From Calumet...

This week I’m going to have a bit of a mystery to solve before I can construct the sermon for Sunday. You see, I pick the hymns and often the sermon titles way before the actual date. The hymns are chosen for several reasons—compatibility with the scripture of the day, the season of the church year, the theme of the sermon, or because it’s a favorite or a new song I’d love to teach you all. The sermon titles often come as inspiration as I read the lessons for the day, and the brief commentary included in Sundays and Seasons, the book that helps me plan worship. A sudden flash of insight, and I write it down.

Then I return to that title several weeks later. Most times I read the title as think, “Oh yeah—I wanted to talk about such and such this week.” Other times, I read it and think, “Whaaaat?” This week is one of the other times.

So for the next few days I’ll be wrestling not only with the text (which is the parables of the mustard seed, etc.), but also with a sermon title that one day made perfect sense, but now, is a puzzlement. Why not just abandon that title, you may ask? It intrigues me, and I feel called to recapture what I had found tucked into this gospel reading. So stay tuned as I report back to you on my quest.

Oh, and the sermon title is: Nearer to Thee.