I preached this morning at First Lutheran Church in Winthrop, MN. It was quite a contrast from last Sunday when I preached at Trinity Lutheran in Eau Claire, WI. Trinity is a congregation of about 3000 with an ultra-modern, high-tech worship space that seats about 700. Winthrop’s First Lutheran is located in corn country about an hour and a half to the west and a little south of Minneapolis. Its sanctuary is about 120 years old, fabulously maintained, and this morning we had about 80 at worship. I preached there at the invitation of my friend and colleague Pastor Jim Snyder who’s served there for the past two and a half years as their interim. This is the first time Jim and I had shared any face time together in the 25 years since he left Texas, where he served the congregations at Shelby and Fayetteville. He’s one of those friends that I could call at 2 a.m. and say that I need him, and he’d be on the next plane. And vice versa. Can you have too many of those kinds of friends? I didn’t think so.
I preached this morning on the Gerasene demoniac from Luke 8, which is kind of an edgy text. How many Bible passages feature a naked man running wild in the local cemetery? And I preached the text in an edgy way. In the same way that Jesus showed his mastery over the forces of nature in the stilling of the storm (which is the story that immediately precedes the trip to Gerasa), I preached that Jesus is the master of the social forces that can drive a man crazy, but also run a society off the edge of a cliff.
Needless to say, that’s not exactly the conventional reading of this text. In my sermon I laid out the Scriptural basis for my interpretation, but at the same time, I wondered why I can’t just do a sermon that’s nice and easy and edgeless. I know I can, and I have, and I do, but there’s a part of me that believes a preacher ought to make me reach and think and give me some hint of the mystery that I can’t fully understand but graciously enfolds me in love and mercy.
That’s a minority opinion.
Peace.
Not exactly how Vic approached this text. I would have very much liked to hear yours. His was edgy in its own way, though.
Push the envelope is what I say
GL