Reflections on My Easter Sermon
March 24, 2008
I wanted to take a little time to comment on my Easter sermon, "A Spiritual Awakening."
Last week I just could not focus on writing the sermon until after I had filmed the Flashpoint debate. Well, I've written about the mood I was in Friday after the filming!
But I needed to get to work on the sermon. So, I took a walk down to Edgemere Park to brainstorm -- it has been very helpful more than once. While lying in the grass and wildflowers listening to the creek I finally decided what I needed to write about.
Mayor Humphries had questioned, and insulted, my faith. Later I was to see the promo piece for the debate in which he said I had "bad theology."
I decided to just tell it all in the sermon. By all, I mean the gospel. The sermon contains in one fell swoop my understanding of the historical Jesus, the crucifixion, sin and atonement, the resurrection, Christian discipleship, the Trinity, etc.
And I preached it with passion. Nance Cunningham said last night, "You sounded like a baptist."
I plan on sending copies of the sermon to both Mayor Humphries and Rep. Kern.
And just in case any more real estate developers or high school civics teachers want to question my theology or biblical interpretation, here are some of my sources:
For the cultural and economic situation of first century Palestine -- John Dominic Crossan & N. T. Wright.
For the politics of the Jesus movement -- John Howard Yoder.
On the atonement -- Walter Wink and Rita Nakashima Brock.
On the resurrection -- James McClendon and Jurgen Moltmann.
On sin -- Wink, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Reinhold Neibuhr.
On the community of the church -- Stanley Hauerwas, Will Willimon, Yoder, etc.
On forgiveness -- L. Gregory Jones & Miroslav Volf.
On the Biblical theme of liberation -- Leonardo Boff, Gustavo Guitierrez, & James Cone, etc.
On nonviolence -- Hauerwas, Yoder, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, etc.
Okay, I'll put those folk up against a real estate developer & a civics teacher.
I'm so proud to call you my friend. I watched the videos yesterday and you did a wonderful job! I also want to let you know that your appearance got picked up by Towleroad.com (one of the largest gay blogs). Congrats and thank you!
Posted by: Dane | March 25, 2008 at 09:52 AM
Busy work week for me, but I plan to read the sermon.
Posted by: Jacob Zimmer | March 27, 2008 at 07:46 PM