Adams: Inscription for a pulpit

May 19, 2009
    Feast of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988

Meditation:
    [Paul to the elders at Ephesus:] Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.
    -- Acts 20:28 (NIV)

Quotation:
    INSCRIPTION FOR A PULPIT

    “The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.”
    The hungry sheep that crave the living Bread
    Grow few, and lean, and feeble as can be,
    When fed not Gospel, but philosophy;
    Not Love’s eternal story, no, not this,
    But apt allusion, keen analysis.
    Discourse well framed—forgot as soon as heard—
    Man’s thin dilution of the living Word.

    O Preacher, leave the rhetorician’s arts;
    Preach Christ, the Food of hungry human hearts;
    Hold fast to science, history, or creed,
    But preach the Answer to our human need,
    That in this place, at least, it may be said
    No hungry sheep looks up and is not fed.
    ... Robert Hammond Adams (1883-1975) (my grandfather)

Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, grant our pastors Your Spirit for the preaching of Your word.

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