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| Before I saw the charcoal sketch of the Eiffel tower in the peace sign, or the line drawing of the Statue of Liberty hugging the Eiffel tower, I cut out paper hearts and stuck them like tears to a lamp. Not elegant or memorable, but helpful all the same. |
For all my pastor friends out there struggling to
start a sermon or
adapt a sermon or
decide whether or not to
rewrite the sermon they wrote earlier in the week:
start a sermon or
adapt a sermon or
decide whether or not to
rewrite the sermon they wrote earlier in the week:
In a world where
a Lebanese father tackles
a suicide bomber in Beirut (and the detonation kills him and his little
daughter but saves hundreds) and his heroism goes largely unnoticed in the western world;[1]
a U.S. police officer’s
death is ruled a suicide [2] but, before the facts were known, ex-law enforcement people and pundits
blamed “Black Lives Matter” rhetoric[3];
a Missouri student protests racism on campus by going on a hunger strike[6] and on the same campus, athletes use their power to bring about a university president’s resignation[7];
an Illinois student who is transgender is finally allowed access to the appropriate restroom and a city councilor 2,000 miles away[8] responds by explaining violence is the solution to transgender and Muslim problems;
and people who treat the internet as their pulpit call for killing/deporting/locking up Muslims, despite Christianity’s history of violence across continents, cultures, and centuries;
meanness, fear, ignorance, and spectacle seem to rule the week
and our ordinary tasks of ministry are dwarfed by the world’s sadness.
So I remind myself and you that our call as pastors is
to
preach the gospel;
to tell the Jesus-stories full of courage and confusion and challenge;
to lament with the families of the fallen in Paris and Lebanon;
to lament with the families of the fallen in Paris and Lebanon;
to sing hymns with hope and determination;
and to show by our words and our walk
that God’s love rules our hearts this week
and all the weeks to come.
