It is Tuesday morning and I am working on my sermon for next
Sunday. I am preaching through the book
of Ruth and the passage for this week is Ruth
3:1-5. This will be the third time I
have preached through a book of the Bible, working my way through 1 Peter last
fall and Colossians this past spring.
Chief among the reasons I have done this is because I was
noticing a tendency to drift towards my favorite topics as I prepared to preach
each week. I was using the Revised
Common Lectionary to choose texts and it seemed that more often than not I was
going after my favorite themes as I read the options for each week.
Not that there is anything inherently wrong with what my
favorite biblical themes may be, but I am called to preach to a particular
congregation and I should be bringing to them, and myself as well, a broader
understanding of God's word than what I happen to like the best.
Preaching through a book may not seem to have much breadth,
as books may have their own broad themes and be restricted by the specific
things they deal with. But staying
within a book and a particular passage forces me to look more closely at the
teaching of the passage, and then to bring what I find there to the
congregation on Sunday morning. I think
of it as having the text drive the message, rather than the preacher's own personal
preferences underlie the message.
This method of selecting a text has its clear advantage in
directing my sermon away from my hobby horses, but it also has its
difficulties. The primary difficulty
emerged again as I began to prepare this week.
As I read the text my first question was, "What on earth is the
message of this text and how can I can bring to the congregation on Sunday?"
If you take a moment to read Ruth
3:1-5 you might see what I mean. It
isn't the kind of piece where something clearly stands out to bring as a word
of comfort, or direction, or encouragement, or any other purpose a sermon might
have. At least it didn't for me. Not at the first reading. Or the second. Or the third.
Maybe I should pick a different text. Maybe this week I need to change my plan and
expand the passage, until I find something I can clearly hang my sermon
on. Maybe.
As I wrestled to find the message within this passage, two
other pieces of scripture were floating through my head. One was Luke
24:27, where Jesus has been on the road to Emmaus and explains some things
to the people He walked with. Luke
writes:
"And
beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning himself."
And the other one was 2
Timothy 3:16-17, where Paul writes:
"All
Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for
correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man[1] of
God may be competent, equipped for every good work."
The Luke passage doesn’t
teach that Jesus is in absolutely every little bit of the Old Testament, but it
does encourage us to dig deeply in each part of the Bible to find those things
that increase our understanding of Him and nurture our love for Him.
And the 2 Timothy passage reminds us that God gives us His word,
all of it, so that we might grow as His children throughout our lives.
So I went back to Ruth 3.
I prayed. I dug a bit more. I thought about it and prayed again. And I think I have found something that
speaks to me, and that I can bring to the congregation on Sunday.
Open my eyes, Lord, that in your word I may see your Son.
[1] While
the ESV translates the Greek as 'man' here the intent of the text is to speak
equally to men and women.
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