For four years now I have been engaged in the Institute's semi-annual colloquy for preachers. About thirty of us, or-dained and lay, Jew and Christian, take an afternoon to browse through and chew over passages that are coming up in Advent or Lent or Easter. The formats vary, but our goal is simple: to craft sermons that are honest, relevant, and inter-esting without disparaging the other. We strive to let the sparks fly through the gap between human imagination and divine revelation.

Preaching in Advent

We are especially alert to the ways in which Christians have distorted Jewish texts. For instance, in November 1997 the Revs. Robert Albright and David Yeager did a thorough job of deconstructing the Advent hymn, "O Come, O Come, Emmanu-el." Its haunting medieval melody, a great popular favorite, accompanies a text that is filled with supersessionist distor-tions, for the hymn imposes triumphal images about the Christ onto symbols in the Hebrew Bible that may or may not be "messianic." The hymn is wrapped in the assumption that "Israel" is mourning in lonely exile, waiting for "the Son of God" to appear. Bob confessed that he could no longer use this hymn; those of us who will continue to sing it during Advent nevertheless realize that we cannot ignore the problems it raises.

Preaching in Easter

Rosann Catalano is the impresario for these productions, usually opening and closing the events led by others. But last March she was the leader in our study of the lections from the Book of Acts, appointed to be read in most churches during the eight Sundays from Easter through Pentecost. Many of us saw for the first time how

Apologetic    + Polemic   Propaganda

heavily Luke has weighted his story of the early church against "the Jews" -- in Judea and in the Diaspora -- and in favor of the Romans, who seem never to have done anything wrong. Even their role in the crucifixion of Jesus is whitewashed! This set us the task in our Easter preaching of explaining what Luke was doing; namely, trying to commend the Christians to the Roman authorities as law-abiding citizens, in contrast to the touble-some and rebellious Jews at war with Rome. His portrait of Paul, whose "conversion" is described three times, is quite dif-ferent from the apostle, who testifies in Romans of his yearning for reconciliation. My notes for the day conclude with "Luke: apologetic + polemic = propaganda." No wonder my Easter preaching was centered on Luke's contemporary, John the Divine, whose Book of Revelation is a more faithful and loving account of God's message to his people.

In short, the preaching colloquies are truly mosaic, in both senses of the word: like the Torah, they teach, engage, con-front, judge, and bless; like the ancient art form, they turn tiny pieces of light into dazzling images of holiness. Come join us!