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Preaching Hope in a Time of Discouragement
Theodore j. Wardlaw
Austin ?resbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, Texas
One of my favorite pictures of what “church” looks like at its best is the wordpicture Frederick Buechner drew in a sermon he preached somewhere some thirty years ago. He was imagining people who come to church week after week—what they looked like, what they were thinking, how they were changed. Ferhaps, on any given Sunday, Buechner mused, they weren’t changed much at all. He wrote:
Yet they kept on coming anyway, and beneath all the lesser reasons they had for doing so, so far beneath that they themselves were only half aware of it, I think there was a deep reason, and if 1 could give only one word to characterize that reason, the word I would give is hope. They came here. ..to get married and stood here with their hearts in their mouths and their knees knockingto mumble their wild and improbable vows in these very shadows. They came to christen their babies here—carried them in their long white dresses hopingtheywouldn’tscream bloody murder when the minister took them in his arms and signed their foreheads with a watery cross. They came here to bury their dead, and brought in, along with the still finished bodies, all the most un-St¡!!, unfinished love, gu!؛t, sadness, relief, that are part of what death always is for the living. In other words what they were doing essentially beneath this roof was offering up the most precious moments of their lives in the hope that there was a God to hallow them—a God to hear and seal their vows, to receive their children into [God’s] unimaginable kingdom, to raise up and cherish their dead. I see them sitting here, generations of them, a little uncomfortable in their Sunday best with their old faces closed like doors and their young faces blank as clapboard; but deep within those faces—farther down than their daydreams and boredom and way beyond any horizon of their wandering minds that they could describe—there was the hope that somewhere out of all the words and music and silences of this place, and out of a mystery even greater than the mystery of the cosmos itself, a voice that they would ^ ٧١٠١١from all other voices would speak their names and bless them.1
In his homiletical imagination, Buechner remembered—and described and all but named—the people who have come to church, who have been church, across all the centuries of the church’s life. What beckoned them was the hope that a voice would speak their names and bless them. What sort of hope beckons us in these days? These are, after all, discouraging days for many church people. We take the measure ofthings—the ” experience of being marginalized by an indifferent culture, the decline in worship attendance, the underrepresentation of the millenials, the rise of the “Nones”—and we get anxious. Moreover, since Reinhold Niebuhr was right years ago when he observed that anxiety is the precondition of both creativity and sin, it is so often the
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case that our anxiety drives as to go looking for hope in all the wrong places. There are certain kinds of hope which are both appealing and inadequate. There is a kind of hope which ties ns too closely to the externals of life—which goes up and down like election season polls. If things are looking good today—if I’m feeling well, and there’s plenty of money in the bank, and I just got a promotion, and the news of the world is not as bad today as it was yesterday—then I have hope. Churches often fall into the practice of this kind ofhope. In my role as a seminary president, I am always getting phone calls from toe ?astor Nominating Committees representing churches,large and small,across toe country. “Can you give us toe names of pastors who would be good fits for us?” they ask. Sometimes they express interest in a good preacher, a good pastor, a good theologian, a good visionary, someone interested in evangelism and social justice, all of that. But all too often, they just cut to toe chase: “We want someone who will fill this place again.” “Fill it with what?” I’ll sometimes ask. “We don’t really care; we just want to grow again.” Their hope is based on toe externals. Fix the externals, they’re thinking—bring in new members, electrify the worship, turn around toe dashboard metrics—and toe Kingdom of God will come in. In these days when some Fresbyterian Church (U.S.A.) co n statio n s are hosting conversations about schism, there are these occasional meetings which you can attend where a guest speaker will stand up in toe front of a large room and point to some very impressive charts. The high-water mark at toe top of one particular graph will show the denomination’s total communicant membership way back there in toe 1950’s. And then, like a sliding board, toe line ftom that mark descends depressively across toe width of toe chart toward toe current year, at a point somewhere near toe bottom right-hand corner, while toe speaker makes toe dramatic point that this is toe evidence of toe wayward influence and incipient liberalism of a communion that has lost its way. My own thinking is that there is a much larger cultural phenomenon going on that is impacting every ecclesial family in America—the Frotestant mainline generally considered; toe Catholics in every region except, perhaps, toe border states (like toe one I live in); even those Evangelicals whose rhetoric about their own immunity from these trends has sometimes been prematurely triumphalistic. This larger cultural phenomenon signals a profoundly spiritual problem and hunger, for sure, to which Christians ought to be attentive, but also tracks toe rise of individualism and a malaise generally considered and toe decline of voluntary associational groups of all sorts—religious and civic. It is, in short, a big hairy dilemma toe dimensions of which are multi-layered and complicated. But what is so often implied by a flimsy and self-serving analysis of that descending line on toe big chart up front is that if you and your congregation will only join toe shiny new denomination that has paid for toe guest speaker’s travel expenses, then in no time at all you will all witness toe reversal of those downward trends as your church’s measurables once again rise up toward toe evidence of greater faithfulness at toe top right-hand comer of the chart. If things are going well with respect to toe external measurements, then we have hope. The problem with this sort of hope, of course, is that that’s when I am least persuaded that I need hope. The point at which I need hope toe most is precisely when hope is in its shortest supply. A hope, therefore, which is so dependent upon the positive measurable externals of life is a hope that will not sustain us in hopeless times.
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There is an©ther kind of hope that goes in the exaet opposite direetion—that cultivates as few ties as possible to the externals oflife. For there is a way of hoping that depends upon being totally disconnected from the daily affairs ofhuman history. This approach to hope simply focuses upon the “sweet by and by” without drawing any connections with the needs of the world in which we live. This is the kind ofhope we hear about, for sure, in the neat pieties of privatized religion—a hope that centers around a one-on-one relationship between the believer and God that is not likely to require any more public expression. Years ago, Sally Brown ffom Frinceton Theological Seminary made the observation that the old nineteenth-century hymn “I Come to the Garden Alone,” with its vision of a Jesus who “walks with me, and.. ·talks with me, and.. ■tells me that 1 am his own…” could be the anthem of twenty-first century Anglo-Frotestant spirituality. “The people to whom we preach today,” she wrote, “are highly influenced by a culture of individualism…. [M]any understand Christian spirituality in fundamentally individualistic terms—as a matter between the self and God.”^ This sort of privatized hope is discernible in many churches that are high on spirituality and indifferent to any imperative to apply it in any sort of outwardly commnnal ٢٠missional direction. But such a constricted version ofhope is not just visible in church; there are secular versions of it, also. This is the hope, I suspect, behind the allure of those suburban highway billboards trumpeting the assets of those bucolic gated communities awaiting us at the next exit. We may work in a shop ٢٠skyscraper downtown, but those planned communities in the woodsy perimeters of town awaiting us at the end ٠۴ the day make possible a disengagement from the noise and messy problems of urban life. There are those in many of our churches who have constructed for themselves hermetically-sealed cocoons that provide for them the gift of “salvation by separation .” When they go home to the gated house in the gated neighborhood—with its wall and its security code and its splendid isolation—it is possible to experience a secularized version of “the sweet by and by.” The problem with a hope that is dependent upon the positive measurable externals oflife ٢٠with a highly privatized hope that is dependent upon “the sweet by and by” is that neither of these attempts at hope approaches the rich, redemptive, eschatological flavor of biblical hope. Biblical hope—hope that is attested to throughout the pages of Scripture—has always given its most eloquent wimess over against the world’s bleakest backdrop, ft is the kind of hope that the prophets threw out as a lifeline of comfort for the chastened Israelites to cling to in the midst of exile. Jeremiah, for instance, testifies to being commanded by God in the midst of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem that will lead to the first exile to buy a field in the midst of Judah. As my Old Testament colleague Or. Suzi Park has said, “Though he knows that exile is coming, Jeremiah listens and obeys God’s command. He buys a field in a land that is about to be conquered and destroyed as a gesture of hope and faith that God will eventually save and return the people back to their land…. Indeed, an act of hope in the midst of discouragement!”^ This is the kind ofhope that St. John wrote about when he envisioned that same comfort taking on human form and coming into the world as light which would shine in the darkness and which darkness would not overcome. It is toe kind ٠۴ hope that St. Paul described when he wrote to toe Roman Christians: “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we
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wait for it with patien€e.”^ In both Testaments, sueh biblical hope is not fair-weather hope and not escapist hope, but hope that places itself squarely in foe midst of pain. In that specific location, hope speaks a distinct word to pain that, all evidence to the contrary, thin§s as they are are not things as they will be. Biblical hope is hope that starts in a hopeless place and then weaves itself throughout the amazing saga of the people of God in every age. It is hope, finally, that acquaints itself as well with our saga, too, yours and mine. It is crucial to preach this hope in times of discouragement such as these. When it takes so little imagination to behold the bleakness of the world around us—consumed as it is by terrorism and war and income inequity and environmental danger and foe bloated lives made possible by a near-addictive consumerism, and in a church often surrounded by foe magnitude of human needs and fears—it is crucial for foe preachers of hope to remember two things. First, the good news of the Gospel began, as it always does, in foe midst of foe very teeth of death and despair. It drew near to human pain, not human triumph. It rooted itself in a cemetery, after all, foe last place in which anyone expects to encounter life, where faithful people encountered foe risen Christ. Secondly, foe Gospel is preached into the midst of community. In the Matthean account of resurrection, for example, two women went to that Jerusalem cemetery encumbered by a view of life on foe ground, but there in that hopeless place they met the risen Christ. Rather than encouraging them to stay there, marinating in their ’ he directed them back to foe world and the church. “Do not be afraid,” he said; “go and tell my brothers [and sisters] to go to Galilee; there they will meet me.”5 His word to them was to go and tell foe church, for foe unexpected news in that arena of death would not be intended to be a private experience. So they were sent back to foe world and to foe church by Gne Who had overcome foe inevitability of death and thus saw foe life beyond death with foe bigger vision that is only possible with foe right kind of eyesight. Preaching hope in these discouraging times requires this right kind of eyesight. It requires, I believe, that foe preacher name without fear foe conditions that assault hope, foe very conditions in any age for which foe biblical message of hope is always intended. Moreover, preaching hope in these times requires that foe preacher point listeners back again and again to foe very same arena toward which Jesus has always pointed them—the world and the church. I sometimes hear people of faith, including many seminary leaders, drawing a false dichotomy between foe world and foe church—as if the church is so ghettoized and compromised now by its own self-absorption and self-destruction that even God has given up on it. Better now, I have sometimes heard them say, that we jettison our historic ‘־with foe church and direct our intellectual and missional energy toward the world generally considered. “After all,” I actually heard one lecturer say once at a meeting of seminary leaders, “Jesus didn,t say in Matthew 28, ‘Go therefore into foe church and make disciples;’ he said, ‘Go therefore into all nations and make disciples… .’” ٠Well, fair enough. But, since Jesus also beheld Peter—that ‘ neurotic and mercurial disciple almost comically given to repeatedly putting his foot in his own mouth—and said, “You are Peter, and on fois rock I will build my church,”1 can we not admit and claim boldly that Jesus loves both foe world and foe church? Sally Brown, quoted above with respect to foe dilemmas inherent
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in ©ur culture of individualism, went on to say that “the Reformed tradition insists [that] distinctively Christian spirituality is irreducibly corporate and ‘ short, ecclesial, spirituality.”؟And so it is. Preachers of hope cannot stress that point often enough. One of my favorite preachers of hope was Dr. Jack L·. Stotts, a theologian,ethicist, and a predecessor of mine in foe Presidents Office at Austin Seminary. For each of foe years of his presidency here, he gave a Charge to foe graduating class at foe Seminary’s commencement ceremony. In 1994, he riffed on another text from Matthew : “See, I am sending you out like sheep into foe midst of wolves…” وNot such a great way to send someone out into service in foe church, if you ask me, except that Jack was reading that text with just foe right kind of eyesight. And so he went on to say this:
The wolves of our day are not the wolves ofMatthew’s time. They are not an identifiable group in foe churches, as much as we would like to point them out as fois or that interest group ofthe right ٢٠left. The wolves instead are forces that act to deterthe daring action andrisk-takingventures to which Jesus calls us….In foe churches which have suffered loss of membership over the past several years, there is foe wolf of uneasiness and discomfort that invites us to focus on what will add numbers without counting foe cost to foe full-voiced gospel. In a market-driven religious environment, there is foe temptation to offer what will please rather than what will stir. For a church that struggles with its identity, there is a temptation to sertie on foe lowest common denominator, one that will hold people together at all costs. And there is foe equally corrupting temptation to provide a formula-faith that invests authority in what is penultimate: our experience, foe Scripture, foe church, or a creed, rather than what is ultimate—the God who calls us in Jesus Christ. There is foe alluring temptation in an unstable environment to long for and to seek a risk-free world, or at least an enclave of assurance and comfort And thus there arises in foe church a culture of intimidation that works against standing up for foe right and seeking foe truth, no matter what. This culture is one of defensiveness and fear, discouraging ٢٠avoiding struggle, of denying foe wolves of ignorance and greed, of poverty and constriction of spirit, foe wolves that prowl around us and within us, ravenous beasts of prey. But listen: “I send you out tike sheep into foe midst of wolves.” It is not athreat. It is a charge worthy of your gifts, your faith, your knowledge. It is a word not to douse your enthusiasm but to elevate it. It is a word not to discourage you but to encourage you. It is a word not to make foe task of ministry threatening, but to affirm its noble and ennobling dimensions…. And I send you out not armed with automatic weapons to kill the wolves, but as a bearer of love that will overcome them. This love confronts foe beasts that devour our spirits…. This love rests on foe love of God that has in Jesus Christ overcome foe wolves ofthe world, rebuking foe untruthful, urging…thinking and acting that frightens even its proponents, and having the courage to risk one’s own comfort and security for foe sake ofthe gospel.10
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Every now and then, when we behold the church of faithful experience as opposed to the ehurch ٤٠our most relentlessly impossible dreams, we can see breathtaking evidence ٤٠such embodiment of hope. In a recent issue ٤٠Texas Monthly, I read an article that recounted a parable ٤٠ such embodiment. The tiny hamlet of Wells—hardly a wide spot in the road in the piney woods ofeast Texas—has become the home of a small following of separatist fundamentalists, not more than 90 members ineluding some 35 children. The “elders” ٤٠this cult-like congregation moved the whole eongregation there from Houston in one fell swoop and began to treat the ?00 or so citizens ٤٠Wells like unwashed heathens. These elders, all ٤٠them young men, practice a process “ ٤٠shunning,” which includes separating new recruits from their families. They have bought several pieces ٤٠real estate in the town, from which they control their own members with high-handed strategies of indoctrination and proclaim that all other Christian bodies …………………………… the three small Baptist, Methodist, and Peutecostal congregations in Wells—are apostate. Many families from across the country, whose young adult children have been lured into membership in this church, have come to Wells hoping in vain to be able to see their children and perhaps encourage them to come home. These families have been denied unsupervised time with their recruited loved ones and have been treated with suspicion and disregard by the elders who control and monitor their access. Gradually their plight has become common knowledge amongst the pastors and church people in the community, as the townspeople, too, have become more alarmed over the secretive and abusive behaviors they have witnessed . A few months ago, the Baptist and Methodist pastors in town organized a prayer vigil. They gathered near the old railroad depot and marched, some 75 or so locals, to the ramshackle house that is the headquarters ٤٠this new congregation. By the time they got there, the crowd had swelled to over a hundred. There was an uneasy conversation in the from yard ٤٠the house between the leaders ٤٠the march and several leaders of the separatist church. One of the elders shouted at the crowd, “You love the world and you think the love of God is in you?… You should be ashamed ٤٠yourselves that you’d come out, this night, playing the fools ٤٠God…. You are false Ghristians.” Later, pointing at one ٤٠the local pastors, he shouted, “If you follow these blind leaders, you’re going to fall into a ditch and you’re going to burn in hell!… This man is not a man ٤٠God. This man knows not the Lord Jesus Christ!” But in the midst ٤٠this loud tirade, the sputterings ٤٠this man were drowned out by a new and louder sound. It was the sound ٤٠singing, as the church people ٤٠Wells took up the songs ٤٠their faith:
Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus, Because He first loved me!
When that song was over, they sang “Victory in Jesus,” and when that song was over, they sang yet another. The meeting eventually dispersed, but toe church people ٤٠Wells had found their voice, and now in various ways, they are continuing to raise their voices against toe tyranny ٤٠a dangerous spirit dwelling in their midst.11
?entecost2014
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Truthfully,the Church ofjesus Christ is not always mueh to look at when it comes to assessing the powers of the world and which of those powers we would he wise to bet on. It is, after all, so often polarized and embattled and timid. All it is really good for, in the final analysis, is singing its bold song into the faee of all that looks so powerful and yet is finally so hopeless. This is why those two women took heed of the risen Christ’s words there in a eemetery on that first Easter. They went baek to whate¥er they could diseem of the ehureh in that moment of time, resolved to repeat what Jesus told them to proclaim. They loved the ehureh for the simple reason that Jesus did and does, and so they went back to a discouraged and embattled collection of dispirited disciples and fairly preached it into renewed faithfulness and hope. This is our job too, even—no, especially—in rimes of discouragement.
Notes لFrederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember (San Francisco: Harder and Ro w, 33 -32 م(984ل . 2 Fersonal correspondence with Dr. Brown. See also Sally A. Brown, “Preaching as spiritual Formation ,” Journalfor Preachers, XXI, no. 2 (Lent 1988): 26-30, where Dr. Brown argues for an communal /ecclesial understanding of Christian formation. 3 From a recent conversation and subse،tuent correspondence on this topic with Dr. Song-Mi Park, Assistant Professor of Did Testament at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. 4 Romans 8:24b-25 (NRSV). 5 Matthew 28:10b (NRSV). 6 Matthew 28:19. 7 Matthew 16:18■
9 Matthew m:16a 10 Jack L. Stotts, A God to Glorify (Austin: Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, 1996), 49-50. 11 1 am grateful for the investigative reporting of Sonia Smith’s article, “When Is a Church a Cult?” Texas Monthly (February 2014): 82ff.
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