Oh ‘geez,’ another holy mischief of a sermon contest

The Canadian "holy mischief" magazine geez wants your entries in the Daringly Awkward Sermon Contest.

Seminary graduates will have no divine or other advantage in pursuing one of the three $400 prizes. Think of this as a theologian's version of The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which makes wretched writing a hilarious art. This is satire amid which you may find a touch of heresy.

Consider for yourself some acid bits of Leslie Barnwell's winning entry in last year's Sermons you'd never hear in church contest:

When I was here last, you sat for me for a couple of hours. I drew and you talked. So I now know that you are close to my age, you’ve spent some serious time in a mental institution (bipolar disorder), and you’ve been let loose on your own since the facilities closed down. I know you live in a fourth-rate hotel room and can’t get, let alone keep, a job. You have practically no money and rarely get your medication right. You’ve been violent several times and have lost rights to various resources in the community, including a couple of churches, and have been in and out of jail.

Lately I’ve been getting this magazine called Geez and they had this off-the-wall-not-in-the-sanctuary sermon contest which is fairly bizarre in the first place. I thought, what would I write? To whom would I direct my words? To you? Well, I figure I’ve got nothing to say to you, Navita. Zero. Not for your enlightenment anyhow. What do you need to hear from me? That Jesus saves? That God has a wonderful plan for your life? Do you even need to know that a literal view of the Bible is a modern invention? How about a rehash of the Ten Commandments? Or maybe you need some clarity on how the message of holy scriptures jibes with the current eco-crisis. Sort of falling flat? I thought so.

It's only $30 to enter (details here). That includes the price of a subscription, which you may event want.

Almost the Onion knelt for prayer, geez won ten Canadian Church Press prizes last year. You can taste their earnest irreverence by perusing their online previews. They've also launched (wait for it) ... a blog.

They characterize the entire enterprise as “Adbusters for people of faith.”

Works for us.