2009
Judith Lynn Harmon
Re-Membering Our Stories: Preaching Christ’s Body Whole
This project, explored in the Association of Chicago Theological Schools Doctorate of Ministry in Preaching program, has grown out of an initial concern about the dichotomy in traditional Christian theology between body and spirit. Embodied preaching is reaching with integrity and wholeness. The preacher has a unique opportunity to model with word and body how Christians are to understand their bodies in the sight of God and in the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Through providing experiences of bodily participation and interaction with the preacher and sermon, through the creation of sermons that embody the lived experience and collective wisdom of the community and through the physical body of the preacher defining and at the same time risking personal boundaries, the preacher conveys the message that all of our stories are important to communal memory. The naturally developing outcome of this project was to bring to communal knowledge, by means of a collaborative sermon, the stories of our embodiment which have been denied by the body/spirit disconnect often learned from the church. The collaborative sermon allowed listeners to hear difficult stories and challenging topics, because it was in their own voice.