Children’s sermons are not just for kids! – Guest Post

WithEarsToHear.org is pleased to welcome the following post by Pastor Cathy Daharsh, Senior Pastor of Gilbert Lutheran Church, Gilbert, Iowa.  Comments and discussion are welcome!

Children’s sermons are for the whole church and not just for kids. My approach in preparing children’s sermons is to develop a creative introduction to the main sermon. Those attending worship are in different places along their faith journey.  Adults and youth as well as children need opportunities to hear the proclamation of God’s Word in different ways.

Every individual connects with God’s Word through different ideas and illustrations for a variety of reasons. People come to worship with unique learning styles, backgrounds, experiences in life, and understandings of the church. The Apostle Paul models a number of writing styles in his letters. Each of his letters is written for a particular community with specific backgrounds and theological understandings. Children’s sermons are an additional opportunity for individuals to connect to God’s Word in their daily lives and in their faith journeys by using creative and simple images and ideas.

A children’s sermon is a way to prepare the congregation for the main sermon. The children’s sermon provides space for unique images that can enrich, enhance, and achieve a deeper layer of understanding to theological concepts. It is also an opportunity to challenge a concrete thinker to think in a more abstract way as the theme from the children’s sermon points to the main sermon.

As a pastor, I am always looking for ways to challenge and lead my congregation into deeper theological thinking. Connecting creative and simple images and ideas to theological concepts is a helpful way to expand, challenge, and provide space for new perspectives and new faith growth in adults, youth and children. Putting deeper thought and time into preparing children sermons is another way to proclaim God’s Word to the whole church.

I take it as a compliment when someone says that they connected with the children’s sermon. Children’s sermons are well worth the effort.

Cathy Daharsh

A cup of cold water

This week’s gospel lesson (Mt 10.40-42) concludes Jesus’ commissioning and instruction of his disciples that runs throughout Matthew 10.  This instruction flows from one central proclamation: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 10.7)  In short, the Lord and Savior is at hand, and this changes everything.

A cup of cold water – Matthew 10.42

This proclamation that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior of all results in wild, crazy, unbelievable stuff.  Some of it good (Mt 10.8); some of it not so much (a good chunk of the rest of the chapter!).

All the while, the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven invites faith.  It invites trust.  Complete trust (Mt 10.37-39).  The kingdom of heaven invites the truster to live in a new reality – the new creation, where death has no dominion, where sin is forgiven, where demons have no power, where sickness is cured, where the other is seen as one for whom Christ died, where the other is seen not for their sin but in light of God’s love revealed in Christ and him crucified.

This Sunday’s gospel lesson concludes this instruction with a mystical mix of hospitality and the relation of the proclaimer with the one being proclaimed.  Jesus teaches: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” (Mt 10.40, NRSV)  In the welcome of the one proclaiming Christ there is a welcome of the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven – of Christ himself and ultimately of the God of Israel.

The chapter ends with a most everyday glimpse into this mystery of the welcome of Christ.  Jesus says, “…whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” (Mt 10.42, NRSV)  Faith receives.  Faith gives.  Faith that the kingdom of heaven is at hand changes everything, even transforming the gift of a cup of cold water into a sacrament.

 

Veni, Sancte Spiritus – Come, Holy Spirit

As you listen toward Pentecost, this coming Sunday (8 June 2014), consider contemplating this 13th century hymn as you read the texts: Acts 2.1-21, Psalm 104.24-35, 1 Corinthians 12.3b-13, and John 20.19-23.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orienting the Ear to the Gospel

WithEarsToHear.org has been around for just over a year now.  I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the reach that the site has had with hits coming from around the globe.  Pondering how best to get the word out about this resource for listening, I’ve turned to a multimedia experiment.

The first installment in this periodic release of multimedia teaching/listening resources is “Orienting the Ear to the Gospel.”  Have a look:

Your feedback is invited, including any suggested topics for exploration.  [One comment received so far has been particularly appreciated: “The intro and exit music reminds me of ‘This Old House.'”  Good fun!]

Thanks for reading, watching, sharing in this experiment in orienting the ear to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ Withdrawal – Imagining the Ascension

While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. (Luke 24.51, RSV)

This little verse at the very end of Luke’s gospel (and a few related others elsewhere, e.g. Acts 1.9, John 20.17, Ephesians 4.8, Hebrews 4.14) has proved fodder for the Christian imagination for centuries.

What does it mean that Jesus parted?  What did it look like?  Was it like Elijah’s fiery chariot ride?  Was it like Buck Roger’s jetpack?  A hot air balloon?  Some sort of heavenly stage wires a la a production of Peter Pan or Mary Poppins?

Truth be told, our imagination wants to link-up Jesus’ withdrawal to something domestic and familiar… a link-up that generally falls short.  Jesus’ ascension is absolutely wild and crazy — the crucified and risen Lord, Jesus the Christ, ascending to the right hand of the Father.  It defies domestication and familiarity.  It seeks of us trust in a God that is both incarnate and beyond.  It asks of us faith in that which is both true and beyond our understanding.

Rabbula Gospels, Folio 13V, 6th century CE, Syriac

Some years ago while I was working on a project on Ezekiel, Margaret Barker kindly turned me toward an illumination of the ascension in the Rabbula Gospels, a 6th century CE, Syriac Gospels book.  This artistic imagining locates Jesus’ ascension within Ezekiel’s vision of the Holy of Holies (cf. Ezekiel 1.4-29).  In essence, one of the least domesticable scenes in Jesus’ life and ministry is paired with one of the least domesticable visions in all of Scripture.  The sum of this imaginative confluence is a poignant look at the importance of Jesus’ withdrawal.  He’s not going on vacation or riding away on the west wind.  The incarnate, crucified, and risen Son of God is in full fellowship with the Father (recall the vision within the story of Stephen’s martyrdom).

The vision, then, of Jesus’ ascension is that God has raised humankind to God’s throne.  Jesus, who remains fully human and fully divine, draws us up to God’s very presence, reconciling humankind to God’s self.

Tomorrow, 29 May 2014, Christians around the world in both Western and Eastern traditions celebrate the Feast of the Ascension (Analepsis in the Greek Tradition).  May your imagination be drawn to the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ who reconciles all things to God and who reigns over the cosmos.

Jesus Christ is the one Word of God: Listening to John 10 with Karl Barth

As you listen ahead to the gospel for this coming Sunday and in particular to the final few verses,  you may find some food for thought by way of chewing on something from Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968).  While a bit (okay, perhaps a lot) heady, Barth’s point is important in terms of how we the Church proclaim and listen to God’s Word.

By way of background, Barth’s comments below come from his Church Dogmatics wherein he turns to the first article of the “Theological Declaration of Barmen” (often called the Barmen Declaration and for which Barth is largely responsible) dated 31 May 1934 – just under 80 years ago.  Written in response to the influences of Nazi ideology within and upon the church in Germany – the “German Christians” – the Barmen Declaration, which guided the Confessing Church, begins:

“I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” — John 14:6  “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved.” — John 10:1,9  Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death.  We reject the false doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as a source of its proclamation, beyond and besides this one Word of God, yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as God’s revelation. [Barmen Declaration, Article I]

Many years later, Barth reflects upon this confession in the context of the 1930s in Germany:

“… natural theology has threatened to turn from a latent into an increasingly manifest standard and content of Church proclamation and theology.  The question became a burning one at the moment when the Evangelical Church in Germany unambiguously and consistently confronted by a definite and new form of natural theology, namely, by the demand to recognize in the political events of the year 1933, and especially in the form of the God-sent Adolf Hitler, a source of specific new revelation of God, which, demanding obedience and trust, took its place beside the revelation attested in Holy Scripture, claiming that it should be acknowledged by Christian proclamation and theology as equally binding and obligatory.”  [CD II.1.173]

The question here is: how does God reveal God’s self to the world?  How do we understand who God is and what God does?

In the face of a movement — the rise of National Socialism or the Nazi movement — that demanded obedience to its ideology alongside of Christian Scripture, the Barmen Declaration turned Christians back to Scripture, specifically to John’s gospel.  Writing well after the end of WWII in his Church Dogmatics, Barth broadens this concern from Nazi ideology to the many things that the Church has been keen to place alongside of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ over the past two (now nearly three) hundred years.

Consider reading through John 10.1-10, the gospel reading for this Sunday, and then reading through the following quote from Barth.

“The Church lives by the fact that it hears the Word of God to which it can give entire trust and entire obedience, and that in life and in death — that is in the certainty that it will be sustained in this trust and obedience for time and eternity.  Precisely because it is allowed and invited to entire trust and obedience, it knows that the Word said to it is the one Word of God by which it is bound but in which it is also free, along whose Gospel there is no alien law and alongside whose Law there is no alien gospel, alongside or behind or above which we do not have to honor and fear any other power as way, trust, life or door. And this one Word is not first to be found, but has already given itself to be found: in Him who has the power and the right to call Himself the way, the truth, the life and the door because He is these things.  This one Word means Jesus Christ from eternity to eternity.  In this form it is attested in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.  In this form it has founded the Church; and upholds and renews and rules, and continually saves the Church.  In this form it is comfort and direction in life and in death.  In this form and not in any other!… We may notice that the [final article of the Barmen Declaration] does not deny the existence of other events and powers, forms and truths alongside the one Word of God, and that therefore throughout it does not deny the possibility of a natural theology as such.  On the contrary, it presupposes that there are such things.  But it does deny and designate as false doctrine the assertion that all these things can be a source of Church proclamation, a second source alongside and apart from the one Word of God.  It excludes natural theology from Church proclamation.  Its intention is not to destroy it in itself and as such, but to affirm that, when it comes to saying whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death, it can have no sense and existence alongside and apart from the Word of God.  Whatever else they may be and mean, the entities to which natural theology is accustomed to relate itself cannot come into consideration as God’s revelation, as the norm and content of the message delivered in the name of God.  When the Church proclaims God’s revelation, it does not speak on the basis of a view of the reality of the world and of [humanity], however deep and believing; it does not give an exegesis of these events and powers, forms and truths, but bound to its commission, and made free by the promise received with it, it reads and explains the Word which is called Jesus Christ and therefore the book which bears witness to Him.  It is, and remains, grateful for the knowledge of God in which He has given Himself to us by giving us His Son. [CD II.1.177-178]

Notice that Barth does not discount other ways of knowing.  What he does say, resonating from John 10, is that the purpose and content of the Church’s proclamation is the one Word of God, Jesus Christ.  This not a club to used to against any individual or the world in general, but spectacles through which the Christian is called to read Scripture and to view the world.

The Resurrection and the Hearing of the Gospel

Today’s gospel text, Luke 24.13-35, offers us audible glimpse of what preaching sounds like without the resurrection and with it.  It’s rather unusual to post a sermon on the WithEarsToHear.org blog, but since this one in intended to orient the ear to the gospel of the crucified and risen Lord, we’ll give it a go.

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It is the 3rd Sunday of Easter, and so we greet one another in the traditional way… in the way that our Christian sisters and brothers in the many languages of the world greet one another during the Easter season:

Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!  Hallelujah!

Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!  Hallelujah!

Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!  Hallelujah!

So, listening-in to the conversation along the road to Emmaus, let’s turn this little Easter greeting upside-down for just a moment by asking:  What does the message of Jesus sound like without the resurrection?

Our gospel reading for today (Luke 24.13-35) takes us back to the first Sunday of the empty tomb.

Early in the morning the women had gone there with the burial spices. Jesus was dead.  No question about it.  They had seen him draw his last breath.  They had seen his body placed in the tomb.  When they arrived on Sunday morning, the tomb was standing open, and Jesus’ body… his corpse was gone.  In their confusion and grief, they were met by two angels, who preached to them a short sermon.  You’ll recall:

Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on he third day rise again. Lk 24.5b-7 (NRSV)

And so the women heard.  They remembered.  They trusted.  And then, they went back to tell the rest.  The good news that they carried with them, however, was not well received.  It was truly unbelievable.  With the exception of Peter, Jesus’ disciples were convinced that he was dead.  Perhaps his body was missing, but he was most certainly dead.  The women’s story was judged to be “an idle tale.”

Later that day, two of them had left Jerusalem and were on the way to Emmaus.  A good long walk.  As they walked, they talked.  They were processing what had happened.  A stranger shows up.  We know who he was, but they did not.  Though their eyes could see, they could not see him.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Are you the only stranger around here who doesn’t know the stuff that’s happened these past days?”

“What stuff?” the stranger asked.

What comes next is important for our ears to hear not because it is the best sermon that has ever been preached.  It is important for us to hear because it is a sermon preached as if Jesus did not rise from the dead.

…Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people… our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.  But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.  Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.  Moreover, some women of our group astounded us.  They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.  Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.

This is what a sermon sounds like that preaches a Jesus who is not raised from the dead.  “Jesus was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.”  How wonderful!  Jesus is an example, a mighty prophet even.  But he’s dead.  He’s a good enough example for us to imitate.  He did good things.  Helped people.  He was a powerful speaker.  But he’s dead.  He was crucified.  His corpse is misplaced.  Death has won.  Hope is lost.

If this were the only post-Easter sermon that we had, the story of Jesus would invite us to be good in word and deed.  The story of Jesus would be about us.  We can be just like our Jesus, good in word and deed as well.  Model yourself on Jesus the prophet mighty in word and deed.

Of course there is nothing wrong with being good in word and deed.  This is not the point.  There are many organizations that focus on being good in word and deed.  Boy Scouts.  Girl Scouts.  Kiwanis.  Lions.  Rotary.  Peace Corps.  Americorps.  And many, many more.  These organizations are good, and they do wonderful things in word and deed that help many, many people.

There is a difference, however, between these groups and the church… between a focus on our being good in word and deed and proclaiming Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

Without the resurrection, Jesus is a good example.

With the resurrection, Jesus defeats the power of death, and in this victory he takes upon himself our sin and our death and gives us his life.

You see, Jesus is more than a good example.  Doing wonderful things in word and deed is not bad, but they do not save us from sin and death.  Jesus saves.  Jesus gives you his life.  Jesus is risen from the dead.

The crucified and risen Lord continued to walk with these two disciples after their not-so-good sermon.  In fact, he taught them.  They had a walking bible study, during which Jesus — though they did not yet know it was he — “interpreted to them all the things about himself in all the scriptures.” While they didn’t get it in the moment, it paid off later after their eyes were opened.

When they reached their destination, they urged the stranger now traveling companion to come in with them.  To stay with them.  It was nearly evening after all.

And so, they came to the table.  The stranger took bread, blessed and broke it, and he gave it to them.  And in that moment, their eyes were opened.  They recognized who this was.  And when they saw, he was gone.

They could not hold onto him, but in the breaking of the bread he was there, and they saw.

Supper at Emmaus, 2001- He Qi

In the breaking of the bread, they heard his teaching to them on the road again.  “Were not our hearts burning within us… while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

Jesus was not dead.  He is alive.

With their eyes open, they had some really, really good news to share with the others.

They ran back.

They found their friends.

They greeted one another with something very similar to this little Easter sermon that we continue to proclaim:

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Hallelujah!

The message of the crucified Jesus Christ is that he is risen.  He is not dead.  He is not only an example for our good living.  In fact, if we are only focused on our good living… on our wonderful words and deeds, if we are trying to seek God’s favor by these wonderful words and deeds, we’re missing the point.  We’re practicing a Christianity without a resurrection.  We are focusing on ourselves and what we do, rather than on what Jesus Christ has done.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead for you and for the world.  He took upon himself your sins and gives to you his life — a life that death can no longer overcome.  You are invited to look first upon what God has done for you and for the world.  The gospel calls us to look upon what God has done for you, for your neighbor, for your enemy, and for the whole world.

Your sins are forgiven, Christ took them on himself.

The power of death has been defeated.  Christ died once for all.

The power of death is defeated.  Christ is risen once for all.

Now come to this table, where the crucified and risen Jesus meets you in the breaking of bread.

Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!  Hallelujah!

[Sermon delivered at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Lamotte, Iowa &  St. John’s Lutheran Church, St. Donatus, Iowa, on 3rd Sunday of Easter, 4 May 2014.]

Vigil – A Poem

The Vigil of Easter is the central feast in the Christian year.  It is a time when the fullness of God’s relationship with all of creation is most clearly in view… most clearly in earshot.

The Light Shines in the Darkness
Iona Abbey
2013, Isaac Current Giere

Consider engaging the poem “Vigil” by Jennifer Agee as a means of orienting the ear to the richness of the Easter proclamation.

[Thanks to Jennifer for the poem and to the folks at “Transpositions” — an official publication of the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland — for making it available.]

Just as I have loved you…

“Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’  I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13.33-35, NRSV)

“Just as” is a powerful comparative.  As we listen to and ponder the new commandment of this Maundy Thursday, remember that this command to love hinges on the “just as.”  Over these three holy days, listen for how Jesus loves.  Consider this for yourself, for the whole world, and as a pattern of life… of life-giving for our own love of one another.

 

Who is this?

When [Jesus] entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” (Matthew 21.10, NRSV)

Watanabe, “Entry into Jerusalem,” 1965

The frenzied crowd.  The road strewn with cloaks and palms branches.  The streets and alleyways echoing crowning shouts that evoke the power of the Psalms of King David:  “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! (Ps 118.26) Hosanna in the highest heaven!”  The call to crown Jesus king stirs things up.

The word translated “turmoil” (NRSV) and “was stirred” (NIV) could also be translated “shaken.”  The Greek word here shares the same root as the English word “seismic.”  Jesus’ entry in Jerusalem and the hubbub that follows shakes up the town.

So they ask: “Who is this?”

This might well be the question to guide the ear from Palm Sunday into Holy Week.  For within the Passion gospel reading this Sunday that anticipates Good Friday, we hear:

Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last.  At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook (seismic again!), and the rocks were split.  The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.  After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.  Now when the centurion and those with him, who were keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake (and again!) and what took place, they were terrified and said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Matthew 27.50-54, NRSV)

As we listen into the mystery of faith, may you be blessed in your hearing.