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Welcome to This Sunday Podcast
17 Plays13 days ago
Pastor's Phil Brandt and Matthew Hardaway introduce their new podcast.
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Transcript
Introductions and Setting the Tone
00:00:00
Speaker
Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, or as we say in Texas, because we can't ever figure this one out. Howdy! Welcome to the This Sunday podcast. My name is Pastor Matthew Hardaway. Alongside me or on top of me, depending on how you are are viewing this, if you're seeing it online, is, is okay, now I have to get this right.
00:00:25
Speaker
Dr. Pastor Philip Brandt. no Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can, I've got all of those different different things, but yes, i'm I'm currently serving as a pastor of this congregation. um I hold ah a PhD in classical studies from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. So yeah, I can i can be Dr. Brandt. I can be, I can be, Pastor Brandt, I prefer not to be Dr. Phil. That that just has that has a connotation I just don't want to go with.
00:00:57
Speaker
Unless you're willing to pay me that much. If you're willing to pay me that much, you can call me Dr. Phil. Yeah, no, the the one that I strongly have put my foot down on is specifically with my daughters. no I am not Pastor Daddy.
00:01:11
Speaker
no And they have tried. They'll still try every now and again. Usually it's time to speak in you know Sunday school or you know some
Transforming the Sunday Sermon
00:01:19
Speaker
fellowship function. But Pastor Brant's been the author of Sunday Sermon for, we were just talking about this, about 20 years now yeah and i've been a very faithful purveyor of his work there as a homiletical guide in many ways a sermon help for for me and in my ministry and so along the way we touched base with each other and Thought, you know, it'd be kind of interesting to see if perhaps doing a podcast version of this would be something beneficial for the church, both for for pastors, those that are serving every Sunday and are being asked to preach on God's word. But then also for those that aren't preaching, just as a ah ah weekly devotion of sorts, a Bible study even, that's focusing on the readings that will be coming up for the next Sunday. So that's a brief little bit there. You said you served or you got your Ph.D. from Canterbury.
00:02:30
Speaker
The University of Kent. The University of Kent. Canterbury, England. Yeah. Is that residential or is that online?
Dr. Brandt's Academic Journey
00:02:37
Speaker
Well, no, it it was a little bit of both. um When I was at Concordia University in Portland, they wanted me to pursue a terminal degree, it's called PhD.
00:02:48
Speaker
And so I started looking around in domestic programs here in the United States. They all had extensive residential requirements that really would have meant stepping away from the faculty position I held and pursuing the degree and then trying to get back into that faculty position. And and my provost really discouraged me from doing that. But the system in the United Kingdom um allowed for a part-time degree in which you would
00:03:20
Speaker
primarily be writing your dissertation because I already had a pair of master's degrees. I didn't need to do that work again. i would enroll in the degree program and I spent a semester on campus with my advisor working intensely, kind of launching my research. And then I spent the next six years there's reading and writing and preparing that research and getting it submitted. and But that was all done distance. I would go back every year have about a 10 to 14 day, uh, intensive session with my advisor, uh, and then come back and have marching orders to write a little more, to do a little more research, to take this in a different direction or something of the sort. Um, I primarily was working with, uh, with the, uh, uh, uh, in, in late antiquity.
00:04:11
Speaker
Um, my degree is technically in classical languages and classics. And I was working with St. Augustine and, But it was an exegetical piece of Augustine. I was i was exploring the way he read the six days of creation in the in Genesis, and then particularly how that had gotten received in the medieval period. And my particular focus was on Thomas Aquinas and how Thomas Aquinas used Augustine in in his many works of theology in the 13th century.
00:04:46
Speaker
So... lot A lot of Latin. that's That's primarily where I was doing a lot of my PhD work. my My master's degree I got at Washington University, and that was primarily in Greek. So had a little bit of a little bit of a ah gear shift when I headed headed into that PhD program.
00:05:05
Speaker
So if you got your master's at Washington University, does that mean you have your seminary degree from St. Louis? It does. It does, yes. I i did those concurrently. um And that was just such a blessing to be able to do both of those at the same time.
00:05:19
Speaker
um It was a lot of work, but it was it was ah it was an incredible blessing to be able to do that. I really credit Washington University. The head of the department there at the time was a very devout Roman Catholic fellow who who really valued what what the seminarians, there were several of us who were doing this at the time, who really valued what the seminarians were bringing to his department as people who understood Greek and were willing to read ah Latin and with him and and others, that we were bringing a kind of different motivation to the to the study of the language other than the traditional classicist who was enrolled in his program. And it was a very good program. We had some really quality people there that was That was some excellent instruction I got. I i i really valued what I still lean on those courses that I took 30-some years ago now at Washington University when I when i attended there.
00:06:22
Speaker
That was a perfect segue. I was going to ask how many years you've been in ministry. I will be in ministry 35 years this spring, or actually this summer, when I celebrate my ordination at the end of July.
00:06:38
Speaker
Wonderful. And early congratulations. Oh, thank you. I'm trying to think. I graduated class of 2012 from St. Louis. So I was class of 1991. All right.
00:06:51
Speaker
That's when my baby sister was born. Yeah, I know. it's ah it It seems so long ago now. I think about those, that but it's gone really
Preaching vs. Teaching: A Synergy
00:06:59
Speaker
fast. i've I've thoroughly enjoyed being in ministry that's been, uh,
00:07:04
Speaker
you know to To be able to get paid, if you will, to to swim in this Word of God every week um is is just ah is is just a marvel to me that that it it has been. And I've got to say, my my journey through this, I started in parish. Concordia University came calling 2005 and asked me to join the faculty.
00:07:28
Speaker
And there I got to, you know, really dig in and do this in ah in another way, in ah in a much more intense way, differently, ah very differently. It's a very different thing to be in a pulpit and preach on Sunday morning and proclaim the good news to sinners who are in front of you than it is to be in front of a group of students on a regular basis and and take them through the through the academic process of reading the New Testament and and pursuing those things. i mean yeah In a university, you you can't grade somebody's faith. You can only grade their their knowledge and the and the their skill sets and the processes that they're using as they as they explore and examine these things. But yet it was also incredibly enriching for me to to be able to watch the Word of God have an effect on those students as we were doing that.
00:08:21
Speaker
um And that was a lot of fun for me. I mean, that that that really hit my pastoral heart. as as a professor. But what the what the professoring did was really ramped up my skill set as ah as a reader of God's Word. It really forced me to to apply intellectually and and methodologically a lot more to the to the to the Word of God that way. that was that that was the The symbiosis, the synergy between those two those two vocations that I had really
00:08:56
Speaker
really changed the way that I, and and improved the way that I read my Bible, as both as both personally, but also now as once more in the pulpit preaching. I think I'm a very different preacher than I was when I started that that process.
00:09:14
Speaker
I always, behind every joke is an ounce of seriousness. yeah So I frequently joke, I am not very academic. yeah i' am smart, I am brilliant. My brain just does not like to slow down and sit and and and study and
Pastor Hardaway's Lutheran Journey
00:09:31
Speaker
do the work. But having a backwards route into the Lutheran Church, of Missouri Synod via lay ministry in a different denomination, working as ah a youth pastor, I remember prepping for a Bible study and the the church I was a part of did not have a solid set of doctrines to base their teaching off of.
00:09:56
Speaker
It was extremely challenging to teach youth. when you don't have a common foothold on what you all agree. it was about that time that I met my wife who was raised in the the Lutheran Church. And and for me, in that transition,
00:10:15
Speaker
which started before my wife, I have to say that. God was working on me before. i didn't just become Lutheran, so her dad would say yes when I asked her permission to marry her. That was one part of it. That was definitely part of it. But i fell in love with how rich the the Luther's approach to reading the Bible was.
00:10:39
Speaker
and and not just reading the Bible, but studying it and digging into the languages. And and as one who has a ah background in and education prior to seminary, one of my the things I absolutely love where those two inter intersect with each other is as a pastor, when you're teaching, filling in the the gaps, right?
00:11:03
Speaker
You know, the, okay, they you've got a group of guys doing Bible study or a youth group or just a Sunday school class. and And somebody raises their hand and they have that question. And it's that one little spot that they just never got taught. They don't remember.
00:11:21
Speaker
They've got everything else. And to be able to live vocationally, you know, my my job is to, like you said, in God's word. and be ready to flip that around and use it to teach and and to proclaim His forgiveness. yeah it's Yeah, it's... Well, and and what what i one of the things I love about about, like I say, swimming in the Word of God is that that I believe God has very intentionally inspired those those men to write the Word of God, to write the Bible for us, and very intentionally kind of left, if you will, those sort of interstitial places
00:12:00
Speaker
that require me, okay that need me as a as a as a person who's living in this time to take that word of God. And like you say, you talked about those spaces, right? Those those those things in between that that God has not simply given us a a didactic space.
00:12:21
Speaker
you know, this is this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, kind of way all the way through, that that leaves nothing for for discussion, for you even argumentation, and for, ah and and I think space, if you will, for the human imagination. I mean, what i love about what I love about the Bible is that it gives me these stories and then invites me and and my hearers and and any reader of the Bible into an imaginative interaction with that text.
Engaging with Scripture: A Living Text
00:12:55
Speaker
It's much more than simply an intellectual interaction with it, as if it's simply a body of information that got dumped on us.
00:13:06
Speaker
But it is it is a narrative, it is a story, it's a form of art. um It has a tremendous amount of poetry in it. um It has all of this, this sort of holistic, whole human being piece in there. And then that, that even the stories, even the narratives, even, even those more didactic parts, you know, the Paul's letters and things like that, that are, they always have, have these, these opportunities for me to ask a question and for my hearer to ask a question and to, and to,
00:13:42
Speaker
And in in those questions, it really opens up and allows them to bring their life into a conversation with the text. that that I believe those are the places where the Holy Spirit really starts to work on people and really starts to make that happen. um Yes, knowing as much as you can about the text enables me as a shepherd to be somebody who can help with that process and to be to be a better shepherding of that process. But but i just I just really love the the fact that the Word of God doesn't come with just a list of answers.
00:14:20
Speaker
But it it really comes with a ah list of things that it says and then invites me to ask my questions about it. Yes. I think that is so i love i love this I love this field of study. much I couldn't imagine doing anything this.
00:14:36
Speaker
Yes, the but author of the Hebrews, I believe it's Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12, the Bible is living and breathing. Yeah. And it's because Spirit. It is the Spirit working through that.
00:14:50
Speaker
It's much different. i don't know if this is going to show up online. Yeah. Much different than the IKEA owner's manual or instruction manual. You're trying to put in your office right now. Yeah, where where you know you're trying to figure it out and there's nothing there. Yeah.
00:15:08
Speaker
um and yeah but i mean the thing is for for us as the created if the bible was anything less it would it would just it wouldn't mean anything like i i have dominion over that table frame i can do what with it whatever i could go throw it away right now if i wanted to because because it's just a thing that i am I have control over her and and dominion over. And for those who have had the spirit work in them to create faith, we we have that same, not that domineering dominion from our our God, our father or Christ, but still that same.
00:15:56
Speaker
um Wow. Just and no matter what I'm going through in life, I've got, my faith, I've got God's word to walk me through it.
00:16:09
Speaker
And just because I studied, you know, or I read that passage three weeks ago or three years ago, or I maybe remember it from when I was in confirmation 30 years ago, i can read it again today and God is still going to speak to me through it. And that, that is, you can read all you want and Alexander the Great.
00:16:33
Speaker
Yeah. but But it's probably not going to have the same effect on you. Well, yeah, I mean, I i mean i think the for me, one of the great credits to or the the the the one of the great almost proofs of of the power of this is, you know, that right around the time Homer was writing the Iliad.
00:16:56
Speaker
OK, and the Odyssey. Right around that time, maybe even just a few years before that was um were the days of King David.
00:17:08
Speaker
Now, there are people who can throw off a line of of Homer's Iliad or Odyssey from memory. right My guess is there's probably a couple hundred of them in the world.
00:17:27
Speaker
But I'll bet you there are a billion people who could, i could start with and say, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, and they'd be able to keep going.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yes. You know, to to think about a piece of literature 3,000 years old, you know, that that, you know, little old ladies have on a plaque framed in their kitchen, okay? And they read that every day, and that poem, in translation even,
00:18:02
Speaker
is incredibly meaningful and incredibly impactful for for the for the the benefit and the blessing of their life today.
00:18:14
Speaker
you know That is really amazing. There is no other piece of, I mean, that's a 3,000 year old poem. And and no what else are you reading that's that old?
00:18:26
Speaker
you know i mean i mean, how many of us have actually spent a little time in the Enuma Elish or or something are the Gilgamesh epic or something? It's there. we can We can access those things. We have some of them.
00:18:41
Speaker
But nobody's nobody's reading stuff that old, other than when they crack open their Bible and and those words are so incredibly and achingly familiar to us.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yes, it's it's a wonderful gift.
Podcast Format and Feedback
00:18:58
Speaker
So what are your hopes for with this this podcast? You know, ah when when when Sunday Sermon started 2007, It was an effort to assist.
00:19:12
Speaker
um At that point, we had just started licensing deacons, which we did briefly in the Missouri Synod. And these were guys who were being raised up to preach in isolated, remote communities that otherwise were having a hard time getting pastoral care. and ah and But they were feeling under-equipped. they They didn't feel like they had it. and so One of the things that was part of that process was we were gathering every week on a Tuesday night. Some of the yeah the the technology was really just becoming available to be able to do those sorts of things.
00:19:47
Speaker
And we were having a wonderful discussion over the readings that were gonna be heard that next Sunday. And and we these guys were saying, what am I gonna say about this on Sunday? And we had we had a a wonderful conversation.
00:20:04
Speaker
And those discussions really form the the the groundwork, the foundation of what is today the Sunday Sermon distribution every week.
00:20:16
Speaker
um That changed over time. The licensed diaconate, we did that experiment, that didn't we we opted to do a different thing, and we're no longer doing that anymore. But what happened to Sunday Sermon was all of these pastors started saying, you know I could kind of use that help too.
00:20:33
Speaker
and ah and And they're there. um And they are they are they're they're participating in reading and hearing. And so what I kind of want to do is, you know, using a different format with this, is kind of come back and come back to those to those discussions that we used to have on Tuesday nights. um And they would go for a couple, three hours sometimes because we hit all the readings. And we were there formulating a sermon idea. And we were... and we were working, we were massaging a text online on the screen. And we were, we were writing things in in process. We aren't going to do some of that here, but boy, if I could have, if I could have those opportunities to have those conversations back again, those were some of the, those are some of the best times I had was, was talking to some of those guys. You know, I, I still, I mean, Ed and Paul and those, those men who, who would gather faithfully with me, Steve, on on Tuesday nights and we would talk.
00:21:35
Speaker
Oh, that was fun. That was a really good time. It really good time. So that's that's really what I'm hoping for is I'm i'm i'm looking to simply have a conversation with ah over this word. and and And what's cool about it is this format is now it's not just me that's benefiting from it, but but I would love to share those conversations.
00:21:57
Speaker
with with anybody who'd like to watch this. Because because i like I said, I think this word of God allows for the imaginative engagement with the text. And that that is always something that is best when done in a conversation with somebody else. That that that that my imagination oftentimes gets sparked by the question somebody else asks.
00:22:20
Speaker
by the By the experience of somebody else has seen that text and seen the same words that I see. And maybe seeing something from a little different angle and seeing something some something that is a little bit you know other than the way that I would look at it.
00:22:35
Speaker
So that's that's really what I'm hoping for is is ah is to is to give people that opportunity to to to engage with this text through these videos.
00:22:48
Speaker
and I think i'm coming it from a very similar spot that focuses on a conversation. It's really easy to just read through a text. Yeah.
00:23:01
Speaker
And then, you know, I will... Sometimes as a pastor, I'll break open and an honest truth here. bears none Maybe I shouldn't be be saying i something that's going to published online. I personally can find it challenging to have my own personal devotion time in God's Word.
00:23:25
Speaker
yeahp Because you live in it all the time. Yes. And and it's it's so much more than a textbook, but it is also that textbook that I'm using to fulfill my role as pastor. And I've always found having an opportunity like this with you or or other people to have that conversation, it slows my brain down.
00:23:46
Speaker
it gives me reason to to take this even you know one paragraph out of the book the entirety of the Bible and And slow down and actually spend time in it. And I think that's it a benefit that hopefully a lot of people will get to engage in with this. so Absolutely.
00:24:04
Speaker
Absolutely. So we are hoping to have these, or the plan is to have one of these out every single week leading up for the the next Sunday. Like Dr. Brent mentioned, we're not these going to be two or three hours long or four hours long. where We will zero in typically on on one text for the week and and maybe not even the entirety of that text. It's a starting point perhaps for for thought the thought process as we're anticipating preaching the next coming Sunday. I'm hoping to have this both online and YouTube and in an audio format wherever you would normally find your podcast. I'm not going to list off ah the whole litany of
00:24:50
Speaker
options that are there, but they should be there. If you can't find it where you do find your podcast, please let us know. We'll work on getting those there.
00:25:01
Speaker
Anything else you want to share for this little introduction video before we bid everybody blessings for their week? You know, um i I think that what what i would I would really like to share with folks about about this is that I've been doing this for 20 years now um in one format or another.
00:25:27
Speaker
the The textual format's been pretty clear. It's simply that that that there have been really hard days and times in those last 20 years.
00:25:40
Speaker
and I got to say, this has been the thing that has given me consistent joy. And this is the thing that has, there have been times when this has carried me, you know, these conversations, this, you know, coming back to this word in this kind of habitual process that I have, because, you know, Sunday rolls around with this alarming frequency, you know, when you, when you're a preacher, you know, there is no, there is no handing in a sermon late.
00:26:11
Speaker
um so now you know When I was a prom, students would always want attorney to turn in a paper late. i go and I think, well, yeah what you you're a preacher. there you know If your service is at 10 o'clock on Sunday morning, i got it's going to be there and they're going to be there and you better show up and have something to say. and and that that regularity, that habitus,
00:26:35
Speaker
that that habitous Okay, that habitus of being in here, and that that has really served to just be an enormous ground for me.
00:26:52
Speaker
and And I would really hope and pray that that however you encounter the Word of God, however you are you are experiencing this text and however you are immersing yourself in it, um I would hope and pray that this could help you.
00:27:06
Speaker
But I would hope and pray that in that place, you're you've had a chance and found some way to to benefit from that as I have. it has been it has been my my my absolute pleasure.
00:27:23
Speaker
Wonderful. And I think for me, one of the things I would truly hope is kind of a hallmark of who God has made me to be, especially as a pastor.
Spreading Faith Through Conversation
00:27:35
Speaker
we We have God's word given to us, but not just to us to, well, we're i planning and closing with the word of prayer with a call it for the word.
00:27:46
Speaker
Um, And in that we pray, thank you for giving these us your words, that we can read them and digest them and and have them dwell within us. I also see very clearly in scriptures where God gives us his word so that we can share it with others.
00:28:04
Speaker
so So that it's always there on our lips whenever the spirit leads us to to share what God has already given us with somebody else. Mm-hmm. and and being ready to have a conversation with somebody. What better way to to open up somebody's eyes to what God's already shared with us than the conversations that we have on a regular basis in our lives are the ones that we don't anticipate that just kind of sort of happen.
00:28:31
Speaker
yep Cool. Cool. Let's pray. All right. Let's pray. Collect to the word. Yes, well, ah close to it. I'm going to actually go a little old school here. Well, maybe not old school. Borrow from the ah the book of common prayer, just because that's what I could find.
Closing Prayer and Reflection
00:28:49
Speaker
So if you're used to it out of the LSB, it's going to sound just a little bit different, but it's still still a wonderful prayer. Bless Lord, you have given us your holy scriptures for our learning. May we so hear them, read, learn, and take them to heart, that being strengthened and comforted by your holy word, we may cling to the blessed hope of everlasting life. Through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Amen.
00:29:21
Speaker
amen