Tag: Preaching

Sermon: Searching for a Good Shepherd

Sunday, July 17, 2016 (Pride Jazz Service)

Biblical Text: Ezekiel 34

Facing my writing desk is a sign that simply reads: “Lord, let me do no harm.” It is a reminder of the importance and significance of the sacred work to which I have been called by Christ and ordained by the church to extend in the world.

“Lord, let me do no harm” becomes my prayer as I write because I recognize that so much harm has been done in the name of God to all kinds of people; justifying racism, sexism, classism, slavery, gender discrimination xenophobia, Islamaphobia, homophobia and police brutality—pushing all kinds of wonderfully gifted people of God—who carry the divine spark of God within—from the green pastures of life in the church.

“Lord, let me do no harm” becomes my writing mantra because I recognize that while the church may be quiet as a mouse during the sermon, which especially challenging for a black preacher steeped in a call-and-response tradition, words matter—every word matters.

“Lord, let me—your called out shepherd, do no harm.”

Pastors are often named as shepherds, coming from the agrigarian culture from which this text emerges. It speaks of both risk and the reward. Within the ancient world sheep were considered to be very valuable possessions—for within their life was a source of nourishment (milk and meat), wool for clothing, tents and trade—this was the reward for the shepherd, but the shepherd’s life sometimes dangerous and difficult was also risky. The shepherd’s primary job was to provide safety to a defenseless flock, to ensure ample food and water, and most importantly to protect them from predators—both human and animal.

The idea of shepherding trickles down from antiquity—to modern times where the shepherd, the pastor, the leader—a theologian in residence, is called by God to the same work: to protect, to care, to feed and love the flock—a people belonging to God.

So when we hear and read in the book of Ezekiel this challenging word spoken to the shepherds, those who carry the responsibility of tending sheep;

–it challenges all who anchor their hopes and truth claims in this Holy Book to find themselves at work bringing about the kin-dom of God.

–it challenges all who hold to these truth claims to spend less time eating the fat, clothing oneself with the wool, slaughtering the fatling

and ruling over the sheep with force and harshness.

No, the sheep are to be fed and protect.

They are to strengthened and guarded.

They are to found and nursed to healing.

They are to be loved…

But Ezekiel call them out in the text!

The shepherds have not been feeding the sheep,

they have not been strengthening the weak,

they have not been healing the sick,

they have not been binding up the injured,

they have not been bringing back the strays,

they have not been seeking the lost….

The prosperity gospel and the religious right—who recently has vision of Donald Trump sitting at the right hand of God—taking Jesus’ very own spot according to my bible—they signify the force and harshness against life that Ezekiel is calling out.

It is the very heavy handed oppression and enslavement of ones freedom, ones creativity, ones diversity, one uniqueness that scatters the sheep from the care of the shepherd in the first place. The shepherds have failed to do their job, to not only protect and care for the fold—but to seek out the lost and bring them back into community.

The church has done a pretty poor job of caring for the LGBT community—there are still way too few communities of faith where people of faith who happen to be same-gender loving, trans or queer—can gather, worship and know the protective loving and care of a good shepherd—pastor.

Even while our denomination has been radically open, being the first of any mainline denomination to welcome, celebrate and affirm LGBT clergy and denominational leaders—there are still communities within the United Church of Christ where it is not safe be queer.

There are for too many shepherds and communities of faith who celebrate the by-products of the queer community—as the text says “the fat, the wool, the meat and the milk” but when it comes to extending the gifts of the church—allows all people equal access to the full life—sacraments, rites and rituals of the church—they are denied.

Bring your musical gift to the church.

Bring your administrative gift to the church.

Bring your poetic gift to the church.

Bring your liveliness to the church.

Bring your vivaciousness to the church.

–but don’t bring your full self…. WE DON’T WANT ANY OF THAT.

Several months ago I listened intently to a conversation between a mega church pastor and Professor Kelly Brown Douglass an Episcopal priest and author of “Black Bodies and the Black Church”; a sweeping book in which she develops a strong theology for blues bodies and preaches that “as long as the black church cannot be a home for certain bodies, such as LGBT bodies, then it has forsaken its very black faith identity.”

The conversation between the two shepherds was about the role of sexuality in the Black Church. On the campus of Princeton Theological Seminary, where budding shepherds, religious scholar, public theologians and theological educators come to terms with their callings for ministry I tuned into the conversation via Social Media: a shaky Periscope video streaming on my cell phone with random ‘Amen’s and “did she just say that?” and my eyes glued to Twitter on my laptop as shepherds and religious thinkers from around the nation chimed in with 140 word sound bites:

Black boys need to know that their bodies and emotions matter!

We don’t need purity circles we need responsibility circles!

I am a recovering sexist. I am a recovering heterosexist

Some gay folk have been so abused by the church that they still don’t trust even a church like ours…

We must be on the side of the crucified of our time…

And my own 140-word sound bite:

The Black Church must examine and re-examine its theology, history and tradition in the light of liberation and Freedom for all.

——-

Upon the Ivy League campus of Princeton where budding shepherds of various denominational traditions are being shaped and formed by some of the nations best and brightest academics and pastoral leaders, the nation engaged in a serious theological debate about what it means for the church—the body of Christ, a flock belonging to God–to really love its neighbor, and what does it mean for shepherds to seek to the lost, the bring back the stray, to bind up the injured, to heal the sick and strengthen the weak….

The truth of the matter is that Love and Justice are as intertwined as one’s own body and soul. God’s call for the shepherd—for the flock at large which is constituted as the priesthood of all believers, is always be found moving toward acts of justice, care, restoration, reconciliation and unconditional love. The kind of love that Martin King writes of as inclusive and expansive love—Inclusive in that all are welcomes all people, expansive in that is grows each days to include more and more in the kin-dom of God.

The work of shepherding, is a responsibility that God has given to us. It is not God’s job to do—but as the text is so very clear, God can and will do it when we become unwilling: Shepherding the flock; strengthening the weak, healing the sick, binding up the injured, bring back those who stray, finding the lost—that all our job.

Shepherding is not just for the pastor:

Shepherding is the work of the moderator.

Shepherding is the work of the diaconate.

Shepherding is the work of the trustees

Shepherding is the work of the Sunday school teacher

Shepherding is just for the church.

Shepherding is the work of the bank manager

Shepherding is the work of the professor

Shepherding is the work of the school teacher

Shepherding is the work of the politician

Shepherding is the work of the doctor and lawyer

Shepherding is the work of the entrepreneur and activist

Shepherding is the work of the solider and sailor

Shepherding is the work of the father and mother

God steps in only when we failed to function in our prescribed role of love and care— make not mistake, God refuses to see any of children, rainbow children and all others, without the care of loving shepherd…

And so God steps in and says,

I will be their shepherd.

I will be their leader.

I will be their caregiver.

I will be their protector.

I will be their covering.

I will show them love.

I will show teach them.

They will be my people, and I will be there God.

Book Review: Dem Dry Bones

Dem Dry Bones: Preaching, Death and Hope

By Luke A. Powery. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012. 160 pages.

Luke A Powery, the first African-American Dean of Chapel at Duke University, has written a book which he hopes will inspire a generation of preachers to take death more seriously in their preaching. While death is all around us, how often do we as preachers stand in our pulpits and avoid the word or suddenly change the phrase so as not to stir the emotion of the one who just lost his beloved bride of twenty-six years or agitate the one embittered congregant who has never recovered from her miscarriage. Powery argues that more death and hope are needed in the pulpits today—and the preachers need to be more spirited and courageous in carrying the mail on Sunday morning.

In a world where prosperity and motivational gospels hold airwaves and digital cable media hostage, the real rhythms of life, which include death, must be given voice in the pulpit. Powery effectively argues throughout the book that if homiletical hope is to present in one’s preaching then, death should not be denied in the pulpit. He contends that Christian preaching that systemically and opportunistically “ignores death is irresponsible, a theological lie, and unable to declare real hope” (p. 9). Real Christian hope rises from the grave; it conquers sin and it conquers death. He encourages preachers of modernity to fearlessly square off with death by proclaiming a death to death.

Powery uses as his primary sources the African-American spirituals and the Hebrew Bible, specifically Ezekiel 37, the vision of the valley filled with dry bones. Powery poetically weaves the spirituals and the biblical text into a single exposition that challenges, inspires and provokes the reader to recover life-affirming preaching that resurrects hope from the grave. In chapter one of the book Powery introduces the cultural and historical grounding of the spirituals to his readers. He does not seek to debate their origins, only to affirm that these historic musical and cultural sermons realized hope amidst of despair and death.

Chapter two brings into focus the Spirit’s role in cultivating hope in the vision that is given in Ezekiel 3; emphasizing here that “death and hope are joined in the presence of the Spirit and in that presence the real preaching of hope happens” (p. 78). He challenges those who take up the task of preaching to lean and depend upon the Spirit to give life in dead places–to envision their work in the pulpit as a pilgrimage; one that encounters life and death, and yet proclaims God’s message of love and hope.

Chapter three flirts with systematic theology by exploring the nature of Christian hope; bringing into conversation Moltmann, Cone, Long and a new young theological voice from Howard University, Kenyatta Gilbert. It is here that Powery emphasizes that “hope is not purely a theological or philosophical ideal [but that] it is an experiential phenomenon that may be initiated through homiletical means”(p. 91). His section on embracing the eschaton most successfully furthers his understanding of how the hope-filled groans of today become the praise-filled realization of God’s tomorrow (Romans 5:5).

Chapter four gets to the heart of the books focus on preaching by offering a hermeneutical approach that takes seriously the use of the spirituals to faithfully accomplish the preaching task. Powery advances that “a spiritual hermeneutics of hope for the purpose of preaching hope does not start with the Bible, but it begins with human experience and need” (p. 113). In this Powery suggests that the preacher must seriously engage life as it is experienced on the ground in order to effectively preach the Gospel to those in need. It is his contention that if a preacher consistently avoids seeing dry bones, open graves—the little deaths in life, that the preacher may never speak of real struggle, hurt, pain or death much less preach of resurrection.

Powery closes his book encouraging the development a healthy and robust imagination when one is in the midst of the exegetical exercise. Being empowered by the creative Spirit of God, one should feel free imagine the text, and in imagining fashion with the Spirit a hermeneutic of hope. To encourage this creative edge at the preaching desk, he offers a series of questions to spark the one’s imagination, encouraging the preacher to consider questions about the perceived human need in the text; how the text might be sung; what action(s) the text might be inviting the hears to accomplish, and too, what the text might be calling the community of hearers to resist.

Published by the Academy of Parish Clergy, Inc.

Sharing the Practice: The International Quarterly Journal of the Academy of Parish Clergy

Book Review: The Imposing Preacher

The Imposing Preacher: Samuel DeWitt Proctor and Black Public Faith

By: Adam L. Bond. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013. 247 pages.

Adam Bond, the professor of historical studies at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, has written a deeply moving academic work on the life and ministry of Rev. Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor. The book, which features a plethora of primary sources from sermons, speeches, articles, and personal notes, brings Dr. Proctor to life with crystal clear clarity, while challenging the reader to understand Dr. Proctor as man of his own times. Bond writes that the book “places Dr. Proctor in his historical context…[and argues] that his biography influences his religious outlook;” both of which he notes are strikingly similar to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s (4). Dr. Proctor, born in the depression in a mildly priviledged Norfolk home, was known to many as a rigorous and demanding academician, a prophetic-plain spoken Baptist preacher, and a distinguished American statesman. Although there have been several books and articles written about Dr. Proctor I have yet to come across a single text that carries the depth of clarity and grapples, as intimately as Bond does, with the array of challenges, the seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and the theological genius who broke color barriers in pulpits and at lecterns throughout the country.

I recently traveled to Richmond, and had the pleasure of visiting with Dr. Bond on the campus where Dr. Proctor matriculated as a student in 1940, taught undergraduate and graduate courses in religion and philosophy from 1949-1955, and subsequently became one of American’s youngest college presidents, assuming the high office only five years after being handed his baccalaureate degree. Virginia Union University, a small historically black college was well known, before Proctor’s matriculation as a student and tenure as professor and administrator, as the premiere institution for educating black clergy. The school was developed out of a merger of three Baptist institutions: Wayland Seminary in Washington DC, Richmond Theological Institute and Hartshorn Memorial College for women; and much later in the storied history of the university, Storer College of West Virginia merged to constitute what is fondly called Union. Bond, in this extraordinary historical analysis, not only works to diligently chronicle the history of the university, which prides itself on the life and legacy of its namesake, but also works to ensure that the reader is aware of the middle-class privilege that was afforded to Proctor throughout his life. Bond writes that “Proctor was raised with a middle-class Protestant ethic that emphasized moral, political and formal education…a middle-class ethic and ethos pervaded the home” and had dramatically impacted upon his life and ministry (210).

Proctor was not only a well sought after academic and theologian, but was also a gifted statesman. After having established his presence at academic institutions in Virginia and North Carolina as university president, Proctor was invited to serve the country he truly loved—America in the Peace Corps; he was twice he was invited to service first as a director in Nigeria and later as an associate director in Washington DC. Bond writes that Proctor’s experience as a national statesman exposed him to a world that he never knew. Proctor’s service in the Peace Corps, particularly in Nigeria, provided an opportunity for him “to contribute to solving the complex issues of race at a global level…for Proctor racism in Africa was related to issues of race in America” (61). Bond notes that it was during Proctor’s time of service that it became clear to him “that the black struggle in America was a vanguard to rebuild the tremendous damage colonialism had wrought in Africa” (61). Proctor longed for racial equality in America; the kind of equality that comes through education, actualization and an abiding faith and hope in a God who desire that all who are oppression in this life be set free.

Bond writes with efficient vibrancy of Proctor’s life in New Jersey at Rutgers University where held a long-term academic post, and his prestigious pastorate of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem throughout the seventies, eighties and well into the nineties, succeeding Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Bond notes that it was during his pastorate in Harlem that the New York Times named him as an imposing preacher, which is the title of the book; the 1972 article described Proctor in the pulpit at Abyssinian as looking rugged “in his black doctoral robe, close to 6 feet tall and weighing 210 pounds, the 51-year old preacher was an imposing figure in the pulpit”(1). Proctor’s preaching and teaching carried major themes of social justice, self-less love and community empowerment. Proctor’s theology, which informed his practice of the art of ministry, emphasized love transforming the heart and mind of all people to do what is good and right for all of humanity. Bond notes that there was much success during Proctor’s tenure as the pastor of the famed ‘silk-stocking church’ of Harlem. Among the most successful achievements was a $250,000 pipe organ to enhance the music in worship, and the mentoring of two clergymen who presently serve as presidents of academic institutions in New York.

Dr. Sam Proctor retired from the Abyssinian Baptist Church in 1989, and filled his retirement years writing, teaching, lecturing and preaching all over the country; addressing issues ranging from homiletical style and methods, church administration, children’s rights, and heavy weight of racism in America. When Proctor’s life came to a close he doing what he loved most, lecturing to a group of students and faculty at Cornell College in Iowa. He was lauded by the Rev. Dr. Gardner C. Taylor as one who never gave up; Taylor said, in his eulogy of Proctor that his beloved friend was “faithful in the pulpit of Christendom–faithful as he walked among us–faithful in his encouragement–faithful in his confidence about our black destiny in America and faithful about the nation’s capacity to rise up to its fullest potential. Faithful! Faithful! Faithful” (65)!

Bond’s work does a fine job of establishing a place in American Church history for Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor; challenging all who stand at the intersection of pulpit and public life to learn how a gifted and talented trained scholar/pastor/prophet/statesman was able to translate his liberal theological education into a language that empowered and transformed a community of people, a country, yea even the world.

Sermon: Searching for a Good Shepherd

Sunday, July 17, 2016 (Pride Jazz Service)

Biblical Text: Ezekiel 34

Book Review: Dem Dry Bones

Dem Dry Bones: Preaching, Death and Hope

By Luke A. Powery. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012. 160 pages.

Published by the Academy of Parish Clergy, Inc.

Sharing the Practice: The International Quarterly Journal of the Academy of Parish Clergy

Book Review: The Imposing Preacher

The Imposing Preacher: Samuel DeWitt Proctor and Black Public Faith

By: Adam L. Bond. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013. 247 pages.

Published by the Academy of Parish Clergy, Inc.

Sharing the Practice: The International Quarterly Journal of the Academy of Parish Clergy

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