Thinking on a Sunday Evening

Sometimes on Sunday afternoons and evenings, I start thinking a little more clearly. And, this evening, I am thinking about church and realizing that I feel very different about church than I have in the past. I feel no anxiety about church matters, and about church in general, I feel somewhat confused in a fairly positive way.

Since I was gone from "church" for a few weeks, I feel like an alien at church. I just don't feel like I am "back" yet, and I don't feel much compulsion to worry over that feeling. Preaching has been a strange experience the past couple of weeks. I enjoyed the preparation this week, but the preaching - well, I think I'd rather sit down and talk with people these days. I don't have much to preach about, but a lot to discuss with people these days.

I enjoyed one of our hymns very much today: "Now Thank We All our God," # 555 in the PCUSA Blue Hymnal. That is a great song. "Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices."

I liked hearing Keith recall the plight of the Hebrews in Egypt and celebrate God's deliverance of the Hebrews from slavery to freedom. And, then the reading of the Ten Commandments with our responses in between:"Lord have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us" and at the end.

I particularly liked these two parts of the service. My sermon - well, it would have been better to talk about than preach. It was about memory and rewriting our pasts from the perspective of faith. It was probably a fairly interesting sermon if you wanted to think of things in new way. Probably a little disappointing if you were looking for a good, solid expository or doctrinal sermon. I hope it was helpful to some people. I think it might have been, but it appears from what a couple of people said to have been a little disturbing as well.

Memory and memories are pretty tough things to deal with. And, I did talk about Paul's difficult memory of his cruel treatment of early Christians, and how that memory was something he had to make sense of from the perspective of a new commitment to the way of Jesus, the Christ.

Well, I have to say that my two post-vacation sermons have been a little different. I am not sure whether to give them a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. I am going to revise my sermon notes from today on memory, and post them in the next couple of days on this blog. These days it seems that some of my sermons are more fit for posting on the blog than preaching from the pulpit.