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  • It’s Five o’clock Somewhere

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    It’s Five o’clock Somewhere

    Acts 2:1-14

    Leigh Stuckey

    Westminster Presbyterian Church, Greenville, South Carolina

    In 2009, after a week and a half spent hopping from hostel to hostel in Germany and Austria, I landed in the lovely Baltic town of Warnemünde. By some odd fortune, I found myself staying at the home of the town’s beloved former mayor, a fortress on the coast that, with the exception of the jacuzzi-hunt room, was decorated entirely in shades of vanilla. I arrived at the house after ten days in cramped hostels and six hours on a train. You could read every minute of the journey on my face, the ragged American in sore need of a shower in a laughably luxurious home. Just after my grand entry, as if to offer a study in contrasts, the most beautiful gaggle of German 20-somethings shuffled into the sitting room. They had been surfing, of course, and they appeared to have hopped right off of the cover of Deutschland Sports Illustrated. The whole scene left me speechless, which was helpful considering my German consisted of ordering “Ein bier.. .bitte.” Dinner, which began promptly at 9 o ’ clock p .m ., lasted three hours. Bless the sweet, beautiful Germans, they tried to remember that I couldn’t keep up, but somehow every conversation that began in English ended in German. I was utterly lost, which is how, for the first time since I was born, I found myself sitting through a meal quietly. Perhaps I was born to be a preacher; God knows I have been a talker since my very first word. Silence is banished in my presence. The child of two teachers, I have been the bane of many a teacher’s existence, and I’ve seen more than my share of earplugs on any given road trip. I love to talk. So you’ll understand why, the day after my silent three-hour, five-course German dinner, I was in the mood to excise my vocal cords. Our hosts left instructions that we take the train to Rostock, a town over, for din­ ner. Where better to talk, to observe, to pontificate, than a train? There were not many people in the station, and I was on fire—offering observation after observation about the grand German culture, its complicated legacy, and my hopes to visit a nearby biergarten. Nothing that I saw or thought or heard or smelled was beyond the range of my commentary. I was entertained beyond measure and grateful for my stage. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a shabbily dressed young man edging to­ ward us. He moved closer and closer in as I babbled on, clearly interested in the two women on the train platform. Suddenly Colleen, my housemate back in the States with whom I was traveling, stepped on my toe and told me, in no uncertain terms, to halt die Klappe. Shut. Up. I assumed she, like so many others, had simply forgotten her earplugs. I proceeded. Colleen had spent a year in the area and knew it well. She knew in particular that Rostock had been a Nazi and, more recently, Neo-Nazi stronghold, and that well into the 2000s there were pockets of deep anti-foreign sentiment in the otherwise idyl­ lic town. The man continued his approach. He was just out of ear-shot but clearly straining to hear something in my commentary. Colleen surveyed him as I prattled on. She asked—demanded—once more that I stop talking. Had I paused I may have

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    read the panic on her face. I did not. Unbeknownst to me, she had, from a pin on the man’s lapel and a tattoo blazoned on his arm, deduced that he was was a member of a particularly brutal anti-foreign neo-Nazi gang. While I pontificated, she panicked. When our train finally arrived at the station, she pushed me through the doors. He followed on our heels. She leaned in and quietly explained what she saw—the symbols on his jacket suggested a willingness to embrace violence, his pin signaled allegiance to the neo-Nazi clan. With each word I spoke, she warned, I betrayed us. In the heart of Germany, two young Americans —a politically fraught identity in that particular historical moment—were vulnerable and exposed. By the logic of the young man, we weren’t supposed to be there. We were foreigners, and we didn’t belong. In an otherwise empty train-car, he sat right behind us—ear turned to us, hands hidden. For the remainder of the half-hour trip, I sat in terrified silence. I feared the worst: that if I spoke, if he heard my voice again, confirmed that I wasn’t German, well, who knows what might happen. We presume to know a lot about one another based on the way we talk—socioeco­ nomic status, class, gender, education, nationality—name your signifies Each indicator, according to our calculus, has its tells, and each category, whether it be nationality, race, sexuality, or gender, its intrinsic truths. Within five minutes of moving to New Jersey for graduate school, I’d swallowed every vowel in oil and not much longer made po-em a multi-syllabic word. I didn’t have to announce that I was a Southerner; my drawl gave me away. And if I was a Southerner, my classmates presumed I was probably a little slow—and definitely a farmer who was also a debutante and likely carrying a gun. It’s funny, or it could be, until you’re on a train thousands of miles from home, or being attacked for not “talking right,” or facing a mob of folks who are most as­ suredly the “us” to your “them.” But I’m getting ahead of myself. Pentecost for the disciples began as the dullest gathering in all of Jerusalem. They were there for a holy harvest celebration, but they’d hidden themselves away from the fracas, retreated from the thousands of pilgrims gathered outside of their doors. Luke recounts a sombre mood; the waiting disciples brood, forgetting perhaps that they have just seen the twin miracles of resurrection and ascension; they are glued to their chairs in an upper room. Jesus’ remaining disciples seem to feel the same way my grandmother did about gatherings in a post-resurrection world. If they’re associ­ ated with Jesus and worth their salt, they should be quiet, demure, and orderly. No hubbub, no scenes, just prayerful reflection until it’s time for lunch. But then, as it will do, the Spirit shows up and things go sideways. Imagine yourself in those chairs. Imagine the sheer silence suddenly interrupted. Allow yourself to hear the rattling sound fill the house, bellowing as if from the heart of creation, like a bass drop from the divine throne. Feel the wind whip about the room, and if that doesn’t get your attention, turn your eye to the tongues of fire. Fire headed straight for you, resting on you, and then, as if your will is no longer your own, propelling you, doing something in you, burning your tongue, your insides, making you want to talk. It’s a miracle in its own right: orderly and proper Greek-speaking Galileans, prob­ ably Proto-Presbyterians, with their particularities, biases, and preferences, thrust from their stiflingly dull room only to find themselves among a throng of pilgrims from all

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    over God’s creation. Orderly and proper Greek-speaking Galileans speaking with and being understood by more foreigners, more “thems,” than they even knew existed. One moment there was silence, and then there was a tent meeting; one moment there were 12 disciples, the next an international congregation. One moment there was an “us,” the next there was a people. In the space of an instant, innumerable divisions were toppled. Parthians, Elamites, and Mesopotamians were able to hear the good news in their own tongues: “Jesus is risen indeed.” Turns out that when the Spirit shows up, the disciples and all Jerusalem’s pilgrims with them are transformed from a collection of dull, disparate individuals into a people drawn by a common purpose—proclaiming the Word and hearing it. “You shall be my witnesses,” Jesus said before leaving them. And now, like it or not, they were. Onlookers buzzed with amazement. But some, the orderly type, probably another set of proto-Presbyterians, sneered: “They’re drunk, and it’s not even time for Sunday brunch!” It turns out that it doesn’t much matter what language you speak or how much money you have or any other signifier. When the Spirit shows up, God’s gonna set you on fire! The problem with Pentecost is that it’s 10:30 in the morning, and it looks a lot like last call at the Thirsty Monk. Established rules and boundaries are set on their side. The problem with Pentecost is that it makes folks like me, folks who take pleasure in order and decorum and little boxes, rather uncomfortable. But I’ll tell you what, when it comes to the Spirit, it’s always five o’clock somewhere. When I read this text, I can’t help but wonder where, exactly, the Spirit might show up today. If indeed we were to find ourselves in the thrall of another Pentecost, where might we hear the sound of the heavenly bass drop? Are the rooms we good Presbyterians occupy as stiflingly dull as those occupied by the disciples that day? After all, we tend to segregate ourselves much like those early disciples did. Like with like. Even though we understand them to be flawed and divisive, our boundar­ ies—those signifiers culturally understood that divide rich and poor, white and black, gay and straight—are all too present in our tidy lives. We line ourselves up where we think we belong or where we wish we would. But perhaps if the Spirit came blazing down Augusta St. at just the right time, she might catch all God’s people—not just this good congregation, but the folks gathered in the Harris Teeter Tavern or down at the Pita House. Not just “us,” but them too, our Mexican neighbors waiting for day labor outside the Home Depot, the unhoused folks we see walking up and down August St. each day, the Palestinian businessmen, the trans student, the rich doctor, and the Black folks on Main St. reminding us that their lives matter too. And then perhaps, bound by a common flame, we who so cherish our tidiness could finally break out of our upper rooms and embrace God’s Kingdom and our siblings. Now don’t be mistaken. The scene may look a little wonky, but that’s the Spirit— the one who makes possible all impossibilities, who hovered over the chaotic void at creation, who called young Mary to embrace the eternal God in her womb, who descended at Jesus’ baptism, who bonded the crucified Son with the suffering Father. That same Spirit at Pentecost created a people and brought forth a community where before there was only division. And remember this, because it’s important: the Spirit did not erase the differences between those folks in Jerusalem; the Spirit did not create one supreme culture or

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    language or race or gender, one way of being properly “Christian.” In the movement of the Spirit at Pentecost, the very thing that previously prohibited community—the inability of one person to speak to another—was overcome. Each heard in their own tongue, each spoke in their own voice. The difference is recognized, but it is not en­ trenched. Behold a thousand punchdrunk pilgrims retaining their individuality while relating to the singular voice of a summoning God, “You shall be my witnesses.” I’ll say it again: when it comes to the Sprit, it’s always five o’clock some­ where. I love to fill a silence. But on that train in Rostock, unable to speak, I felt—even if the most minute of ways—the pain of being suspect simply because of the way I spoke and what my speaking signified. That glimpse of fear was only a taste of what so many in our own culture, our own community, have experienced. I was undoubt­ edly protected by my privilege even as I was momentarily threatened because of my difference. In those tense minutes, I recalled all the shameful ways I had dismissed difference, the superiority I presumed, the walls I built up when someone didn’t meet my expectations or speak my language. The church has too often served as stern gatekeepers of societal prejudice rather than joyful co-workers in God’s good creation. The good news? This Sunday, as we celebrate Pentecost, we have a chance to redeem that. We have a chance to embrace the divine spark in each of us, to watch its manifestation, to celebrate with those whom God has given ears to hear. No longer can we bide our time creating and curating division, marking who’s in and who’s out. Pentecost calls us to joyfully embrace the wide world and all its voices —always with an eye toward the singular miracle that we, each of us, are to­ gether children of the Creator, given life by the Spirit, brought reconciliation by the Son. Salvation is never just mine or yours. It is always ours. Always open and moving outward. Propelling us, pushing us. Claiming in our fellowship little children who haven’t said their first word and the least of these who we wish would stop talking. By the power of the Spirit, the walls we have built to protect ourselves from one another, the sinful rattle of our entrenched differences, and the cacophony of chaos we have created can be transformed to a unified harmony of praise. Men and women, young and old, Carolina Gamecocks and the orange team Upstate and even Georgia Bulldogs, regardless of race, class, sexuality, or nationality can be pushed and prod­ ded and sanctified by the Spirit. We can be made one. But only when we get over our tidy pretensions, our suspicions and mistrust. Only when we open ourselves to the faithful growing pains of a life of discipleship. Only when we leave our hallowed halls to embrace the voices we might otherwise never have heard. At Pentecost the Spirit rests on us in order that we might be made a little rest­ less. The fire nipping at our heels compels us toward a loud, discordant world. But we go having heard God’s Word, God’s mighty “YES,” even in the midst of our own alienation and sinfulness. We go trusting that the yes we carry forward will always be understood. God will make it so. Things might look a little shook up, the crowd might be rowdier than at your usual haunt, but there’s work to be done, and who but we motley disciples will do it. After all, when it comes to the Spirit, it’s always five o’clock somewhere.

  • Preaching the Lenten Texts

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    Preaching the Lenten Texts

    Bill Goettler

    Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut

    Three years have passed since Easter. Three years, since the last spring morning when the faithful of every land were able to gather, to embrace, to sing in full voice the songs of proclamation and celebration of Christ’s resurrection that are so central to our Christian faith. In that fi rst year, before the pandemic was upon us, we were in more familiar space, as a spring turned to summer, then a new school year began, and fi nally the sounds of Christmas gladness rang out and pointed us toward Epiphany. That is not to say that we were undisturbed, or that even that time was very normal. Christians who were paying attention to the events taking place in American society–events that by now have become a sort of progressive preacher’s litany–were increasingly anxious with the ever more evident changes in the climate, with the fi res across the west, and violent storms throughout the east. We were anxious about political leadership that was leading us in deeply troubling directions, even as we were acknowledging the long history of racialized violence on which our society has been built. On that last Easter, three years ago, few would have claimed that all was right with the world. Even then, we might still have whispered that God seemed nearby, that there was reason for hope in God’s emerging activity. Even then, the holy way seemed not too distant. But that was before we knew what was coming, before the fi rst news that an uncontrolled virus would sweep across the face of God’s earth, a pandemic like none known in our lifetimes. No one imagined that a fi rst pandemic Lent and Easter would pass, nearly forgotten, with closed church doors and pastors struggling to become amateur video technicians. And that a year later, another Lent and Easter would go by, with most worship spaces still empty, with Messiah choruses ringing out only on video screens, and the few outdoor gatherings still distant and fear-fi lled. We dare not approach another Lenten season without recognizing what it has been like for us, for our congregations, for all of earth, to have lived through season after season of such trouble. The too brief moments of hope, of successful vaccine development, of the promise of a new political way, or the end to a global confl ict, have been followed too often by disappointing news of still overburdened health care settings and leaders in nearly every realm failing yet again to come to terms with all that ails us. The unavoidable reality facing people of faith is a sense that many of the things that seemed most secure in our lives are not so certain after all. Governments do not necessarily rule wisely or with justice. Argue as we might with the science, our climate–this very earth–is facing a time of dramatic change. And our health as individuals and as a society is far more fragile than we had come to believe. More than that, people have secretly been wondering what has become of God? If so many other things that we had long assumed to be stable and trustworthy suddenly seem to be less of both, might the place of the holy in our lives also be threatened? The interruptions, after all, have stretched beyond school closures and compromised work

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    settings. Since the start of the pandemic, the familiar fl ow of the Christian liturgical year has come to a stop. Lent and Easter, Pentecost and Advent have blurred in the zoom universe. And as those seasonal markers have seemed less and less signifi cant, some surely wonder, might it be that the activity of God is also not as certain as we had hoped? For a people well accustomed to a time of Advent waiting that would soon lead to Christmas joy, and the quiet discipline of Lenten refl ection and sacrifi ce that would prepare our hearts for Easter gladness, these three years have shaken the fl ow of our lives as never before. Oh, the seasons have still advanced predictably, following the calendar’s plan. But a sad and even desperate tone has persisted as well, numbing our certainty that, in God’s time, our trials dependably result in satisfaction and joy. We are less certain that our waiting will result in the appearance of the light of the world, less sure that our faithful Lenten discipline will lead us to encounter God’s blessings. How are we to preach good news, then, to a people who have endured a time of little promise? How are we to teach about the dependability of God, when that God has, to many, seemed quite absent for a long time? For now we have watched as season after season has passed, and still we await God’s redemption of society, God’s healing agency, Christ’s redeeming power. Oh, we don’t want to go here. We don’t want to talk about a God who seems to have disappeared from the scene. But three years have passed since we last sang hosannas together. And people have noticed. We dare not pretend that all is well. But what are we to say? The lectionary gospel readings for the fi rst four weeks in Lent have something important to offer us. So too does most of the rest of scripture, of course, when we let it speak to the reality of this moment. For it seems that we are not the fi rst generation to endure a time of too little hope, when God has seemed much too far away, for far too long. This year, on the fi rst Sunday in Lent, the Gospel of Luke leads us into the desert with Jesus. One of the challenges of knowing these stories so well, of understanding the Biblical unit of time that is encapsulated in 40 days (or 40 years), is that we know the ending. We know that after 40 days, Noah’s fl ood rains will stop, that after 40 years, God’s chosen people will make their way out of the desert and into the promised land. After 40 days, Elijah will fi nd water, and Jesus will leave that godforsaken desert. Knowing that good will follow bad, we fi nd it convenient to forget that within such times of abandonment and fear, there is no certainty about when the hardships will end. For 40 days, Jesus is alone, afraid, cold at night and thirsty at daybreak. For 40 days, he grows weaker and more vulnerable. What do such desert times mean, we might well ask. Can we hold on to faith when so many of the signs of the time challenge us to be faithless and afraid? How did Jesus do it, how did the people of Israel keep on, how did Noah’s clan not come to blows? Stories of such fearsome waiting will continue in the Gospel readings for the next few weeks of Lent. On the second Sunday of Lent, the thirteenth chapter of Luke makes room for us to consider another way in which Jesus has waited, now “to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” A growing awareness of such a holy longing to draw us near invites us to know something about the Mothering God who wants to protect us from every harm, and deeply desires for

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    us to be made whole. And perhaps it also opens our hearts to the anguish that God feels, for that time has not yet come, even now. We wait, of course. So does God, by Jesus’ telling. Imagining God waiting, until in the fullness of time, we fi nd ourselves in the place that is right. As the old Shaker hymn suggests,

    When true simplicity is gained To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed To turn, turn will be our delight Til by turning, turning we come ‘round right.1

    The third Sunday in Lent returns us to Luke, thirteenth chapter, again to a Jesus who awaits our repentance, our coming to terms with our distance from God and our determination to open our hearts anew. Now we are in the vineyard, considering the fi g tree that has borne no fruit. “Wait yet a little longer,” the gardener begs. “Wait,” Jesus tells those who hear his story, “even though the outcome is yet uncertain.” Few care much for this diffi cult parable. There is a threat, at least implied, for the tree that continues to bear no fruit. But that is an agricultural question, not a theological one. Over and over again we hear the scriptures insist that, in some seasons, we must simply wait. So it is that we must preach. And then, by the fourth Sunday in Lent, we move to the story of the Prodigals in Luke 15. We know all about the foolish younger son and his petulant big brother. But consider the Prodigals’ father, whose life has become one of waiting at the top of the hill, overlooking the road out of town where the boy last walked. The father has heard nothing, received no word of hope or of dread. Only the painful silence. And yet, he waits, with no assurance that there will ever be a messenger. There is, in fact, no reason to believe. There we have it… people acting in faithful ways with no reason, no external evidence, no cosmic certainty. These Gospel stories just might say something to where we fi nd ourselves as this season of Lent begins, this Lent that comes three years after our last real Easter. If the normal fl ow of the liturgical year provides God’s people with a certain sense of confi dence in God’s abiding activity, this extended season of separation and silence has caused us to wonder about that confi dence. This Lent, we are more in touch with the fragility of our lives, the fragility of all of life on this planet. We are better acquainted with uncertainty than we have been in other times. We know, for sure, that we don’t know what lies ahead. Even those who strive to live by their faith may well fi nd it more diffi cult to be comforted by overly-confi dent preachers who assure them that their trust will be fulfi lled. Perhaps this long time of pandemic and dis-unity is leading us toward a different perspective about God, a God who offers us no certainty about good news in the ways of human society. Perhaps these really are days for waiting, for seeking, for wondering. Perhaps this Lenten season might hold a time for prayer. If the virus continues to evolve (or if the vaccines truly take hold with children, and on every continent), if the climate changes become more radical (or if some dramatic change in human industry and lifestyle slows that process), even if society insists on acting in ways that are inhumane (while still exhibiting the best of human kindness)… in all of these possible ways ahead. we still will turn to God. Not because of a reward, not because of the certainty that God will act to repair society. No, we

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    wait, and we trust in God (these three long years of Lent have taught us), because God invites us to put our trust in God. What does it mean to live in that liminal space, where this is not certainty? The poet Lucille Clifton writes of the endurance and strength that emerged through her own life experience.

    won’t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.2

    For Jesus, wandering in the desert, for the hen gathering her brood, for the gardener hoping that the tree will bear fruit, for the prodigal father sitting on the hillside, there is no assurance that a promise will be fulfi lled. No deal has been offered, no certainty awaits. Might this suggest an approach to preaching in Lent, as well, a way to take seriously the profound hurt that we have known, and the needs of a people who gather in a time like no other, a people who have kept on in spite of the peculiar burdens of these years, this season in human history? Three years have passed since Easter. The dependable patterns of the liturgical seasons are familiar no longer. We walk through the days of Lent, prayerfully. We wait, and we watch, and we keep on. Because that is who God calls us to be.

    Notes 1 Elder Joseph Brackett, Simple Gifts, Public domain, 1848. 2 Lucille Clifton, “won’t you celebrate with me” from Book of Light (Copper Canyon Press, 1993).

  • What’s More Original Than Sin?

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    What’s More Original Than Sin?

    Genesis 1:26-28a; 3:6, 8-11, 22-24; Romans 5:12, 15-21

    Michael Hoyt

    Fourth Presbyterian Church, Greenville, South Carolina

    Series Overview: “What’s More Original Than Sin?” was preached at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina, on August 15, 2021, as the fi rst of a three-part series, “The Good News About Sin.” Guided throughout by Douglas F. Ottati’s A Theology for the Twenty-First Century, a general overview of the series is as follows: “What’s More Original Than Sin?” explores the doctrine of original sin as understood within the context of humanity’s original created goodness in the image of the God of grace. The good news that we belong to the God of grace gives us courage to take a close, honest look at our sin. “So Much Sin! All You Need Is Love?” examines the multifaceted nature of sin as the contraction of the human heart, mind, and will that results from human wounds and anxieties. The Spirit’s assurance of God’s love frees us to open our minds, hearts, and hands to respond with greater love toward the neighbor, stranger, and enemy. “Structural Sin and Hopeful Realism”considers the ways sin is more than an individual and personal reality, but is also social, systemic, structural, and institutional. Taking structural racism as an example, as imposed through housing segregation in America, the sermon examines how a realistic notion of sin calls for responsible structures that restrain sinful human tendencies.

    ***** For better or worse, much of what we Presbyterians have believed and taught about the Christian faith has emerged from John Calvin, the 16th century Reformer who grounded much of his theology in the writings of Augustine of Hippo, who lived and wrote at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fi fth centuries. This sermon series will seek to benefi t from the better and offer some alternatives to the worse. And of course, I won’t be judging the better and the worse on my own, but will be sharing my gleanings from Reformed theologians of the 20th and 21st centuries who offer interpretations of Augustine and Calvin for the modern church. As we get started talking about sin, at the front of my mind is the frequent exhortation of our friend and elder at Fourth, the late David Quattlebaum: “Pastor, preach the gospel!” So perhaps the fi rst thing to say is that if it were not for the Good News of Jesus Christ, I would not have the courage to stand before you and preach about human sin. And the converse is true. If we did not have a very thoroughgoing conviction about the sinfulness of humanity, there would be no need for the Christian Gospel in the fi rst place. But in fact we desperately need the Gospel of Jesus Christ because we are desperately aware that we human beings have a propensity to mess things up for ourselves and for the rest of God’s creation. When we read the news and experience life in our communities, in our families, and in our own bodies and minds, we encounter fi rsthand the broken and desperate condition that led Calvin to look at the human race

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    and describe us with the words “total depravity.” This human condition seems to be consistent in every age. I am currently reading a history of the two decades leading up to World War I (1890-1914), and it is remarkable how the social and political dynamics of that day, around the globe, from the angry mobs frothing at the mouth to the corruption and class warfare, sound very much like what we see in the news today. There seems to be very little evidence for any simplistic notion of human moral progress from then until now. That’s not to say there haven’t been any moral victories, but for every hard won victory, our human proclivity for evil is lurking in the shadows or masquerading as an angel of light. But so we should expect if we have been paying any attention to the gospel we proclaim. A few chapters prior to our Romans reading for today, Paul writes that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The turn into this century is no different in terms of the human moral condition than the turn into the last century, and no different than the turn into the 16th century of Calvin’s day or the fourth century of Augustine’s or the fi rst century of Jesus’, or any of the centuries before that. We may have new technologies and more sophisticated cultures in some ways, less sophisticated in other ways, but the fundamental human moral condition has not progressed. l This brings us to the title of this fi rst sermon, “What’s More Original Than Sin?” When we look at the history of the human race, the relentless repetition of our hideous moral failings century after warring century makes a strong case for our theological claim that our sinful condition fl ows from something original, something that has always infected the human species and, it seems, always will. The evidence points to the depressing conclusion that if there is anything the human species can claim as our own original achievement, it is our ability to take something beautiful and promptly ruin it.

    ***** Now, to bring this gloomy refl ection down to the ground level where we live, we don’t have to go any further than our own minds, hearts, and bodies to know that the humans are broken. Theologian Shirley Guthrie entitled his chapter on the doctrine of sin “Why Don’t You Just Be Yourself?” and begins with a series of typical sayings, such as:

    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m just not myself” “She’s not really a bad girl. She’s just trying to fi nd herself.” “Why don’t you stop pretending you are something you aren’t and just be yourself.” “He’s not even human; he’s just an animal.” “That guy thinks he’s God Almighty.”1

    These typical sayings bring to light the self-contradictions that can make life so hard to understand: “Trying to ‘fi nd’ or ‘be’ or ‘get hold of’ myself is admitting the illogical but true predicament we are all in: I am somehow separated from my inmost, truest self.”2 But in that little notion, that little inkling—that when we think, or speak, or act in ugly or hateful ways, or even just in thoughtless or self-serving ways, that we are not being who we truly are, or that we are somehow alienated from our truest

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    selves—in that notion, we begin to arrive at “The Good News About Sin.” That’s because the answer of the Christian faith to the question “what’s more original than sin?” is that there is, in fact, something more original than sin, something more deeply true about the human race, and we have read about that deeper reality in Genesis: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness….’ So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them….” What’s more original than sin in humanity? The image of God in us is more original than sin! Before we all were sinners, we were created in the image of God. In the Genesis story, things happen in chronological sequence: creation in the image of God, then the fall from created goodness. But whether or not we think in terms of literal chronology or some literal time when humans were not sinners (and you don’t have to be literal about the timing)— either way, the theological point is about the fundamental nature of being human. We are, in our truest selves, creatures created in the image of God. And God calls the creation good. Again and again God sees all that God has made, and God saw that it was very good. What’s more original than sin? Our created goodness is more original. The image of God in us. So Shirley Guthrie writes,

    We must take sin very seriously, but not too seriously….The basic truth is not that we are sinners but that we are human beings created in God’s image. Sin distorts, twists, corrupts, and contradicts this truth, but it does not change us into something other than what God created us to be.3

    To emphasize this point, Reformed Theologian Doug Ottati observes,

    The ecumenical creeds contain no article dedicated to sin. Indeed, describing the work of the Spirit in the third article, the Apostles’ Creed mentions “the forgiveness of sins,” and the Nicene Creed mentions “one baptism for the remission of sins.” … “Sin, that is to say, goes together with grace….”4

    Sin is always and only understood within the wider context of grace. So to the question “What’s more original than sin?” the creeds would answer, “Grace is more original than sin.” Or as we used to sing in the old hymn, “Wonderful grace of Jesus, greater than all my sin….” God is the God of grace. We belong to the God of grace. We are created in the image of the God of grace. In Romans 5, Paul declares this truth. In the event of Jesus Christ, God shows that God’s grace overcomes our alienation—alienation from God and from our true selves—and reverses our degenerative condition.5 The point of Romans 5 is not that we were originally sinful, but that, through the sin of Adam, our original goodness became corrupted. Or as Calvin wrote, “Sin is not our nature, but its derangement.” So the story of Adam becomes the story of all humanity. The story of Adam teaches that all humanity has “a perverse disposition…, [that] people are plagued by a persistent fault…and are…other than they were created to be.”6 But the good news about sin is that sin never completely obliterates our created goodness. And the free gift of the God, made known in Jesus Christ, is the restoration of our original created

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    goodness. Our true self is always there for Christ to redeem. “Adam and Christ are opposite, but not equal…. They are not equal because what Christ does is so much greater than what Adam does.”7

    ***** This gospel assurance does several good things for us. For one thing, as Richard Rohr reminds us, the doctrine of original sin teaches us “not to be surprised at the frailty and woundedness that we all carry.”8 That is to say, the doctrine of sin helps us to be more realistic about what to expect from human beings and from human families, human communities, human organizations. So what can we expect? According to Augustine and the Reformers, we expect at least three things: that sin is radical, universal, and multifaceted.9 Sin is radical in the sense of the Latin word radix, which means “root.” Sin fi nds itself all the way to the very root, to the very core, of human life. We can expect “that no aspect of human life is exempted from sin’s effects.” It is not the case “that only the emotions and passions are disordered and that our reasoning capacity can be trusted to hold them in check….Neither is it the case that only our reasoning is distorted, and that our deepest affections or our hearts remain reliable guides.”10 No, sin corrupts all of it—our mind and heart and will. Even so, because our true nature still remains—that is, the image of God within us—sin does not utterly destroy our human capacities and powers as though “we are unable to accomplish anything of value and signifi cance.”11 Even though Calvin taught our total depravity, our radical sinfulness, he still recognized that we retain impressive abilities in learning in the arts and sciences, in the ability to love and build strong friendships, and to retain a basic sense of fairness and justice. These things are evidence that God’s grace continues to be at work in us even though sin taints everything. In addition to being radical, we expect that “sin’s radical corruption is also universal . No person or aspect of society is exempted from sin’s effects.” No nation, no government, no party, no school, and not even the church. This does not mean that our social and institutional life is utterly hopeless or that no good can ever come of our working together. Great good can be accomplished when we work together, but no human gathering or organization is ever sin-free, and none should be exempted from careful critique. Moreover, we expect sin to be multifaceted. The many ways sin is at work in human life will be the subject of next week’s sermon. To say sin is radical, universal, and multifaceted is not pessimistic, but realistic. And we are given the courage to be realistic because we always examine our sin in the wider context of God’s enduring grace.

    ***** Finally, the doctrine of sin—especially the doctrine of Original Sin—is a merciful teaching : it means we are all in this together. As Richard Rohr encourages us, “Knowledge of our shared wound ought to free us from the burden of unnecessary…guilt or shame, and help us to be forgiving and compassionate with ourselves and one another.”12

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    The doctrine of sin teaches us that We are all, together, utterly reliant on the wideness of God’s mercy. We are all, together, utterly dependent on the “wonderful grace of Jesus, greater than all my sin.” We can all rejoice, together, that there is nothing in life or in death that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

    There is more to say about all our sin, and we will say more in the coming weeks. But all we might say about our sin, we always say within the context of the great assurance of God’s grace. For when all is said and done, the Christian gospel proclaims good news about sin, namely, that it is not sin, but God’s grace, that is the fi rst and the last word about us.

    Notes 1 Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 212. 2 Ibid. 3 Guthrie, 213. 4 Douglas F. Ottati, A Theology for the Twenty-First Century (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020), 543. 5 Ottati, 544. 6 Ottati, 545-546. 7 David L. Bartlett, Romans (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 58. 8 Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ (New York: Convergent Books, 2019), 62. 9 Ottati brings this forward in his Proposition #59, “Sin’s corruption is multifaceted, radical, and universal ,” 553. 10 Ottati, 556. 11 Ibid. 12 Rohr, 62.

  • You Shall Know the Truth: The Challenge of Repentance

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    You Shall Know the Truth: The Challenge of Repentance

    Thomas G. Long

    Cambridge, Maryland

    “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” [Matt. 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” The First of Luther’s Ninety-fi ve Theses

    Recently a long-submerged memory fl oated, for some strange reason, to the surface of my mind. I was taken back to a fall morning in the mid-1960s, when, as a college freshman, I was sitting in my assigned seat at chapel. Attendance at daily chapel services was compulsory at my church-related school, and grim-faced monitors , like guards in an Albanian prison, patrolled the auditorium marking down the names of those who dared to be absent. The speaker that day was a guest, a professor from some major university, who had drawn the unlucky assignment of delivering a serious address to a captive audience of bored and restless late adolescents. I have long since forgotten the brave professor’s name, but I have not forgotten what he said. “Over the doors of many libraries throughout the land,” he began, “are inscribed Jesus’s words, ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ Those words are mostly not true,” he continued. He cited as evidence three of “humanity’s most profound myths”—Adam and Eve, Oedipus, and Faust. In each of those cases, he argued, the truth led not to freedom but to anguish and tragedy. I had chemistry class immediately after that chapel service, and our professor, who took the Bible as literally as he did the periodic table, shelved his lecture on molecular compounds in favor of fi fty minutes of desk pounding, harrumphing, and outraged rhetoric about any chapel speaker who could doubt the words of Jesus and who thought the Adam and Eve story was a “myth.” But our guest chapel speaker was right. The truth, in the sense of the hard, cold facts of human existence, does not set us free. The full unvarnished truth about any human life and human society, can be terrifying, humiliating, shameful, a burden too hard to bear. This is a reason for so little real repentance in church or out. Those who truly repent must accomplish one of the most diffi cult of all human acts: naming and owning the painful parts of our lives and our society from which we are repenting.

    The Rarity of Repentance We can see all around us signs of the fear of the truth, the strenuous efforts to keep from having to face the truth, and the gaping holes where repentance ought to be found. When an insurrection that shook the foundations of government and the roots of democracy is dismissed by Mike Pence as just “one day in January,” and when an act of mob violence is described by Georgia Representative Andrew S. Clyde as like “a normal tourist visit,” the Scripture understands: “You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking the truth” (Ps. 52:3). The damage done on January 6, 2021 is plain to see, but ye shall know the truth and the truth will be covered up, euphemized, wished away, and denied. Sociologist Robert P. Jones’ book White Too Long is about the “willful amnesia”

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    of White Christians on the matter of racism. He writes,

    Underneath the glossy, self-congratulatory histories that white Christian churches have written about themselves is a thinly-veiled, deeply troubling reality. White Christian churches have not just been complacent. They have not only been complicit; rather, as the dominant cultural power in America, they have been responsible for constructing and sustaining a project to protect white supremacy and resist black equality. This project has framed the entire American story.1

    Jones reports that early on a Sunday morning in 1906 in Springfi eld, Missouri, a mob of White men 3,000 strong lynched three Black men in the town square. That Sunday happened to be Easter. The community did not face up to the truth in the confi dence that the truth would bring freedom. For over a century, the truth of what had been done was hidden, repressed. The community did not repent. Who could face up to such an action? Only in 2018, when the original perpetrators were long dead, was a memorial established for the victims. Arthur Hodge, who led the efforts to create the memorial, described what had happened in his town 112 years earlier: “They hanged them. They threw kerosene on them. They burned them to a crisp. And then they went to church.”2 One could say, of course, that there are signs of change. Memorials have been established, offending monuments have been removed, buildings have been renamed. But often such events are accompanied by the applause of those who feel righteous more than by the cries and laments of the repentant. Four years ago, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania published a report from a two-year grand jury investigation that found that over three hundred priests in six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania had abused more than 1000 children. Among the victims described in the report was a man called “George.” When he was a young boy, George was among the children raped and abused by a group of priests. George told the investigators that each boy, after several incidents of abuse, had been given a gold cross to wear. The boys thought these crosses were gifts of affection, but the investigators found that the priests intended the crosses to be “a signal to other predators that the children had been desensitized to sexual abuse and were optimal targets for further victimization.” George still wears his cross today.3 The church has paid fi nancial settlements to some of the victims. The Pope has made an offi cial apology. Clergy have been removed from their positions. The hierarchy has instituted safeguards to prevent further abuse. But very few of the perpetrators have repented. Hans Urs von Balthasar, commenting as a Catholic priest as well as a theologian, said that these horrifi c acts committed by priests were even more grievous than the sins of the world because they were done by those who had received extraordinary grace in Christ. What they did to their victims, said Balthasar, was nothing less that a rejection of Christ.4 Many of these predatory priests have been caught, but few have repented. Many have been disgraced, but few have cried, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me…. You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean” (Ps. 51:3, 6-7). As Balthasar observed, to repent would be to acknowledge a failure

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    of humanity so devastating and tragic that it would constitute fulfillment in our time of what Jesus said to his disciples: “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil” (John 6:70).

    But What About “Ordinary”Sinners? We have been citing extreme cases of human depravity–vicious racism, criminal violence, murder, sexual predation. No wonder repentance is rare. In order to repent of such sins, perpetrators would have to come to grips with the fact that their souls have become canker sores. But what about the ordinary round of sinners? Why is it that, even in the case of those who are quite willing to say “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) but who haven’t themselves committed murder or robbed a bank, repentance is still so rare? Or, to put it another way, why is repentance , when we do see it, so unexpected and striking, and why, when people repent in public, are we prone to doubt their sincerity (Bill Clinton, Mark Zuckerberg)? In one of the primary liturgical resources of my own tradition, the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship, this prayer of confession appears:

    Merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart and mind and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. In your mercy, forgive what we have been, help us amend what we are, and direct what we shall be, that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your holy name.

    Prayers something like this one are prayed routinely in Sunday worship, but notice how sweeping this prayer is. To speak this prayer is to confess that our thoughts, our words, and our deeds have violated our relationship with God, to admit that, though we are called to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37), we haven’t come close to acknowledging that we have been too self-centered to properly love our neighbors and to cry out to God for healing and the ability to live a new kind of life. If we who worship took this prayer seriously, we’d have to do something—perhaps fall to our knees and rend our garments—not fold the bulletin and check our email while the children’s sermon is delivered. But perhaps we don’t rend our garments because, as Stanley Hauerwas once suggested, we don’t believe these prayers, don’t really believe they are descriptive of us. Like the old soap opera character who said in a cough medicine commercial, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV,” maybe we say, “I’m not a real sinner, but I play one in worship.” Hauerwas said,

    [T]hough we know we may be sinners, we have trouble taking that description of ourselves all that seriously. We know we are not perfect, but most of us think we are good enough. The truth is most of us are conventional people who lead good conventional lives. It is not at all clear to us that

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    we are all that sinful, but…we are willing to try to play being a sinner for God’s sake—at least at Lent.5

    Play acting at being a sinner and the emptiness of our acts of repentance may account for much of a trend in worship named by church historian Kenneth Appold, namely the gradual weakening of the language of prayers of confession. He writes,

    A more surprising development has to do with the collective confession spoken by congregations at the beginning of many Protestant worship services—common in both the Lutheran and Reformed traditions. If one pays attention to these, and especially to how they have developed over the last 40 or 50 years, one notices a gradual softening of language. In some cases, the formulations are so euphemistic and vague that they can scarcely be called “confessions” at all; they are more like recitations of general platitudes than petitions for forgiveness.6

    As a case in point, that Presbyterian prayer of confession quoted above, robust as it seems, is actually itself a considerably softened version of the prayer of confession prayed by John Calvin’s Strasbourg congregation:

    Leader: My brethren, let each of you present himself before the face of the Lord, and confess his faults and sins, following my words in his heart: People (kneeling):O Lord God, eternal and almighty Father, we confess and acknowledge unfeignedly before thy holy majesty that we are poor sinners, conceived and born in iniquity and corruption, prone to do evil, incapable of any good, and that in our depravity we transgress thy holy commandments without end or ceasing: Wherefore we purchase for ourselves, through thy righteous judgment, our ruin and perdition. Nevertheless, O Lord, we are grieved that we have offended thee; and we condemn ourselves and our sins with true repentance, beseeching thy grace to relieve our distress. O God and Father most gracious and full of compassion, have mercy upon us in the name of thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And as thou dost blot out our sins and stains, magnify and increase in us day by day the grace of thy Holy Spirit: that as we acknowledge our unrighteousness with all our heart, we may be moved by that sorrow which shall bring forth true repentance in us, mortifying all our sins, and producing in us the fruits of righteousness and innocence which are pleasing unto thee; through the same Jesus Christ.7

    That is tough, unrelenting language, and it is hard to read Calvin’s prayer without imagining it in Darth Vader’s voice. Hauerwas may be right. We can hardly imagine ourselves as these old prayers described us, “depraved” and “prone to do evil,” so we look for sunnier versions of the faith. We confess our sin, but do so untroubled. Some so-called “progressive Christians” even contrast their new, refreshing, and more upbeat anthropology with the older sin-centered versions of Christianity. As one spiritual life website puts it, “Traditional Christianity looked up to Christ as the perfect human being; in some denominations he is still regarded as the only begotten

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    son of God who died for humanity’s sins. In Progressive Christian Spirituality, we are called to be Jesus every day of our lives….”8 No repentance necessary there, no garments must be rent, no beseeching of grace to relieve distress required. I am Jesus, and I play him every day.

    A Little Tipsy in the Forest While there may be some validity to the idea that we cannot seriously imagine ourselves as sinners and are only play acting when we confess our sin, I think Kierkegaard ’s analysis of the human situation comes closer to the truth. For Kierkegaard, we are play acting, but the other way around. We know that we are sinners but are pretending that we are not. “The truth of the matter is this,” wrote Kierkegaard, “all of us human beings are like a drunk man who is not completely drunk so that he has lost his consciousness—no, he is defi nitely conscious that he is a little drunk and for that very reason is careful to conceal it.”9 Like a tipsy person trying to hide the fact, sinners try to hide their sinfulness under a veneer of respectability and self-justifi cation . We are like Adam hiding from God in the forest, and the forest is conventionality and the apparent respectability of living what the world calls a good life. But as we hide in the forest, that messenger of God called guilt fi nds us and summons us. So we press deeper into the forest all the more to hide, from God and from ourselves. We have, said Kierkegaard, in our “innermost being a secret anxiety about and wariness of the truth, a fear of getting to know too much.”10 So when we hear the words of that prayer that “we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone,” we pass them off not because we know they aren’t true, but because we know very deeply that they are true. We can’t let them sink in because to do so would be “getting to know too much.”

    Coming Out of Hiding How do we come out of the forest of self-deception, the forest of hiding from self, others, and God. Perhaps there is help to be found in Martin Luther. No fi gure in church history was more focused on repentance than Martin Luther. “His own spiritual autobiography,” observes Kenneth Appold, “…shows that he struggled profoundly in early years as a monk with his own guilt and with a seemingly relentless desire to unburden himself of it in confession.” Some have wondered if Luther’s obsession with penitence bordered on neurosis. Johann Staupitz, Luther’s own confessor, probably growing weary of Luther’s compulsive confessing, reprimanded him, suggesting that ceaseless recitation of sin could, in fact, be a sign of self-indulgence. Staupitz encouraged Luther to remember that God already knows everything and, thus, Luther should perhaps limit his penitence to the big stuff, leaving the rest to God’s mercy.11 But Luther was stuck. The more he confessed, the guiltier he felt, and that necessitated even more confession. What cracked things open for Luther on repentance was a fundraising effort. In 1517, the Catholic Church launched a huge capital campaign to raise money to build St. Peter’s in Rome. Preachers were dispatched all over Europe to preach repentance and to sell indulgences for the building fund. The sheer vulgarity of this forced Luther not only to question the place of indulgences but also to rethink the practice of repentance more deeply.12 Ultimately, in a burst of illumination, Luther heard the as-

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    surances of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, that at the end of the penitential road stood not a stern confessor but a grace-fi lled Christ, who redeems by grace through faith. Repentance became for Luther not a perpetual hand-wringing over sin, but a life-long journey, under the sign of the cross, toward the merciful face of Jesus Christ.13 Theologian Arthur C. McGill observed that it really doesn’t do any good to hound people to repent and to lead a better life:

    [W]hether people serve themselves or serve others is not in their power to choose. That is decided wholly in terms of the kind of world in which they think they live, in terms of the kind of power they see ruling the roost. The issue lies at the level of the god they worship and not in the kind of person they want to be. In New Testament terms, they live or die according to the king that holds them and the kingdom to which they belong.14

    To bring this home to the subject of repentance, people would be insane to repent publicly if repentance were an isolated act. To decry one’s foul deeds and bewail the evil one has done as a naked event could only bring reproach and shame. That is why people do not repent. It is not that we do not know we are sinners; it is that we cannot live if that is the only thing we know about ourselves. Repentance alone, as Kierkegaard saw clearly, is “getting to know too much.” This is why the ancient baptismal liturgies contained a graphic enactment of repentance. Those being baptized would be told to face west. They would then be invited to spit on Satan and all of his empty promises. They vowed no longer to obey the rules and customs of the evil kingdom that once held sway over them. They would then be asked to turn toward the east, to “orient themselves,” literally. When they did, they would be surprised to see that the priest had changed vestments. He would now be wearing a dazzling golden robe symbolizing the glory of God’s heavenly kingdom. All was now clear. Repentance was a change of citizenship. They were renouncing allegiance to the kingdom of darkness and evil and becoming partakers in a land of light, freedom, joy, and glory. It is only in the context of God’s reign that repentance is possible, only when we keep our eyes on the prize and have in view that land toward which we are traveling . When Luther saw penitence as only a sacramental act of the church, it brought him only more shame and guilt. It was when his eyes were opened to see that on the other side of repentance was not merely the pardon of the confessor but the mercy of Jesus Christ that he was able to embrace repentance as more than a fretful attempt to work off guilt. Repentance became a representation of the whole Christian journey, the entire Christian life. “Repent” was almost the very fi rst word to come from the mouth of Jesus as a preacher. But it wasn’t the fi rst. The fi rst thing Jesus preached was “The time is now! The kingdom of God has come near!” (Mark 1:14). No one repents into a void. Only when the kingdom of grace is at hand do we have the freedom and confi dence to repent. That is what that chapel speaker said so long ago. “The truth shall make you free’ is true,” he said, “but only in the context of the One who said it.” In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer railed at a superfi cial form of repentance-less Christianity he called “cheap grace.” He said,

    Page 27

    Cheap grace means the justifi cation of sin without the justifi cation of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. “All for sin could not atone.” Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin…. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.15

    Right at this point, Bonhoeffer turns to the contrast: costly grace. But he surprises us: “Costly grace,” including the act of repentance, is not a harsh disciple or a heavy burden, but a compelling treasure:

    Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the fi eld; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and self all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.16

    Notes 1 Robert P. Jones, White Too Long (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020), 6. 2 Ibid., 197. 3 Offi ce of the Attorney General, State of Pennsylvania, “Report I of the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury,” 235-236, available at https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/report/. 4 Stephen D. Lawson, “© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd The Apostasy of the Church and The Cross of Christ: Hans Urs Von Balthasar On The Mystery of the Chur0ch as Casta Meretrix,” Modern Theology, 36/2 (April, 2020), 280. 5 Stanley Hauerwas, “Repentance: A Lenten Meditation,” Journal for Preachers (Lent, 2019), 38. 6 Kenneth G. Appold, “Getting Repentance Right: Luther’s Reformation Refocused,” Theology Today, 75/2 (2018), 151. 7 “The Strasbourg Liturgy of 1545 (Part I),” http://zioncornerstonepasig.org/2012/05/20/the-strasbourgliturgy -of-1545-part-1/. 8 Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, “Our Vision of Progressive Christian Spirituality: The Shape and Substance of a New Christianity for the Twenty-fi rst Century,” https://www.spiritualityandpractice. com/practices/features/view/22301/our-vision-of-progressive-christian-spirituality. 9 Søren Kierkegaard, For Self-Examination/Judge for Yourself, edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 170. 10 Søren Kierkegaard, Christian Discourses, edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 170. See also Jeffrey Morgan, “Guilt, Self-Awareness, and the Good Will in Kierkegaard’s Confessional Discourses,” Studies in Christian Ethics, 33/3 (2020), 352-370. 11 Appold, 143. 12 Appold, 145. 13 Ibid. 14 Arthur C. McGill, Suffering: A Test of Theological Method (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982), 92. 15 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 43-45. 16 Ibid., 45.

  • Resurrection Day 2021

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    Resurrection Day 2021

    Mark 15:24-31

    Adam Mixon

    Zion Springs Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama, and

    The Ministry Collaborative, Decatur, Georgia

    “He saved others; he cannot save Himself!” Mark 15:31

    Jesus hung on the cross at Calvary for six hours. After a night of betrayal, beatings, and berating, His body bloodied, Jesus was nailed to a cross where He would slowly suffocate. With nails in His healing hands, and nails in the same feet that walked on water, and with tears in the same eyes that once wept for Lazarus and looked with compassion upon Israel, and with a head full of thoughts that once imagined a beloved community now sagging beneath the weight of a thorny crown, Jesus died. Six hours He hung, suspended between heaven and earth…. Six hours He hung balancing justice and mercy on His right hand and His left. Six hours he hung, turning His very fl esh into a bridge across the chasm that sin created between GOD and humanity. And like a good carpenter with nails in His hands, He built the foundation upon which a new Kingdom—a new community— would stand. This rejected and tried stone became the Chief Cornerstone of a spiritual building, so that you and I might become living stones with a living hope, by grace and through faith. Six hours Jesus hung there dying on public display. He was lynched by the very ones He came to love and to save. Six hours he hung there—dying in solidarity with every suffering soul, with every innocent victim, with every abandoned, left-behind, oppressed, captive—with every suffering soul. Six hours he hung there for every George Floyd, every Briana Taylor, every Ahmad Arbery, every Botham Jean, every Tamir Rice, every Sandra Bland, every Trayvon Martin, every victim of hatred. He hung there for six hours as a witness against a wicked and corrupt government and a temple that had become its tool. But in those six hours, it was not only for the victims that he hung in solidarity, and not only as a witness against a wicked and corrupt government that He remained there. Jesus hung there dying to save the souls of those twisted by hatred and violence, human arrogance, and those blinded by bitterness and pride. He hung there suffering , dying for both the victims and the offenders, the falsely accused, and the wicked deserving judgment. Jesus hung on the cross for six hours, on public display, lynched by the very ones He came to love and to save. He hung there in solidarity with the oppressed and in sorrow for the oppressors. He hung there as the witness against wicked and corrupt government. He hung there refusing to save Himself in order to save all of us. Those who looked on assessed His situation, and some counted His circumstance as an indictment against Him. “He saved others; He would not save himself.” But like many of our views of things, people, and circumstances—their vision was obscured. Impaired vision caused them to draw a faulty conclusion about what they were witnessing . They were nearly correct in their assumption, but as with horseshoes and cigars, it almost doesn’t count.

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    Was the proclaimed Savior of humanity suffering? Yes. Was the healer and preacher from Galilee abandoned by His own disciples? Yes. Was Jesus, in this moment , alone in His suffering? Yes. Was He humiliated? Yes. They were almost right in their assumption. Did He save others? Yes. The woman at the well. The demon possessed. Mary Magdalene. Lazarus, dead for four days. Zaccheaus the publican. The lame at Bethesda pool. The woman caught in adultery. The widow at Nain. The couple in Cana. Peter’s mother-in-law. The sleeping maid. Blind Bartimaeus. The ten lepers. The withered hand. The sick with palsy. The deaf and mute. The loose woman. The drowning disciples. The hungry multitudes….Yes, Jesus saved others! “He saved others, He cannot save himself….” This is where their assumptions veered off course. Yes, He saved others, but His aim was not just to save others, but also to save them—that is—to save those who condemned and crucifi ed Him! Jesus saved others and desires to see all of humanity saved—even the very worst among us. And it is this determination that compelled Him to hang on that cross for 6 hours. You see, it was not that He “could not save himself,” but rather that He “would not save himself” in order that He might save us all. He died in order to pardon humanity her sin debt and reconcile us to the Father. He died, a willing sacrifi ce to save us from our sins, from ourselves. He died in order r that death, which is the very penalty and power of sin, might die with Him! He died for all of us. He died to save us, even if it demanded that He refuse to save Himself. And on this resurrection day, amid these turbulent times, I am glad that He would not come down from that cross. I am heart-broken and sorrowful at His suffering, but I am also overwhelmed by the magnitude of the love of GOD. I’m overwhelmed at the very thought of One who commends His love toward us while we were yet in our sins! Jesus died! He hung on the cross from 9 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon; 6 hours he hung there dying just to save us. “He saved others; He cannot save himself…,” they spoke. No, no, no, I say…. Yes, “He saved others, but He would not save himself….” They wanted Him to come d d down, but Jesus said I will come through! They wanted a momentary miracle, but Jesus was initiating a monumental movement! They wanted Him to come down for an outside show, but Jesus was determined to come through with a lasting change! Jesus overcame death’s sting and snatched victory from the grave! I am reminded of the old gospel song:

    When Jesus hung on Calvary, people came from miles to see. they said, “If you be the Christ, come down and save your life.” Oh, but Jesus, my sweet Jesus, He never answered them, for He knew that Satan was tempting Him. If He had come down from the cross, then my soul would still be lost.

    He would not come down

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    from the cross just to save Himself. He decided to die just to save me. Donald Vails

    I’m reminded of the song:

    It wasn’t the nails that held Him to the cross, He could have come down, But the whole world would be lost. The ransom was so high, Only He could pay the cost…. It wasn’t the nails that held Him to the cross.

    He was wounded for our transgressions, Bruised for our iniquity. By His stripes we were healed, As He hung there at Calvary. He was lifted up from the earth, In order to draw all men. It was love that held Him there And that same love covers our sins.

    Oh, it wasn’t the nails that held Him to the cross, He could have come down, But the whole world would be lost.

    He was wounded for our transgressions, Bruised for our iniquity, By His stripes we were healed, As He hung there at Calvary.

    Oh, it wasn’t the nails that held Him to the cross, He could have come down, But the whole world would be lost.

    For God so loved the world, That He gave His only Son, No greater love had been given to anyone. The Son gave His life for the taking by men. He had the power to lay it down, He had the power to take it up again.

    Oh, it wasn’t the nails that held Him to the cross, He could have come down, But the whole world would be lost. It wasn’t the nails that held Him to the cross. Jerry Mannery, Milton Ray Biggham

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    I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that He died on that Friday. I’m glad that He lay in that borrowed tomb all Friday night and stayed there all Saturday night. I’m so glad that He didn’t stay too long. The scripture declares that early on Sunday Morning, He got up with all power in His hands! He got up! He got up to justify us! He made us right with God the Father! We are at peace with God through Jesus Christ! Sin and death have no more dominion over us! He lives, and you may ask “How do you know He lives?” I know He lives because He lives in me. When I was dead in my sins and couldn’t stand myself, He loved me! When I was stained by my own poor decisions and drowning in a sea of despair, He lifted me! And He’s been lifting, loving, leading, and saving me ever since I heard His gracious calling! He’s been catching me when I fall, putting me back together when life breaks me down, restoring me when I’ve strayed from Him, and giving me another chance when I choose the wrong over the right! Thank God for Jesus on this Resurrection Day. Thank God for a loving Savior who saved others, even if it meant He would not save himself! He died, but He lives forevermore, and because He lives…we can face tomorrow—pain, problems, pandemics , police brutality, and political unrest. Because He lives, we don’t have to live in fear of the past, of present circumstances, or the possibilities of future problems. All fear is gone! We know He holds the future; this life, come what may, is worth living because He lives! Yes, indeed, “He saved others, but He would not save Himself….” Amen.

  • Igniting a Spiritual Blaze for All Our Generations

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    Page 9

    Igniting a Spiritual Blaze for All Our Generations

    Mark Ramsey

    The Ministry Collaborative, Charlottesville, Virginia

    In June 1978, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer and activist, was invited to give the commencement address at Harvard. He had been expelled from the Soviet Union four years earlier, after long imprisonment in its murderous gulag labor camps followed by internal exile. He was always vigorous in his outspoken dissent to the injustices he experienced in the communist system. Moving to the West, however, did not temper Solzhenitsyn’s critical eye and urgent attention to what the world most needed. In that Harvard speech, he said,

    If the world has not approached its end, it has reached a major watershed in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will demand from us a spiritual blaze; we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern Era.1

    Solzhenitsyn’s words that day immediately drew an energetic and mixed reac­ tion. Older generations whose adulthood was defined by the Cold War were deeply disappointed that he had not chosen to blast the Soviet Union. (This was still 11 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.) Some younger people, however, who were already rebelling against the “Me Generation” of the 1970’s, found the speech compelling. The West is spiritually sick, Solzhenitsyn was saying to them. Our excesses and our materialism are doing us in. And then, as rapidly as the speech gained our culture’s attention, it was just as quickly forgotten by most. In the early 2000’s, I had lunch with a retired pastor who had been a distinguished leader of three thriving churches in his ministry career. As these conversations often go, we found ourselves comparing notes on the challenges and complexities of our two different generations of service to the church. His accounts of leading majoritywhite congregations through the civil rights movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s in the southern United States were inspiring and revelatory. Keeping those congrega­ tions together in those times offered a glimpse into his awareness of the challenges of pastoral ministry to individuals in a moment where there was high need for social justice action and preaching. I remember asking him “How did you know if you were getting through? Who did you listen to in the congregation to achieve the balance (of pastoral and prophetic) that you were striving for?” Eventually, our conversation turned to church communication in general. As I mentioned the various communica­ tion channels pastors today must be attentive to (phone, text, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, social media in all its components), he put up his hands in mock surrender, saying “I’d never have made it through our steep climb if all that was in play.” Every era of ministry is challenging. Decidedly, this is not a competition for who had it hardest. But, as every pastor today could testify, my question to the retired pas­ tor, “How do you know if you were getting through?” has never been more complex.

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    Preaching among multiple generations offers a myriad of obstacles and challenges. What is the opportunity for reaching multiple generations today? There are realities—and good surprises—that we should consider as we emerge from our experiences of the pandemic. We need to take care that churches and preachers are not so driven by generational parsing that we forget the central message entrusted to us to convey. This is an urgent time. Emerging from the pandemic, every generation is voicing need for care, community, connection, depth, and focus on equity. What we learn from generational needs and trends should be in service of our larger mission, but we should not let chasing these trends become our mission. Let’s begin with one of the trends that has accelerated most in these pandemic months. As many church observers have said, “The digital genie is totally out of the bottle.”2 A recent survey from Barna3 reveals one notable generational divide. When asked how they wanted to experience church—especially worship—71% of Boomers say they want an in-person experience, while only 41 % of Gen-Z prefer primary physical gatherings. In that 30% gap, there is a generational and communication challenge and a potential homiletical train wreck. One thing we have learned in the past two years as more congregations have—given their particular resources—offered online worship, is that just as early TV shows discovered they had to do more than film a radio show or stage play, so too online worship must be more than a camera pointed at sanctuary worship. Preaching in person, where you can see the faces (well, often the masked faces, but still) and hear the quiet or restlessness of the room, is very different from communicating through a camera with no real-time feedback. We also need to be very careful not to stereotype generational preferences for com­ munication methods or make (inaccurate) guesses about what will feed someone’s soul based on their birth year. One colleague who leads a 900-member mainline protestant church reports that providing an online experience for worship in her congregation proved to be almost the opposite experience from what she thought it would be. She said,

    Intimacy is the unexpected gift of online preaching. When I am preaching to just my phone, there is nothing between me and those listening to me. There is no place to hide. It has generated an amazing response among our members of all ages. The youngest in our congregation know us so much better because we have literally been in their homes (via streaming) and, in the days when we weren’t in the church for recording, they have been in—or at least seen—our living rooms or kitchens. And for the oldest members, they can see us up close. They can hear us well. It is personal, intimate communication that has made me a more effective preacher.

    If you give people choice, they will take it. This doesn’t mean that a preacher needs to offer a smorgasbord of options in every sermon or worship service. How­ ever, it’s good to remember that some people are fed more through the Psalms, others through Gospel accounts, and still others through the prophets or epistles. Keeping the offerings—of text, sermon, and worship—diverse and grounded will help a congre­ gation understand the challenge and nurture of a community that is both diverse and grounded. “One size doesn’t fit all” is not an opponent of community; it is a booster rocket.

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    Understand the difference between a communication vehicle and communication content. Often, we confuse these. As Seth Godin has written,

    Random House isn’t in the bookstore business; they’re in the business of publishing ideas that matter. Audi isn’t in the gasoline business. They sell personal transportation. When the world changes, it’s tempting to fight hard to maintain the status quo that feels safe. And so, utility companies lobby to ease emission standards, when they would be just fine if the standards were tightened. And so, tech companies fight against new formats and new forms of exchange instead of leading with them. And of course, powerful cultural forces fight to preserve their hierarchies instead of figuring out how to thrive with new ones. What we want and how we believe we get it are often two different things.4

    I know of no one in church that would say getting screens in the sanctuary—or keeping them out—is the reason a church exists. The “why” of a faith community is not about which version of the Bible, which type of prayers, how communion is served, or what style of music we use. The “why” of any faith community can never be assumed and must always be renewed for every generation. We can’t assume we know what will connect with people seeking spiritual nurture without listening to them. Every preacher is well-acquainted with those in the con­ gregation who provide helpful (or sometimes less than helpful) feedback on sermons. But what about those who are not yet present? What about those who only inhabit the sanctuary for the shortest possible time—arriving after the first hymn, sitting on the side near the back, and leaving before the service is over? Their doubts, their wounds, their institutional suspicions are such that they dare not get any closer. That is challenge enough for them. And then what does a preacher really know about the needs of folks who are using online worship as an even safer venue from which to assess a church’s ministry, worship, and preaching? One of the greatest challenges of ministry is to plan for, give attention and resources to, or preach to a constituency not yet present—or, if present, whose deepest needs are not yet known to us. The following set of questions might help pastors and churches (and especially church boards) address this difficulty:

    —Who is your next participant? (Describe her outlook, her hopes, dreams and needs.) —What is the story she told herself before she met you (about the world, her perceptions) ? —How do you encounter her in a way that she trusts what you have to offer? —What change are you trying to make in her life or her story?5

    Preachers would do well to spend some time exploring these questions and trying to engage in conversations with people who are now dwelling on the real or virtual fringes of their faith community. To be relevant to all generations, we should not chase culture, but we do need to become savvy cultural interpreters. Culture “eats strategy for breakfast,” as legendary

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    management consultant Peter Drucker was fond of saying—and culture is also busy gobbling up large portions of what churches used to do. Consider “Civic Saturday” as just one vivid example of culture taking “church things” and making them its own. Civic Saturday is a terrific citizen-focused movement that uses music, poetry, reflection, and discussion in a weekend gathering. Its website says, “Civic Saturday gathers friends and strangers together to nurture a spirit of shared purpose. At each gathering, we connect around the values and practices of being an active citizen, reckon with and reflect on our nation’s creed, and build relationships that create new civic traditions that are joyful and communal.” Sound familiar? Meanwhile, as culture moves in on church, churches are trying to cozy up to cul­ ture, figuratively and literally. One congregation recently promoted a post-Christmas worship of “Jammie church” and invited us “to get cozy and worship in your PJ’s.” I was reminded of the comment from Flannery O’Connor: “What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”6 The Apostle Paul might better guide our approach to culture. After his conversion, Paul went throughout the largely Jewish world, preaching and teaching in synagogues. In Acts 17, Paul arrived in Athens, a city with a vastly different culture than Jerusa­ lem and environs. He still went to the synagogue first, as was his custom, but then to the marketplace. In that setting, he did not decry the idols that were arrayed there, but rather used an idol to “an unknown god” to preach the same message—Christ crucified and risen—in context. As preachers in this cultural moment, we need all the support and modeling we can get to be relevant to those seeking deeper meaning without chasing the very culture the gospel seeks to transform. My earliest mentor in preaching said to me often, “Never condescend to the congregation to which you are preaching. Their needs may be obscured or even buried by parts of their life, but every person—whether they can name it or not—is hungry for an unexpected word from an unexpected angle which will save their life.”7 Even with savvy cultural interpretation, we dare not underestimate the institutional suspicion that is affecting every generation of our culture. Most of us who inhabit churches (and pulpits) have been marinating in institutional suspicion for decades, so much so that we are often not even aware of how much it has seeped into our world­ view. Not to channel a Billy Joel song, but think of the scope of events in American culture and politics that have built our institutional suspicion: the Bay of Pigs, JFK’s assassination (and immediate conspiracy theories), LB J and Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers, Kent State, Nixon and Watergate, horrific experiences dealt to African-Ameri­ cans and other peoples through revelations like the Tuskegee experiments, red-lin­ ing, all-White juries in the South turning a blind eye to violence, systemic injustice, Iran-Contra, 9/11 (and immediate conspiracy theories), as well as corruption and greed among churches and TV evangelists, and the painful revelations of the abuse of minors by priests and church workers. Think about how all these experiences have formed the imagination of every generation of women and men who participate in churches—conspiracy theories, disappointment in institutions that have failed to tell the truth or seek the welfare of the people, and the particular failure of churches to be a reliable and trustworthy source of spiritual growth and values—all these have led to great skepticism from the pew and the public that what we say as preachers is reliable.

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    This skepticism has been joined with a specific historic, cultural development. Recently, Dwight Zscheile of Luther Seminary published an article, “From the Age of Association to Authenticity,”8 that clearly and compellingly charts the shift away from association to personal journey as the vehicle for meaning in life. “The vast majority of congregations in America were birthed in and designed for the Age of Association,” he writes. “They are sustained by voluntary membership, giving, and participation, all of which make less and less sense in the Age of Authenticity, espe­ cially to emerging generations… .People feel less and less of a need to affiliate with an organization to find meaning, community, and purpose; that is understood instead as a highly personalized journey.”9 The question of how, in our ministry and in our preaching, to join travelers on this highly personalized journey—and to do so in a way that supports them, offers them the gospel, and reorients them to authentic community—is a high challenge of this moment. We live in a world that centers on and prizes the individual.10 The Bible by contrast assumes community. Think about that carefully for a moment. So often we read a scripture text or hear a prayer, and our reaction is to see how it fits our personal situation. This kind of personal devotional orientation is natural; it comes from a life­ time of being oriented to the individual. The Bible is not acquainted with that kind of world. The Bible assumes that the great arc of God’s intention, love, and grace was given, and acted out, in the community of God’s people. Jesus was not speaking to a series of individuals in the Sermon on the Mount; he spoke to the multitude. Jesus addressed several individuals during his ministry, but almost always in the context of the community. And often, Jesus’ instructions to “go and do” involved engaging the larger community. Every generation has a need to feel that they belong. Preaching is one of the pathways to that belonging. To do so in this spiritually hungry, institutionally suspicious, and radically individualized culture means that our preaching must give acknowledgement to the skepticism that is “in the room.” “Because the church says so.. .or the pastor said so,” or even “Jesus told us so” lacks traction in most of today’s multi-generational congregations. Rare is the listener who will break in mid-sermon and yell out “You need to prove that’s true, preacher!” Still, it is of growing importance that the preacher herself represent the skeptic within the sermon. In a sermon on grace, what are the obstacles to experiencing that grace in our lives? In a sermon on justice, scripture has a lot to answer for in the days of Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, George Floyd, David McAtee, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, and countless others. In a sermon on love, the opponents of love on this earth need to be addressed directly. If it were easy to live in peace, we would all live in peace. What prevents that in our world? If it were easy to be hopeful, we would all be hopeful. What blocks our path to hope? Preachers who have been fortunate to have lived their whole lives within the nurture of the church have a special challenge here. What is it like not to trust the gospel? What does it feel like to have lived a life that has never known a reliable institution, a faithful promise, or a relationship of deep and abiding love? If recent surveys on loneliness, trust, and commitment are any guide, this describes many potential listeners to our sermons. The question I discussed with that retired pastor years ago still resonates: How do we know that we are getting through with our gospel message? All these challenges are pressing in on today’s preacher: rampant individualism, persistent institutional

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    suspicion, the digital genie totally out of the bottle. All lead to greater need to offer choices of communication and presentation, the wisdom to know the tools we use from the content we proclaim, and ways to address and listen carefully to a constituency not yet present. In each congregation, the preacher may find some of these trends more prominent than others and surely will see these traits represented in some genera­ tions more than others. However, far more effectively than mining the “differences by generation” that populate our culture, minding these pressing concerns that exist across generations will nurture a preacher who can care and proclaim and interpret, and most of all, point to truth amid a culture that thinks all truth is negotiable. At some point, all of us who preach need to understand generational differences so we can be more effective in our preaching and teaching. Studies detailing those differences are widely available and important. But here is what we can’t miss: the need of every person, in every generation, to understand the urgency of this moment for faith and the need to put aside the things that weigh down churches so we can run toward this world’s pain with the hope and power of the gospel. There were an estimated 20,000 people who gathered at Harvard on June 8,1978, to hear the commencement address from the renowned Soviet dissident—and there were at least five generations present. There were college graduates in the audience, to be sure, but also younger siblings, parents, grandparents, and faculty, who all heard the “measure of bitter truth,” as he described it, included in Solzhenitsyn’s words: “It will demand from us a spiritual blaze; we shall have to rise to a new height of vi­ sion.. . (so that) our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern Era.” Every generation needed then to heed his warning, and more than four decades later, our generations need it all the more. The urgency is the same for every age: we need to be ignited by a “spiritual blaze” and lifted by a high vision of God’s promises, power, and intention for the world God so loves. That is the most essential task of the preacher in any generation, and never more so than right now in this urgent time of opportunity and challenge for the church.

    Notes 1 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Commencement Address at Harvard University, June 8, 1978, https://www. americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenitsynharvard.htm. 2 https://careynieuwhof.com/3-statistics-that-show-how-quickly-radically-and-permanently-church-ischanging -in-2020/, accessed on December 10, 2021. 3 https^/www.barna.com/digitalchurch-vS/^ accessed January 2,2022. 4 https://seths.blog/2020/07/defending-the-status-quo/. 5 This has been adapted from a Seth Godin blog post from 2009 or 2010 (https://seths.blog). 6 Flannery O’Connor, Sally Fitzgerald, editor (The Habit of Being, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1988), 231. 7 Every time I think of the wisdom H. Louis Patrick (1921-2006) offered me for more than two decades, I am filled with gratitude. 8 https://faithlead.luthersem.edu/from-the-age-of-association-to-authenticity/. 9 Dwight Zscheile, “From the Age of Association to Authenticity” August 2021, Faith + Lead. 10 One church website I saw recently includes in its welcome, “We exist to celebrate individualism….” That would be a surprise to most Biblical characters, theologians, and the martyrs of church history.

  • The Church Expecting

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    The Church Expecting

    Anna Carter Florence

    Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia

    I have learned, over the years, that the Bible contains its own treasure house of preaching manuals. The book of Job, for instance, or the book of Acts: each is dealing with questions of what a person can possibly say, or preach, in what seems like an impossible situation. In Job, that situation is unbearable loss. In Acts, it is unimagi­ nable change. The characters in both books are grappling head on with what can and cannot be said, what can and cannot be done, when things are happening faster than we can keep up with, let alone stomach or understand. And since the job is to speak about God—because God is the subject of all our preaching, and the preacher is not—what can we say about who God is, and where God is, for these people in this moment? How can we speak of the eternal when the present is only rupture? As I write this, churches are beginning to lift their heads from a season of loss and change we might once have thought unbearable and unimaginable, until we were in it. Preachers are wondering who will return to worship when the multiple pandemics recede—or if “return” and “recede” do not apply here, who will be in worship, and in what format. Will our old members come back to church when all this is past, or will we be welcoming newcomers through our doors? Can we preach to reach particular audiences (young adults, young families, seekers, hipsters) in the thoughtful ways we used to do such things, or is it too soon to know who those listeners are and have become, post-COVID? Will anyone want to get up on a Sunday morning to sit in a sanctuary, or will we be worshiping in our homes or streets or on front stoops and in church parking lots? Will worshiping in person be the exception rather than the norm, with online worship a given in most faith communities? What can we expect? Whom can we expect? Many of us have been asking panicked versions of these questions week to week for a while now, with the truth gradually dawning that this improvisational way of being may be the new reality. We don Y know what to expect anymore. About anything, really. And oddly, the best preparation for preaching into that uncharted landscape may be the experience of the past two years: we know how to lose now. We know how to be utterly disrupted: to discover that our prior experience, knowledge, and training may not apply this week, and in order to stay present, we’ll need to set some of it aside. We know how to be taken completely by surprise: to regroup, reset, recalculate, and reconfigure—not once, but multiple times. We know how to stumble, fumble, and fall flat on our faces, as preachers, by what we thought our sermons were supposed to be and do. And we know that in spite of it all, the Word sets its own course: it moves, with or without us. It finds a hearer. Our job is to catch up, and then, not to seize up. To live.. .in an Acts 10 frame of mind. The tenth chapter of Acts might just be the preaching manual of the season. Peter is facing his own spiritual pandemic, we might say: disturbing visions, invasive visions, that threaten his worldview and rearrange his homiletical framework—and some of those visions aren’t even his. They originate with another person who passes them along, like it or not. Peter does his best to mask up, but to no avail: once joined, the

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    two visions become one, and airborne. They spread throughout the church, and we are who we are today because of it. It should be noted that the contagion is a joyous one that breeds hope and gives life, not death. But the book of Acts is filled with such surges. Love keeps exploding faster than a preacher can contain it and speak it. And the people we aren’t expecting, and never imagined or targeted in our long-range plans, are the ones who teach us what preaching is becoming: how to speak of God, to these people, today. The sermon below was preached at the 2020 Festival of Homiletics, which of course was virtual. My assignment for this article was to think about preaching to young adults. The more I read the book of Acts, the more homiletical wisdom I find; a preacher need only substitute “young adult” (or young families, seekers, hipsters) for Cornelius in Acts 10, and you have a lesson in reaching new listeners. The key is to wait for the piece of the vision we don’t have, to live in a permanent state of expectation, to have faith that we will be taught what we need to know and speak.

    “The Church Expecting” Anna Carter Florence Festival of Homiletics 2021 (online) Isaiah 43:19, Acts 10

    You know, as great as it would be to have precise blueprints for preaching and the future church, I’m kind of glad we don’t. Especially after a passage like this. Imagine if we’d logged on this morning and a team of future-minded experts was here, saying, “Good news, everyone: God is about to do a new thing in your preaching, and you are about to perceive it, and we’re going to tell you how, because we’ve developed a biblical model based on Acts chapter 10 that lets you preach your way straight into the future church without a hitch; and it’s a simple matter of

    you, having a vision over here, while someone thirty miles away has a vision over there, and that person sends three people to your door, while the Spirit sends you down to open it, and the people at the door say, “Look, you don’t know us, but please come with us, because our guy just saw an angel, and the angel gave him your name and address, and now our guy’s expecting you,” — which will be your cue to go with them, to that person’s house, where fifty-three strangers will be waiting for you to give a testimony; and when you see them, in that split second, you will truly understand that God shows no partiality; and this vision you had, the one that freaked you out, is a big wake-up call to reevaluate your entire homiletical framework, because what God has made clean, we can’t call profane anymore; we can’t say, “That’s not how preachers do it!”

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    (when apparently, it is now), — so you will tell those fifty-three people what you know about Jesus, and they will listen and praise God, and the Holy Spirit will pour down all over the place, and you will say, “Could it be more obvious that we have all the jurisdictional approval we need?! — let’s baptize these people and throw an interfaith potluck!” —which you will, for the next three days, before going home to tell your church that they’ve just taken in fifty-three new members from a neighborhood they’ve never heard of, with more to come, because the Holy Spirit falls there the same way it does here… and that is how you preach to form the future church in twenty-two easy steps and forty-nine verbs. Here’s the manual. Any questions?

    Imagine if that’s what we’d heard, the first day of this conference—that preach­ ing to form the future church would be this complicated. That this was the script: Cornelius and Peter in the tenth chapter of Acts. Would you even want to know?! Would you have wanted to know, this time last year, what the rest of 2020 would bring—and would any of us have believed it? It’s hard to say. But if preaching to form the future church looks like the preach­ ing that formed the early church, then maybe this is what we have to look forward to: visions and trances and road trips with complete strangers, and twenty-two steps and forty-nine verbs, none of which we are going to see coming, all of which are random to the point of absurdity, and any of which we could miss and blow the whole thing—which is pretty much what the preachers in the book of Acts are doing. What are we expecting this new preaching to be? What are we expecting, period? At this conference, we’ve heard great lectures and theories of what the future church may look like. We expect preaching will play a role to get us there. But what we preachers are expecting… we don’t really know. We’re expecting to be surprised; we know that. We’re expecting God will show up and the Spirit will move and take us with it—forward, we hope. But maybe what we’re expecting or who we’re expecting aren’t everything. Maybe there’s another question, an Acts 10 question. Who is expecting us? Because whatever new thing God is doing, we can’t perceive on our own. Whatever vision God gives us, we only get half of. And we need to find who holds the other half. Who is expecting us, and what vision has God given them to join with ours? Peter had to learn this—that he hadn’t witnessed everything, and he wasn’t the holder of the complete vision, and he couldn’t perceive every new thing on his own—because by the tenth chapter of Acts, Peter was the leading voice of the church. He was the one who spoke up when something needed interpreting.

    (Acts chapter 2) “Why are these people speaking in multiple languages on the day of Pentecost? Because what was spoken through the prophet Joel has come to pass: ‘The Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophecy.’”

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    (Acts chapter 3) “Why did a man lame from birth suddenly jump up and begin to walk, leaping and praising God? Because the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has glorified Jesus Christ, and faith in his name has made this man strong.”

    (Acts chapter 4) “By what power or by what name do we do this—teach the people about the resurrection of the dead? By Jesus Christ, whom God raised from the dead; there is salvation in no one else.”

    (Acts chapter 5) “Why are we standing in the Temple teaching instead of in the prison, where you locked us up yesterday? Because an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, and we must obey God rather than any human authority.”

    Peter had an explanation for every new thing that God was doing in the first days of the early church, and he didn’t hesitate to speak it and preach it and testify to the name of Jesus Christ, of whom he was proud to be a witness. And maybe he’d dis­ rupted so many persons’ theologies that he needed reminding that God could disrupt his, too! Peter wasn’t always going to be the man with the answers. He was good, but he wasn’t God. So just like every other preacher in the book of Acts, he smacks his head on an epiphany he didn’t see coming. They all get a turn, these newly minted preachers, especially in chapters 8, 9 and 10: Philip, with an Ethiopian Eunuch; Paul, on the road to Damascus; Peter, on a rooftop in Joppa. Three faithful men, godly men, but not one of them could let go of the idea that some things were pure heresy—like baptism for outsiders, or God becoming a man, or tampering with laws that tell us what is holy and what is not. So they get addressed by angels, and struck by blinding light and weird visions that spell it out for them in no uncertain terms: “Listen! What God has made holy, you must not call blasphemous! What God has made clean, you must not call profane! Wake up and get with the program, because the realm of God is a whole lot bigger than you thought it was, and it’s breaking its way in!” For three consecutive chapters, 8,9 and 10, it’s one preacher epiphany after another, and it opens up the whole church. For Peter, it all happens because someone named Cornelius was expecting him. Peter is the one in the spotlight at this point in the book of Acts, and true to form, he is stubbornly (big surprise) clinging to his dietary practices and harboring certain prejudices against Gentiles. He’s about to get his mind radically changed by a vision of a sheet, some non-kosher delicacies, and a barbecue pit; but before he does, we get this little story about a Roman centurion named Cornelius, who lives miles away in another city. While Peter is dreaming about grilled pork and shellfish, Cornelius the Gentile is dreaming about him. Cornelius has a vision about an angel and a man called Peter, whom he has never met. The vision takes place while Cornelius is pray­ ing, and instead of dismissing it as a momentary lapse when he must have drifted off, he decides the angel meant business and he’d better take it seriously. And you know what happens: he sends his trusted servants to Joppa to invite Peter to return with them to Caesaria, which Peter does after a nudge from the Spirit. When they get to Cornelius’ house, a bleacher-full of Gentiles is waiting politely to hear what Peter has to say, and as they do, the Spirit moves, and God does a new thing in Peter, and

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    Cornelius and his entire household are baptized. By the time chapter 11 begins, Cornelius and Peter have parted company and the spotlight moves with Peter to Jerusalem. Cornelius doesn’t appear again in the book of Acts, but the story of what happened at his home in Caesaria is one Peter will continue to tell, over and over, as he tries to explain his own conversion: “Once,” he will say, “I thought we were God’s people, and the Gentiles were not. But that was before I had my dream, and my friend Cornelius had his vision, and God brought us together. And now I’m sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor religious dif­ ferences nor shrimp cocktails nor pulled pork barbecue with oysters and cheese grits on the side can separate a people from the love of God in Christ Jesus!” It’s such a beautiful story, a familiar story, about insiders and outsiders, befores and afterwards, and God’s astonishing knack for messing with our heads: no mat­ ter what we think the game (or the menu) is about, no matter how hard and fast the rules, God likes to change things up at a moment’s notice—to flick the switch on what we think qualifies as clean and profane, faithful and unfaithful, Christian and non-Christian, or wildly unexpected. God likes to do a new thing. Just to keep things lively, you know? Just to keep a church vital and the people hopping while amazing grace floods the field. Whatever Peter was expecting that day on the roof in Joppa, I don’t think it was Cornelius. But Cornelius was expecting him. He was expecting a person of another faith and nationality and power and privilege (since Cornelius was a wealthy Roman official, and Peter most certainly was not), and he was expecting to give Peter his full attention, to really listen to him, across theological divides and religious differences. He wasn’t like Nicodemus, going to Jesus by night. He was willing to risk what his friends and family would think about this situation. What’s more, he even invited them to come hear Peter too, which must have been an interesting conversation. Cornelius was expecting that God might do something new—that the vision he had was incomplete. Not profane, just startling. Not absurd, just vast. Not awe-inspir­ ing—not yet—but a two-dimensional view on a screen, with potential. Cornelius was expecting that whatever new thing God was about to do would require him to do some accommodating and integrating and interpreting, once he figured out who held the other half of the vision. Peter preached a great sermon that day, arguably his best. But Cornelius shows us where that sermon came from. It came from deep listening. It came from great expectation. It came from an encounter with the other, which that one initiated. And what if the vitality of the church’s witness is totally dependent on our willingness to discern that—to recognize when our biggest aversions, our greatest fears, are really invitations to God’s next new thing? I wonder about that. Does every preacher need an encounter with Cornelius in order to perceive the next thing? Is this what we ought to be praying for—that God would send us our own Cornelius, someone with whom we share deep theological dif­ ferences as well as overlapping dreams? Will the Pentecosts of the future church take place in a living room—someone else’s living room—instead our own sanctuaries? Perhaps so. Maybe this painful year of multiple pandemics will give us a heightened sensitivity. Maybe we hear God best through a person we differ from most. Maybe we proclaim God best when we stop aiming for the conversion of others and start listening for our own conversions. Maybe vitality is the willingness to be depleted,

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    so that God can form us for a future church. It would be nice to know what to expect when this season is over, to have blue­ prints for how emerge from a pandemic with a church that’s still vital. But I don’t think we need them. We’ve got this wild book of Acts, which really puts the words “Reformed and always being reformed” into perspective. We’ve got Peter, for whom God arranged a wild rumpus of a picnic on the roof that day. And we’ve got Cornelius, who is out there somewhere, expecting us to bring our half of a messy cryptic, crazy vision. What God has made clean, we must not call profane. What God will make vital, we must go out and seek. And what God is doing next in our preaching for the future church—it will spring forth. Let’s dream our half of it.

  • An Old Preacher’s Prayer on the Eighty-Second Anniversary of His Birth: October 4, 1939 – October 4, 2021 (thus far and counting) With reference to Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17

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    Page 51

    An Old Preacher’s Prayer

    on the Eighty-Second Anniversary of His Birth

    October 4, 1939 – October 4, 2021

    (thus far and counting)

    With reference to

    Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17

    James S. Lowry

    Hendersonville, North Carolina

    Holy Son of the one true God,

    seated today as ever

    at Her gentle right hand

    in a place beyond place,

    removed yet listening

    to my grandfather clock

    as it counts and chimes,

    numbering my hours and days,

    gathering speed,

    one chasing the other,

    tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

    Earthy Son of God,

    standing by me here,

    present,

    as though in a sacrament,

    shoulder to shoulder

    in my closet study

    surrounded by tokens

    of the preaching life

    gathered mostly

    from the days of my youth:

    Certifi cates here, photographs there,

    paintings, trinkets, and books everywhere,

    plus a whole fi le of old sermons,

    some not half bad,

    and others…well, you know.

    My sin goes ever before me.

    It’s my eighty-second birthday,

    and I’ve come aside to pray

    as is my custom

    in this wee sanctuary.

    I like coming here

    with just you and me,

    where you don’t seem bothered

    by the clutter of my life or

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    by the clutter of my study or by the crusting of my brain. Son of God and friend of sinners, listen to this old preacher praying. The ancient prophet predicted a day would be coming when the Sprit of God would be poured out, and on that glad and fearsome day, the young would see visions and the codgers would dream dreams. Generations later, with your death and resurrection in the air of near memory and the Holy Spirit as predicted blowing like a stiff summer breeze and spreading like wild fi re here, there, and everywhere, Simon preached a sermon, powerful indeed, declaring then as now is the time to see those visions, and this is the hour to dream the prophet’s dreams, as tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock goes my grandfather clock.

    Son of God, friend of this sinner, listen now to this old sixteen-a-day pill-popping preacher. I’m fi nding it very hard, hard indeed, to dream a dream hold up as I am in this porcelain palace reserved for the rich, the old, and the dying:

    This once proud nation of noble and sin-soaked birth is crumbling beneath the weight of lies and greed while the rich get richer and the poor are left to grovel. It’s hard just now to dream as of old of a land with milk and honey fl owing or of manna in the wilderness,

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    just enough for everyone. It’s harder still in this day and moment to picture fi ve loaves and two fi sh feeding a multitude.

    There are wars between clans, wars between powers, wars in the streets, and near wars between blue and red states, all seen as eerie preludes or, by case, postludes to death by mass killings in houses of worship, and beneath a policeman’s bony knee while militias armed with catapults brought up to deadly date are inspired by nothing save suspicion and hate. In such a deafening din, it’s hard for this old preacher man to dream of a peaceable kingdom that looks at all… even one little bit… like a lamb and lion together snuggling in.

    The world you and your Mom made good as by her right hand you stood is now, by place, choking or drowning, burning or melting as your star creation does little or nothing. Do you see why it’s hard for this old preacher of Word to dream of your kingdom coming, and harder still to remember if, as a young preacher long, long ago, I held bold visions like those in images of justice rolling like water fl owing and of a day of no more pain or crying? All this rambling is to pray just this:

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    On the eighty-second anniversary of the day of my birth, give this old codger a new dream or two, or three or four, or maybe even more… pictures of hope unbound for Martha, Jayne, Patrick, Nichols, and Finn,* and for my family by birth and family by marriage, for close friends new and of long standing, those close by and all the rest… people of all nations, times, and places set free by acts of sacrifi cial grace. All of this is to pray, Savior and Friend, that your Mom grant to this old preaching fool just enough time and energy left to see them on the way to a new world birthing… birthing in acts of kindness at the grocery store; in deeds of welcome at the border walls; in words of truth reported in the news; in pure love poured out from government halls, and in hearing the pain voiced in opposing views.

    Now take this long and rambling prayer, place it at your Mother’s holy feet. Then whisper in Her listening ear to tell her where she can fi nd it.

    So may it be. So may it be. Amen.

    *Spouse, daughter, son-in-law, daughter, and grandson in that order.

  • “Unbroken”

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    “Unbroken”

    Mark 11:1-11

    Scott Black Johnston

    Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, New York

    Throughout the season of Lent, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church has been asking “What lessons have we learned in the midst of the pandemic? Will the experiences we have had over this past year change us? Or will we revert to ‘normal’ as soon as we possibly can? What sort of people do we want to be in the aftermath of this challenging time?” These questions follow us into Holy Week. Today we ask “What sort of world does Palm Sunday call us to embrace?” Let’s keep that question in our mind’s eye as we listen to one of the classic texts for today, as found in the Gospel of Mark, chapter eleven, beginning with the fi rst verse:

    When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will fi nd tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this,’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.’” They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it, some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fi elds. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

    It has been another violent week in America. News from across the country has left many of us feeling weary—weary and numb. The visuals coming out of Boulder strike us as too tragically familiar: pictures of hunched-over people running from a building, a snapshot of police offi cers standing around a podium, the stock photo of an AR-15 assault rifl e, thumbnails of victims’ faces lifted from Facebook pages, videos of fl owers piled against a chain link fence. At times these shootings feel inevitable —unstoppable. Only a few days earlier, the clergy of this church sent out a letter and a prayer addressing the shooting in Atlanta. Should we send out another one? A defl ated response fl ashed through my mind, “What’s the use?” My colleague, Reverend Kate Dunn, wisely observed that one of the good things about the pandemic has been fewer mass shootings. I nodded. These terrible events are not something we want to resume. They are not one of those parts of our common life—not an aspect of the typical ebb and fl ow of America—that we want to

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    revert to “normal.” It should also be said, as we bear witness to these gut-wrenching events, that there is a place, at the heart of our faith, where God stands in remarkable solidarity with those injured and killed in Atlanta and Boulder. We are poised, today, on the front edge of Holy Week. We are about to journey down Christianity’s most revered path. We know what to expect. We know our faith is about to put violence center stage. As we stride toward Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, we cannot help but wonder if the One who fi rst walked this path, who walked this path for us, has something to say (something to offer) to a world that remains in thrall to such violence. The Palm Sunday story, as Mark tells it, starts in a sort of quirky fashion. As Jesus prepares to enter Jerusalem, he dispatches two disciples to secure a ride. He gives them instructions. Jesus says, “Go into the next village. There you will fi nd, tied to a hitching post, a colt that has never been ridden. Bring me that colt. If anyone asks: ‘Why are you untying the creature?’ just tell them, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So, the disciples go. Sure enough, they fi nd the colt. And sure enough, someone says, “Hey, why are you untying the colt?” The disciples respond, “The Lord needs it.” Those simple words allay the bystander’s fears: “This is not horse thievery. This is God’s work. Be off with you!” And with that, Christ’s followers go on their way. Palm Sunday starts out in a calm and courteous fashion. It doesn’t stay that way. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, people begin to whisper. They point. They see something that stirs their spirits. They get excited. They start throwing their clothes in the street. Before long they start shouting—singing—dancing! “Don’t let the little colt scuff his hooves.” “Clear the way! Messiah on board!” Everywhere people throw open windows and hoist homemade signs: “Romans go home!” “Street Sweepers for Jesus!” Along the parade route, people chant. They repeat, of all things, Bible verses—verses from the Psalms. They cry out, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming of the King—the ancestor of David.” It is a rally. It is a march. The people of Jerusalem swirl around the rider at the center of their parade. “Let’s put this guy on the throne. Let’s make him ‘king.’” Of course, a designation like this comes with some risk—especially when there already is a king. The current wearer of the crown, Herod Antipas, and the true power in Jerusalem, Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, strolling around in his mirror-polished armor must have noticed this spontaneous parade, must have heard the reports. You can almost picture their cynical smiles: “Isn’t that cute? The Passover crowds have named someone ‘king.’ Let’s prepare a fi tting welcome for this new ruler—a special crown for the new king.” Oblivious to their cold-blooded scheming, the crowds press on. Caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment, tired of business as usual, willing to take small risks to thumb their noses at the Roman troops, the people shout and cavort. They act like things are about to change. As my friends in the south would say, “Bless their hearts.” The crowd have no idea what is about to come. And what’s more, they don’t know Jesus. Not really. Jesus was never going to turn out to be their kind of king. These folk don’t want a peacenik riding an untamed colt. Go ahead. Ask them. Ask them later, that same night, after the buzz of the moment has worn off. They don’t want Jesus. Not really. They want a warrior. They want a rebel commander

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    who will overthrow the Romans. They want someone who can go toe to toe with the big spears and warhorses. Before the week is over, the crowds will give voice to this sentiment. When given a choice between a brutal bandit and gentle Jesus, they will chant: “Give us Barabbas!” This is why, on Palm Sunday, I typically counsel: “Don’t trust the crowds.” It’s fairly conventional advice. After all, crowds are fi ckle. Crowds change their minds. And crowds in the Good Book (and in life) often end up being mistaken when it comes to Jesus. On Palm Sunday, the Gospel of Mark tells us that the streets of Jerusalem were full of people running around, yelling slogans, all while tossing palm branches and articles of clothing on the ground. It is pure chaos. Into this chaotic scene, Jesus rides an animal that has never been ridden before. This young colt doesn’t buck. It doesn’t kick. It doesn’t scrape off its rider on a wall and race for the hills. Something unusual is happening here. It is something that a country mouse might notice more quickly than a city mouse. The Jesus we meet on Palm Sunday is a horse whisperer. One of my colleagues at the Presbyterian seminary in Austin, Texas, was the New Testament scholar, John Alsup. John taught students the Gospel of Mark by day, and in the evening he went home to manage a small horse ranch. One Saturday, John invited me out to his ranch to meet a relatively new colt—Maverick. Only a few months old, Maverick was full of vinegar. As we approached the paddock, he rolled his eyes. He raced round and round the enclosure, kicking and snorting. Maverick was a wild creature. I watched John take a handful of oats, an apple, and a coil of rope and climb into the paddock. The colt raced toward John. Abruptly, he skidded to a stop, whirled around and scampered away. As this four-hundred-pound tumble weed cavorted, my friend John stood very still. He spoke softly. And eventually, cautiously, Maverick walked toward him and nuzzled his arm. John fed the young horse. He ate—a handful of oats and the apple. As he ate, John lay the coil of rope across the back of the colt’s neck. He wasn’t restraining Maverick, but the horse could feel it. He was learning not to fear the rope. He was learning to trust John. I leaned against the fence in awe. It was one of the most gentle things I have ever seen. There is gentleness like this at the heart of Palm Sunday. Jesus enters the holy city astride an unbroken colt—an animal that has never been ridden. It has never known the weight of human on its back, never had heels dug into its sides, never felt the sting of a whip. Mark describes Jesus riding through Jerusalem on this unusual steed. Weaving through the streets of this violent city, this city that kills its prophets, Jesus looked at everything, says Mark. He looked with loving eyes on all of Jerusalem’s people. He looked with compassion on a populace full of pain, swimming in fear, at a loss to fi x the broken places in their lives—places where they could not seem to piece things back together: the fractured relationships, the shattered dreams. Watching Jesus ride through the streets on his unusual steed—watching this gentle, humble man peer at them with eyes brimming with love, the people of Jerusalem lose their cookies, their restraint, their sense of dignity and propriety. They start to yell. They gasp, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” There are many times in the Gospels (and in life) when the crowds are wrong, but you know what? I have decided Palm Sunday is not one of them. For a brief moment that day, I think the crowds were right. When Jesus rides into town, they look at him astride this colt, gentle and humble of heart, gazing on Jerusalem with compassion,

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    and they say, “Yes. Yes. Finally… YES. Maybe he is the one! What one? The king. The messiah! The one who will save us.” At that moment, at that brief, but crystalline Palm Sunday moment, the people’s hearts kick every other possibility to the side, and they shout, “This is the king we want. This is the ruler our hearts seek. This is the vision we want to build society around. Enough with the politics of hatred, the fear-mongering, the sewing of mistrust between race and class. Enough with violence. Enough with the god-awful, hate-fueled, life-robbing, family destroying, hope smashing violence. We want something different. We want this. We want gentleness, humility, and love to reign over us.” They wave their palms. They shout their deepest hopes. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.” For once, the crowd gets it. Does the crowd stay convicted? Do they hang onto this vision? No. Between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, the crowd gets nervous. We get worried too. We don’t become cynics. Not completely. We become “realists.” Let’s call it that. We are realists . We start thinking about how messed up things really are. Sure, this Jesus fellow seems nice and all that, but when you get down to it, he is probably too humble, too gentle, and too doggone fi xated on love for this mean old world. It doesn’t take long and it doesn’t take much. The Palm Sunday crowd will abandon both their ideals and their ideal ruler. They will give up on their hopes for a different world, and they will turn their backs on the ruler their souls once yearned to put on the throne. They will forget this crystalline moment. They will cry out for a bandit. Maybe this is inevitable. But before we lapse into defeatism, before we shake our heads at the futility cycle that now includes Atlanta and Boulder, Palm Sunday begs us to linger for a bit. You say you are looking for God? You say you want to fi nd the sacred? “Well,” says Palm Sunday, “you are in luck. God is waiting for you here, right here, deep in your gut, in that place inside of you that yearns to sing: ‘All glory, laud and honor.’” “Humans have the capacity,” says Palm Sunday, “to get it right.” We have the capacity to catch heaven’s vision, to push past entrenched anger and fear, and to embrace a different way. It is there in our heart of hearts. It is there in that place inside of you willing to be a fool for love. It is there whenever a shout of joy cannot be restrained. It is there when tears of possibility run down your face. “Listen to that part of yourself,” says Palm Sunday. Listen to the part of yourself that longs to run alongside a gentle man and his untamed horse. That’s your invitation to stand in the holy of holies. That’s your run alongside God moment. That’s your chance to shout to the world that the real king doesn’t wear polished armor. The real king doesn’t look like that at all. As we head into Holy Week, please join me in affi rming our shared faith, using an adapted portion of The Nicene Creed:

    For us and for our salvation Christ came down from heaven: was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became truly human. For our sake he was crucifi ed under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.

    For us. For our salvation. For our sake.

  • In Praise of Praise

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    In Praise of Praise

    Ephesians 1:3-14

    Christopher A. Henry

    Second Presbyterian Church, Indianapolis, Indiana

    I wish I could claim that this title came to me in an otherworldly vision or maybe as the result of fervent prayer over how to be a faithful steward of this opportunity to preach in a place that has given me many of the clearest glimpses I’ve ever expe­ rienced of God’s mysterious will. I did pray as I reflected on today’s scripture and sermon. Alas, however, I found my inspiration in Forbes magazine in the waiting room at the dentist’s office. It was March 8, 2020, one week before waiting rooms, shared magazines, and dentist ap­ pointments themselves became early casualties of COVID-19. The title of the piece, “In Praise of Praise,” struck me as vocationally salient, and so I took a picture of each page and put the photos in the “sermon stuff’ folder on my iPhone. The piece, “In Praise of Praise,”1 written by management guru (who comes up with these titles?) Victor Lipman, suggests that praise is “powerful and underutilized.” That’s a good start. Among its laudable features, Lipman includes the observation that praise “requires minimal effort and no cost” while making employees feel good and, critically, work harder. Conclusion: “It is in everyone’s interest to make.. .praise a key component of the managerial mix.” Such a utilitarian argument for the value of praise is right at home in Forbes, the go-to resource for lists of billionaires and trenchant reviews of luxury cars. But what about here, in worship? What about us, people who insist that there is more to life than maintaining a managerial mix that minimizes effort and maximizes productiv­ ity? What is praise worth at Montreat? What is praise worth in the life of a disciple? What is praise worth in the rhythms of Christian community? One of the most memorable experiences of my time at Columbia Seminary came when Professor Charlie Cousar invited me to assist with his Introduction to the New Testament. It’s a beautifully written text that offers accessible overviews of all twentyseven books. My job, in addition to a little work on the index and some fact finding on citations, was to have lunch with Charlie about twice a week. It was pure joy, a wellspring of wisdom. I listened as this saint of the church and academy reflected on forty years of teaching at Columbia and a lifetime of studying Scripture. You see, Charlie loved the New Testament, and he wanted to relay that love in this book. The chapter on Ephesians begins with a reference to Karl Barth’s image of heaven.2 Barth suggested that in heaven, whenever God’s angels go about their official tasks and their assigned duties, they play only Bach. But, Barth said, when they gather as a family with the door closed, they play Mozart. Barth (a noted Mozart fan) wrote, “Our Lord listens with special pleasure.” Charlie beautifully extended Barth’s image and wrote “In a similar way, whenever the church goes about its official task of crafting theology, it leans heavily on Romans and Galatians. But when the church wants to praise God with joy and delight, it reads aloud Ephesians, and our Lord listens with special pleasure.”3 Charlie now knows for sure, but I’m guessing he was right. Ephesians is not an

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    epistle on productivity. It is more hymn of praise than systematic theology—more doxology than doctrine. The words want to be sung, not studied. This opening sec­ tion, one lengthy lyrical sentence in Greek, sets the tone and establishes the theme: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3). That’s three blessings in one phrase—words of praise, words centered on God’s gracious generosity, God’s mighty deeds of salvation. From the outset, Ephesians lifts our vision beyond efficiency, beyond productivity, beyond earthly value to pure gratuitous praise for the boundless blessing of God. In a 1930 letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury,4 the Christian mystic and author Evelyn Underhill urged church leaders to seek spiritual renewal of practices that had grown perfunctory and stale. For me, Underhill’s words have the ring of hard truth spoken in tough love nearly a century later. Of the clergy—that’s people like me—she wrote, “Their Christianity as a whole is humanitarian rather than theocentric….In public worship they often fail to evoke the spirit of adoration because they do not possess it themselves….God is the interesting thing about religion, and people are hungry for God.” Haven’t we felt that hunger? Haven’t we witnessed it in our com­ munities through the journey of the last sixteen months? By necessity and force of circumstance, we’ve tended to tactical concerns and operational issues. We’ve shifted to new online platforms. We’ve fretted over our financials. We’ve navigated perni­ cious and toxic polarization. We’ve confronted our complicity and silence in the face of injustice. And all the while we’ve tried to hold it all together by force of human strength, by our creativity, our ambition, and our initiative. And yet that deep hunger persists, unabated and even intensified. Here among friends, I’ll confess to a concern that we’ve sidelined the divine in our passionate pursuit of practical objectives and measurable aims. You see, praise after all does not seem to increase God’s productivity, and so we’ve turned our at­ tention to more immediate fixes, things we can control. If anyone is going to clean this mess up, it’s got to be us. The impulse to what Underhill called “humanitarian Christianity” is right at home in congregations like mine and, I’m guessing, yours as well. Ask most of us what people of faith are for, and you’ll likely hear the words of the prophet Micah: “Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8). Action verbs that put us in the driver’s seat. That’s our comfort zone, and it is also exceedingly important in a time of such crushing inequities, such pervasive mistruth and systemic sin. The world needs—and God requires—the Church to offer itself in sacrificial service to the reign of God not yet realized in the world. This is our work. And we will never sustain it or muster the courage to respond to such a call if we insist on relying solely on our own supply of strength. If our hope is centered on human endeavor and enterprise, we will find ourselves depleted, discouraged, and ultimately despondent. The opening verses of Ephesians orient us toward God. They situate us in the presence of the holy. I will never forget how my friend Ben Campbell Johnson would begin our Thursday morning prayer breakfast with these words, “We are before you, God,” or how Ben would proceed to speak to God as to one who was sitting at the table with us because Ben believed God was sitting at the table with us. “We are before you, God.” What an extraordinary conviction. What a comforting assumption—that we are before God, in God’s presence, fully known and deeply loved. When we abide

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    in this truth, the spirit of adoration flows naturally through us. As Ephesians opens, we are gathered before God in joy and with delight. The verses read like a catalogue of praise, a hymn of adoration and gratitude. God has blessed us in Christ; God has chosen us in Christ; God has destined us for adoption in Christ; God’s glorious grace has been freely given to us; God has made known the mystery of God’s will; God will gather up all things in Christ; God lavished grace on us in Christ; God accomplishes all things according to the divine counsel and will. The interesting thing about faith is God, and God takes centerstage in this run-on sentence of overflowing praise. Embedded in the chorus is a purpose statement for people of Christian faith. By God’s grace we have been blessed beyond measure. Yes, but why? Verse twelve tells us: so that we might live for the praise of God’s glory. This, I think, is the truth that our souls ache to receive. This, I think, is the truth in which we long to find courage and our hope. This, I think, is the truth that might be the source of our joy and the beginning of our renewal. This is our purpose: to offer our lives in praise of God. What sets Jesus followers apart is not the effectiveness of our management tech­ niques—thanks be to God!—or the efficiency of our operations, or the measurable value we add to the projects we pursue and the movements we join. What sets us apart is the One who has called us, before whom we lay the work of our hands and the praise of our hearts. The call of the Church must be to bring a holy lens to human life, to witness to the presence of God that compels us and equips us when no human effort stands a chance, to pierce the pessimism that too often is accepted as inevitable, to name the presence of God, before whom we live and move, as the source of our blessing, our meaning, and our purpose. I understand that such a pronouncement will be met with doubt, or even cynicism. Speaking in praise of praise can be a tough sell for folks who have learned to measure impact and track progress to chart the path forward. I get it. Much of the time I, too, am suspicious of praise without a plan for how to put it to productive use. But often enough I am blessed by the witness of those who see the touch of God in even the most ordinary moments, who pitch praise like loaves and fishes in a hungry world. Our four-year-old son Ben is a budding songwriter and often my best instructor in the practice of praise. So far, most of his compositions have the same tune as the lunch prayer they sing at preschool. But at dinnertime, Ben adlibs the words, often getting up from his seat and walking around the dining room in search of reasons for praise: “Thank you, God. Thank you, God. For our food. And our table. And my fork. And my socks. And the window. And the sun. And my family. And my Pokémon cards. And my art supplies. And my books. And….” You get the point. Sometimes it’s getting late, there’s still a lot to get done, and I’m tempted to cut him off. That’s enough praise, Son. We’re on abedtime schedule here. We’ve got important things to do. After all, praise of God has no measurable earthly value, no guaranteed return on investment. We’re just here to say “Thank you.”

    Notes 1 Victor Lipman, “In Praise of Praise,” Forbes, 2013, https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman /2013/02/09/in-praise-of-praise/?sh=4e5021902f59. 2 “Religion: Witness to an Ancient Truth,” Time, 1962, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/ar­

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    ticle/O,33009,873557-10,00 .html. 3 Charles Cousar, Introduction to the New Testament (Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). 4 Evelyn Underhill, (1930). “Letter to Archbishop Lang of Canterbury,” 1930, http://www.anglicanlibrary .org/underhill/UnderhillLettertoArchbishopLangofCanterbury.pdf.

    This sermon was preached at Montreat Conference Center on July 11,2021.