David L. Bartlett - The Collected Sermons of David Bartlett

The Collected Sermons of

David Bartlett

The Collected Sermons of

David Bartlett

David Bartlett

2020 Estate of David L. Bartlett

Foreword Westminster John Knox Press

First edition

Published by Westminster John Knox Press

Louisville, Kentucky

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Book design by Sharon Adams

Cover design by Rebecca Kueber

Cover photo courtesy of Yale Divinity School

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bartlett, David Lyon, 1941-2017, author.

Title: The collected sermons of David Bartlett / David L. Bartlett.

Other titles: Sermons. Selections

Description: First edition. | Louisville, Kentucky : Westminster John Knox Press, 2020. | Includes index. | Summary: This collection of fifty-two sermons shows beloved New Testament scholar David Bartlett at his best. Bartlett, who died in 2017, spent his career teaching and mentoring preachers at The University of Chicago Divinity School, Yale Divinity School, Union Presbyterian Seminary, and Columbia Theological Seminary, as well as serving as a pastor in American Baptist churches. Thus, he has generations of friends and former students who knew him for his quick wit, passion for justice, and deep knowledge of the Bible. Those traits show through in these sermons. As Nora Tisdale says in the foreword: All of the sermons in this volume give witness to Davids passion for preaching that is solidly grounded in the biblical text. Most of them actually begin, as Karl Barth urged preachers to begin, with the biblical text. If they dont begin there, they always get there fairly quickly. And Davids interpretations of texts often surprise the reader with their freshness and clarity. In addition to individual sermons, several multiweek sermon series, including a series on Who Is Jesus? and Great Words of the Faith, are included Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019050506 (print) | LCCN 2019050507 (ebook) | ISBN 9780664235017| ISBN 9781611649741 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Sermons, American.

Classification: LCC BV4253 .B365 2020 (print) | LCC BV4253 (ebook) | DDC 252dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050506

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050507

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Contents

The Bartlett family wants to first thank David Dobson and the WJK Press staff for their continuing interest in publishing the sermons of David Bartlett following his death. He would be both humbled and very pleased.

We also want to thank the congregations that called David to be their pastor and the students and faculties at the schools where he taught that allowed him to teach and preach the Good News. These include University Baptist, Minneapolis; Hyde Park Union, Chicago; and Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, Oakland; along with American Baptist Seminary of the West and Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California; the Divinity School of the University of Chicago; Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia; Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut; and Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia.

We also want to thank The Congregational Church of New Canaan, New Canaan, Connecticut, the congregation, pastor, and staff for inviting and making it possible for David to preach and teach over many, many years.

A thank you to Yorkminster Baptist Church in Toronto, Canada, for opening up their pulpit every other year for three Sundays for at least fifteen years.

A thank you to Holden Beach Chapel, Holden Beach, North Carolina, for inviting David to preach every summer and for being our church away from home.

A thank you to Trinity Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia, for asking David to serve as Theologian in Residence where he loved to preach and teach.

As David said, on the last day of teaching at Columbia Theological Seminary, Finally, its all THANKS. Amen.

I first came to know David Bartlett when the two of us were called at the same time to teach preaching and worship at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia (now Union Presbyterian Seminary). The year was 1987. I had just completed my PhD course work at Princeton Theological Seminary, and had not even begun writing my doctoral dissertation. David Bartlett was a seasoned Biblical scholar with a PhD in New Testament from Yale University, several published books, and fifteen years of pastoring churches while serving as adjunct seminary faculty under his belt.

What do I remember about David Bartlett from those early years of teaching and working together?

I remember that David was an enjoyable and respectful colleague with a quick wit and a delightfully self-deprecating sense of humor. He took what we were doing seriously, but he never took himself too seriously. When designing classes together, David was always willing to listen to my point of view, to compromise if need be, and to share equally in classroom teaching time. On occasionoften at his suggestionwe took our theological differences into the classroom with us and allowed the students to see how two professors who both claimed the Reformed theological tradition as our heritage (he as an American Baptist and I as a Presbyterian) might interpret it differently. One classic example was that when we taught students about baptismal theology during the worship segment of the course, I would present the classic Calvinist case for infant baptism and David would counter with the Barthian case for believers baptism. We would then engage the students in conversation regarding where they found themselves on the theological spectrum.

I remember that David strongly believed in biblical preachingnot in a fundamentalist way, but in a way that honored contemporary biblical scholarship and was rooted in solid and thorough exegesis of the biblical text. Union Seminary in Virginia had a strong biblical department with the journal Interpretation published there. David did a great job of bridging the worlds between biblical studies and preaching. The expectation in preaching classes was that students would bring the solid exegetical skills learned in biblical classes to their work, and, in a very real sense, bring them to fruition through the interpretive work of preaching. The goal was not to take people back to Bible land and have them dwell there; the goal was to interpret present contexts in light of the Bible, and to have the exegetical study of texts undergirding and supporting the sermon like the scaffolding of a solid building.

David not only taught with the keen mind of a seasoned scholar; he also taught with the large heart of a compassionate pastor. By the time he reached Union Seminary, David had served as senior minister in three different congregations: University Baptist Church in Minneapolis (19731975), Hyde Park Union Church in Chicago (19761979), and Lakeshore Baptist Church in Oakland, California (19811987). During each of his pastorates he also taught full or part-time at local seminaries: United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, and the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. David intentionally chose to live out his own vocational life with one foot solidly planted in the parish and another foot planted in academia. It was an unusual pattern for scholars of his ilk, but it was also a pattern David followed for his entire career. For him pastoring and teaching were two parts of the same vocation: using his scholarship in service of the church and its ministry. His students were the prime beneficiaries of his dual ministry career. From David they not only learned how to hone their skills in biblical exegesis; from him they also learned how to be sensitive to the varied needs and life situations of the congregants who would gather before them on Sunday mornings. They learned not only how to listen to texts with their heads; they also learned how to interpret them with their heartsand with a heart for Gods whole broken world.