NIV, on my knee, 'Phesians 3

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Calla Lily
Acts 13:15, NIV.  "After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the synagogue leaders invited them, 'Brothers, if one of you has a sermon for the people, please speak.'"

As we meet on Sunday mornings for worship, we know there will be hymns, prayers, scriptures, announcements, sharing and most certainly, a sermon, “a talk on a religious or moral subject, especially one given during a church service and based on a passage from the Bible (Microsoft online dictionary).” The dictionary lists synonyms: homily, address, talk, discourse, oration, lesson, preaching, teaching, peroration.

I like the last one. 

What place does the peroration hold in your thinking about worship? Is it more like a personal opinion expertly or not-so-impressively delivered? Or is it the inspired voice of prophecy, like Zechariah trying desperately to guide the children of Israel onto better pathways? Something between maybe?        

            For any communication to be helpful, inspiring and/or informative, the listener needs to be involved. The power, the significance of a peroration is wasted if—as is a general case—we sit unprepared for a challenge, waiting to be waited on. Occasionally we note a member of the congregation armed with pen and paper, prepared to take notes. That’s active listening. Occasionally, a pastor might announce sermon topics or texts on a group Facebook page, and the option to do some advance thinking, reading is there for us … if we’re active participants, or at least more than passive recipients.

Not like the man coming home from church to a wife ill with a cold. “So what was the sermon about?” she asks.

He thinks for a minute, then says, “Sin.”

“Well what did he say about ‘sin?’”

Another pause. “I think he’s against it.”

And after the sermon, do I retain at least the gist of it? Do I verbalize to the giver of the peroration some response, ask for further clarification? Maybe even take exception on occasion? For that, memory has to serve us past the doxology, at least.

So I end with a tongue-in-cheek bit of doggerel on what’s called a mnemonic device, a phrase or object or image that helps one remember a sermon long enough to facilitate pondering its significance, even after leaving the foyer:

 

NIV, ON MY KNEE, ‘PHESIANS 3, or

Mnemonic sermon-remembering devices.

Right after church, October 30, 2022

 

We all face east except our Pastor R

Who preaches westward, while we listen … east ...

Toward the rising sun …

               … the mind wanders

Ephesians 3: a letter to people I’ve never known in a city I’ve never been

It’s at NIV, on my knee, chapter 3, and … (let’s see …)

Corinthians, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians

 

A body’s made of arms, legs, hands, eyes, ears

A lesson in anatomy? of course, it’s metaphor:

A hand that tells a leg, “I verily need you not”

A house- (not church) fly lands on 3 verse 8

(NIV, on my knee, ‘phesians 3)

Although, “Although I am less than the least of

all the Lord’s people,”

(You, fly, I think, are least of all creation)

I watch him crawl to 4:13 “until we all reach unity in the faith …"

And back again to 3

Until we all reach unity, I think

Good luck with that, good luck with that.

 

The fly treads softly on my ear

Dive bombs my nose and lands again on

(NIV, on my knee, ‘phesians 3) … verse18

“to grasp how wide and long and high and deep,

the love of Christ.”

The Holy Spirit (riding on a fly??”)

Ghosts in and out and says

“Do not forget Ephesians 3,” and then

“My work here’s done, buzz buzz.”

NIV, on my knee, ‘phesians 3

NIV, on my knee, ‘phesians 3

NIV ….

 

 

 

 

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