Evaluation: Traveling by a Different Way

TRAVELING BY A DIFFERENT WAY. By Joel W. Huffstetler. Hannacroix, NY: Apocryphile Press, 2025. Xvi + 206 pages. 

The COVID-19 Pandemic that first struck in early 2020 prompted nice ache, struggling, and demise for hundreds of thousands of individuals throughout the globe. We who served spiritual communities struggled to reply to the wants of the second, particularly within the early months of the pandemic. Facing empty sanctuaries, maybe broadcasting companies by means of a smartphone utilizing Facebook or YouTube, whereas being largely separated from our congregations, we did one of the best we may to proceed ministering to the individuals. By early 2021, the pandemic appeared to be winding down, particularly after vaccines turned accessible. We nonetheless needed to be cautious, however we had been hopeful that earlier than too lengthy, we may return to one thing like normalcy.

As for me, I had introduced my pending retirement to my congregation just some weeks earlier than we shut the whole lot down, telling them that I deliberate to retire in June of 2021. I stored my phrase, although most of the plans I had envisioned for these final eighteen months went out the window. Nevertheless, when the day got here for me to step away, I used to be lucky that, as a result of COVID numbers had been fairly low right here in Michigan, the congregation and neighborhood may rejoice my retirement with an enormous celebration. That was one thing my colleagues who retired earlier on within the pandemic couldn’t do. The pandemic, in fact, affected how we preached. Even after individuals began coming again, we needed to be cognizant of its presence and the way it was affecting the individuals in our congregations and past. So, the pandemic would seem now and again within the sermon textual content. How may it not?

Among the preachers who skilled the pandemic and sought to deal with it in sermons was Joel W. Hoffstetler, an Episcopal priest who served throughout the pandemic and continues to function Rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church of Cleveland, Tennessee. He has printed a few sermon collections that replicate that have, the newest being Traveling By a Different Way. The sermons on this assortment had been preached in 2021. In some ways, they construct on an earlier assortment that mirrored the realities of being the church throughout a pandemic that appeared in 2023 beneath the title: Changed Eyes: Pandemic, Protests, Proclamation (Apocryphile Press). I reviewed this e book after its publication, which mirrored on the realities of serving the identical church in 2020 on the peak of the pandemic, but additionally throughout the time of protests that happened after the homicide of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.

This assortment, titled Traveling By a Different Way, displays the context of the continuing experiences of the pandemic. The sermons, which have been revised considerably for publication, observe the Revised Common Lectionary. Huffstetler writes in his preface that the sermons had been shared to satisfy the necessity at a specific time for a specific congregation, however “they were also offered with a view to the future, asking both preacher and hearer: What are the lessons we are meant to be learning during these turbulent times?” (p. xiii). Or, extra theologically, the query posed by the sermons is “How can this time be redeemed?” (p. xiv). This is a query that ought to be requested recurrently, not simply throughout a pandemic. In reality, sermons produced in a second like this one may be of service for occasions like we’re experiencing at this second. We won’t be enduring a pandemic of the kind we did in 2020 and 2021, however the political local weather and the continuing wars present a context that have to be addressed in our preaching.

Now, as soon as upon a time, it was widespread for preachers to publish collections of sermons. Being a historian of the Anglican Church within the eighteenth century, I’ve spent appreciable time with such collections. It is much less widespread to seek out such collections in the present day. Sermons are an oral type of communication, such that one thing will get misplaced when merely being learn. Nevertheless, sermon collections do present materials for examine and meditation. Of course, many preachers, me included, use their sermons as the idea of books. Most of those sermons are completely revised in order that they transcend the second once they had been preached (often, congregation-specific references are edited out). Although these sermons could have been revised, they nonetheless replicate the second they had been first provided. This quantity is obtainable as a group of sermons, although they’ve been revised, making them extra accessible to readers.

Huffstetler’s assortment contains thirty-six sermons. The first of the sermons was preached on the Second Sunday of Christmas, a Sunday that featured because the lectionary studying from the Gospels, Matthew 2:1-12. This textual content tells the story of the go to of the Magi to the Holy Family (minus Herod’s violent response). The remaining sermon within the e book was provided on the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Perhaps noticeably absent from the e book is a sermon for Christmas/Christmas Eve. The sermons cowl each Sunday, starting with the Second Sunday of Christmas and persevering with by means of Trinity Sunday. As for the season following Pentecost, typically referred to as Ordinary Time, Huffstetler is extra selective (it is a very lengthy season). These sermons replicate texts provided throughout Year B (Revised Common Lectionary). He concludes the gathering with sermons for the 4 Sundays of Advent (Year C). All of those sermons had been preached throughout 2021, the yr that the Delta pressure of the virus popped up simply after we thought life was getting again to regular.

As one reads by means of the sermons, all of which embody the complete biblical textual content on which the sermon is predicated, a reader will discover that Huffstetler could be very attuned to the biblical textual content itself. He addresses essential social and theological questions, however all the time in dialog with the scripture textual content in entrance of him. That he follows the lectionary permits him to give attention to a wide range of texts and matters. Notably absent, nevertheless, are sermons based mostly on the First Reading (Normally, the Old Testament). I’m not certain why that’s, however it’s an fascinating omission. Nevertheless, the sermons invite us to ponder the biblical witness to the issues of God, conserving in thoughts the troublesome context posed by the pandemic.

Although the sermons have an origin level, Huffstetler appropriately notes that they had been provided with a way of their future implications. Thus, they are often learn in the present day in ways in which communicate to the present second. I consider a e book like this may show helpful for preachers who’re coping with these identical texts that observe the Revised Common Lectionary Year B (apart from the 4 Advent sermons, which come from Year C). They will even be learn with worth by others searching for religious nourishment, for that’s the authentic goal of the sermons. Now, if you learn a sermon, you don’t get the complete sense as a result of in printed kind, they aren’t totally embodied. Nevertheless, as a result of they had been provided within the context of a selected congregation, they preserve the private sense {that a} good sermon embodies, in order that they nonetheless communicate even when the reader wasn’t current to listen to them provided in particular person. Because they had been preached throughout a time of disruption, you may maybe really feel what it was like throughout a relatively traumatic interval of our lives. I can say that Joel Huffstetler is, on the very least, a very good author, and I count on he’s additionally a very good preacher!

This review initially appeared on BobCornwall.com.

Robert D. Cornwall is an ordained minister within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Now retired from his ministry at Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Troy, Michigan, he serves as Minister-at-Large in Troy. He holds a Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary and is the writer of quite a few books, together with “Eating With Jesus: Reflections on Divine Encounters at the Open Eucharistic Table” and “Second Thoughts About Hell: Understanding What We Believe” coauthored with Ronald J. Allen. His weblog Ponderings on a Faith Journey may be discovered here.