{"id":707,"date":"2007-11-05T14:14:15","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T18:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/archives\/707"},"modified":"2007-11-05T14:14:15","modified_gmt":"2007-11-05T18:14:15","slug":"higher-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/archives\/707","title":{"rendered":"Higher Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Although I no longer serve as pastor of a congregation, invitations to preach come my way from time to time.\u00c2\u00a0 The latest instance was yesterday when I helped a Presbyterian congregation surprise their pastor with the opportunity to worship among them, free of leadership responsibility.\u00c2\u00a0 The occasion was the thirtieth anniversary of her ordination and the tenth anniversary of her ministry in that place.\u00c2\u00a0 Not knowing what the lectionary for the day was, I was pleased to learn that they were accustomed to hearing their pastor preach from it.\u00c2\u00a0 I love the tussle with scripture that pushes me to\u00c2\u00a0stay grounded in its teaching while saying something useful about its bearing on our lives today.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I looked at the passage\u00c2\u00a0from Hebrew scripture for the morning, I found Isaiah railing at the religious leaders of his time, getting their attention by addressing them as “rulers of Sodom” and “people of Gomorrah.”\u00c2\u00a0 Great stuff, if you have your next job lined up.\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise, a minefield.\u00c2\u00a0 What about the passage from Christian scripture?\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Familiar (and safer) ground here – – but only if you forget Jesus’ own inaugural sermon containing words that eerily echoed those of Isaiah.\u00c2\u00a0 Jesus took\u00c2\u00a0Zacchaeus seriously, apparently seeing in him a man who was eager to learn.<\/p>\n

I lived with\u00c2\u00a0these passages for a month\u00c2\u00a0before the sermon began to take shape.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00c2\u00a0reflected on the classical three-faceted description of the role of the called one: pastor, prophet and priest.\u00c2\u00a0 I asked myself, who are the prophets today?\u00c2\u00a0 Are they always confrontational?\u00c2\u00a0 How honest can a pastor be today?\u00c2\u00a0 Or, for that matter, an educator?\u00c2\u00a0 What\u00c2\u00a0I hope I did on Sunday\u00c2\u00a0was to suggest that good worship and justice-making are inseparable, and that the good pastor will risk speaking truth to her or his flock only because they care deeply about them.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the\u00c2\u00a0sermon creation process was underway,\u00c2\u00a0my life and the lives of the Resource Center’s board and staff were caught up in the countdown leading to our primary fund-raising and public relations event: the Fourth Annual Outstanding Christian Educators Banquet.\u00c2\u00a0 For this event churches of all sizes and various denominations nominate an educator from among them to be honored.\u00c2\u00a0 The nominees are chosen on the basis of the congregation’s own criteria, are of all ages, with many levels of giftedness and preparation.<\/p>\n

The speaker for the evening was an academic, but one who wears his academic credentials lightly and is thoroughly connected to the everyday life of congregations.\u00c2\u00a0 As he began to speak a thought crossed my mind.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope this man was the right choice!\u00c2\u00a0 I hope he understands who he is speaking to tonight.\u00c2\u00a0 They are ordinary folk who have tried to draw learners closer to the faith as they understand it, some of them for a half century or more.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

I needn’t have worried.\u00c2\u00a0 What I heard was both\u00c2\u00a0a challenge to the utter ineffectiveness of much of what is called Christian education today, and a profound respect for his listeners.\u00c2\u00a0 And they got<\/em> it.\u00c2\u00a0 As I moved through the room saying goodbye to some of the four hundred attendees, many made a point of expressing appreciation for what they heard.\u00c2\u00a0 Comments can be summed up as,\u00c2\u00a0“He’s right, we have a long way to go . . . we can all be better teachers than we are . . . it’s too important not to try to be better.”<\/p>\n

Driving home that night, weary and with one day left to finish the sermon, I had a new insight about prohets.\u00c2\u00a0 Among the many words I had read describing prohets were these: they are persons who call us to higher ground.\u00c2\u00a0 Isaiah did that.\u00c2\u00a0 So did Jesus.\u00c2\u00a0 So, too, do pastors.\u00c2\u00a0 Good pastors – – and good educators – – understand that the truth is easier to receive when spoken in love than in confrontation, thereby more likely to inspire movement toward higher ground.\u00c2\u00a0 Our speaker of the evening understood that, too.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Thanks, Israel Galindo!<\/p>\n

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Although I no longer serve as pastor of a congregation, invitations to preach come my way from time to time.\u00c2\u00a0 The latest instance was yesterday when I helped a Presbyterian congregation surprise their pastor with the opportunity to worship among … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4,37,29,8,20,1,32,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-christian-education","category-congregational-life","category-sermons","category-sunday-school","category-teaching","category-uncategorized","category-vocation","category-worship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}