Oh how quickly we forget. Barbara Brown Taylor taught me that preaching, really good preaching, is prayer and it is also art. Oh sure, it is also intellect and evangelism and education, but it is definitely art. It’s also pastoral care, but preaching, really good preaching, speaks to the time in which the sermon is preached. I went out to YouTube to find a good BBT sermon and found this one. I saw that it was preached recently, on July 16, 2013. In the very beginning she references what happened “yesterday.” Well, I could not for the life of me think about what happened on July 15, 2013. I did what any good technologically dependent person does, I Googled “news on July 15, 2013” I am not going to give it away, because if you don’t remember what emerged as news on July 15, you need to look it up yourself and be as chagrined as I was.
Also, her sermon reminded me of a classmate in one of my courses at Columbia Seminary. We might even have been studying this same parable (The Good Samaritan), and when we did, my classmate shared that a few years ago, she had happened by an accident and a person who was in need of CPR. She resuscitated him and when he came to, he asked who had saved him. When the woman was identified, he took one look at her, an African-American woman, and said, “I’d rather be dead.” The classroom took in a collective gasp. Then, while looking at this beautiful woman of God next to me, I realized that while I am deeply saddened and appalled that this could still be the response to someone who is “different” or “other” from us, from me, I was most amazed that she could still be faithful, loving and seeking to minister to God’s children, no matter who or where they were.
So, pray Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermon, hear her art and craft, and be convicted this day.
