Well, my brain has stopped smoking. It may not have literally been smoking, but it felt like it. I imagined that the little apartment I was using while I was in Sewanee must have smelled like the house used to up north, when you first turn on the heat in the winter and all the dust burns off the radiators. I have not used some of those parts of my brain in a long time!  Academic reading and writing is a skill that like many, you lose when you don’t use it, and I haven’t used those skills for nearly two decades. I wasn’t the oldest, nor the most experienced in the Advanced Degrees Program these last three weeks, but I was close. 

My studies over the next five years will center around preaching. After four years of classes, I will write a dissertation that will make some novel case in terms of parish-based preaching, although I don’t yet know what that will entail. By the end of next year I should have a sense of where I’m going. We’ll see how it takes shape. For this year, I took two classes, which met for two hours a day each, Monday through Friday. My morning class was “The History of Preaching in the North Atlantic Church”, and my afternoon class was “Prophecy in the Body”.  

The history course was a sprint through Christian preaching in the western tradition, noting key preachers and those who taught homiletics and shaped the artform over the centuries. The earliest major influences were the rhetoricians of the ancient world, whose theories still influence preachers to this day. We made it all the way to the present day, with hundreds of pages of reading along the way, reading about preachers, and samples of what they preached.  It was interesting to realize that three such preachers (at least) have preached here at Christ Church: John and Charles Wesley, as well as George Whitefield. I intentionally channeled a little of John Wesley on Sunday for the sermon I was tasked to write during my class. Also, if any of you think my sermons are long…

“Prophecy in the Body” was not specifically a preaching class, yet it had a lot of direct application in preaching. We studied the role of the human body in Hebrew Testament prophetic writings. When I first started the class, I couldn’t figure out how it could be a standalone class, (let alone a book, which the professor is currently finishing for Oxford University Press), but as we got into it, I realized just how little I’ve paid attention to the references involving body, movement, immobility of the body, eating, affect, and so many other ways that prophets embodied their work. I also realized how naturally we divide spirit from body, and often dismiss the body’s role in everyday experiences, let alone in ministry and preaching.

People keep asking if I had fun at Sewanee, and to be honest, fun isn’t the right word. It was a lot of work; I averaged ten hours a day of classes, reading, and writing, including the two weekends I was away. I enjoyed the process, and look forward to future classes, yet I’m also glad it was only three weeks and that I’m now back at home and back in the parish in the “real world.” The time has certainly been invigorating, as it stimulated ideas and connections that wouldn’t normally have been possible. That is ultimately why I decided I wanted to pursue this degree. I don’t need another degree, per se, but I need the rigor of pushing myself to study in ways I tend not to get around to during normal everyday life.  

I know many of you partake of lecture series or guest speakers when they are offered. Some of you have taken or are taking advanced classes of your own, or do the audio/video courses available from several vendors. I’ll say that if you want to study something, study it. It’s good to be stretched and pushed from time to time, to get out of our comfort zones, and to test what we think we know about ourselves and the world. Our Lord was a teacher, and his disciples were students. We are all still students today!

Tom+

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.