reviewed by Randy Harris
Go ahead and prepare the way for the shelf space you’ll need for this projected twelve-volume set of commentaries. This smorgasbord of faithful insight has the potential to become something like a favorite cookbook, as its offerings enrich the preacher’s sermon preparation. Westminster John Knox Publishers, under the skilled editing of David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (and a team of twelve volume editors), has released the first volume of Feasting on the Word, a commentary for those who labor faithfully week by week, prayerfully and diligently stirring together words to serve before a congregation.
As those who are familiar with the lectionary know, for every Sunday and feast day the lectionary assigns a reading from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistles, and the Gospels. For each of those four readings, Feasting on the Word offers four essays of approximately 1,000 words each. In separate columns, the essays are written from theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical perspectives. Thus for every Sunday and feast day, sixteen essays (each from a different author) are available to the preacher.
As the preacher imagines the congregation gathered for worship on the first Sunday of Advent, with Jesus’ injunction to “keep awake” in Mark 13:24-37 fresh in the ears of the assembly, here are some of the interpretive words offered from each of the four perspectives for this day:
Theological: “The powers that be will lull us to sleep by reassuring us that they have our best interests at heart as they pursue their worldly agendas. They play to our fears, our prejudices, our self-interests, so we do not notice their demonic behaviors. Beware. Keep alert. Keep awake” (p. 24).
Pastoral: “But let us be clear that while the world’s busyness may seem to be pointed toward Christmas, it is seldom pointed toward the Christ child. As Advent progresses, the number of shopping days left before the big day offers a countdown that stresses us out and keeps us up late. … In this way, the Scripture from long ago reads us, not the other way around. In Advent, we are indeed asleep to much of what matters” (p. 22-23).
Exegetical: “Just as Mark 13:31 seems to reflect the evangelist’s attempt to deal with the delay of the Parousia, so too does Mark 13:32 call the hearer to think beyond the moment because ‘about that day or hour no one knows.’ The lessons here admonish the hearer to be more concerned with being prepared and alert than with knowing the day or hour” (p. 25).
Homiletical: “It is clear that Jesus does not intend for us to predict when he will return. Rather, he is urging us to live as if his return were just around the corner. So there is no time to nod off in a waiting room. Rather, we are to be more like a waiter who is continually busy in serving others and so has no time to sit down and count the tips” (p. 25).
Amidst all of these words (and many, many others for this day), surely the preacher’s own interpretive imagination will be nourished and challenged for the proclamation of the good news that gathers the church for its life and ministry.
Editing this work has been no small task, as literally hundreds of writers have been invited to submit essays. These contributors are pastors and professors, chaplains and administrators, and come from church traditions such as Presbyterian, Methodist, American Baptist, Episcopal, United Church of Christ, and others. This is no fast-food grab-and-go work, but more like an ecumenical potluck supper where the reader is encouraged to savor what has been prepared, and to leave the table with renewed energy for the task of preaching.
Feasting’s greatest strength is this variety of weekly voices and perspectives, which are gathered and channeled toward the proclamation of the church. Each essay is free standing, offering the preacher multiple ways to engage the text. If there is a weakness, it is the weakness of unevenness to which most volumes with multiple contributors is susceptible. In this case, such unevenness may simply be a matter of taste. Just as not every dish on the table appeals to each particular appetite, not every interpreter will resonate with every preacher. Nonetheless, the banquet of interpretation spread herein on the preacher’s preparation table cannot help but assist in satisfying the hunger of the church for a word from the Lord.
Randy Harris is pastor of Highland Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., and book editor for The Presbyterian Outlook.
