Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Reverent Satire
With my sermon all ready to go for tomorrow morning, the feast day of William Tyndale, priest and martyr, I turned my attention this evening to preparations for the book discussion small group I will be leading at St. Luke's on Thursdays in October and some of November. I have entitled the group "Reverent Satire", because the two novels we will be reading and discussing are always hilarious, often irreverent, sometimes crude, but usually, genuinely good-natured and good-hearted satires of Christianity. We'll be looking at Christopher Moore's Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, and James Morrow's Towing Jehovah.
Tonight, I thought I would share with you the opening prayer for the group, a collect of my own authorship.
O Holy Spirit, who moves among us and bestows upon us spiritual gifts; grant unto us the gift of grace so to study, discuss, and understand these works of fiction with a serious mind, but not too serious; the freedom to laugh, but not too lightly; the courage to speak our mind, but not to hurt our neighbor; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Father Almighty, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
With many thanks to the Rev. Dan Prechtel for all his instruction and modeling on small group leadership, I will go confident into my first meeting, but I would still ask for your prayers that it be beneficial, edifying, and uplifting to all.
-R
Tonight, I thought I would share with you the opening prayer for the group, a collect of my own authorship.
O Holy Spirit, who moves among us and bestows upon us spiritual gifts; grant unto us the gift of grace so to study, discuss, and understand these works of fiction with a serious mind, but not too serious; the freedom to laugh, but not too lightly; the courage to speak our mind, but not to hurt our neighbor; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Father Almighty, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
With many thanks to the Rev. Dan Prechtel for all his instruction and modeling on small group leadership, I will go confident into my first meeting, but I would still ask for your prayers that it be beneficial, edifying, and uplifting to all.
-R
2 Comments:
"The first time I saw the man who would save the world he was sitting near the central well in Nazareth with a lizard hanging out of his mouth."
Hm...haven't read the Moore novel, but I'll check that one out. I didn't much care for Towing Jehovah...I thought Only Begotten Daughter was better. Not sure I can explain why, but it could be that I didn't have anyone to discuss 'Towing' with.
Er...by the way...did ya know we missed homecoming? Was two weekends ago...
-Hudd
By 
, at
1:12 AM
