No Business as Usual. Bruce L. Taylor

      No Business as Usual

      Sermons for the Lectionary, Year A, Pentecost through Christ the King

      Copyright © 2019 Bruce L. Taylor. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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      Manufactured in the U.S.A. November 11, 2019

      Scripture quotations are from Common Bible: New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. The italics are the author’s.

      Additional scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. The italics are the author’s.

      Translation of “Anaweza bwana” is used by permission of the All Africa Council of Churches.

      Excerpts from The Parables of Jesus by George A. Buttrick, Copyright 1928 by Harper & Brothers. Used by permission of Rachel Crumpler.

      Excerpt from the script of The African Queen courtesy of Romulus Films Ltd.

      In memory of James H. Smylie, Austin C. Lovelace, Clarence B. Ammons, Joseph Hadley, and Gláucia Vasconcelos Wilkey—mentors, models, friends.

      Introduction

      In the churches in which I grew up, as well as the one in which I served as a seminary intern, the Sundays between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday and between Pentecost and the first Sunday in Advent were ordered as following Epiphany and Pentecost, respectively. That is, for instance, the third Sunday following Epiphany was designated liturgically as “The Third Sunday after Epiphany.” When the Presbyterian and many other Protestant denominations adopted the custom of identifying these periods of the Christian calendar as “Ordinary Time”, it seemed that the term implied an assignment (or demotion?) of these Sundays to the status of “nothing special.” In the 1990s, my education in liturgical theology became more intentional, largely through participating in the Pastor as Liturgical Theologian program of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of Theology and Worship. I came to learn that the word “ordinary” in this case derived from the word “order” or “ordered” or perhaps “ordinal,” indicating the annual numbered sequence of Sundays that fall outside of Advent, Christmastide/Day of Epiphany, Lent, and Eastertide/Day of Pentecost.

      Popular opinion and the church’s own bustling attention to those other liturgical seasons still burdens the term “Ordinary Time” with a connotation of typicality that parallels the sense among both clergy and laity that Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter are “extra-ordinary.” When they are over, “we can get back to normal,” visually meaning week upon week of green paraments and green vestments, and tepid worship attendance.

      The story of Easter, of course, declares that, in reality, there is no such thing as “ordinary” time for the Christian or even for an unbelieving world. Everything has changed. Everything has been made new. Every moment is pregnant with the possibility of God’s ultimate and imminent fulfillment of the promise of completion and redemption. Every day calls for alert and responsive adherence to the teachings and example of Jesus, now the risen Christ. Indeed, the veil between life in the kingdom of the world and life in the kingdom of heaven has now been forever lifted for those who have eyes to see and hearts to accept. We may count ordinally the Sundays each year that we trustfully and expectantly await the return of Christ and the vanquishing of the world’s powers and principalities, knowing that the number of the days until God’s final act of redemption is staged grows ever shorter, but they all amount to but an instant in the mind of God. In the meantime, the resurrection faith transcends any season of the calendar and the Spirit works freely under, above, and beyond the church’s penitential seasons and high feast days. Every Sunday, as Martin Luther observed, is a little Easter, even the ones in the middle of a frigid winter or a sultry summer, and so lethargy must not be our habit and cynicism has no place in our outlook.

      Matthew’s Gospel, which is featured in Year A of the Common Lectionary, addresses the outlook and behavior of followers of Jesus Christ that will characterize the vocation of faithful discipleship in every season. Many of the readings from Matthew during Ordinary Time about the education and experience of the twelve constitute instructions for the evangelist’s own congregation, often in the face of criticism and harassment if not actual persecution. Sermons expounding these readings challenge and exhort contemporary followers of Christ to faithfulness in daily encounters within family, within the church, and in the culture to which Christ sends them to make more disciples in every neighborhood, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching obedience to everything that Jesus commanded his first disciples.

      As I noted in a previous volume, The Word in the Wind, the sermon need not and, indeed, cannot bear the entire task of unfolding the layers of meaning in the day’s lections. Thoughtful and intentional preparation of the liturgy is just as important as thoughtful and intentional preparation of the sermon. Music is an important component of liturgical worship, and the congregation’s song is central to the work of the people. Fortunately, the growing use of the lectionary over the past few decades has inspired a flowering of hymnody that has answered the opportunity of providing worshipers with fresh words to sing in learning and responding to the testimony of scripture. Many newer hymns focus on biblical texts and themes that have been overlooked by previous generations of hymn writers, sometimes engaging modern believers more meaningfully in ancient events otherwise dusty and remote.

      The Common Lectionary (Revised) offers us stories of the extraordinary love of God throughout the course of Ordinary Time, including the long stretch of Sundays from Pentecost to Christ the King, which is now often called the Reign of Christ. In The Word in the Wind, I offered a collection of sermons for Year A of the lectionary from the First Sunday of Advent through the Seventh Sunday of Easter. The present volume comprises a compilation of sermons for the second half of Year A in the lectionary cycle that contemplates the daily implications of what the annual festivals of Christmas and Easter herald, including a sampling of sermons in the form of stories. They show that, for the person whose faith has been awakened by the events celebrated on the high feast days, there can be no such thing as business as usual on any other day of the year. Also included are a sermon for the secular but theologically rich national holiday of Thanksgiving, for which the Common Lectionary provides readings, and, in an appendix, a sermon preached at the invitation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s committee which planned a series of worship events preceding the denomination’s 218th General Assembly meeting in San Jose, California, in the summer of 2008. Many of the sermons reflect, either implicitly or by direct reference, the time and place in which they were originally delivered. I have elected to include them without revision for specific recent events. Most dramatically, perhaps, the premise of the sermon titled “Human Fear and Divine Promise” has become tragically even more poignant. In all cases, I believe, history has only added to, rather than subtracted from, their pertinence. I encourage the reading of the lections listed for each sermon prior to reading the sermon itself.

      In