Dance with the Scripture
We strive to tell the age-old story of Jesus and His love with words so fresh and engaging that they inspire and empower our congregations. As Walter Burghardt affirms in this issue, “The homily is truly a homily not when the believer assents to a proposition and declares, ‘I do believe there are three persons in one God,’ but when the believer asks, ‘What do you want from me, Lord?’” As we each prepare this week’s sermon, we face the daunting, twin challenges of engaging both emotionally and intellectually with the words of Scripture and then finding just the right words to overcome the chaos, break through the barriers, and resonate in the hearts of our listeners. Then we face the same tasks for next Sunday, too.
To attempt to preach faithfully is to face an awesome responsibility. People actually pay attention to what we say in a manner that is qualitatively different from how they listen to entertainment and the mass media. Our congregations actually listen to us without the distractions of advertising and ringing telephones. And they listen to us without the cynicism and skepticism that they commonly apply to what they hear in the news, watch on the screen, or receive from their political leaders. We must, then, “tell the story” with authenticity and with our own, true voice. And authentic preaching is impossible without the preacher first having an authentic personal encounter with the Word.
Minka Sprague is the Deacon of St. James Episcopal Church in Jackson, Mississippi. When she taught New Testament exegesis at New York Theological Seminary, she diligently taught students how to use the lexicons, Gospel Parallels, Strong’s Concordance, and a host of commentaries; but she always stressed that the most important prerequisite for our personal encounter with the Word was to first “dance with the Scripture.” Dance with it. See how it feels, how it moves, where it directs us. Get up close to it. Don’t let all the other interpreters and commentators get in between us and Scripture. This has proven to be a priceless lesson in both my preaching and my personal faith walk.
To help us all dance with the Scriptures, this issue gathers a dazzling array of commentators — Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, young, old, men, women, scholars, preachers, and even an actor. Within their diversity, we hope you will find your own dance — whether it is an intimate slow-dance, a formal waltz, an incendiary tango — or all three!
