Take Heart: Preaching to Ten

Tonight all I was given were looks of boredom. Granted it may have been unintentional, just the uncomfortable facial expressions of teenagers sitting in a muggy room. And I know how torturous that can be (especially when it’s amazing sunny out). Like trying to crank out math problems - or anything with a fair amount of mental strain - in a stuffy room. My palms are sweaty just thinking of it.

So, if I am to perfect this art, this calling, called preaching I need not be easily influenced by looks that say to me, “Ugh, why are you talking?” or “I’m bored, entertain me!” or “You just keep repeating yourself” - yawn. These are only my interpretations, though some may be right. But let’s be optimistic for a moment. Who me?

What if even one teenager out of those ten, sitting in the shape of a horseshoe in front of me, experienced something profound? Wait, is that too optimistic? Ok, what if one teenager learned one thing that’s going to stick with her for the next week? (God, at least one week!) Or what if just one is convicted and experiences grace, or freedom or some other divine gift that opens him up to love God more properly? I mean, who knows what could be going on underneath those crimpled faces, in the dark unknown of their souls, that in the moment test everything I am made of.

Driving home I had an idea to take a bunch of close-up photos of people’s bored and tired faces, print them out and pin them up somewhere, maybe on the wall of my room and practice preaching to them throughout the week to hopefully someday overcome the feelings these faces stir within me. I feel this could actually help.

I’d rather stand in front of a hundred people or a thousand. I’m not just saying that. A few years ago I preached during chapel at college on fearing God from Job 29. A couple hundred were present. Times like this the individuals coalesce and I only see a hunk of bodies, a giant mass. It’s as if their gazes are lost on me. But when there’s twenty or fifteen or ten the dynamic shifts dramatically with eyes afire acutely penetrating all I am.

Preaching has always assumed courage. Just getting up there can be daunting, especially following that awkward silence after the last worship song. But this is it. The call to preach is a call to courage, to heart, to stiffness of character. We pray and hope and believe that somehow the Holy Spirit embeds conviction, encouragement and freedom in our shaky words that die when fallen upon tender soil to usher new life, something that wasn’t there before, something which at first is remarkably small.

Gentiles and Stepfamily as Intruders: Reflections on a Sermon

Last Wednesday ended a lapse from preaching for me. Honestly, I can’t recall, for sure, the last time I preached. A year ago, possibly two.

Our youth pastor has been in a series entitled “Repossess.” There have been three segments: identity, generation and family and Wednesday kicked off the segment on family. Obviously then, mine was the privilege of sharing a bit of my story and some reflections on family. Specifically, and this was the main reason our youth pastor had me preach, I shared about my experience--both good and bad--with stepfamily. Since divorce and mixed families are as common as anything else, I thought this was an important and necessary item to talk about.

The question I wanted to answer was simply, “How do I treat my stepfamily when I see them as intruders?” I think this is a valid question, not just for teenagers, but for anyone who has felt the relational tension between, now, members of the same family. Nowadays, it takes zero stretch of the imagination to think of a woman marrying a man with two kids of his own or vise versa. Stories like this happen all the time, every day. But their normalcy doesn’t dissolve the deep feelings of being intruded upon, as if it’s totally fine that this stranger is now living with me and assuming a role they haven’t earned (i.e. mother, father, etc.).

Early on, I had this thought of how to capture this issue within the biblical narrative (albeit, now, I would have done it slightly different since my storytelling skills aren’t what they used to be, causing some kid’s faces to looked annoyingly bored--preacher's worst nightmare). I thought about Ephesians 2:11-22: in Christ, two people groups, the Jews and Gentiles, God’s people and the others, had, expressed at Pentecost and beyond, become one, united as God’s single dwelling, as one people, as one family.

And for some reason, I thought it would be brilliant to attempt to explain the whole story from its proper origins in Abram. This is where some kids got bored, at least this is what their faces were telling me. Sometimes you have to adapt, change it up, screw the itinerary.

At the end, what I wanted them to see was that they, being Gentiles, since none are full-blooded Jewish, were separated from God, not apart of Jesus’ family, like Paul wrote in that passage. I wanted them to take that in! Because, if they did they would realize they have an insider’s perspective on what it’s like to be stepfamily.

The way that many kids today view their stepparents and stepsiblings is probably similar to how the early Jews saw the Gentiles: intruders. Can’t you hear them say? “This is our covenant, our family, our God! They have no business here!” And as we know, both peoples had a difficult time understanding the radical reconstruction of the former way, the original rules.

My advice at the end was so basic: love Jesus by loving your stepfamily, pray for your stepfamily often, get to know your stepfamily and, in some instances, forgive your stepfamily. It seems almost like I threw together this application section. To the contrary, I sat for a long time, laptop open, cursor blinking, thinking about how the kids could apply this. At the end of the day, I guess it comes back to what we all know, the Christian fundamentals: love, care, prayer, forgiveness. Oh, the simple, difficult Christian way. How beautiful it is.

I told the kids I wanted them to make eye contact with me if they wanted to become apart of God’s family for the first time and/or they were going to try to live as a Christian among their complicated, messy family situations, as their heads hung downward during those last moments when slouched bodies perk up and bored faces become calm. I was shocked by the many eyes that looked into mine. I gave back a look like, “Are you sure?/Do you know why you are looking at me?” to some of them. It seemed it wasn’t accidental.

All the struggle through that sermon seemed like nothing in the lightness and calm of those few seconds of catching the eyes of teenagers who, in sincerity and freedom, decided that in the difficult and beautiful way of Christianity, as led by Christ, is where they plan to place their feet. Ah, yes. And just how exactly did I manage to be away for so long?