CSI: Galilee
Jun. 25th, 2010 06:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogSo it's official. Sunday 10:00 a.m. I am giving a denominational-sanctioned sermon at Ontario Street United Methodist Church. Somebody Else wrote out the service, Somebody Else Else will be doing all the other readings. All I have to do is expound for ten minutes on the assigned Gospel reading for the morning.
Did the Common Lectionary selection committee give me something inspirational? Personally relevant? At least something everybody is familiar with? Of course not. I (and pretty much every Christian pulpiteer who follows this set of weekly readings) will be expounding on Jesus in a badddd mood. It's two separate segments, Luke 9: 51-62 is. In the first, He basically shakes the dust off His feet and curses a village that refused to receive them. A far improvement over His disciples' plan, which was to "call fire down from heaven to destroy them." I am actually going to reference Dogma at this point:
Loki: You get off light in razing. You got to stand there and read at Sodom and Gomorrah, I had to do all the work.
Bartleby: What work did you do? You lit a few fires.
Loki: I rained down sulphur, man, there's a subtle difference. Any moron with a pack of matches can set a fire. Raining down sulphur is like an endurance trial, man. Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, outside of soccer.
Okay, I might not use the whole of that quote.
The second half of the reading is then a series of divine bon mots tossed at a variety of would-be followers, who fail to impress Jesus with their focus on the faith. As I mulled it all over at 3 a.m., after my first draft but just as the gorram skunk was stinkbombing our back yard for the second time of the night (nobody got sprayed, thank God, and I do), it occurred to me how to update these exchanges for a dumbed-down 21st century audience. Unfortunately, I won't have access to Powerpoint and a projector, or else I'd just put this up and bring my "Won't Get Fooled Again" CD:
The betting window is now open on whether they'll ever let me do a second one.
Did the Common Lectionary selection committee give me something inspirational? Personally relevant? At least something everybody is familiar with? Of course not. I (and pretty much every Christian pulpiteer who follows this set of weekly readings) will be expounding on Jesus in a badddd mood. It's two separate segments, Luke 9: 51-62 is. In the first, He basically shakes the dust off His feet and curses a village that refused to receive them. A far improvement over His disciples' plan, which was to "call fire down from heaven to destroy them." I am actually going to reference Dogma at this point:
Loki: You get off light in razing. You got to stand there and read at Sodom and Gomorrah, I had to do all the work.
Bartleby: What work did you do? You lit a few fires.
Loki: I rained down sulphur, man, there's a subtle difference. Any moron with a pack of matches can set a fire. Raining down sulphur is like an endurance trial, man. Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, outside of soccer.
Okay, I might not use the whole of that quote.
The second half of the reading is then a series of divine bon mots tossed at a variety of would-be followers, who fail to impress Jesus with their focus on the faith. As I mulled it all over at 3 a.m., after my first draft but just as the gorram skunk was stinkbombing our back yard for the second time of the night (nobody got sprayed, thank God, and I do), it occurred to me how to update these exchanges for a dumbed-down 21st century audience. Unfortunately, I won't have access to Powerpoint and a projector, or else I'd just put this up and bring my "Won't Get Fooled Again" CD:
The betting window is now open on whether they'll ever let me do a second one.