Traveling By A Different Way (Joel W. Huffstetler) - Review
The COVID-19 Pandemic that first
struck in early 2020 caused great pain, suffering, and death for millions of
people across the globe. We who served religious communities struggled to
respond to the needs of the moment, especially in the early months of the
pandemic. Facing empty sanctuaries, perhaps broadcasting services by way of a smartphone
using Facebook or YouTube, while being largely separated from our
congregations, we did the best we could to continue ministering to the people. By
early 2021, the pandemic seemed to be winding down, especially after vaccines
became available. We still had to be cautious, but we were hopeful that before
too long, we could return to something like normalcy. As for me, I had
announced my pending retirement to my congregation just a few weeks before we
shut everything down, telling them that I planned to retire in June of 2021. I
kept my word, though many of the plans I had envisioned for these last eighteen
months went out the window. Nevertheless, when the day came for me to step
away, I was fortunate that, because COVID numbers were quite low here in
Michigan, the congregation and community could celebrate my retirement with a
big party. That was something my colleagues who retired earlier on in the
pandemic could not do. The pandemic, of course, affected how we preached. Even
after people started coming back, we had to be cognizant of its presence and
how it was affecting the people in our congregations and beyond. So, the
pandemic would on occasion appear in the sermon text. How could it not?
Among the preachers who experienced
the pandemic and sought to address it in sermons was Joel W. Hoffstetler, an
Episcopal priest who served during the pandemic and continues to serve as
Rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church of Cleveland, Tennessee. He has published
a couple of sermon collections that reflect that experience, the most recent
being Traveling By A Different Way. The sermons in this collection were
preached in 2021. In many ways, they build on an earlier collection that
reflected the realities of being the church during a pandemic that appeared in
2023 under the title: Changed Eyes:
Pandemic, Protests, Proclamation (Apocryphile Press). I reviewed
this book after its publication, which reflected on the realities of
serving the same church in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, but also during
the time of protests that took place after the murder of George Floyd and
Ahmaud Arbery.
This collection, titled, Traveling By A Different Way, reflects the context of the ongoing experiences
of the pandemic. The sermons, which have been revised somewhat for publication,
follow the Revised Common Lectionary. Huffstetler writes in his preface that
the sermons were shared to meet the need at a particular time for a particular
congregation, but "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, more theologically, the
question posed by the sermons is "How can this time be redeemed?" (p.
xiv). This is a question that should be asked regularly, not just during a
pandemic. In fact, sermons produced in a moment like this one can be of service
for times like we are experiencing at this moment. We might not be enduring a
pandemic of the sort we did in 2020 and 2021, but the political climate and the
ongoing wars provide a context that must be addressed in our preaching.
Now, once upon a time, it was
common for preachers to publish collections of sermons. Being a historian of
the Anglican Church in the eighteenth century, I have spent considerable time
with such collections. It is less common to find such collections today.
Sermons are an oral form of communication, such that something gets lost when
simply being read. Nevertheless, sermon collections do provide material for
study and meditation. Of course, many preachers, myself included, use their sermons
as the basis of books. Most of these sermons are thoroughly revised so they transcend
the moment when they were preached (usually, congregation-specific references
are edited out). Although these sermons may have been revised, they still
reflect the moment they were first offered. This volume is offered as a
collection of sermons, though they have been revised, making them more
accessible to readers.
Huffstetler’s collection includes
thirty-six sermons. The first of the sermons was preached on the Second Sunday
of Christmas, a Sunday that featured as the lectionary reading from the
Gospels, Matthew 2:1-12. This text tells the story of the visit of the Magi to
the Holy Family (minus Herod’s violent response). The final sermon in the book was
offered on the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Perhaps noticeably absent from the book
is a sermon for Christmas/Christmas Eve. The sermons cover every Sunday,
beginning with the Second Sunday of Christmas and continuing through Trinity
Sunday. As for the season following Pentecost, sometimes called Ordinary Time,
Huffstetler is more selective (this is a very long season). These sermons
reflect texts offered during Year B (Revised Common Lectionary). He concludes
the collection with sermons for the four Sundays of Advent (Year C). All of these
sermons were preached during 2021, the year that the Delta strain of the virus
popped up just when we thought life was getting back to normal.
As one reads through the sermons,
all of which include the full biblical text on which the sermon is based, a
reader will notice that Huffstetler is very attuned to the biblical text
itself. He addresses important social and theological questions, but always in
conversation with the scripture text in front of him. That he follows the
lectionary allows him to focus on a variety of texts and topics. Notably
absent, however, are sermons based on the First Reading (Normally, the Old
Testament). I am not sure why that is, but it is an interesting omission.
Nevertheless, the sermons invite us to ponder the biblical witness to the
things of God, keeping in mind the difficult context posed by the pandemic.
Although the sermons have an origin
point, Huffstetler correctly notes that they were offered with a sense of their
future implications. Thus, they can be read today in ways that speak to the
current moment. I believe a book like this might prove useful for preachers who
are dealing with these same texts that follow the Revised Common Lectionary
Year B (except for the four Advent sermons, which come from Year C). They will
also be read with value by others seeking spiritual nourishment, for that is
the original purpose of the sermons. Now, when you read a sermon, you don't get
the full sense because in printed form, they are not fully embodied. Nevertheless,
because they were offered in the context of a specific congregation, they
retain the personal sense that a good sermon embodies, so they still speak even
if the reader wasn’t present to hear them offered in person. Because the sermons offerd in Traveling By A Different Way were
preached during a time of disruption, you can perhaps feel what it was like during
a rather traumatic period of our lives. I can say that Joel Huffstetler is, at
the very least, a good writer, and I expect he is also a good preacher!
Copies of Traveling By A Different Way can be purchased through your favorite retailer, including my Amazon affiliate bookstore and my Bookshop.org affiliate.
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