Reading Up: Knowing your message and preaching to the margins.

Reading Yvette Flunder's chapter in Birthing the Sermon, I was struck by two things: 1) She has such a clear understanding of the underlying gospel message she is charged with preaching. She writes, "That struggle [for equality, parity, and justice] is the long, strong, deep, resonant bass line of all I preach, sing, and pray about" (68). 2) She also has a deep sense of who her audience is when she preaches--those who are marginalized or feel marginalized by the church.

What is the bass line for my preaching? The line everything else hangs on?

And who is my audience? I already have a hint at this--I feel called to preach to those who don't realize that the church could be for them, that the gospel message could be for them, that God could be for them. Marginalized? Yes.

Favorite Quotes:

• "Mine is a voice that passionately preaches justice and freedom with responsibility; however, not to the exclusion of Jesus" (68).
• "People who have for generations been abused by the preaching of the Bible need to hear the Bible preached in ways that affirm and validate them" (68).
• "The gospel is from the community as well as to it" (69).
• "It is not enough for me to simply be profound; I must seek to be a profound blessing, by hearing from God and paying close attention to the 'voice' of the listening congregation" (69).
• "We all keep secrets, so what would they[the biblical writers] rather we did not know?" (71).
• Preaching to people who are on the edge of society and the mainline church must have good content and good form. Preaching to marginalized people mus be believable, powerful, and passionate" (73).