http://www.graceseattle.org/Haralson111509.mp3
Although I was situated to have heard sermons from this pastor before it was Michael Spenser linking to John Haralson Jr's sermon on Psalm 41 that first caught my attention. I heard the Psalm 41 sermon around the time I was expressing my difficulties with the Psalms as biblical literature. I listened to quite a few of Mike Gunn's sermons on the Psalms and found myself wishing that a certain church Gunn was once affiliated with had even half as good a set of sermons on the Psalms. Well, along the way of listening to sermons on the Psalms I listend to Haralson's sermon on Psalm 41 and that got my attention.
At the church I had been attending, to be brutally honest and with a good chunk of sadness about saying this, the church I was at had a long and miserable history of being pretty irresponsible with Old Testament texts. This has particularly been the weakness of the main teaching pastor, though (to be fair) other pastors have done some great preaching from Old Testament texts. In fact one pastor's sermons on Jonah were great, so great I found them rather convicting and a catalyst for the realization that I actually needed to do the thing I feared doing, starting the search to find a new church to consider home.
So all that I wrote should not be taken to mean the church is the worst church out there, I just got to a point where I realized that my own weaknesses as a practicing Christian and a reader of the scriptures were not going to get helped by being where I was at. Haralson's sermons on Old Testament texts impressed me by being responsible expositions of the text, not the fanciful decorations of Old Testament scripture as an excuse to talk about pet topics I became convinced was a weakness at the church I was at (though, again, to be fair, there's just one who has a particular weakness for that).
All of that is to explain why I have just linked to a sermon when I obviously don't have a habit of linking to sermons. In fact, I don't even really expect you to download the sermon or listen to it because one of the tropes in Christian blogging is to write some big rambling blog entry about some sermon where you have to hear the sermon in order to fully appreciate the three to five sentences of "oh my gosh that was the bestest sermon ever!! Preacher XXXXXX is the best preacher and no one is like Preacher XXXXXX." I realize this entry has already become that and that is why I don't wish to make it a habit.
But the illustration Haralson used resonates with me because, well, I'm a musician. The tale of the musician who wanted to jam with Miles Davis and his band; did so and that disastrously; and who was advised by Davis (so the tale goes) to learn harmony and then come back later--it is a story that makes sense to me even if (as many internet borne tales are) it is simply a modern-day parable. One can be a musician and not a particularly accomplished musician. Haralson built from this to observe that though the grace of God saves us there are promises in the scriptures that are still conditional. I could attempt to explain things in more detail but I don't feel up to it, I'm afraid. I know I would ramble and it will take time to reflect on the sermon, time I would rather spend reflecting in some other setting besides a blog entry.
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