Going Where No Preacher Has Gone Before

          OK, maybe it's an exaggeration to say "no preacher." But suffice it to say that very few preachers choose to preach on difficult texts and difficult topics. On Wednesday, the motif running through all 6 of the lectures and classes I attended was the encouragement to preach on those scriptures and themes that so many are afraid to speak about.

          Luke Powery, my Princeton Seminary classmate and now pastor at Duke Divinity School, highlighted the role of the wilderness and reclaimed the role of grief and groaning in preaching. Beginning with John the Baptist in Luke 3, Powery reminded us the word of God came to an unlikely person in an unlikely place. We avoid the difficult, anxiety infested wilderness yet that is all too often where the word of God can be found. Those words in the wilderness are powerful for they offer a "haunting echo of hope." We must seek out and preach from the wilderness in order to help our congregation find a way through it. Powery continued asking us if our Gospel groaned. Is there room for tears, and pain, and heartache in our preaching? Recovering the power of lament, Rachel weeping for her children, Jeremiah groaning for his people, the Spirit praying sighs too deep for words, scripture is full of lament. A Gospel who doesn't groan has not guts and no God. Preachers proclaim a wounded word. The Spirit is immersed in the messiness of life. You've got to go through the groans to get to the glory. Tears are rooted in hope. Hope comes despite grief but not without it. Don't underestimate the tears of grief. It's not popular, but it's what people are going through. It's the whole gospel.

          Walter Bruggeman, professor emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary, reminded us that the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is both a wonder and a vexation. God is not a God of certitude but rather a God of fidelity. A God of certitude is predictable, has no gray areas, no forgiveness, no need to listen to others, crushes all views but their own, seeks status quo. A God of fidelity has the freedom to respond to human existence, sometimes in surprising and unpredictable ways. God expresses anger, jealousy, violence, as well as forgiveness and grace. Preachers are called to preach a biblical God of fidelity in a world who wants a God of certitude.

          Anna Carter Florence, professor of preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary, told us we need to tell the hard stories and it starts with us. Using Judges 19, the story of the unnamed concubine who was thrown out by her owner to a bunch of thugs who raped her all night and left her dead at the doorstep of the house, only to be taken by her owner and cut up and sent to the twelve tribes of Israel, is a true text of terror. And yet it is in our Bible, it is part of our Holy Scripture. It is also part of our congregation's lives, whether through domestic violence or human sex trafficking. Acknowledge and tell the hard stories because only then will we see ourselves in them and work to create a different ending to that story in the world today. Carter Florence in a subsequent lecture used the first three chapter of Ruth to encourage us to: 1. Cling like Ruth to the text even when others tell you to turn back to what is more comfortable. 2. Glean like Ruth in the fields of the text, as laborious and slow and difficult as it is at times. 3. Uncover like Ruth which is why we do all this gleaning. To tell the truth because something needs to be uncovered. Uncover racism, immigration injustice, hate crimes. Time to recognize each other as family and take care of one another. These are the gifts and the challenges of preaching.

          John Philip Newell, poet, peace activist, and leader of Iona community in Scotland,  invited us to learn from the Eastern faith traditions and to see God's wisdom and image in all people. In a world suspicious and afraid of faiths other than their own, in a world where we create divisions of us vs. them, Newell challenged us to appreciate and learn from the gifts Eastern traditions bring. Specifically, the East emphasizes the "withinness" of God, how the divine is in all of us. Jesus said, "I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." (John 14:20) We must "strip Jesus of Western garb" and open ourselves to the beauty and the divine found in Eastern faith traditions. When was the last time we preached a sermon highlighting the gifts of Hinduism or Buddhism and how they shed light on our own Christian faith?

          Each of these four speakers challenged me to keep pushing the envelope, keep making myself uncomfortable, keep preaching the ENTIRE bible and not just the pretty or convenient or socially acceptable parts. Conferences like these jolt me out of my complacency and routine in sermon preparation and motivate me to commit once again to preaching the oftentimes uncomfortable Word of God. As the Star Trek introduction put it, "To go where no one has gone before." Or at least very, very few.