Writings
Whenever people back me into a corner as regards my understanding of scripture, I am often led to say: “I take all of the Bible seriously. But I do not take every word of the Bible literally.” Which Bryant Oskvig would understand.
The following remarks were shared at a Thanksgiving service which combined congregants from Temple Beth El, St. Hugo of the Hills Roman Catholic Church, and Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian Church. They were offered in response to a tribute bestowed upon Dr. Ritter commemorating forty years in ministry and twelve years of pastoral leadership in the greater Birmingham/Bloomfield community.
Let me begin with a couple who both appreciated the finer things in life and were comfortably able to afford them. When it came to travel, they went by the best means to the best places. That is, until their plane went down….suddenly….dramatically…..into the choppy waters of the sea. But the emergency exits opened (as engineered) and the inflatable slides were positioned (as instructed), meaning that virtually all were evacuated (as scripted).
After listing the title for this sermon in Steeple Notes, I discovered I had preached the same text under the same title in the late nineties. On that occasion, I took an entirely different bent, slanting the sermon toward a discussion of exorcism. Truth be told, there are but a handful of lines from that prior effort recycled in this text.
