Sermon Sample One
"A.D."
Acts 5:27-32
April 16, 2007
Given at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary The video above contains my senior sermon, which was delivered in the chapel of
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary on April 16, 2007.
Sermon Focus:
Acts 5:27-32 is a text about the
kerygma, the public proclamation of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This preaching is carried on by witnesses to the truth of the gospel who have been charged by God through the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit.
Sermon Function: Having heard last week the glorious proclamation of Easter, we find ourselves asking the question: Now what? This sermon is meant to inspire listeners to courageously proclaim the gospel of the crucified and resurrected Christ to a broken world, even in the face of public humiliation and deep skepticism on the part of our cultural high priests.
[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]Sermon Sample Two
"What Sort of King are You, Truthfully?"
John 18:33-38a
November 26, 2006
Given at Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church
Here is an audio recording of a sermon I delivered on Christ the King Sunday (November 26, 2006) at
Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church. About 900 people heard this sermon over three services. Click
here to listen, or right-click the link to download a copy. The sermon text can be read below.
Sermon Focus: Jesus makes the claim that he is King of a Kingdom that transcends our understanding of royalty and power and gives witness to the Truth. Our human institutions of power are ultimately subject to the authority of One Lord of Truth.
Sermon Function: To encourage listeners incorporate the claims of this One Lord of Truth into their family and professional lives, and in the covenantal relationships we have in the Church.
[Click to Show/Hide Sermon Text]
I spent some time today in conversation with a married couple that had recently returned from China. While there as "tourists," they engaged in some underground missionary work. Interestingly, official state-sponsored religious participation China is growing substantially. Cool.
A.D.
Acts 5:27-32
Second Week of Easter
© 2007 by Christopher D. Drew
Introduction
You may have had a similar experience. You’re sitting at your breakfast table at home. Perhaps you’re at a local Austin café. Your sitting with a good friend or significant other, and you agree to buy and share a copy of the local paper. While waiting for that toasted english muffin and fresh cup of coffee, you start divvying up the sections of the paper. If you’ve done this with your friend before, you realize that there is usually one point of contention, especially if this is the Sunday paper we’re talking about: Who gets the funny page first?
I always want that full-color page of funnies before anyone else gets their hands on it. The reason is simple: I greatly dislike reading the dour editorial or news pages while a close acquaintance sits opposite of me, giggling with delight at Garfield’s latest goofiness. Over the years, I think it’s interesting that the comic page, for all its laughter and levity, somehow more closely resembles the truth of our day-to-day lives than anything above the fold, screaming out in tall headlines through the vending machine window.
Today, I’m going to speak about one of these cartoonists. On Saturday, April 7, the day before Easter, much beloved cartoonist Johnny Hart passed away at the age of 76. He passed away, appropriately, at his drawing table. The table was located in a remote spot on his estate overlooking the lake that was on his property. I like to think that Johnny was able to catch one more sunrise before suffering the stroke that ended his life. You may be familiar with the comic strip he drew for over 30 years: “B.C.” Johnny’s cast of characters – practical B.C., peg legged baseball manager and poet extraordinaire Wiley, Neanderthal Grog (who somehow missed an evolutionary cycle), the Fat Broad, Peter, Curls, Thor the wheel used salesman, talking dinosaurs and clams, and a loveable tortoise and his rider, a simple bird who could just as easily fly around but instead prefers the company and pace of her much slower reptilian friend – all of these characters gave us a humorous view into the way Johnny Hart saw things. Comic strip writers use their pen and ink to create unique characters that help us see the world together with the writer. When this happens we receive a gift of a new insight and a chuckle.
Johnny used several familiar setups to get his point across. A recent strip featured Curls standing behind a rock helpfully engraved with the words “Ask Curls.”
“What’s the difference between a monarchy and a democracy,” asks Thor.
“In a monarchy,” Curls replies, “you only have one liar to deal with.”
Peter, reading from a book open on a rock. The rock is engraved and tells us that the book is called “The Book of Phrases.”
“Eating Disorder,” Peter reads.
“Drinking white wine with a hotdog.” No thanks.
“Wiley’s Dictionary” was another famous recurring scene. Witty Wiley always had a fun definition for ordinary words. Some alluded to biblical characters.
Peter upon reading the dictionary sees an entry for “Poop-Deck – A naval term attributed to Noah.”
And finally, one famous character announced who it was with almost every appearance.
“Hi there, I am an apteryx, and wingless bird with hairy feathers. What are you?”
“A burning bush,” the burning bush replies.
“But there is no smoke. Why are you not being consumed?”
The burning bush replies, “That’s what frosts the pollsters.”
Oh yes the grass withers, and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever!
Cartoonists are an interesting bunch. They amuse us, give us reason for pause, and in the case of some editorial cartoons, anger us. Anyone who regularly reads the comics can see that the quality of the artwork is of almost secondary importance. Of utmost importance is the sequence and delivery of comic ideas [gospels deliver information to us in a similar fashion]. Cartoonists, get their laughs by being keen observers of life. They are able to notice things, aspects of human behavior and psychology that we frequently miss. Then, using an uncanny set of gifts, the comic strip writer can synthesize these complex human traits into a three or four frame comic sketch that can leave the reader tearing up with laughter.
Curiously, Johnny Hart, who wrote a humorous cartoon, ended up angering a lot of people, most of them newspaper editors. This was particularly the case later in his career, when “B.C.” became the platform upon which Hart, a Presbyterian, would proclaim the Gospel.
In what was probably his last Easter Sunday strip, appearing the day after his death, Hart once again proclaimed Christ crucified, this time in that tiny little schoolhouse (featuring a sign spelling school “SKOOL”) for ants.
Barbers have the striped pole to signify their trade. My former dentist in San Francisco had a large wood carving of a tooth hanging from a sign outside her office building. Cartoonists like Hart have their work on the printed page. I wonder. Many of the people in this room are now or plan on being preachers. What is the appropriate sign we hang out for all to see, so that all may know who we are and the truths we claim to represent?
Exposition: Acts 5:27-32
Peter and the apostles give us some guidance in today’s passage from the book of Acts. By the time we get to chapter five, the apostles have already been in and out of prison multiple times. In each case, they are locked up for preaching the gospel message of Christ crucified.
This basic message is referred to by the Greek word kergyma. The message of the kerygma is repeated it Acts 2, 3, 5, and 13. The message of the kerygma IS preaching, and the recurring pattern of Acts works something like this.
- Jesus came into the world. He is the messiah.
- He is a fulfillment of all the covenantal promises God made to our ancestors.
- Jesus was killed, having been hung on a tree. The image from the Greek is even more compelling. Verse 30 refers to be “draped out” over the tree, almost like being hung out to dry.
- Jesus has risen, and we are witnesses to these things. Because he lives, we may also live.
The High Priest challenges the apostles, asking why they continue to preach “in this name.” Is it for the purposes of implicating them in the death of Jesus?Actually, no. They preach, Peter answers, because the ultimate source of authority, God, makes it necessary. They are, in fact, compelled to preach. They are compelled by Jesus, who is the leader, or, more closely to the Greek text “the one who leads forward,” and who is our Savior. They are not preaching to impute guilt on anyone. Rather, they are preaching to announce the good news of the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Israel. Repentance! Forgiveness! Because Jesus lives, we may live.
Having been given the gift of the Holy Spirit in chapter two, the apostles now embody the message of the gospel.
Some of you may have noticed that this passage specifically refers to Israel as the recipient of repentance that can only be given by God, and the forgiveness of sins. Some may be tempted to conclude that those not of the nation of Israel are excluded from God’s grace. I argue that this is not so, because the story of salvation in the New Testament begins with the election of Israel on behalf of all the nations of the world. Israel is called to be a priest among the nations, and the light of Zion to which all the nations are ultimately gathered. Israel is a signpost pointing to the repentance and mercy of God.
The Challenge to Us
Peter and the apostles are bound to preach the good news. I mean they are bound, literally. They are bound inextricably to the message of Jesus Christ. They themselves embody the message. During Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, he explained to the Pharisees that even if he ordered his disciples to cease from celebrating, the stones would still cry out. Even in the face of prison and persecution, the disciples continue to proclaim the good news. The prophet Jeremiah proclaims (20:9), “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” This is a message that will be proclaimed, and damn the consequences.
We, along with the disciples, are witness to the reality of the resurrected Christ. We have inherited this same apostolic message, and just as Jesus Christ was charged by the Father to carry His Word into the world, so have the disciples been entrusted to continue this work through the power of the Holy Spirit. We have inherited this same Spirit.
We can “preach” the gospel message, friends, but it has no traction unless we first embody the message as our predecessors have. We embody the message and proclaim it not just with our spoken words, but also with our actions, by the “content of our character.” To be sure, our work does not buy us our salvation, but it is evidence of Christ working in us through the Holy Spirit.
So how do we embody this work? We pray, we celebrate a communion that binds us with Christ and with one other, and we proclaim the good news. This means becoming, in a more literal sense, a “body” of work, a body that is part of a larger body of faith in Jesus Christ, and which is the body of Jesus Christ. We are charged, friends, with helping others to see something that we see, just as the comic book artist helps others see some aspect of the world that they might have otherwise been missed. We are called to help other see a specific message: Jesus lives, and therefore we all may live, freely, fully, abundantly, and joyfully.
Experience of Rejection – Expect It
Johnny Hart, beloved by many, nevertheless experienced rejection by a few of our culture’s most staunch guardians, the editors of newspapers, individuals who, with their decisions, decide what you, dear reader, should and should not know. Hart’s cartoon gospel was cut on several occasions. The good news of the gospel was not something to be heard in public.
Friends, editors are going to try and cut our message as well. In fact, you can count on it! Moreover, you can count on these same editors doing whatever they can to actively supplant the gospel with their own versions of “good news.” [Refer to recent WSJ article about “Atheists Seizing the Pulpit.”] The gospel carries too many serious implications for transformation, for new resurrection life. Our culture’s self-appointed guardians are reluctant to accept this message. The reason is pretty straightforward. We live in a culture that thrives on the quick fix. The answer to almost any question can be secured through one of two devices: A credit card, and/or Google. The gospel isn’t any quick fix.
Don’t we sometimes act as our own editors as well? I know that I’m my own editor. I’ll hit the delete key on the keyboard to hide what may be considered a “controversial” thought. I creatively arrange words in order to avoiding offending someone. I’ll silently repress my own conscious in order to supplant the good news of the gospel with what, during some delusion of grandeur, I decide is “better” news. Symptoms of this editing abound not only in the larger culture but also within the church, and in ourselves. We need to be on our guard for this kind of editing.
In 1996, the Los Angeles Times refused to run a Palm Sunday “B.C.” cartoon featuring the affable and poetic character, Wiley. The poem was entitled “The Suffering Prince.”
What do you suppose the rejection letter from the editor said? Can you imagine what it might sound like? I think I can, and it sounds something like this:
“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled our readership, all of Los Angeles (the City of Angels) with your teaching.”
If we are serious about hanging out our sign by embodying the gospel of the resurrected Christ, and proclaiming it out of the fire within our bones, we might take the same approach as good ol’ Wiley who, thoughtfully and carefully, under the shade of a beautiful tree, freely penned the following Palm Sunday message, despite the demands that he cease and desist:
[The Suffering Prince]
Picture yourself tied to a tree,
condemned of the sins of eternity.
Then picture a spear, parting the air,
seeking your heart to cut your despair.
Suddenly—a knight, in armor of white,
stands in the gap betwixt you and its flight,
And shedding his 'armor of God' for you—
bears the lance that runs him through.
His heart has been pierced that yours may beat,
and the blood of his corpse washes your feet.
Picture yourself in raiment white,
cleansed by the blood of the lifeless knight.
Never to mourn,
the prince who was downed,
For he is not lost! It is you who are found.
This poem is the gospel this Easter season, friends, and it is precisely this message that is cut by our cultural editors. He came, he died for us, and now we may truly live.
We can thank the Johnny Harts of the world for giving us a great example of what it means to see the truth together. In fact, he did it not only by using his characters but also through the wonderful irony contained his comic strip’s title. With “B.C.” what Hart was really doing was proclaiming the good news of “A.D.” You don’t need a special degree or a specific religious church calling to proclaim the gospel. You can be a cartoonist, a receptionist, a mechanic, a doctor, or even an ex-consultant.
May no editor, including our own little internal editor, ever squelch this glorious message of God’s love for us. Jesus came, lived among us, ministered to us, was crucified, and was raised on Easter morning, not so that we might be found guilty, but so that we might truly live in freedom from sin and it’s chief symptom, which is death. So in this second full week of Easter,
“Picture yourself in raiment white,
cleansed by the blood of the lifeless knight.
Never to mourn,
the prince who was downed,
For he is not lost! It is you who are found.”
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.