Presby-Musings

I had a pastor friend many years ago, who asked me if we could work together to improve our preaching. He offered to listen to my sermons and offer critique if I would do the same with him.   I soon discovered, however, that my friend had no real desire to hear anything negative about his preaching, but was pretty keen on critiquing mine. After a few weeks, I pointed this out, and after that it didn't take long for my friend to stop asking to meet altogether. In Shakespeare's  Pericles  the title character decides not to reveal what he knows about King Antiochus of Antioch, because what he knows would prove embarrassing to the king. When asked to explain why he prefers to keep silent, Pericles says, "Few love to hear the sins they love to act."   We all love to offer constructive criticism, but we rarely love to receive it. I think everyone needs to have someone prophetic in the their life--that one person who is unafraid to tell us like it is, even if it ...

This week I am concluding the sermon series that I’ve been preaching throughout the season of Lent---a series entitled “Walls.”   Each week during the sermons I have been preaching, I have reiterated my belief that Christians who observe Lent have embraced a watered down version of it.  The foundation of Lent is Repentance, which is an inconvenient truth for most of us Christian-types.  When faced with the choice of truly repenting of the things that are keeping us from having a right relationship with God, or giving up coffee for forty days, we choose the coffee almost every time.   Repentance is hard.  It’s public.  It’s an about-face that can’t be accomplished under the radar.  When you repent, the junk that you’ve been carrying around with you gets brought into the open once and for all.  And most of us Christian-types would rather that no one ever really see how broken and messed up we really are.  Which is why we build walls...