Category: Homiletics

The final model is to synthesize the two perspectives. This is what Benjamin Reaves called, “Finding the liberation components of our message.” Here the preacher has in mind concrete human experience and attempts to note how Adventism addresses that. Does the Sabbath have anything to say to the woman who is barely keeping her head above water while being discriminated against at her job?

Howard Thurman asked the question, “What does Christianity have to say to those who’s back is up against the wall?” I ask the same question of Adventism. What does it have to say to those at the bottom? It is time to preach a liberation Adventism that is relevant to human experience.

Two Sermons on Incarnation

The other day I heard a sermon on the incarnation by a preacher. The preacher stated that God became human. You better believe that Jesus became human and not believe the errors taught by many people. He attacked Bishop John Spong as well as the Davinci code. He then ended by saying that He will hold on to the real Jesus.

The sermon didn’t really address concrete human experience. It simply taught a lecture on how Spong and the book Davinci code is incorrect. But a few years ago I heard a sermon by Henry Wright on the incarnation. I forget the title of the message, but Wright looked at the genealogy of Jesus. Wright noted the problem people you find in that genealogy. Wright noted how understands the pains of a bad family tree. Jesus understands the pain of not having the house that you would want. Jesus understands the pains of growing up poor. Jesus understands, and Jesus is with us in that pain that we find ourselves today.

And I will add, that if we find ourselves up against the wall, we can simply call on Jesus and Jesus knows by experience just how much grace is needed to wait on that paycheck when the rent is due. Jesus knows by experence what it mans to “not have anywher to lay his head.”

Synthesis for a Larger View of the Doctrines

Here the doctrine of the Incarnation is looked at through the hermeneutic perspective of the weak and the downtrodden. Can we do the same thing with the Sabbath? Can we do the same thing with the State of the Dead? that is our calling. Preach the Sabbath through the perspective that God has given us. We can’t just preach the same sermons as everyone else and only use “ebonics” we must preach a Black infused Adventism.

And what we will see when we do this, is that other cultures will see a relevant word as well, for ultimately we all have a need to hear Adventism address the real world. And it will for ultimately Adventists will preach with a loud voice that message of Revelation 14:6-12, if we preach it right, the world will known and understand how that message affects our daily living.

The next model is what I have called a simplistic integration of the cultural perspective and our Adventism. Here the preacher might preach an authentic Black sermon, and just tack on a phrase or so from Adventism. Adventism is not in the fabric of the sermon, but it is a tack on. One might make reference to the Sabbath when the Sabbath had nothing to do with the sermon. One might talk about “the dead being dead” or the like.

Another way to follow this model is the take an Adventist sermon and try to tack on some “blackness.” Sometimes preachers will take a common Adventist sermon and maybe speak it in a “ebonics style.” Perhaps one will have an illustration about “you can’t go play ball with your hommies on the Sabbath.” In essence the sermon is unchanged. There is a slight change in terminology, but in essence Black culture and Adventism are still separate.

Often times when we speak of relevance this is the model that is followed. While making use of “black” English is helpful and valuable at times, this is not really an interaction of the two perspectives. But it does at least attempt to bridge the two worlds. This is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction, but in the next model we will look at the model that I propose.

The first model of relating Adventism to the Black experience is to not relate them. This approach would take one of two forms. The preacher would either preach Adventism or preach on issues related to Black experience. In other words the preacher might preach on the relation of the the Sabbath to the Gospel or preach on how the Gospel affects the educational plight of black people.

Some preachers would sometimes preach on issues of relevance to black culture and then other times preach on “Adventist” issues. What it means however is that one’s sermons are either Authentically black, or authentically Adventist, but not both, certainly not at the same time.

The problem with such an approach is that it makes Adventist teachings irrelevant for daily living. Whenever the preacher preaches on Adventism the people will not hear about the God who is working things out for their daily living. Instead the people will hear something devoid of human experience.

Too often this is how Adventism is presented and preached. I think that we must put a little Adventism in our Black cultural preaching and put a little Blackness in our Adventist preaching. How do we do that?

We will continue looking at another model for this interaction in the next post of this series.