AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Breadless Sandwich

The sermon is going well, in a sense; I have much to say, a clear sense of how I hope to develop the body of the sermon. The difficulty lies in beginning and ending the thing; so far, no beginning has impressed itself on me, and (as I’ve said before) that’s really quite an essential element in my preaching (especially on a special occasion; the congregation will no doubt indulge me for a sentence or two, but that makes me all the more determined to meet them with a strong starting premise). I know, I could just go ahead and start writing out the middle of the sermon before the beginning — but for some reason, I’m balking at that very sensible step.

The material with which I’m working revolves around the phrase I mentioned earlier, in conjunction with the allusions to God’s glory in the psalm (“For the LORD God is both sun and shield;/he will give grace and glory”) and the epistle (“to the praise of his glorious grace,” “the Father of glory,” “the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints”), mashed up with a couple of other Pauline passages (perhaps particularly 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another”) — all wound around the gospel passage’s evocation of a crew of Gentiles trying to make their way to the incarnation of the God of Israel, not just approving and stating solidarity, but embarking on an arduous journey, offering precious gifts, and humbly acknowledging the belatedness of their affiliation to God.

All that’ll cook, once I get the beginning right.