Next Sunday, I will be preaching at my internship site for the first time. I’m not nervous about it …. yet … but I will probably feel more comfortable once I actually compose a manuscript. The problem with preaching in Year A, for me at least, is the fact that the gospel reading is 40 verses long. There’s a lot there that I could focus on. I have a few ideas but I’m trying to follow the advise one of my supervisors told me: don’t do too much. At the moment, I’m leaning towards talking about purity but that just might be due to all my old testament classes that I have taken this year.
I do find it interesting, however, that my most recent visual experience of watching someone being nervous at the front of a church came from my pastoral care class during a viewing of Six Feet Under. I forget the character’s name but the semi-in-the-closet gay undertaker is standing by the lectern in his conservative Episcopal parish and is being installed as a deacon. As he stands up there, he blink. When he opens his eyes, the pews have changed from being filled with upper crust WASPs to being filled with well-built, hairless, topless young men. And near the back, a dead female porn star, with deep red lips, winks at him while she blows him a kiss. I don’t think this experience will happen to me but I find it at least a tad more entertaining than imagining everyone in their underwear. It’s probably more likely that I’ll see a room full of Iron Man Mark 2s and Pepper Potts will be saying that only I can save the day.
And speaking of Iron Man, who else is excited about the Captain America movie? Stark’s dad making an appearance makes me happy.