. But, undaunted, we continue with confidence -- the secret confidence of knowing that our "product" has real value, and that value has nothing to do with the market.
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
It was a simple recipe. There were no PowerPoint presentations, no overhead projectors, no multimedia spectacles. There was no proof-texting for the sake of some dogma, and no text contortions for the sake of relevance. It was simply the people of God gathered together, eager and receptive to hear the Word of God -- the whole Word of God -- read and explained.
The picture is lovely in its simplicity, and it stands very much in contrast to our contemporary scene. We are so encumbered in our day with techniques and technology designed to bring the Word to life for the people. We preach to a people accustomed to getting their information in highly visual formats. We preach to a distracted generation with a notoriously short attention span. We preach to individuals who are used to clicking and surfing, to reading crawls while listening to talk and watching footage all at the same time on the same channel.
We stand in Ezra's spot with Ezra's assignment, but we do not stand before Ezra's audience.
The Jews of Ezra's day were a people in profound transition. Some decades earlier, their parents and grandparents had been overwhelmed by a foreign army, uprooted from their land, and taken captive to Babylonia. Now they were back in the strange land called home. Strange because they had only known Babylon. And strange because the landscape of neglected ruins must have looked very different from the gilded stories they had heard about this land flowing with milk and honey.
Such a homecoming, with its attendant complex of emotions, must have prompted the people from one extreme experience to another. There was the joy of so many answered prayers mixed with the bitterness of remembering all that the Babylonians had done. There was the thanksgiving for God's providence and deliverance coupled with the remorse for generations of sin and rebellion.
And hearing the Word of God read aloud brought all of the emotion to the surface.
In our moments of greatest clarity, the Word of God rings especially true. We nod and we weep as we read. The wisdom of God's commands, the beauty of his promises, and the candor of his warnings all make perfect sense to us, and they elicit our praise and our tears.
I suspect the returning exiles enjoyed great clarity about the past and the present, and perhaps even the future. In that state, they were particularly receptive and particularly responsive to the Word of God.
Unlike Ezra's audience, our congregations are full of people who are at different places. The returning exiles of Ezra's day had a commonality of experience that American congregations seldom experience, except in instances of great local or national tragedies. Our people on an average Sunday morning, however, are not all going through the same experience in life, and so a uniform or unanimous response to the Word is unlikely. But wherever our people are individually, and whatever their present experience, we preach with the assurance that God's Word is what each of them needs to hear.
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
In the Rorschach test, a patient is asked to tell what he or she sees in a series of inkblots. Perhaps it would be revealing to ask our members to tell what they see when they look at a picture of a church.
Based on my years in the local church, I would guess that the results would be quite varied. Some look at the church and see a business -- a beneficent business that, in their minds, ought to be more businesslike. Other folks look at the church and see a family, and their emphasis is on relationships. Some folks categorize the church with other non-profit community organizations from the Boy Scouts to the Rotary Club. And still others think of the church mostly in terms of its facility -- a building and piece of property to be maintained and improved.
When the Apostle Paul looked at the church, he saw a body. And in 1 Corinthians 12, he offers his timeless image of the church, illustrating it in terms of the interconnectedness of its parts.
The picture is, first of all, an image of unity. Now admittedly, to the outside observer, "unity" might not be the first word that comes to mind when thinking of the church. He sees a different church every few blocks. He sees several versions of the same denomination in one town. And from time to time he hears reports that some of these churches are not in communion with one another, are in disagreement with one another, or even are in severe disagreement within themselves.
Likewise, the insider. If the outside observer does not see unity when looking at the church, the church member or pastor might lament, "It doesn't look any better in here!"
Still, the primary feature of Paul's picture of the church is one of unity. Not similarity. Not single-cell simplicity. But unity -- "one body," and "no dissension within the body."
Second, Paul's depiction of the church is an image of functionality. The image is not static and fixed, but active and purposeful. The one body is composed of many parts, and every part has a function. No limb hangs limp or lifeless. No member is without point or usefulness. Rather, the church is marked by this ingenuous design: unity of purpose and multiplicity of function.
It's an interesting proposition that each church member's identity is portrayed in terms of gifts or roles. The categories of "new" or "longtime" members are not relevant here. Age and gender are not issues. Lay and clergy are not explicitly identified. Rather, every member has an identity that comes from God and is manifested in the church. The relationships are implicitly cooperative. And variety is embraced as essential, rather than merely tolerated or, worse, discouraged.
Accordingly, Paul's portrait of the church as a body is an image of indispensability. The whole cannot do without the parts, and the parts cannot do without the whole. That, of course, is the healthiest formula for a relationship. If the need flows only one way -- or is perceived to flow only one way -- that creates an unhealthy imbalance.
No part can say to another, "I have no need of you." Imagine the lovely congregation where everyone knows that. Where there is a prevailing awareness that we do indeed need each other, and we embrace and cherish one another accordingly.
The great shame in so many American churches is that the members don't realize why they are needed. They have the impression that they are needed because the budget needs their giving. (Admittedly, it is no mystery why they have that impression.) For some that becomes a turnoff, while for others it becomes a power trip. But what a refreshing breakthrough it would be if our members understood that they are needed because of their gifts, not their giving.
Finally, Paul's picture of the church is an image of hierarchy. Hierarchy is a concept easily misunderstood by folks born and raised in a democracy. Our democratic system is marvelous, but it is backwards by the standards of most systems of authority. Those in authority over us in a democratic system are ultimately subject to us, for they answer to us as voters. Authority flows from the bottom up. Those in authority serve at our pleasure.
The church, as the body of Christ, however, is a top down operation. There is no voting when it comes to the lordship of Christ. He is the head, and we serve at His pleasure.
Luke 4:14-21
When video cameras were still a relatively new phenomenon, I remember my father-in-law getting a great kick out of videoing himself in a mirror. "Through the miracle of videotape," he would narrate, "I am filming myself filming myself."
We used to tease him about his childlike playfulness with a new toy, but the truth is that he had discovered a pretty cool homemade special effect.
Something similarly reflexive occurs in this passage from Luke. Here we read a scripture passage about Jesus reading a scripture passage. The passage Jesus reads is a passage about Jesus. And as he reads it, he fulfills it.
This episode in Luke's account of Jesus' life marks a transition. It is the first detailed story from Jesus' public ministry following his baptism (Luke 3:21-22) and temptation (4:1-13). It also marks the beginning of public opposition to Jesus. Previously, Jesus "increased ... in divine and human favor" (2:52) and he "was praised by everyone" (4:15). Following the episode in the Nazareth synagogue, however, the people were so infuriated that they attempted to kill him (4:28-29). That would continue to be the response to Jesus of at least some people from that time forward.
As we focus this week on the theme of the proclamation of the Word, it is interesting to note how central to Jesus' mission that proclamation was. The Isaiah passage (61:1-2) that Jesus chose to read includes four infinitive verbs, and we might use those to identify and outline a four-part mission. Jesus was "to bring good news" (euaggelisasthai), to proclaim" (kerusso), "to let free" (apostello), and "to proclaim" (keruxai) again. Three of those four purpose verbs are directly related to the proclamation of good news.
Moreover, kerusso is the most common New Testament word for "preach," as well as the source of the term "kerygma." Meanwhile, euaggelizo is the word used so frequently in Acts and the epistles to refer specifically to preaching the good news, and is of course the basis of our word "evangelist."
We don't presume that Jesus' whole mission was fulfilled there in that Nazareth synagogue, of course, but perhaps two particulars were fulfilled. First, the scripture itself was fulfilled in the sense that the one anointed (literally, the Christ, the Messiah) by the Lord had come. And, second, perhaps one part of that four-part mission was also fulfilled.
It is noteworthy that Jesus did not continue to read further in the Isaiah passage. There are several more specific "to dos" in the remainder of Isaiah 61:2 and the first part of verse 3. Jesus stops in the middle of verse 2, however -- "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" -- and perhaps that is the part of the mission fulfilled in that moment. Like the referee blowing the whistle to announce the two-minute warning in a football game, the Anointed One has announced that the beginning of the end had finally come. Corresponding to Matthew's summary of Jesus' first preaching -- "The kingdom of God has come near" (Matthew 4:17b) -- Jesus has officially given notice that God's appointed time was here.
Application
Do you remember transparent telephones? I never had one, but it seems to me that I used to see a lot of them in stores some years ago. The casing on the phone was clear plastic, and so you were able to see all of the wires, components, and connections inside.
Perhaps we might invite our congregations into a transparent telephone this Sunday -- that is, a transparent communication process. Let's invite them to look with us at the wires, components, and connections of a sermon.
I don't propose that we spend a Sunday talking about our sermon writing process, although that might be interesting to some and enlightening to many. Rather, what I have in mind is a look at the anatomy of a sermon as it is revealed in our three lections for today.
First, there is the place of the sermon -- or the preacher -- within the larger anatomy of the body of Christ. Apostles, prophets, and teachers are all members of the body responsible for proclaiming the Word. And, at least in the case of prophecy, Paul offers a very specific sense of purpose: "so that the church may be built up" (1 Corinthians 14:5).
These members of the body who proclaim the Word are listed first, but they are not the only ones listed. The body is not fully functioning if they alone exercise their gifts. And, too, the individual church is not fully operational if the preacher preaches and it goes no further.
Second, there is the anatomy of the content of a sermon. The proclamation of the Word in the Nehemiah passage seems to have two component parts: "the book ... with interpretation" (8:8). Such is the simple summary of our purpose in the pulpit. If we do not add interpretation, then we abdicate our responsibility to help the people understand and apply what's in the book. ("They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.") If, on the other hand, we set aside the book in favor of our interpretation of other (inevitably lesser) things, then we have forfeited our high calling, and we've left a part of the body malfunctioning.
Finally, there is the anatomy of the congregation. The Nehemiah lection details it: their ears (v. 3), their eyes (v. 5), their hands, heads, and faces (v. 6), and, by implication, their hearts (v. 9). Taken together, we have a lovely picture of attentiveness and reverence, of enthusiasm and responsiveness. And, in contrast to the exemplary congregation in Nehemiah, there is the disappointing audience in Nazareth. They hear the Word -- indeed, they have the Word in their midst -- yet when they hear something they don't like, they respond with anger and rejection. Preacher and people alike must face the likelihood that we will, from time to time, hear something unwelcome from God's Word. We will never be challenged or changed by his Word, however, if we instinctively elect to throw it out and throw it over.
Alternative Applications
1) 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a. If you are accustomed to recognizing your teachers during some Sunday of each year, perhaps you could use this Sunday as the opportunity to honor them and to preach about teaching.
I receive a good many newsletters from various churches, and each August and September I see the same plea appearing in almost all of them. "We need teachers!" As our local churches struggle to staff their Christian education programs with volunteers, however, we may send a mixed message about teachers and teaching in the church.
On the one hand, we extend such an open invitation that we may not properly affirm the gift of teaching. Teachers in the local church may seem like a dime-a-dozen group -- anyone can do it.
To put the matter in perspective, imagine how the newsletter article would read if we were seeking people to fill the roles listed on either side of teachers (1 Corinthians 12:28-30). How would we invite people to step forward and volunteer to be prophets? To be miracle workers?
On the other hand, the ubiquitous plea for teachers also sends a positive message. Our ongoing need for more teachers, you see, affirms the importance of teaching by revealing how much teaching goes on in most of our churches. We have more classes than worship services. We have more teachers than committee chairs. In my church -- and perhaps in yours, too -- we "teach" more than any other single thing we do.
So we may do well this Sunday to recognize the teachers in our congregations, and to help our congregations recognize the importance of teaching.
2) Luke 4:14-21. Since Jesus so specifically identifies himself with the selected passage from Isaiah, the Luke lection offers a good opportunity to preach about the person and work of Christ. There is his humanity, symbolized by Nazareth ("where he had been brought up") and their recognition of him as Joseph's son (Luke 4:22). Then there is also his messianic role, which the people of Nazareth clearly do not recognize or accept. While "Christ" is certainly a familiar term to the people in our pews, its equivalence to the Hebrew "Messiah" may be unfamiliar, as well as the underlying image of "anointed," which is key in this passage. Finally, there is the four-part work of Christ (mentioned above), which is outlined in the infinitive verbs he adopts as a description of his mission.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 19
Psalm 19 celebrates two different media through which God has revealed himself -- nature and the law.
The first part of the psalm calls our attention to the presence of God in nature -- "The heavens are telling the glory of God." The word glory is the Hebrew kabob and literally means weight or heaviness. The derived meaning is something akin to "reputation." God's reputation is evident in the heavens.
But reputation for what?
Herein lies the difficulty of relying only on nature for our understanding of God. The message of nature is not clear, and in fact may contradict what we believe about God from other sources of revelation. For instance, we can infer from the sheer magnitude of creation, especially as we now understand the universe, that God is magnificent, capable of enormous creative and life-giving power. From the great variety of life forms, not to mention their sheer numbers and the ingenious way in which our world supports this life, we realize that God is a great nurturing presence. All of this seems to point to a God who cares deeply for both creature and creation.
But there is a dark, violent underside to creation. In the billions of years since the formation of the universe, there has been tremendous violence in the heavens and on earth. In the course of the development of life on our planet there have been innumerable losses. Entire species have appeared and then disappeared forever. Even among the existing life forms there is a "dog eat dog" quality to life that seems to suggest something violent and dangerous. What does this reveal about God?
The psalmist helps us by pointing us to the law. The law provides the content of God's character. The law is the lens through which the psalmist sees the glory of God in the heavens. God's reputation for order, for mercy, for caring, is learned in the law and only then discernible in the heavens.
The appearance of Jesus allows us to take this process one step further. As the fulfillment of the law, Jesus fills in the parts of God's character that even the law was incapable of making known to us. For what the law could not do, and what nature cannot do, Jesus did fully. The appearance of Jesus makes clear the character and purpose of God not only in the heavens, but also in the law. In the incarnation, heaven and earth come together perfectly to proclaim the glory of God in the face of the Son.
