Three vignettes of unexpected preachers

Monday Eucharist at MANNA, where community members are invited to preach.

I.

The reading was the Good Samaritan in Luke. Christy¹, a formerly unhoused mother, got up to preach. Looking down at her paper full of hand written notes, she began her sermon with a question:

Have you ever been robbed or had all your things taken from you?

I gasped under my breath.

And when you sit on the sidewalk, no one seems to look at or notice you?

My heart stopped.

Until one person who is filled with the Lord Jesus walks by and talks to you.

To say I was stunned is an understatement. This was like no sermon I’d heard before. I could literally feel my soul breaking open as she spoke.

Until that day, I had never in my life read the Good Samaritan from the perspective of the person in the ditch. When I read it or hear it preached, it’s always a question of “which of the three on the road will you be?”

After Christy’s sermon, it was clear what a privileged reading I’ve had, thinking that I’m always the one in the position to either ignore or help others, but never the other way around.

The Good News I heard that day was that I didn’t always have to be the person on the road. It’s okay if I find myself in the ditch in need of help. It’s okay if I’m the one who needs a neighbor filled with the love of God. Jesus is the Good Samaritan, and my neighbor is the face of Christ to me.

I’ve been going to church all my life and have heard countless Good Samaritan sermons. Why did it take me 30 years to hear this version?

Because I’ve never had a preacher who most identified with the person in the ditch.

I need Christy’s proclamation to understand the fullness of Jesus’ story. My understanding of that Gospel has been limited for far too long.

I need Christy’s proclamation to be reminded that I’m not always the one on the road, but also find myself in the ditch, in need of a friendly stranger who’s filled with the love of God to care for me. I need the Body of Christ, I cannot do this alone.

I need Christy’s proclamation to bring color to my world, so that when I see a neighbor on the sidewalk, I hear her story of being unnoticed and ignored. My ability to share God’s compassion increased because of her courage to share her story.

I need Christy’s proclamation because I often forgot God’s part in the story, and she put Jesus front and center, where he should’ve been all along.

II.

On another Monday a few weeks later, I heard Betty² preach on the bent over woman in Luke 13.

She began her sermon by describing all the ways women find themselves bent over: taking care of children, cleaning the floors, cooking for the family. She shared her keen observation that women are often bent over doing something for someone else, keeping it all together.

That was deeply resonate with me. I walked into service that day spiritually bent over, wearied by the demands on my shoulders and the weight of this transitional season of life. I walked into service feeling like I needed to do more and be more because things were falling apart on my watch but I couldn’t seem to carry it all.

Though as Betty astutely pointed out, Jesus can’t look us in the eyes when we’re bent over, looking down, busy doing everything else, carrying the weight of the world. When we’re hunched over, we don’t even notice Jesus entered the room.

This is why Jesus goes to seek the woman out. While still bent over, he tells her she’s free. He speaks this freedom to her in her weakest moment, and there’s nothing she has to do to receive it. It’s such good news that she finally lifts her gaze to his and stands up straight.

I’ve heard a lot of sermons on the bent over woman and other down and out Biblical characters, but they’re often talked about being “out there.” Not us, but them.

This was the first sermon I’ve heard preached from the freed bent over woman herself.

I need Betty’s proclamation because the bent over woman was not “out there,” but was standing tall and strong in front of me, freed by Jesus himself, speaking to another bent over woman in the sanctuary chair.

I need Betty’s proclamation, because I need preachers who know the female experience, what it’s like to feel ignored by everyone else, to feel the weight of the world on your shoulders. She’s lived that. She deeply understood how I was walking in that day.

I need Betty’s proclamation and her truthful modern-day retelling, for me to feel seen just as Jesus saw that bent over woman. In naming a thing what it is, I was also freed that day.

I need Betty’s proclamation because it’s often through words that we are healed. I needed to hear that I was enough, that I was sought out and loved, that I didn’t have to carry it alone. In hearing this good news, I was met with the gaze of Jesus that afternoon and left worship standing a little straighter than I walked in.

III.

The first Christmas service that Rev Debbie Little led for people on the street was held at the South Station in Boston. They set up chairs in a circle - about eight people showed up - and she read the Christmas Eve lesson from Luke thinking she might say some words afterwards.

“And then a guy across from me in the circle, I could hear him take an inbreath. And he said, ‘I wish I'd been like Joseph and stayed with my woman.’”³

Can you imagine? Even in her retelling of the story, I understand the Christmas Gospel in a whole new way. Layers upon layers are opened up as Joseph and Mary are given even more color.

This Christmas moment at South Station was when Debbie experienced the power community voices have in understanding scripture. She realized she didn’t hold all the wisdom or knowledge, and that she had much to learn from her community.

After this, she began the practice at street worship which is still practiced by common cathedral and many other street churches to this day. The preacher offers a brief sermon before inviting others to share their thoughts and inspiration.⁴

Community members will come up to the mic or speak from where they’re sitting, offering their own stories in response to scripture. It is not another form of Bible study, but a continuation of the stories in scripture as the community connects their own lives to the story of God’s people.

The reflections shared were not always earth shattering, but I did begin taking notes when they shared things I had never heard before. My heart was regularly opened in new ways by people who had no formal biblical or theological education.

The Word was alive and breathing and moving in these communities, as we wrestled with it together, finding the hope, naming the questions, telling the stories.

The Word was made flesh and dwelled among us.

I need their proclamation as a testimony to how God is acting in the world today.

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On first glance, there seems to be a lot of risk that comes with giving lay people the pulpit for proclamation. It requires holding a space for people to share and be respected. It takes the pastor’s time to help a lay preacher understand what a sermon is and guide them through thinking about sometimes challenging scripture passages. It also means ministry leaders have to compassionately address harmful comments in the moment when and if they come up.

But sermons like these remind me that the Body of Christ is worse off if we don’t take these risks.

I need Christy’s proclamation to help me identify with a different character in the story.

I need Betty’s sermon to boldly name the human condition and in doing so, be met with the liberation of Jesus.

I need my neighbor’s response to paint a modern-day picture of what Jesus means for our world today.

Each of God’s children have something to teach us about who God is and how God is acting in the world. Pastors and theologically trained nerds (like me) don’t hold all the knowledge, and we should check our hubris at the door if we think we do.

I am confident that we will be transformed by the multitude of voices, if we give people a place to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.

We will be transformed not by anything we do, but because the Holy Spirit is moving through the Word in ways that we cannot contain or imagine.

🌬️

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These reflections, experiences, and dedicated time for writing is thanks to the generosity of The Reverend Janet Karvonen-Montgomery Preaching Fellowship from Luther Seminary. You can learn more about Rev Janet and the Fellowship here.

The Refectory is a place to wonder about how God is showing up in the world and our lives. Sign up to receive future musings straight in your inbox.

1. Not her real name.

2. Not her real name.

3. In Rev Debbie’s dissertation, she remembers it this way: “Eight people were in that first gathering, including Bobby, who talked about how he wished he could forgive his wife her infidelity as Joseph did Mary.”

4. This practice is also done at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco, showing that it can be done in indoor church, too.