Homiletical Saturation

I have just returned from a first - my first Ascension Day service of worship. It took place at Peachtree Rd. United Methodist Church in Atlanta and was a culmination of a week where 2,000 or so preacher from across mainline denominations (folks like Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, even a few Baptists, and of course us Presbyterians) gathered to listen to sermons for a change and also listen to some of the best preachers in the nation talk about their craft.

The sanctuary of our host congregation can hold 1500 persons - and it was full! This is a magnificent worship space full of beauty and majesty. (How nice to know that large sanctuaries don't have to be bare auditoriums.) We were blessed to hear Hayden and Beethoven sung by a 75 (I think I counted right) voice choir accompanied by an ensemble from the Atlanta Symphony. Sitting in the balcony, singing "Crown Him with Many Crowns" with the festival trumpets blaring at my back was an amazing experience.

I've always been impressed by the Festival of Homiletics, and that respect is only deepened this year, for this year's edition was filled with new voices, young clergy, and young talented musicians. Most of all, I appreciate the openness to the movement of God in the world. This is not the "dying mainline," entrenched with unchanging tradition. This is a vibrant mainline willing to be honest about the challenges it faces, open to change, but also unashamed of the vital core of faith that is its heartbeat. We heard from pastors of "cutting edge" churches, sang the music of young composers, and dialogued about how traditional churches can speak to an nontraditional world.

Ascension Day celebrates the ascension - the lifting up - of Jesus forty days following Easter. It remembers the departure of his physical presence. It prepares us for the Day of Pentecost when his spiritual presence and power were unleashed upon the disciples and the world. They still are! May that be true for the saints of Seneca Presbyterian Church, where we worship in slightly less grand but just as majestic space, to the glory of the same God whose love is never changing, yet always being made new.