Sunday Morning

On biscuits, poverty, and preaching.

Last night I dreamt of biscuits. It’s been so long…a couple of years, actually…since I last made a batch of cat head biscuits. In the dream, Patricia Austin was encouraging me to make said biscuits. I think I might have to make some.

I am working on a couple of prayer services for Richard Voelz and Mandy England Cole. They are leading a retreat for The Bridge at Richmond Hill this week. I might bring a banjo. No, it will not be loud and obnoxious. It’ll be mellow and sweet. There’s more than one way to play a banjo.

The Bridge is a program at Union Presbyterian Seminary for early career preachers. It’s a great initiative. I’m grateful for the opportunity to pitch in.

Today’s Franciscan Nugget: Lady Poverty speaks, “I was once in the paradise of my God, where people walked naked; in fact, I walked in them and with them in their nakedness throughout that most splendid paradise, fearing nothing, doubting nothing, and suspecting no evil. I thought I would be with them forever, for the Most High created them just, good, and wise and placed them in that pleasant and beautiful place. I rejoiced exceedingly and played before them all the while, for possessing nothing they belonged entirely to God.”

Do you belong to your stuff? Does your stuff belong to you? I have a lot of stuff and it has me thinking of Chrysostom’s words, “Not to share our own riches with the poor is a robbery of the poor, and a depriving them of their livelihood; and that which we possess is not only our own, but also theirs.”

Or, as Traci Blackmon shared: The late Rev. Dr. Prathia Hall says in her sermon "Between The Wilderness and The Cliff" "Indeed if what we do in the pulpit is not good news to the poor, deliverance to the captives, sight to the blind, healing for the broken and freedom for the oppressed, it may be sweet, it may be eloquent, it may even be deep, but it aint preaching!"

Dare we preach this way? Dare we live this way? I don’t know that I have the courage.