Bread of Angels

As Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us, the Israelites received the bread of angels— manna—as they made their way through the wilderness. So too is God made known to us in the simple things that sustain our lives. With humor and an eye for human stubbornness, Taylor points to just how much like the people of scripture we can be—stiff-necked and ungrateful in the face of God’s bounty. Taylor moves through the span of the Bible in her search for divine love. In the stories of Moses, David, and Daniel she picks up its trace in reversals and surprises. She refreshes our perspective on Pentecost and its aftermath in a sermon sequence on the Book of Acts. And at book’s center radiates her stunning parable of the Incarnation, “God’s Daring Plan.” With characteristic flair, Taylor grounds her exegetical enterprise on jokes and stories packed with truth. As pleasurable as they are profound, her meditations on the life of faith and the cost of discipleship will instruct the preacher and delight the reader.

About the Author :
Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest. She holds the Harry R. Butman Chair in Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College in northeastern Georgia and serves as adjunct professor of Christian spirituality at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur. Recognized as one of the twelve most effective preachers in the English language by Baylor University in 1995, Taylor has published numerous collections of her sermons and theological reflections, including Mixed Blessings, The Preaching Life, The Luminous Web, Home By Another Way, Speaking of Sin, and Gospel Medicine.

Review :
Not many collections of sermons are published anymore, but Barbara Brown Taylor’s volumes appear with some regularity—and that’s a very good thing for the rest of us. Her sermons are simple in theme but elegant in expression. She meets serious biblical scholarship with respect, but she avails us of it in an unobtrusive way that disarms any resistance we may have to being taught from the pulpit. Her exegesis is woven into the context of what she is saying so skillfully that it is likely to be welcomed as helpful even by those who might otherwise complain that the Bible is not really meaningful to them or that scripture is no longer authoritative in the contemporary age. Taylor finds bright and crisp ways of telling us to look for the unconventional revelations of God in this world. She is intellectual and thoughtful enough for serious reading, and contemporary and informal enough to cause those who do not read sermons to make an exception. Her velvet touch conceals her iron grip on the deeper truths of the Gospel. Taylor does not use words or images pretentiously or unnecessarily but forcefully and economically. Every now and again, one is handed a phrase which prods one’s heart and mind simultaneously, stimulating a devotional response with a prying theological edge.