The Christ candle burns brightly
The Christ candle burns brightly

This Sunday’s RCL texts offer much food for thought – about abundance, about power, about the part each of us plays in the bigger picture of life. Plenty for us to get our teeth into! But enough of the puns.
Where are you headed in worship this week?
Are you following RCL and groaning at the sojourn in John’s gospel with all those bread narratives?
Are you holding David and Bathsheba up to the light?
Are you giving thanks with Paul for this family of which we are part?
Or are you pursuing a summer series?
There is some good discussion from the Lectionary Leanings post earlier in the week as well as some powerful writing and prayers from some of our RevGals on contemporary events that call for us to be bold, speaking up with the power and love of Christ – check out this week’s blog posts.
Whatever you’re preaching, we invite you to share what you have at the Preacher’s Party where Christ will multiply our offerings beyond what we can imagine.
And, on top of all that, to celebrate the 10th Birthday of RevGalBlogPals, there is this wonderful giveaway:
In celebration of ten years of ministry and community for RevGalBlogPals, the first commenter on this post will receive a copy of our book, “There’s a Woman in the Pulpit: Christian Clergywomen Share Their Hard Days, Holy Moments, and the Healing Power of Humor” (Skylight Paths Publishing). All commenters are eligible with the exception of contributors to the book and members of the RevGals board.
There’s a Woman in the Pulpit – SkyLight Paths Publishing
http://www.skylightpaths.com
RevGals cover

Be informed and inspired, delighted and supported, encouraged and entertained by stories and prayers…

64 thoughts on “11th Hour Preacher’s Party: The power of one”

  1. Planning to focus on the idea that abundant thinking is God-think. When we look at scriptures, we see that God is in the business of abundant thinking and expansive imagining. That God specializes in taking a little (or even nothing at all) and making it a lot – whether it’s fashioning creation ex nihilo, serving a feast from a few loaves and fishes, or pulling life out of death. And when Jesus says to Philip, “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” (John 6:5), he is inviting that apostle – and we apostles – to engage in some abundant thinking as well.

    Now all I have to do is write it!

    Blessings to all.

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    2. Luanne, You make me think of the concept that much of our society seems to operate from an abundance of scarcity/greed instead of an abundance of love/giving/sharing, etc. What a great idea you have of how God can assure us by trusting/learning from Jesus’ stories/teaching to make something from nothing or little. Thanks for reminding me of that. It seems pretty simple/common sense…Then why do so many people (myself included, at times) veer from simplicity in our lives and/or worrying about our not being in control of outcomes? Guess we’re human?
      Blessings upon your sermon prep.
      Louise

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      1. Louise – that humanity gets us every time, doesn’t it?! For me, the key is trying to stay in a place of gratitude. Like right now, I’m grateful that there are almost eleven hours left before the service, because my sermon still isn’t done…

        Blessings on your ministry!

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  3. Good morning! A very full day ahead, so sermon is finished. This week’s water series focus is on streams of mercy. It was going nowhere until Pat Raube took note of Mary Oliver’s “Summer Day” poem on FB early in the week, and I realized I wanted to talk about how mercy in the broadest sense infuses all of creation. (One of the readings in the Bible Study “Come to the Waters” for this week is the beginning of Isaiah 35.) I don’t know that I succeeded, but that was the idea. Hope you all have a great day!

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  4. Focusing on John tomorrow, and what will probably end up as a semi-spoken-word sermon. Likely prose paragraphs with a spoken word refrain. I will be riffing off of What if? What if Jesus asked our churches today, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” What if we don’t react like Philip and Andrew, throwing up obstacles? What if we could react like the boy who offered his five loaves and two fish, trusting that God would make it more than enough? So many words floating around my head – I need to sit down and put them into the computer. I will have a 2-hour drive tomorrow morning to the church where I will be doing pulpit supply, so lots of time to practice on the way!

    But first on my schedule this morning is a walk down to the farmer’s market – I’ll bring back lots of fresh vegetables to share.

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      1. It’s always good to be able to read what folk are preaching once they’ve shared challenges at the Preacher’s Party. Thanks for sharing and blessings on your worship.

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  5. Tomorrow is the first of three sermons on choices- tomorrow it’s Adam and Eve. My hope is that it helps people to grow in their understanding of how God welcomes, loves, accepts us – all the while giving us the choice of life, relationship, action, reaction, etc. Living a life as faithful followers of Jesus- is a choice, one I’m hoping people will continue to choose.

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  6. It’s already lunch time here. I have chicken and pesto paninis to share. I’m going to enjoy mine in the garden in the sunshine which has been a bit scarce this summer in Scotland.
    I have one more Sunday off tomorrow, so living vicariously through your sermon preparation!
    I may, however, write a blog post.

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  7. I’m tackling David and Bathsheba and Uriah, pondering what would have happened if David had just admitted his mistake and asked God to handle things after the FIRST screwup. And of course, what if we would do the same. It’s a reworking of an old sermon, to preach at a different place.

    In the meantime, I’ve got a Presbytery task force meeting at my house in a couple of hours. Though we are in the middle of nowhere, we are in the middle of the four people meeting–everyone has an equitable amount of driving to do. We are hoping for a spark of creativity and new ideas around the kitchen table.

    I made sausage-and-cheese-in-Hawaiian rolls and cut up a cantaloupe for the meeting, so help yourselves!

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    1. Monica, what a great Presbytery meet up – around the kitchen table. I hope hosting isn’t too distracting from contributing.
      Winding David back sounds like a good plan. What if..?

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  8. Liz, I’m loving reading your words and hearing them in your beautiful lilt. Enjoy your vacation days.

    I’m going with Ephesians and communities grounded in love. Thinking both of Mother Emmanuel Church’s response to the shooter and the response of the Amish in Lancaster to the family of the man who killed their girls and their teacher in 2006. Am going to spend the day playing with the idea that those two communities are representative of what communities fully grounded in love can be. (Am also trying to remember the town in Montana that chose to turn back hate. Will have to dig a little more deeply for that one.)

    Now to walk the dogs before the heat of the day makes that impossible.

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      1. Thanks, Liz. Will check it out after the dog walk and trip to farmers’ market. Remembering your voice makes me think we need to add Scotland and the Orkney Islands to our next trip.

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      3. Liz, I am on the trail of the story thanks to you. The Flathead Valley in Montana initiated a campaign, website and window placards in response to some racist acts. They posted signs in their windows, “Love Lives Here.” It happened several years ago. I’m still looking for the initial story but have plenty to go on. Thanks for the lift.

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  9. Minimizing David and Bathsheba, minimizing the loaves and the fishes, in favour of Ephesians (with the Psalm as counterpoint — “The fool hath said in his heart — and also in his books and his magazine articles etc.”) — what is wished for there on our behalf, and do we also wish for it, and what would it feel like if we had it, and if we want it, what’s holding us back?? Sort of like that. not too long.

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  10. Greetings, I”m new to this site and so enjoy learning from your individual and collective spiritual wisdom. I”m a retired pediatric chaplain and enjoy so much reading what others contribute. I do not have a blog but am contemplating learning how to set up one this Fall since I will be installed as Minister of Visitation at our UCC. Do any of you experienced REvGal bloggers have any suggestions with which company to use to create a blog?

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    1. Welcome, Louise! We’re glad you’re with us. Congratulations on the new ministry adventure!

      As for blogging, I would suggest visiting several blogs in our ring (they are all listed in the sidebar, in alphabetical order) and taking note of which styles/layouts/etc are appealing to you, and whether they are wordpress, blogspot, or something else. (you can often see this in the address bar of the browser, or if not there then in the footer at the bottom it might say “powered by wordpress” or something like that. We have proponents of most of the major platforms here, and everyone has their preferences. I personally like blogger because of the ease of set up and the layout of the dashboard. I also use wordpress for a couple of things and once it’s all set up, it’s pretty easy as well.

      I’m sure others have opinions too. You’ve asked on a good day, because lots of people will be here, looking for things to procrastinate with. 🙂

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      1. Hi Louise – Welcome! Like Teri, I use Blogger for my own blog, but have helped other people set up WordPress blogs that were simple. I perceive Blogger to be a bit more plug and play (simple to navigate) but I dod not find WordPress too difficult, just not as intuitive.

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  11. We are using the RCL this season, but out of order…so tomorrow I have Ephesians 4, about spiritual gifts and growing up into Christ. It’s one of my faves not only because it points out that the job of the pastor is one thing (to equip the saints for ministry) but also because it’s such a good reminder that while we may be children of God, and we may be called to be childlike, that doesn’t mean we get to be childish forever. There is a process of maturing in faith and that transformation is part of our call as individuals and communities.

    I’ve titled the sermon “growing pains”…but I’m still debating whether to preach a sermon or to do a Bible Study in that place. We are setting up the chairs in an infinity symbol this week (because “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”), so people will be facing each other in a vaguely circular way, which might make it a good week for conversations. Maybe some combination…

    I’ll also be cooking later this afternoon, for a meeting tomorrow after worship. I’m 99% sure I’m making “santa fe” enchiladas–aka, stacked rather than rolled. I’ll probably make extras so feel free to stop by! 🙂

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    1. Teri — that’s what I’m doing next week! yes! one time I preached on Ephesians 4 and put it together with the John passage on bread, and titled my sermon: “Builds strong bodies 12 ways”. I love what you say about being childlike but not childish, and what it means for pastors to be ‘equippers.’ Thanks…. but now, on to tomorrow’s

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  12. this week I am on Ephesians 3 — continuing from last week’s emphasis on “no longer strangers” to “the power within us.” Talking about that power as one that unites rather than divides, that loves rather than hates, that hopes rather than fears…. I’m starting with the idea that Paul is trying to blow our minds with the expansiveness of the gospel in these first few chapters….. and I know I want to close with a story I read about a meeting in a church in Chatanooga last week. where the people were gathering to pray and to heal after the deaths of 4 marines and a sailor. There were many speakers and prayers. but the last speaker was a leader from the Muslim community, who offered his prayers and support as well, and asked the muslims present to stand. After they all stood, and the people in the church clapped, the rest of the people in the church began to stand. Soon everyone was standing.

    ….that’s the power of God, within us….

    anyway, in the middle, it’s still sort of fuzzy, so I hope that i can get that sorted out.

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  13. I wrote about a time when my youth group at my former church joined another group in preparing a meal for Tent City residents. I walked into the kitchen with everyone else who was helping that night and could see the boxes of food we would use to prepare the meal. We could see the 100 people out the window of the kitchen. The amount of food, the lack of quality of the food, and the crowd gathered on the grass outside didn’t see to match up to me. I wondered to myself how we would be able to get a meal sufficient to feed that crowd out of what we had. Then I watched the young people get busy with their tasks, laughing and talking with each other and not worrying about quantity or quality of food. The meal of course turned out to be more than was need of some amazing tasty dishes. There were left overs on the tables in the kitchen area of Tent City when we left.
    I’m planning to not be in the pulpit tomorrow, but using my iPad and being near the communion table that will be at the bottom of the steps and covered with green cloth and baskets of bread and pictures of fish (cause we don’t have fake fish and real fish, well, you get the idea.) Pray for me in my venture out of the pulpit!

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  14. I’m in the middle of a series on hymns. Our hymn for this week is “Sweet, Sweet Spirit,” so my sermon is on the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5. At the moment I’m thinking about the fundamentalist takeover in the Southern Baptist church, which happened nearly 40 years ago now, the split-off of the Cooperative Baptists a couple decades later, and now the further factionalization with (hashtag)The15 and their attack on LifeWay bookstores. But I don’t think it’s really a good sermon tactic to discuss another church’s problems and say, “Thank God we’re not like those Southern Baptists over there.” So I need to figure out a different way to approach it; but that business seems like such a clear example of how the “works of the flesh” play out in churches. There needs to be some coffee before I can come up with anything coherent.

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  15. We’re on David as our ‘key text’ but I am contrasting it with John and looking at how we use power and misuse power. We thought a bit about this a few weeks ago when we looked at the story of David and Goliath and David having the strength to say no, and to do things his own way…but I think I might get people to look outward a bit as to how our power and choices can impact others.

    I am using an old sermon as a basis but basically cutting it apart and restructuring and rewording. On Monday this seemed like a great ‘shortcut’ but now I am not so sure! Oh well – DD is quietly playing upstairs so I may get a couple of hours of peace to sit with what I have so far and get it ‘nailed’ before wine-o-clock.

    I am totally stuck for a kids activity so I think it will be a good old fashioned colouring sheet and memory verse word search for them to do in the kids corner during the sermon.

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    1. Maggie, sometimes it’s harder to rework than it is to stay afresh. And how often we underestimate the impact on others of the choices we make

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  16. Meeting is over, and I don’t have a drive to get back home. Lovely, and well worth the little bit of cooking and cleaning I did to prepare. Meeting was successful, I think/hope. We’ll see if we get overruled in a couple of weeks.

    I’m preaching at a congregation where I’ve only been once before, so I need to look through the bulletin carefully to see what else I need to prepare. The sermon will need more than a once-over, too.

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  17. Not feeling very motivated, I spent 9 days with high school youth, on the road to and from and participating on our national youth gathering in Detroit. I got back late Tuesday afternoon, and slept all day Wednesday. I took a half day off on Thursday (someone had to do the weekly paperwork!) and then took my regular Friday off. But I’m still whipped. And my congregations think I should have a sermon for them this Sunday!

    I’m in the midst of the NL Wisdom Series, slightly out of order due to the trip. I’m preaching Proverbs 8 – Lady Wisdom, and I have to say I don’t have a lot of inspiration. I thought that this one would come easy after my recent Dmin class on feminist perspectives in preaching, but…uh..no.

    I also didn’t look closely enough and wrote something for said class from Proverbs 9 thinking it would work for this Sunday, not realizing that it was the wrong passage. Maybe I can figure out a way to use it. I have posted it here if anyone is interested.

    The Lament of Lady Wisdom
    Proverbs 9:1-6

    I awakened early this morning
    to make sure the table was set
    the comfortable cushions plumped
    warm yellow light
    spilling from windows and doors
    welcomes my children home.

    I awakened early this morning
    to prepare a feast beyond feasts
    tasty tidbits to whet curiosity
    rich dishes to satisfy hungering minds
    Light and life flows like wine
    wisdom for my children’s days.

    My children flock to the table
    to consume this holy feast
    then they rush off again,
    never realizing
    every morning
    I awaken early
    to prepare that which will nourish their souls.

    I prepare this feast for them daily.

    I awakened early this morning
    to make sure the table was set
    the comfortable cushions plumped
    warm yellow light
    spilling from windows and doors
    inviting my children, “come home.”

    Yet they sit in the dark
    mindlessly munching junk food
    the light of a flickering blue screen.

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  18. I am off of the John readings for the next three weeks, and instead doing a three-week series on David. Tomorrow I will look back through David’d rise as King, next week I will tell the stories of the women involved, and the third week I will tell the rest of the story in David’s Downfall. Then a week of vacation. This was not what I had originally planned, but I was surprised by how much information there is on the different women in David’s storyline. Brueggemann makes the case (based on someone else) that most of these stories might have begun to be written in Solomon’s time so that’s why the details are still in the public memory and reported well. I still have more to read, esp for the last week, but tomorrow and next week feel solidly done. It will be more story than sermon, but oh well.

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      2. I am so ready for your book to be out, Wil – the Women’s Bible Commentary has just the briefest mention of David’s wives positioning themselves as a potential Queen Mother and in my mind I was whisked back to your presentation in Stephenville.

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  19. Doing the feeding of the 5,000 and found a really great morsel in True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary. The commentary points out that the Galilean hill country was a known hideout for bandits and gangs, so 5,000 folks from that area coming on strong to follow Jesus might have been a really frightening sight for the disciples! It’s even more poignant then that Jesus’ first instinct was to feed them. Yet another testament to the radical embrace of Jesus and his gospel.

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  20. I’m preaching Bathsheba and #BlackLivesMatter focusing on abuse of power.
    Black women’s lives matter. Black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lives matter. Black Muslim lives matter. All black lives matter because black life is sacred. The lives of Sandra Bland, Kindra Chapman and Jasmine Wright cut short this past week matter because they were the very image of God and someone could not or chose not to see God in them.
    And when folk want to turn away from the death that is stalking black lives in the streets, in the church, in police custody, in WalMart, in public parks and in the case of 7 year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones, shot by a cop in her own little bed, we say no. Don’t look away. Don’t change the subject. You don’t go to a breast cancer rally and change the subject to all cancer [or another disease or all the people who aren’t killed by cancer or even blame folk for behavior choices that you think may have contributed to their cancer].
    That’s what the folk who invented the all lives matter hashtag in response to black lives matter were doing. We said black lives matter. They said no, all lives. They said we will not acknowledge that black life is under siege. We will change the subject. We will look away…
    Some take it further like Officer Daniel Holtzclaw who spent his on-duty time targeting black women for sexual assault. He took eight black women like David took Bathsheba. Don’t look away.
    The church has a history of looking away. The church has looked away from David’s abuse of his power, running to his repentance. Don’t look away. The church has even looked to Bathsheba blaming her – some call her rape adultery – looking at her instead of David just as some folk have blamed victims of police killings: if they had just done what they were told… If she hadn’t mouthed off… The penalty for non-compliance and being mouthy is not summary execution, not in these United States. Besides, compliance won’t save you. Don’t change the subject. Don’t shift the blame. Don’t look away from the abuse of power in this text.
    Solomon learned it’s good to be king and followed in the footsteps of his father David. Where did you think he got the habit of collecting women? It is good to be king. But Jesus didn’t want to be king….

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  21. Late to the party this week! Got a start on a sermon earlier in the week, but it still needs a conclusion. I’m using John 6 to discover how God will take whatever we offer and bless it, but God expects us to give everything. This isn’t a story of tithing, it’s a story of giving 100%. What would happen if we actually gave 100% to God? What would that even look like?

    Not sure how to discuss that without sounding shaming (you should be giving more!) or unrealistic (that boy didn’t have student loan debt or a mortgage). Working it through, and decided to share a story about a dinner group I joined in seminary where we each contributed all that we could when it was our week to host, and relied on the generosity of others when it was their week. Hoping something makes sense soon, my husband is waiting for me for dinner!

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  22. Good morning. Coffee is on – and printer is ready for those still tweaking.
    Thank you for joining the party.
    Blessings on the Preacher’s and hearers of the word today.

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