Overview

With this memoir doubling as an exercise in theological reflection, Mark Lloyd Taylor invites readers to explore the work and play of a year of preaching. A turbulent and supersaturated year of life in the world, featuring parish departures and resilience, a housing crisis in neighborhood and city, the inauguration of Donald Trump as president with attendant social/political/economic issues. ISIS, Iraq, and Syria. Displaced people at the southern border. Sexual violence against women. Race in America. Feminist, womanist, and process theologies propel Taylor's twelve sermons across the 2016-17 church year (Lectionary Year A). But at its most imaginative, the adult work of preaching becomes child's play. Sermons carried by verbal and visual and tactile images. Walking makes the way. Straying beyond fences of hatred and staying beyond. A broken porcelain bowl mended with gold. A seven-foot-tall assemblage of kimchi pots no longer buried by fear. An icon of the great faith of the Canaanite woman, great enough to convert Jesus. Every single one of us a little baby Sophia, living and moving and having our being in the universal womb of God, our mother. All to fill corners and empty spaces in our imaginations.

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9781666735956

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Reviews

Mark Taylor's sermons and the memoir around them are a playful, earnest, and transformative reminder that the Scriptures live when they are preached, interpreted, and examined with wonder. This work is worth savoring and will take you deeply into the text of the Bible, as well as the text of our everyday Christian lives. --Alissa Newton, Canon for Congregational Development and Leadership Formation, Episcopal Diocese of Olympia What I love about Mark Taylor's book is that it gives us both a look at a variety of sermons preached in different formats . . . and a peek into the preacher's rich world of context, influence by others, and self-discovery along the way. Such an interesting and satisfying read! --Melissa M. Skelton, Assisting Bishop, The Diocese of Olympia Mark Taylor has found the secret sauce of preaching: integrity, faithful engagement with Scripture, profound love for a community of listeners, and formidable capacity for honest self-reflection grounded in the world we live in. The result is a special blend of personal theology infused with a rich blend of Christian traditions, served up as twelve delectable courses, each of which leaves us, like the finest meals, both satisfied and looking forward to the next. --Sara Fischer, Rector, Saints Peter and Paul Episcopal Church

Author Information

Mark Lloyd Taylor is Professor Emeritus at Seattle University, having taught theology, worship, and preaching there for twenty-five years. He serves St. Paul's Episcopal Church (Seattle, Washingon) in many roles, including Associate for Liturgy and Godly Play teacher, and is a licensed lay preacher in the Diocese of Olympia. Taylor's scholarship addresses the love of God; body, gender, and Jesus Christ; feminist, womanist, and process theologies; Melville and Kierkegaard; emergent worship; and child theology.

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