I opened my message last Sunday with these words: Depending on how long you have each been a member of this worshiping community, you may have heard what I have to save about Palm Sunday and Holy Week as many as twenty times. Maybe it's time we listen to someone else's words.
And so I introduced my plan for the day -- instead of reading the scriptures from one bible translation or another, I decided to share the stories from other sources -- from the reflections of some of my favorite writers about the scriptures, rather than the scriptures themselves.
I faced every pastor's Holy Week dilemma -- Palm Sunday or the Passion Readings? My choice this year was to go with Palm Sunday and Good Friday. And for the individual reflections, I chose two of my own favorite writers: Frederick Buechner on Palm Sunday, and Barbara Brown Taylor on Good Friday.
The results were better than I had even imagined. We've all heard these scriptures so often that we don't necessarily always need the words from the gospels themselves, and hearing the stories discussed by two masters of their crafts brought them to life in a whole new way for us.
Our post-reading discussion was interesting - questions were asked and (hopefully) answered, we learned new things (all of us - me, included) seeing the stories from a new point of view.
For me, and, hopefully, for the congregation, it was an engaging way to enter into Holy Week and prepare our hearts for the journey to the Easter story.
And so I introduced my plan for the day -- instead of reading the scriptures from one bible translation or another, I decided to share the stories from other sources -- from the reflections of some of my favorite writers about the scriptures, rather than the scriptures themselves.
I faced every pastor's Holy Week dilemma -- Palm Sunday or the Passion Readings? My choice this year was to go with Palm Sunday and Good Friday. And for the individual reflections, I chose two of my own favorite writers: Frederick Buechner on Palm Sunday, and Barbara Brown Taylor on Good Friday.
The results were better than I had even imagined. We've all heard these scriptures so often that we don't necessarily always need the words from the gospels themselves, and hearing the stories discussed by two masters of their crafts brought them to life in a whole new way for us.
Our post-reading discussion was interesting - questions were asked and (hopefully) answered, we learned new things (all of us - me, included) seeing the stories from a new point of view.
For me, and, hopefully, for the congregation, it was an engaging way to enter into Holy Week and prepare our hearts for the journey to the Easter story.
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