Tag Archives: mary and martha

“Martha, Martha, Martha!” – Preaching on an all too familiar text! Luke 10:38-42

Posted on by
Reply

From an Academic Paper to a Sermon

You can read the academic paper here and the sermon here

martha 2I am usually on vacation at this time of the year. So, I have only had a couple of  opportunities to preach on this coming Sunday’s gospel text (Luke 10:38-42). The story of Jesus’ sojourn at the home of Mary and Martha is such a familiar text, which over the years has been used and abused by preachers to inflict such harm on their listeners. During my seminary years, this text awakened the feminist in me in ways that I am still unpacking. So, I went back to my seminary years to uncover an academic treatment of this text that I included in my Masters Comprehensive paper in 1998. Reading the paper took me back to a time when I seriously doubted my call to ordained ministry. Back then I was unsure about my ability to tolerate the institutional church or indeed whether or not the institutional church would be able to tolerate me. I am happy to report that there are pockets of the institutional church were feminists can thrive and I have been blessed to be called to serve in one of those pockets. 

I preached on this text was in 2004 and I post both the academic paper and the sermon based on the paper as resources for those of you who will take up the text this week. I have not edited the sermon, despite my inclination to do so. Old sermons provide a snapshot of old preachers. Like most snapshots, I’m not altogether happy with the picture of myself. 

You can read the academic paper here   and   the sermon here

“Martha, Martha, Martha!” – Preaching on an all too familiar text! Luke 10:38-42

Posted on by
Reply

From an Academic Paper to a Sermon

You can read the academic paper here and the sermon here

martha 2I am usually on vacation at this time of the year. So, I have only had a couple of  opportunities to preach on this coming Sunday’s gospel text (Luke 10:38-42). The story of Jesus’ sojourn at the home of Mary and Martha is such a familiar text, which over the years has been used and abused by preachers to inflict such harm on their listeners. During my seminary years, this text awakened the feminist in me in ways that I am still unpacking. So, I went back to my seminary years to uncover an academic treatment of this text that I included in my Masters Comprehensive paper in 1998. Reading the paper took me back to a time when I seriously doubted my call to ordained ministry. Back then I was unsure about my ability to tolerate the institutional church or indeed whether or not the institutional church would be able to tolerate me. I am happy to report that there are pockets of the institutional church were feminists can thrive and I have been blessed to be called to serve in one of those pockets. 

I preached on this text was in 2004 and I post both the academic paper and the sermon based on the paper as a resources for those of you who will take up the text this week. I have not edited the sermon, despite my inclination to do so. Old sermons provide a snapshot of old preachers. Like most snapshots, I’m not altogether happy with the picture of myself. I’ll post a copy of a more recent sermon on this text in the next blog post…stay tuned!

You can read the academic paper here   and   the sermon here

What is Meditation?

Posted on by
Reply

Be still and knowThis week I have been preparing to preach on the story in the Gospel According to Luke about Jesus’ encounter with Martha and Mary and I’ve been exploring the tradition of the contemplative life as well as the modern fascination with the many types of meditation. So much of the popular offerings that seek to define meditation seem to cater to our culture’s desire to consume what we like from a particular discipline while failing to appreciate the discipline part of that which we seek.  In the course of my research I came across this splendid little video in which Laurence Freeman offerers, from a Christian perspective, his introduction to meditation.

“Martha, Martha, Martha!” – Preparing to preach on an all too familiar text!

Posted on by
3

From an Academic Paper to a Sermon

martha 2I am usually on vacation at this time of the year. So, I have only had one opportunity to opportunity to preach on this coming Sunday’s gospel text (Luke 10:38-42). The story of Jesus’ sojourn at the home of Mary and Martha is such a familiar text, which over the years has been used and abused by preachers to inflict such harm on their listeners. During my seminary years, this text awakened the feminist in me in ways that I am still unpacking. So, in preparation to write only my second sermon on this text, I went back to my seminary years to uncover an academic treatment of this text that I included in my Masters Comprehensive paper in 1998. Reading the paper took me back to a time when I seriously doubted my call to ordained ministry. Back then I was unsure about my ability to tolerate the institutional church or indeed whether or not the institutional church would be able to tolerate me. I am happy to report that there are pockets of the institutional church were feminists can thrive and I have been blessed to be called to serve in one of those pockets. 

The only time I preached on this text was in 2004 and so I post both the academic paper and the sermon based on the paper as a resources for those of you who will take up the text this week. I have not edited the sermon, despite my inclination to do so. Old sermons provide a snapshot of old preachers. Like most snapshots, I’m not altogether happy with the picture of myself. The good news is that this week I have the opportunity to create another snapshot.

You can read the academic paper here   and   the sermon here