ShortStop is dedicated to life's transitions experienced in congregations, personal life, and families. Transitions and what churches call "interim ministry" are "short stops," on the journey to new beginnings. The ShortStop Lectionary Blog is one way to help preachers in the transition times to find ideas from the Revised Common Lectionary. Each text will be considered but the focus each week will be on the text(s) that will be most helpful for preaching during an interim transition time. The preacher will be able to "connect the dots" creatively with themes of the lections.
Year B Proper 17 (22) Fourteenth
Sunday after Pentecost
Song of
Solomon 2:8-13
Struggle with
the Song is good exercise and like good exercise, it is easy to procrastinate!
So I did. There is something here for
interim ministers. This lection, as with
the entire Song of Solomon, is full of the celebration of sensuality and
sexuality. One approach is to use it
solely as a metaphor of Christ’s love for his Church but that seems a little
rigid. Actually, for me, at least, it is
tough to use for preaching in a sense that has integrity. What if we wove the images together? Yes, the divine love for the Church, the
Bride of Christ is deep and passionate. But that very love seems to be
communicated in the Song as a love that we can understand through the lens of
our own blessed humanity of love and sensual passion that creates an almost
sense of the sacred.
Many interim ministers have served congregations that have suffered the
pain of a leader (pastor or lay person) who neglected the sacredness of human
love, sensuality and passion. Many transitional pastors are informally called “after pastors” because they arrive after a
pastoral leader betrayed the boundaries and trust of a congregation. The Song gives opportunity to speak to
healthy boundaries, healthy and healing touch, respect and dignity for the
sacredness of our human sexuality. It is
also a time to speak about the sin of transgressing those boundaries and it’s
pain. In one sermon, I preached about
healthy touch as part of the idea of the Hebrew blessing of another. That simple statement became an invitation
for several to approach me during the week to seek counsel and prayer for the
pain of betrayal they experienced in their lives.
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
Stories and themes repeated also remind us about who we are and where we are going – whether we like it or not. In one transitional congregation where I was the interim minister, a member came to me after the worship service and said, “if I hear that word, ‘interim’, once more, I am going to vomit!” We talked about it and a teachable moment ensued. She recognized her own dissonance with the reality of a pastoral loss and her vision that “everything is the same as it always was”. Her comment taught me that I was doing my job as a transitional leader – the message was being heard. But it also taught me to broaden my vocabulary so that the “re-telling” of the narrative would not shut people down but open their ears to new possibilities.
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Interim Ministry
Specialist
Life Coach for Ministry
Professionals
Toledo, OH
