Be Opened

I'm now a week-ish removed from the Festival of Homiletics.  The event, on the whole, proved rather disappointing to me-- and maybe in some ways I've out grown it.  But in other ways, there were surprises and learnings and Words.

The preacher with whom I most identified was not one of my careful, wordsmith preaching heroes.  It wasn't someone that would ever wear a preaching robe, not someone who'd likely ever have a Ph.D behind her name. No, she was not that kind of preacher-- she was not the kind of preacher I've always dreamed of being. Instead, she was tattooed and ripped, and had the huge ear-stretching earrings.  She wore sleeveless shirts that showed off her tats, and a stole and clerical collar.  She cussed during her sermon, completely unbothered by the "that's not a proper way to worship" tsks.  She was honest. And raw.  And the person who most faithfully and unapologetically brought the word.

Her text was Mark 7:31-37.  It was the story of Jesus healing the deaf-mute man, where Jesus (who apparently had no boundaries, as the preacher pointed out) actually stuck his fingers in the man's ears and said "Be opened!" (Ephphatha! in the greek, if you're that preacher.)

She made an interesting point.  The ones who brought the man, brought him for his healing.  As she said, "He was the designated sick person-- all the rest were the designated well ones. They never realized they were broken too."

Then she said, "Be opened. Maybe healing is not about finding what's wrong and fixing it.  Maybe it's more about being opened."

Those are powerful words that I needed to hear.  But she didn't stop there.  She said, "Be opened! Be opened to the fact that your value is not in working 60+ hours for someone who will never be pleased.  Be opened to the fact that you are stronger than you think, and opened to the fact that you are not as strong as you think.  Be opened to the fact that the gospel is true, and that it is for you."

And then she drove it home with, "Whatever it is that you cling to with frozen fingers cannot love you like Jesus loves you. Be opened to hearing that Good News."

It was gospel.

As I sit here, a week later, those words still rattle around my soul.  What is it that have stopped up my ears? What is it that has caused blockages in my heart?  What expectations have I let define who I am, instead of believing that my value comes only from being a beloved child of God?

I don't know that I want Jesus to stick his fingers in my ears and shout "Be opened!" But maybe, refusing to let Christ deal with my brokenness is just too costly.  To what am I called to be opened to?

Dinosaur

[Thoughts from the 2012 Festival of Homiletics]

I would tell you that I'm "young". Or at least not old. (Nevermind that some days, I feel tired enough to feel 110.) But today, I felt like a dinosaur.

The theme of this year's festival is "Transformational Preaching at the Crossroads" and a word we're hearing a lot about is "emergent." That word hadn't entered my vocabulary very much, as I would also tell you I'm a pretty traditional sort. Yet, I believe that there ought always to be new energy in whatever we are doing. After hearing this amazing speaker that was brilliant, raw, phenomenal...and highly tattooed, do this mind warping lecture, I was excited for the opportunity to hear her preach. And double bonus: the subject of her sermon was pentecost.

But before we could get to the sermon, there was a time of praise music. "Great! I like music! I'm hip enough to appreciate this!" are the things I told myself. Only I wasn't. While the words to the songs were beautiful, the music made me absolutely cringe. It sounded like pure noise to me. And while I think the singer (also one of the speakers, whom I didn't get to hear) might have had some great things to say to the church, I couldn't quite stomach the face he had to make to hit these really high notes. The music felt awkward to me-- and hard to join in with as a congregation. I guess I felt left out. At least for that part of the service, I didn't feel like I was worshipping at all.

But there was an epiphany there too. As a young pastor serving a predominately older congregation, perhaps an epiphany I needed to have. While I've never pushed "contemporary" anything on them, maybe I've pushed them in other ways that made them feel like they were on unknown ground. Maybe what they are opposed to isn't the change or the idea of doing things differently...maybe they just can't figure out how to join the new song. Maybe the things that felt like worship to them have turned into what seems like "noise."

I'm all for new energy, and for trying new things-- but never, ever, at the sake of excluding people from the song.

So my challenge is this-- how can there be new life that invites all people in? I don't mind feeling like a dinosaur, but I'm not really up for extinction either. So...?