I listened to this sermon by Craig Barnes yesterday.
(You can also download as a podcast at: http://www.fourthchurch.org/sermons/audio/index.html)
This Sunday, our text is quite different from Elijah and the prophets of Baal. At the same time, the revelation of competing powers & loyalties is similarly found in Colossians 1:15-20. Properly understood this is both a hymn of praise to the One True God and an almost-school-yard-taunt toward all other gods, images and idols.
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
So what I find myself doing (even though perhaps I shouldn't) is encouraging you to listen to a different preacher tackle a different text because:
a) the Gospel is not the sole property of your preacher. And it just might be that God speaks the word you need through a different voice this week. At the very least, we'll be thinking in the same direction for Sunday, which can't be a bad thing!
b) the Gospel is a holistic narrative, meaning that a narrative text from the history of Israel and early church hymnody, as quoted by the Apostle Paul, might not be that different after all. It all holds together ... in Christ (see what I did there? ;-)
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