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Preaching as an Art Form: An Advent Experiment

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Preaching as an Art Form: An Advent

Experiment

by James S. Lowry

Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church, Mount Pleasant, S.C.

The purpose of this article is to suggest that writing for oral interpretation in general and writing for the proclamation of gospel in particular be claimed (or reclaimed) as a legitimate, distinct, and important art form. The article is written from the point of view of a parish preacher for whom Lord’s Day worship comes with rapid regularity and for whom formal training, excellent and challenging though it was, is far removed in both time and space. There is no sense in which these suggestions are intended as advice of the “how-to” variety . Rather, in the tradition of other art forms, foundation material, basic principles and appreciation are assumed to be more important than technique in helping the artist develop her or his style. The article concludes with a sermon (chosen from year “A” of the lectionary), as an example of one preacher’s Advent experimenting. While these sketchy and somewhat preliminary thoughts have been developing over a number of years, they remain incomplete and require a great deal more thought and maturing. Nevertheless, for at least two reasons this is an appropriate time for an article espousing these ideas to appear in “A Journal for Preachers.” First, recent work in biblical hermeneutics is now readily available to the week-in-week-out preacher. The material is emerging at a time when, though it is rarely identified as such, the historical and contemporary hermeneutics of the larger church (in all of its variety), the hermeneutics of a given congregation (in all of its variety), and the hermeneutics of the preacher are all readily identifiable, available, and useful. Weaving these four together for oral interpretation in the context of worship is more the task of an artist than it is the task of a technician or the task of a scholar, though technique and scholarship are necessary instruments of the artists’ work. Second, this article appears preparatory to Advent because there is no other season during which the hermeneutics of the Bible, the hermeneutics of the larger church, the hermeneutics of the particular congregation, and the hermeneutics of the preacher are likely to be more at odds with each other and thus they become the more observably distinct. For the same reason no season more than Advent is likely to require better art from preachers if there is to be a meeting of the four hermeneutics in our various acts of corporate worship. To be more specific, in the area of biblical hermeneutics today’s preachers have at their disposal a growing quantity of excellent material. We are living and working in a time when current scholarship is able to take advantage of the result of the critical (form, historical, redaction) approach to biblical studies . We are now discovering as a logical end of that approach (those approaches ), that we are better able to interpret the Bible on its own terms. In

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simplest terms, with knowledge of JEPD tucked under our belts as part of our presupposition we are freer, for example, to listen to the laughter of Sara when she is told at the age of 90 she will soon be pregnant; and, for further example, with an assumption of the one-time existence of the “Q” document (et al) we are freer to explore the theology of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. In that regard, the “style” of biblical study of Walter Brueggemann is a shining star on the horizon. In addition to his prolific writing, Professor Brueggemann has been quite generous with his time in conducting seminars around the country. One hopes he will be able to continue. James A. Sanders is another scholar who is working extensively on biblical hermeneutics (see especially God has a Story Too, Sermons In Context, Fortress, 1979). For preaching during Advent, of course, Raymond E. Brown’s The Birth of the Messiah (Image Books of Doubleday, 1979) is an absolute must. The latter is a 594 page study of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke including translation, notes (with extensive Old Testament references) and an especially helpful analysis of the theology of Matthew and Luke. These scholars are representative of a growing number who, while gratefully acknowledging the work of their predecessors in biblical criticism, now lead us in the next logical step, namely, to interpret the Bible on its own terms or on the basis of its own hermeneutics. That being so, the artist in the preacher can appreciate in fresh ways the biblical narrative as the foundation of her or his work (those who intend to preach during Advent and Christmastide and who do not own Brown’s book should sell the steeple if necessary to buy it). If interpreting the Bible on its own terms is the first step in claiming (reclaiming ) preaching as art form, the second step is understanding the “official” hermeneutics of the larger church—especially as the larger church’s hermeneutics may differ from the hermeneutics of the rank and file of those Christians who occupy pews on the Lord’s Day. The purpose here is not to argue that one is more appropriate or “better” than the other but to suggest that in all instances they (ie. the “official” hermeneutics and the hermeneutics in the pew) exist; in many instances they are different, and in most instances they both have a positive contribution to make to the preacher as she or he approaches her or his art. Taking Advent as a ready example, the larger church’s official theological emphasis is the eager anticipation of the return of Christ (ie. “Come, thou long expected Jesus. . . .”). From life’s rawest war torn edges to its softest beds of crimson clover we eagerly await the advent of the Messiah to establish the kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven. On the other hand, while not completely rejecting the former, most good Christian folk, either from some great need or from submission to advertising, emphasize Advent as a time to get ready for the celebration of the birthday of Jesus. If the two were completely divergent views they might be debated. Since they are not opposites, however, an artist is more likely to bring them together in a helpful way than is a technician or a scholar—though, once again, the technique and the scholarship are necessary tools of the art. Having raised for examination the hermeneutics of the Bible, the hermeneutics of the church, and the hermeneutics of the Christians, the remaining

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ingredient is the hermeneutics of the artist preacher. For all of its insidious aftermath, at least here the human potential movement has served the preacher well. Most of us, for better or worse, know “where-we’re-comingfrom ” and most of us have some appreciation for “where-the-people-are-at.” Such information can be of great value. Frederick Buechner, a literary artist of the first order, in his autobiographical material (especially The Sacred Journey , Harper and Row, 1982) helps us see the importance of one’s autobiography to all of one’s art. That is to say, having read Buechner’s autobiography, one can then see his life story reflected in all of his material. The week-in-andweek -out preacher may, if she or he chooses, do as well. It will take an artist, however, to be able to use her or his hermeneutics in such a way that the use of autobiographical material does not become an end in itself. Once again, for most of us Advent is the season more than all others when autobiographical material is both vivid and plentiful. What better time to experiment with its artistic potential? Perhaps for purposes in this journal it is best merely to raise the issue of preaching as art form and leave its resolution/s to the artists. To attempt anything like an artist’s manual of procedures for preachers could easily become as sterile as painting by numbers or playing the organ with one finger and computerized harmony. There are, however, a growing number of helps available: Eugene L. Lowry, The Homiletical Plot, The Sermon As Narrative Art Form (John Knox, 1980); Fred Craddock, As One Without Authority (Abingdon, 1978); Edmund A. Steimle, Morris J. Niedenthal, and Charles L. Rice, Preaching the Story (Fortress, 1980); Frederick Buechner, especially Telling the Truth, the Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale (Harper and Row, 1977), Peculiar Treasures (Harper and Row, 1979), and Wishful Thinking, A Theological ABC (Harper and Row, 1973); and Sallie McFague, Speaking in Parables, A Study in Metaphor and Theology (Fortress, 1975) and Metaphorical Theology, Models of God in Religious Language (Fortress, 1982). These are but a few suggestions. There are, no doubt, many more. The great thing here, however, is for the preacher to be able to think of herself or himself as an artist whose unique talent is in demand Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day. In a recent interview on National Public Radio the brilliant pianist Andre Watts spoke of pianists whose technique may be perfect but whose music is colorless and uninteresting. On the other hand he spoke of pianists whose technique may be deplorable but whose music is alive and moving. According to Watts the pianist who is an artist is the one who can master both technique and expression. We all know preachers whose content is rich and full but whose expression is dull and uninteresting; and we all know a sad number of preachers who are gifted orators but who have little to say. We are well within the mark to conclude with Watts that when, for the preacher, content and expression come together the end result is art of the finest order—art used for the proclamation of the gospel.

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Joseph Named Him Jesus

Matthew 1:18-25

The house smelled of shaving cream, shampoo, and sausage; or maybe it was bacon. Breakfast varies. Shaving cream and shampoo are every day.

In the background Donahue was on the “Today Show.” Donahue must be masochistic. He likes to punish himself. Donahue was interviewing Julian Bond and the Imperial Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan all at the same time and on the same stage.

Little wonder against such a background symphony of ranting and raving it took three tries to tie my tie. On the third try I near hanged myself. It was just then that the Imperial Grand Wizard (or whatever that grown man calls himself) announced, as though it were among the truths to be held self evident, that, of course, in order to be a member of the Klu Klux Klan you have to believe in Jesus Christ.

When we profess our faith in Jesus Christ we take on some strange bedfellows.

Did you see in Friday’s paper where a group of Christians from North Carolina hanged Santa Claus in effigy? Now every self-respecting Christian wishes Christmas weren’t so commercial, but hanging anyone in effigy in the name of Jesus Christ,

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especially Santa, does seem a bit much.

Then, of course there are those who handle poisonous snakes in the name of Jesus Christ;

and those who peddle, for fun and profit, predictions of Jesus’ return on TV.

The list of misunderstandings goes on: Some great. Some small.

It seems some of us misunderstand Jesus all of the time. But all of us misunderstand Jesus some of the time.

When God decided to become a baby he left himself open to misunderstanding. The Baby, so young and innocent, it is easier, by far to make him over in our image than it is to make ourselves over in his.

Never mind all that. Misunderstanding or no, every year we go back. There is a magnetism in the Bethlehem stable. It draws us returning to peek just once more.

Every year we must bring the baby from the shadow of memory like some dusty creche from the attic; and we hold the baby in the light of a wondrous winter star, or if we fear to touch, we have the baby held out for us to see from a distance.

How ever shall we believe that baby is God?

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How dare we not?

How ever shall we understand this God with dimples and baby fat? How can we misunderstand?

THE BABY’S NAME IS JESUS: named, no doubt, for Joshua. Joshua is the one who “. . . fit the Battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down.” Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua. (I bet the KKK forgot Jesus was a Jew. Too bad, the KKK.) Greek or Hebrew; Jesus or Joshua; They both mean the same: HE WILL SAVE HIS PEOPLE: or GOD WILL SAVE HIS PEOPLE!

Matthew added, FROM THEIR SINS, as part of the meaning of Jesus. Perhaps Matthew wanted everyone to know Jesus was not going to save his people like Joshua saved his.

TOO BAD!! Joshua’s kind of saving is the kind of saving we understand. Who could misunderstand? There is NO WAY to make Joshua over in our own image. We understand him. He understands us.2 Not like this baby.

For Joshua it went like this: ONE day silent marching ’round the city to the lonely trumpets blowing TWO days silent marching the ghostly crowd

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just in from a four hundred year slavery and a forty year stroll in the desert. THREE days marching in deadly silence save the lonely rams’ horn trumpets. SIX days once each ’round the rosie. THE SEVENTH day seven times ’round the city wall, when the trumpets blew their lonely tune Joshua said to the silent mob, ” N o w . . . shout!”

AND THEY SHOUTED PRAISE THE LORD!!!! HE GIVES US THE CITY!!!!

They shouted so loud the walls came tumbling down; and there was lots of blood and mess. NOW THAT’S THE WAY TO SAVE YOUR PEOPLE, JOSHUA …. JOSH U A . . . .

Like Star Wars and Waterloo rolled into one.

But what of this other Joshua . . . . this Joshua Jesus???? What of him draws us back to Bethlehem?

More to Bethlehem than to Jericho! You know. Once a year, every year, to Bethlehem we go. Just to check and see if Jesus is still there in the front of memory to set us in a hopeful mood.

How ever shall be believe that baby is God? How dare we not . . . . b e l i e v e ?

Luke says Mary named the baby.

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Matthew says it was Joseph. It’s good they agreed, Mary and Joseph. But, then, they were taking directions from an angel.

Joseph two-thirds asleep but half awake . . . . It had been that way night after night: Decisions to make; Hearts broken; Hearts to break.

Joseph. young and virile, longing for his wife . . . . Their custom seems strange to us. The marriage ceremony done early, probably when the bride was only a girl. Then she must stay in her parents’ home until she was older. Finally, at a specified time, the groom would take his bride home.8

For Joseph it was in the long interim when a rumor of scandal raised its ugly head. There was going to be a baby. How could it be?

Little wonder sleep was fitful. Emotions crowded each other clamoring for attention First one to the fore and then the other: Disappointment; Disbelief; Anger; Most of all, Grief. Still he must do what we must do. If he made a scene, Mary would be subject to stoning.

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Whatever she had done, she had done nothing to deserve that. A quiet divorce was the only way.

Then in a half stupor amid ruffled and lonely sheets, in the kind of sleep when you remember all of your dreams,

An angel came. FOR MOSES, THE OVERPOWERING PRESENCE OF GOD WAS A BURNING BUSH! FOR PAUL, THE OVERPOWERING PRESENCE OF GOD WAS A BLINDING LIGHT! FOR JOSEPH, THE OVERPOWERING PRESENCE OF GOD WAS AN ANGEL IN A DREAM.

“Joseph,” said the angel, “The baby is the Son of God: conceived by a Holy Spirit.”

“Joseph, name the baby, claim the baby, name the baby Jesus.

If you name the baby the baby will be yours. It is a legal law. No matter by whom the baby was conceived.”4

“Then Joseph,” the angel went on, “If there is any doubt in your mind that the baby is the Son of God, let the baby play with your beard, and chew on your little finger when he is cutting his teeth, and teach him how to be a carpenter and if he has a bad dream in the middle of the night hold him in your strong arms to tell him everything will be alright and teach him how to blow his nose and all those things he needs to know. More than anything else, Joseph,

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let him love you. And one thing more: be sure to laugh when he tells you a joke.” “Joseph,” said the angel, “If you can believe this baby is God, name him, claim him, name him Joshua or Jesus for short. He’s going to save his people. But be sure to call him Jesus. He’s not going to be nearly so noisy nor at all as bloody as the other Joshua.”

The very next day Joseph brought his bride home and held her tight. She was ever so frightened, and ever so excited, and, oh, ever so lovely.

It is a love story more beautiful because it is true.

From then until now pilgrims without number have gone to see.

Each year at this time you also go. You go from home and office from school and work from family and alone.

You take with you your laughter and grief, your hopes and fears, your understandings and even your misunderstandings.

You gather with the world, hushed for the moment, in all of its brutality, brokenness, and beauty,

quiet now . . . .

If you can believe this baby is God

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claim him as your own. Name him. Name him Joshua, and call him Jesus: He saves his people.

He saves by touching, and caring, and healing; by playing, and teaching, and praying; by laughing and crying, and hoping; by believing, and dying, and living.

Most of all he saves by loving you and showing you how to love.

NOTES

1 Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, N. Y: Image Books, Doubleday

and Company, Inc., 1979), 130-131. * I am indebted to P. W. Turner’s one act passion play, Christ In The Concrete City for this idea. Christ In The Concrete City is handled in the U.S. by Baker Plays of Boston. * Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 123-124. 4 Ibid., 139.

December 31, 1983
Five Intelligible Words

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Five Intelligible Words

by John Mclntyre

University of Edinburgh, Scotland

1 Corinthians 14:19 ” . . . but in the congregation I would rather speak five intelligible words, for the benefit of others as well as for myself, than thousands of words in the language of ecstasy” (NEB). Or People today seem to break with the Christian gospel for one or other of three reasons. They may give up first because they feel quite simply that it is not true. They just cannot believe that, behind this world and all its wild confusion, its sorrow, its pain, its ugliness, there is a God who created it and now sustains it. Secondly, people may reject the faith because they feel that it is just not relevant. It may have made some kind of sense in days when folks believed in the existence of demons that had to be exorcised; or when they thought of divine powers interrupting the course of natural events. It belongs in another era of demons and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night. But in a world of scientific and the technological sophistication it is not so much a question of Christianity not being true: it is just not relevant. So there emerges the third reason for which people may reject the Christian faith—this time because it is not meaningful. The words string together all right, but they make no sense. That, I believe, is the point which many people have now reached in their thinking and talking about Christianity. They are no longer asking “Is it true?” or even “Is it relevant ?”. They have come to the point of wanting to know—is it meaningful ?—does it have any sense whatsoever? So my question is: how far have we contributed to this crisis of unintelligibility ? How far is our language, our talk about God, the stumbling block for our contemporaries? In the presence of the congregation, says St. Paul, I would rather speak five intelligible words than thousands of words in the language of ecstasy. You cannot, you dare not, try to dodge the thrust of St. Paul’s words by saying that of course he was criticising Corinthians who spoke with tongues. We cannot get out of it with the excuse that we are not charismatics, we don’t go in for ecstatic nonsense —not for us the beating of the breast, the rolling of the eyes, the tearing of the hair, the foaming at the mouth, or the utterly unintelligible utterances of the crazed and crazily ecstatic preacher. Some may try it, but we are too civilised for that sort of religious balderdash. We are too genteel to let ourselves in for such indecent intellectual self-exposure. You might even say: we are Presbyterians. You’re right. We are different: our language of ecstasy and meaning-

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lessness takes a much more refined form. Our gobbledegook takes a thousand less obvious disguises. But if we are at all honest, we realise that we too can perpetrate a load of religious, old rubbish. Let me show you what I mean at several different levels, beginning with theology. Without mentioning names, let me quote two modern theologians. They are always fair game for jokes about unintelligibility. It took me ninety seconds to find these two, and that included my travelling time. Here is my first example of unintelligible non-communication: “The man Jesus does not transcend the limits of the humanity common to him and to us, or become alien to us, when in the acceptance of human essence in its perversion he does not repeat the perversion or do wrong, when in virtue of his origin He cannot will or do it. He is just what we are and how we are. The only difference is that He is it in genuine human freedom.” What a lot of gobbledegook for the simple biblical announcement in five words that Jesus was tempted without sin. Or take my second writer: “The condescension of God would be a mere theophany, a divine miracle to stir our amazement, and thus exactly the very opposite of an existential, absolutely decisive contact, if the selfmanifestation of God were not at the same time also a veiling, if it were not a complete entrance into the reality of human life upon earth.” What a masterly example of theological conjuring—now you see it, now you don’t. What a muddying of the waters which were so clear when the Bible said “The Word was made flesh” or the carol sang: “Love came down at Christmas.” Time is running out for us. Unless we stop using the thousand words in the language of ecstasy, deafening people’s ears with our orthodox gibberish, then we may well find that they have no longer the mind or the heart or the ears to listen even to our five intelligible words. The patience of the world, maybe even the patience of God, will eventually run out. So much for theology: what happens at the level of ourselves? Before we become all cosy inside and thank God that we are not as those Pharisees , the theologians who confuse the simple-minded, let us pause to ask ourselves how often you and I prefer the thousand words of ecstasy to the five intelligible words in the intimate and personal situations what confront us daily. Someone has come to you concerning some weakness to which he has succumbed. How do you react? With some high-falutin’ ecstatic statement that if he confesses before God, all will be forgiven? Do you pour upon his head all the shibboleths, the pious phrases, the wise saws that we keep in store for such occasions, and which we maybe ourselves do not listen to in a crisis? Or in five intelligible words, do you quietly assure him that his shame is your shame, and his burden is shared by you and you are going to God together? Or: great sorrow has come to a friend and you wish, in some manner, to express your sympathy. Do you set yourself up safely behind a sympathetic screen of generalities—about all things working together for good to them that love God; about clouds having silver linings; about God mov-

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ing in a mysterious way to perform his wonders? A thousand words in the language of ecstasy—when the heart-broken person who has come to you for help wants to hear only five intelligible words of comfort and reassurance that you are standing by him or her. So at the wider level of church and world, I wonder if it is too late to plead for five intelligible words on church unity, instead of the thousand ecstatic utterances which have become our traditional means of communication . You know what I mean. Church unity, we are solemnly told, is the end product of an intricate process of ecclesiastical joinery and cabinetmaking . It is a sophisticated, logical deduction from a few theological axioms and postulates, whose power over the human heart has so far gone unobserved and untested. While all the time the five intelligible words which we all want to hear are: that Christian unity happens when, without reservation, we break bread together, receive the cup together, because cup and bread, like our very selves, are wholly Christ’s and not ours; and we are all his. Also on the trouble spots of the world: Beirut, South Africa, Ireland, Iraq, and Iran; and on World Disarmament. Perhaps it is not too late to ask for five intelligible words. Five words that cut through the tangle of Afghan and Russian, of Black and Boer, of PLO and Israelis, of Army and Provos, of IRA and UDA, and the massive build up of nuclear self-destruction ; and gather all together within the mercy of God, the power of his forgiveness, and the embrace of his reconciliation. Or five intelligible words on the world’s hunger. Words that plead for a new global economy, a new world-encircling concern, and the spirit of sacrifice which is the only starting point for an effective attack upon hunger by the affluent. Or five intelligible words on unemployment—not just gobbledegook about economic trends, inflationary spirals, market re-distribution, staffing rationalisation, and long-term trade pick-up: gibberish which mocks the words we ought to be speaking, in sympathy, compassion and practical help; as congregations and in groups trying to be helpful to those who are the victims of one of the greatest tragedies of our time. Let me close by drawing attention to the two grounds that St. Paul offers in justification of his plea for intelligibility as against ecstasy and gobbledegook. He puts it neatly. It is all to be for the benefit of others as well as for ourselves. First, for the benefit of others, because the supreme responsibility resting upon those of us who hold the Christian faith is that we should communicate it to others. There is no philosopher’s stone that turns gobbledegook into a message of comfort, help, encouragement, enlightenment. We owe it to our faith to see that others share it by understanding it with us. But the second point of St. Paul’s has taken on in our time a kind of climactic importance. It is that we have to find those five intelligible words concerning the faith for our own benefit. If we remain in the world of ecstatic utterance, the world of gibberish, meaningless verbiage concerning the central things in which we believe: then the danger is that we

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shall lose our own personal faith. So show me a person who is long-winded about his/her faith or unintelligible when they speak about it, and I will show you someone who has lost faith. Show me a person who is articulate and communicates the gospel with care and concern, with love and sincere simplicity, and I will show you someone who has found faith, and who knows what the Christian message is about. It is about what you say and how you say it—not in a thousand words of ecstasy but in five intelligible words.

December 31, 1983
No Cross, No Crown: Reflections on Paul’s Thoughts About Good Friday and Easter

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No Cross, No Crown: Reflections on

Paul’s Thoughts About Good Friday and

Easter

Charles B. Cousar

Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia

It was a BBC series which examined various expressions of religious life. The program I was watching presented with typical British fairness the success -story of a popular American TV preacher. The camera showed us the extravagant church he had built and the throngs that came weekly to hear his positive and affirming sermons. The preacher himself came across as a warm, engaging person who had dared to dream dreams of what God could accomplish through him and who wanted others to dream dreams about themselves. The interviewer, a modest English woman, finally raised the critical question . “What do you think about Jesus?” “Jesus,” he replied, “was the most successful religious figure of all time. Just consider it. He began in obscure surroundings amid poverty and despair; and today his followers outnumber those of any other of the world’s religions. That’s astounding!” “But I thought he ended up on a cross.” “Oh, no! He was raised from the dead. The cross was something he had to endure, as any successful person must endure hardships. But he arose from the dead. He overcame the cross and put all that behind him.” With a conversation something like this, the camera moved away. My first reaction was one of anger. The TV preacher represented a caricature of American religious life, and I did not want the British public to think we were all like that, measuring the value of truth by crass standards of success . On more sober reflection, I began to wonder about the theological issue the interviewer had raised. What is the relation between the cross and the resurrection ? Did Jesus’ rising from the dead mean that the horrible wrong perpetrated on Good Friday was corrected on Easter morning? Was the cross only a hardship Jesus put behind him? I had had some trouble myself in preparing a Good Friday sermon. My own theology was oriented much more to Easter, to the triumphant Lord who conquered death and darkness. With most of the Protestant world I took pride in that the prominent symbol of the faith was an empty cross and not a crucifix . But could that be simply another expression of a success-oriented theology ? Crucifixion the question, resurrection the answer; Good Friday the problem, Easter the solution. If one thinks that way, one naturally wants to stress the answer, the solution, the vindication, the success. At least, the TV preacher’s preoccupation with results was consistent with how he viewed Jesus’ death and resurrection.

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Within the New Testament the letters to the Corinthians represent a good starting place to clarify the cross-resurrection relationship. Paul has much to say there about “Christ and him crucified” and also about the meaning of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15). While it is important to note the problems plaguing the Christians in Corinth, their divisions and moral delinquencies, it is equally necessary to acknowledge their spiritual vitality. In contrast to his attitude toward the Galatians, Paul thanks God for the Corinthians: that they have been enriched in every way and are “not lacking in any spiritual gift.” He recognizes their calling in Christ and is confident that in the judgment they will prove to be guiltless (1 Cor. 1:4-9). One might wonder why Paul worried over the Corinthians as he did. After all, they were alive and active. Could his harsh letters arguing precise theological points kill off their enthusiasm and turn them into another company of God’s frozen people? Obviously for Paul there was no fear about that. What did worry him? Behind the many problems at Corinth were the issues of Christology and eschatology. The Corinthians worshipped an exalted, reigning Christ. They were not really concerned with things Jesus had once done in his earthly ministry , for they were convinced that through the Spirit he manifested his power currently in and through them. That the Spirit was alive among them was a testimony to the fact they were already enjoying God’s heavenly presence. They not only communicated in human language, but ecstatically spoke in “the tongues of angels.” In the words of the Ephesian letter, they rejoiced that they had been raised with Christ and that they now sat with him in the heav·/ enly places (Eph. 2:6). It was the high noon of eschatological fulfillment, anq they were basking in all its benefits. This particular Christological and eschatological perspective was not inconsistent with another trend—a tendency toward an embryonic gnosticism. The Corinthian church was trapped in the body-soul dualism. The essence of a person—the soul or spirit—was eternal and to be cherished; the body or flesh was transient and evil. Some concluded on this basis that since the soul was the permanent part of the individual, only the spiritual mattered, and all sorts of sexual license were permitted. Others drew the opposite conclusion. Since the body was evil, it needed to be kept under strict control. This group chose an escetic style of life. The result of the Christological and eschatological vision on the one hand the gnostic-like tendencies on the other hand was a community spiritually alive but plagued with elitism, partisanship, narcissism, and a lack of love. In this context Paul affirms the crucified and risen Christ as the foundation of the church. But what part does the cross play? What part does the resurrection play? How are they related? 1. First, Paul defines the gospel as “the word of the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18). The phrase turns out to be not one description among others, but the decisive understanding of the Christian message. In Corinth “wisdom” was highly valued . It was not just intelligence or shrewdness or prudence, but the deeper understanding of reality possessed by the spiritually gifted and hidden from the ordinary believer. It was the religious perspective which led the Corinthians to assume they were already a part of the heavenly world in company with

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the exalted Christ. In opposition, Paul argues that the only vantage point for believers is “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). The cross represents a fundamental contradiction to the “worldly wisdom” treasured in Corinth. It shows wisdom’s power to be nothing but weakness and its profound mysteries to be sheer foolishness. As if to goad the Corinthians slightly, Paul reminds them that they themselves came from rather unpretentious circumstances—poorly educated, weak people as they were, from undistinguished families. Yet, they illustrate in their Christian vocation that God uses the weak to confound the mighty (1 Cor. 1:26-31). Rather than pushing Jesus’ death into the shadow of his exaltation, what Paul has done is to make the cross the fundamental criterion for Christian thought and experience. The vulnerability God demonstrated in giving up Jesus to be crucified, though scandalous to the religious logic of the day, becomes the canon by which that very logic is judged. It defines what it means to be Christian. Ernst Kasemann, who has written so perceptively about the Corinthian problem, comments, “Paul emphasizes that the core of his doctrine of resurrection remains the cross. The point is that resurrection is one aspect of the message of the cross, not that the cross is simply one chapter in a book of resurrection dogmatics.”1 2. Paul clarifies what this means Christologically. His initial readers with all their spiritual vitality shared with the modern TV preacher the conviction that the death of Jesus was a redemptive event, but an event which was superseded by the exaltation of Jesus. Their Christological paradigm was the risen, triumphant Christ. The result was a scandal-less cross, a cross that was only a piece of past history. For Paul, however, the Lord of all is none other than the crucified Jesus. Kasemann has written further:

Christ, exalted above the cross in his sublimity, is misunderstood if one separates the exaltation from the cross, and so reduces their relationship to that of two merely consecutive events. The risen and exalted One remains the crucified One; and his sovereignty is not understood and acknowledged if the cross is merely made the last station on his earthly way as is in fact done by the enthusiasts . . . There are plenty of risen gods in the history of religion, especially in the sphere of Hellenism; and there, too, the way is by a journey through hell. If the cross is simply the gloomy entrance to heaven, the final and the utmost obstacle to triumph, the Christian message does not fundamentally differ from what can be said by competing religions.2

This Christological clarification runs throughout both Corinthian letters. It is, for example, evident in Paul’s response to the sacramental chaos in the community. Having recited the received liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, he begins his exposition by saying, “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). As C. K. Barrett has noted, the absence of any mention of the resurrection is striking.3 The resurrection confirmed the faith of those sharing the meal, but it did not alter the fact that they ate in the circumstances of “shame” and looked forward to a

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future they had not yet experienced. 3. What function, then, does the resurrection have in Paul’s theology? J.C. Beker,4 following the stimulus of Kasemann,6 has pointed out that Paul essentially is an apocalyptic theologian and views Jesus’ resurrection as an apocalyptic event. The long and somewhat circuitous argument of 1 Corinthians 15 is specifically directed at those Corinthians who say that there is no general resurrection of the dead since salvation in its fullness is already now.6 Paul replies that Christ is but “the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20); only in the parousia will those who belong to Christ be raised with him (1 Cor. 15:23). Easter is God’s promise that in the end death will not prevail, that the last enemy will be finally destroyed (1 Cor. 15:24-28). While the hope of the future is affirmed, a rein is put on the enthusiasm of the Corinthians who assume that as citizens of heaven they have it all now.7 For Paul, then, Jesus’ resurrection is not so much the closure event for the incarnation, confirming his divine status, as it is an inaugural event for the age to come. It marks the beginning of the new creation, yet, as Beker points out, “it is provisional because it looks forward to the consummation of that beginning .”8 It is a reminder both to the Corinthians and to the TV preacher of the not-yet dimension of the faith, and as such provides no rationale for removing or toning down the scandalous character of the crucifixion. 4. If Jesus’ resurrection is understood as an apocalyptic event, then it is not surprising that when Paul moves from Christology to the nature of Christian experience, he affirms that believers have died with Christ but reserves for the future their resurrection with Christ. The Corinthians held that baptism signified not only their death but also their resurrection with Christ and lifted them into the spiritual heights above and beyond the troubling dilemmas of human existence. They understandably had little concern for incidents of incest or prostitution or for scruples about eating food offered to idols. Mere earthly issues were of small consequence. Paul, however, argues that the resurrection is a promise. “Knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence” (2 Cor. 4:14). This is the same “eschatological reservation” found in the other undisputed letters of Paul. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” “But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him” (Rom. 6:5, 8; cf. Phil. 3:10-11).9 For the present, believers find themselves very much involved in the ambiguities of human life, and their orientation to the future is their grounds for optimism (cf. Rom. 8:18-25). 5. This relationship of cross and resurrection becomes the basis for the understanding of Christian ministry developed in 2 Corinthians. The present for believers is shaped by and lived under the shadow of the cross. Ministry means sharing the afflictions and anguish of troubled people and communicating the sufferings and comfort of Christ (2 Cor. 1:3-7). Paul relates his own experience of desolation that led him to despair of life itself (2 Cor. 1:8-11). His ministry entails a “carrying in the body the death of Jesus,” “always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:10-11). To die with Christ means to live no longer for oneself but for the Christ who died and was raised (2 Cor.

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5:14-15). When Paul is maligned by the “superlative apostles” (2 Cor. 11:5, 12:11), he presents a curious defense, acknowledging his weaknesses and anxieties because in them he has found a partnership with the Christ who “was crucified in weakness” (2 Cor. 13:4). At the same time, the promise of the coming resurrection undergirds Paul’s ministry and enables him to hope. In the affliction experienced in Asia he came to rely on “God who raises the dead.” “He delivered us from so deadly a peril, and he will deliver us” (2 Cor. 1:9-10). His confidence in the final triumph of God prevents sheer despair (2 Cor. 4:7-15) and enables him to expect that the power of God will be present in the midst of human weakness (2 Cor. 12:9-10). It becomes the generating source of “good courage” (2 Cor. 5:6, 8). V. P. Furnish rightly notes:

We have evidence that Paul specifically refused to adopt a style of ministry that could in any sense be termed “heroic.” His refusal to conform to such a model, even in Corinth where for many people apostolic legitimacy seemed to depend on religious heroics, shows how deeply committed he was to another understanding of ministry. Paul’s own understanding of ministry grew out of his commitment to the gospel as “the word of the cross” and out of his perception that “the power of the cross” is the power of self-giving, serving love.10

In our American context where the pressure to succeed is an ever-present one and the gospel of health and well-being is preached on every street corner, Paul’s message sounds foreign and unrealistic. It is foreign not merely to the positive-thinkers who operate on the human hunger for glory and offer tidings of self-esteem, inner security, and a scandal-less cross. It is unrealistic not only for those exploiting capitalists who like the Biblical figure are driven by inner forces to build bigger and bigger barns. The whole church is challenged by such a message to re-think its reason for being. What are our criteria for success ? Who are our heroes? How do we measure our spiritual health? How does the church grow? In an era of declining membership the temptation is always strong to declare a faith that gives little or no offense. Paul’s words to the church at Corinth with its spiritual enthusaism but its cross-less Christianity remind us that to do so is to forsake the gospel. Our hope lies in an Easter that illumines but never negates Good Friday.

NOTES

1. Ernst Kasemann, Jesus Means Freedom (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 67-68. 2. Kasemann, 67. 3. C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1968), 271-272. 4. J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980). 5. Ernst Kasemann, “On the Subject of Primitive Christian Apocalyptic,” New Testament Questions of Today (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 108-137. 6. The problem was not limited to Corinth, cf. 2 Tim. 2:18. 7. Caught as they were in a body-spirit dualism, the Corinthians also found it impossible to conceive of a bodily resurrection.

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8. Beker, p. 159. 9. Only in Ephesians, whose immediate authorship by Paul is questioned, is the “eschatologi cal reservation” removed (Eph. 2:5-6). In Colossians, baptism also involves being raised with Christ, but the resulting life is “hid with Christ in God” and believers still await the parousia (Col. 3:1-4). 10. Victor Paul Furnish, “Theology and Ministry in the Pauline Letters,” Λ Biblical Basis for Ministry, ed. by Earl E. Shelp and Ronald Sunderland (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981), 142.

December 31, 1983
On Earth Peace, Goodwill: Preaching on Peace During Advent and Christmas

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On Earth Peace, Goodwill: Preaching on

Peace During Advent and Christmas

by O. Benjamin Sparks

Second Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Va.

When armies take up the banner of God . . . then the Christian commandment to sacrifice oneself for the sake of one’s neighbor at God’s command is transformed into permission to sacrifice one’s neighbor for God’s sake. In the pre-nuclear world, the assumption led to considerable slaughter; in the nuclear world it could lead to the end of the species.

It speaks powerfully against any Christian justification for destroying the world that when the Christian God appeared on earth in human form not only did He not sacrifice a single human being for His sake, but He suffered a lonely, anguishing, degrading human death so that the world might be saved.

Clearly, the corpse of mankind would be the least acceptable of all conceivable offerings on the altar of this God. Johnathan Schell, (The Fate of the Earth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. pp. 133-4)

It is with some sense of reluctance that I begin an article called “Preaching on Peace.” So often in the church when we set up task forces to study, develop conferences to organize and inform, or (God help us) write articles about how to preach on something, that something soon becomes a dead issue, lost to our culture’s insatiable need to be stimulated by the next social problem . But with peace we may have reached an end point, or in the deepest sense, a crisis. For if we imitate with peace what we have often done with important human causes in recent years, we may not have long left to preach about anything. There soon may be no texts left to expose, no bread to break nor cup to share, no hymns to sing to the praise of God Almighty through our Lord Jesus Christ. So dangerous is the situation that humankind faces that American and Soviet nuclear strength combined can obliterate every human being twenty-seven times right this moment. And American and Soviet leaders promise more, even more nuclear warheads in delivery systems of ever increasing sophistication. Jonathan Fine, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, says that he and his (adult) children talk with dismay but with reality of the world’s not surviving more than fifty years unless something is done immediately to halt the arms race and reduce the number of nuclear weapons. So we dare not, as preachers, trivialize the meaning of peace with overkill, with uninformed moralisme, or with strident and offensive harangues. Too often in recent years we have cried ‘Wolf!’ in an attempt to be prophetic. This go ’round it is imperative that people hear from us careful biblical and theolog-

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ical preaching, and thereby be comforted, given hope, and empowered to seek change. An initial difficulty we encounter in preaching on peace at Christmas is that from Bethlehem to Damascus, carnage is king. The Holy Land is presently a nightmare straight from Hell, where mortal flesh, far from keeping silence, keeps piteous vigil with death and desecration. In our kind of world what the nations seem to prove is as far removed from the glory of God’s righteousness and the wonder of God’s love as is the mushroom cloud that billowed up over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Somehow the peace and love we sing about and feel good about during Christmas doesn’t quite fit. Can we honestly say that the claims made for the birth of Jesus, (or at least the commercial promotion of those claims through our culture) are believable? Or do they remain beautiful but sentimental stories, fit for children and the simple-minded, essentially unavailable as descriptions of reality to insurance brokers and loan officers and small businesswomen, doctors and lawyers—or even pastors? In this initial difficulty, Matthew is of much more help than Luke, for with Matthew, Jesus Christ, born son of David, son of Abraham, who is also Emmanuel (God with us) begins his infancy under the shadow of Herod’s suspicion . And then he continues that infancy in a flight to Egypt to avoid massacre along with the rest of the male children of Bethlehem. At least Matthew’s tales of the birth remind us that the Advent of God into this world—whatever blessing may accrue to us on that account—also occasions grief and danger, and hostility from the powers that be. But the gospel for this Advent and Christmas is Luke, which stories contain only subtle hints of a cross in the future. And the readings from Luke, along with most of the other lectionary passages have as their primary theme deliverance. In the Old Testament lessons and the gospel readings, what is looked for (and what arrives in Jesus, according to the angels and according to Simeon in the temple—Luke 2) is the day of salvation—God’s deliverance coming to people who are in bondage, who are in need, who are the victims of some previous military victory. In the thirty-two passages suggested by the lectionary, only four of them explicitly mention peace. One of these is the often read ‘prince of peace’ passage from Isaiah 9, and though the result of the advent and reign of that prince, whom we have associated with Jesus, is peace and security, the peace and security are won by a military victory. The same also applies to the passage from Isaiah 53 where the deliverance of the exiles is accomplished by military might. Peace in Jerusalem is the promised end. If we take the lectionary seriously, and intend to use it, then this raises homiletically urgent questions: do we want our hearers to identify with the powerless who need deliverance, when the word descending from the national church (not wholly unlike the word coming from Washington) is that peacemaking is the believer’s calling? can those who await deliverance, those who live by the mercy of someone else’s military might, make peace? Most Presbyterians and other mainline Christians, if they are responsive to the urgent calls for peacemaking, would see themselves as anything but powerless. The urgency (again the homiletical urgency) is heightened by the fact that

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Luke’s gospel builds the notion of those without hope who hear the good news of Jesus’ birth into the heart of the birth narratives. And I am suggesting that it is impossible to do lectionary preaching on peace in Cycle C without at least addressing the contrast between Luke’s original audience and our hearers today (if not Luke’s audience, then at least those in the story who hear the announcement of the birth). Though attitudes may be moderating slightly, I would be very surprised if most of our hearers don’t see themselves as the deliverers, as ones who bring peace and hope (even to the Pentagon), or as citizens of a nation which, in the present condition of this world, is the last best hope of the human race. What we encounter in the birth narratives in Luke is an entirely different situation: Mary, the Lord’s humble servant, singing of the overthrow of the mighty; shepherds (only shepherds!?) hearing the angel’s announcement; Zechariah, Simeon , and Anna who rejoice in the deliverance that comes to Israel. (It is as a result of seeing that deliverance that Simeon can die in peace!) Raymond E. Brown believes that Luke took songs from the Anawim (pious , hopeful Jewish Christians) and put them in the mouths of Mary and Zechariah and Simeon and the angels. Brown writes that:

Though the title, Anawim, meaning “poor ones,” may have originally designated the physically poor (and frequently still included them), it came to refer more widely to those who could not trust in their own strength but had to rely in utter confidence upon God: the lowly, the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, the widows and orphans. The opposite of the Anawim were not simply the rich, but the proud and self-sufficient who showed no need of his help. (The Birth of the Messiah. Garden City N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1979. p. 351)

Who could be more different in self-concept from the Anawim than most of us mainline Christians, and even if our attitudes are changing from a “winthe -world-for-peace-in-one-generation” stance, we are confronted by Christians on the right who believe that a strong, armed-to-the-teeth-with-nuclear-weapons America is the hope of the world. Deliverance? Surely we don’t need it! What this suggests is that preaching becomes an opportunity to help congregations identify themselves with the Anawim (only, of course, if the preacher is willing to work on her self-concept, too), and become unhooked from the illusions of self-sufficiency, strength, and impregnability. We are, after all, not our own deliverers/saviors. From identifying with the Anawim (and who, staring the nuclear arsenals of the world in the face, does not feel need of deliverance?) it becomes possible for us and our hearers to see ourselves both individually and corporately as people who matter to God beyond compare, even with all our defenses down—refugees that we are to the bomb, to our own strength, to the notion that our way of life and our economic productivity, and our “peace” are of our making and doing. At the very least, identification with the Anawim gives us empathy for those who must obtain deliverance from beyond themselves, and puts us in solidarity with everyone from Genesis to Revelation who experienced an Advent of God. The other, always-to-be-expected preaching opportunity of the Advent/

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Christmastide season is the Second Coming or the final Advent of Christ our Lord. This emphasis of the Second Coming has been with the church for centuries , and it provides preaching opportunities for opening the closed world of space and time, for expanding the poverty-stricken modern imagination which turns in the silence of the church to astrology and gnosticism, to reincarnation and to visitors from outer space. Preaching on the Second Coming allows us to declare unequivocally that God does not abandon the creation to death, or to the frightening possibility that “out there” there is nothing or no one to rescue us from the silent universe of modern secularism. The Second Coming is the New Testament’s way of saying that something is coming from beyond time and space, which contains and completes all of time and space, to give meaning to all reality. Nature is finally renewed. History finds a meaningful end. As Robert M. Herhold has written:

If the Christmas carols are true and the candles we light on Christmas Eve really do represent a light that Washington and Moscow can never put out, then Christ has to come again. The mystery and promise of the First Advent insist upon a second Advent. Clearly God has not finished the work of the first Advent. We are further away from peace and goodwill on earth than ever before. Without a follow-through on the promise of the first Advent, God only leads us into false hope, which is worse than no hope at all. Without the Second Advent, the candle-light of Christmas Eve cannot ever answer the fires of Hiroshima. (“An Advent Meditation,” The Christian Century, November 25, 1981.)

In the kind of world in which we live, nations armed with the destructive power of a million Hiroshimas and Nagasakis—there has to be a Final Advent. Or else in honesty we must conclude that history is bunk and that nothing even approximating the God we know in the Bible created the universe with humankind in love and longing and tenderness. We really do have the power to extinguish ourselves—no word, no table, no songs left to sing or be sung. Absolute nothingness. I am not suggesting with this writing that from the pulpit we counsel irresponsibility , that we see ourselves as utterly helpless, that we leave our hearers with the notion that they are capable of nothing, that they can make no changes. Who would have believed a year ago that Reagan’s limited nuclear war would have mobilized the numbers of people in Europe and America to speak and act for nuclear restraint, nuclear freeze, nuclear disarmament. We and our hearers are not as poor and defenseless as the Anawim. I am simply arguing that the pulpit is not always the best place from which to lead a charge, into war or out of it—though Presbyterians preached for the revolution in 1776 and against the Germans in 1914. There are too many other opportunities in the life of the congregation to teach about and encourage our members in the work of peace; as prophetic ideologues, we can never compete with the likes of Jerry Falwell. I am suggesting that preaching on peace is most effective when hearers are enabled to experience the greatness of the love and mercy of God, to know that God protects and cares, and that as strange as it might seem, not a hair can

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fall from our heads without notice. It is out of that faith, and not one born of desperation and anger, that those same hearers can obey with confidence the urgings of the Spirit in the critical and necessary works of peace: nuclear disarmament , feeding the hungry, and the appropriation of covenant-making/covenant -keeping skills. Prophetic ideology, however accurate it might be, produces guilt, inspires hatred, and does not help people work for peace with confidence. I recommend this approach because I want us as preachers, legitimately committed to peace and justice, to remember the realism of the Bible on these issues, as well as the multiplicity of voices with which the Bible speaks. The Bible is hardly a pacifist book (though it can be argued that the New Testament Christian community was). The song of the angels about peace on earth becomes the lament of Jesus on the way to Jesusalem, as he pauses, weeping over the city, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace. But now they are hid from your eyes” (Luke 19:42). The contradiction was resolved on the cross. And we dare not forget that as preachers and teachers in the church, our most insightful and accurate prophesying will always be flawed by our own self-interest, and our most inspired words of comfort and grace still need the completing work of the Spirit in the minds and hearts of our hearers. For the distance between the angel song and Jesus’s cry of despair is not abridged by human initiative or human ingenuity, inspiring as they sometimes are. The distance is bridged and the conflict resolved by a word spoken to fearful disciples, certain they had been forsaken, who were hiding in an upper room. And the word was spoken by the Risen Lord: “Peace be with you . . . peace be with you. As the Father sent me so send I you” (John 20:19ff). Surely the peace of the resurrection is the same peace on earth of which the angel sang. How to preach on peace during Advent and Christmastide? Carefully, and with great faith, expecting God to work in us and through us (even in our halfconfident state) the wonders of his love.

December 31, 1983
The Peace that Passes Understanding

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The Peace that Passes

Understanding

Walter Wink

Auburn Theological Seminary, New York, New York

Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:6-7, RSV)

The Editors have asked me to pause from my stressful life to write a piece about peace. And not just any kind of peace, but the kind that passes understanding . My wife cooly remarked that that was impossible, and I was a fool to get into such a trap—trying to say something understandable about the peace that passes understanding. The very topic burdens me with guilt. I ought to be more at peace. I ought to relax more, meditate more, let up more. I don’t live enough out of the “still point of the turning world,” where nothing moves while everything orbits round it. I ought to trust God more. Am I alone in this? Do I hear a few “Amens” out there? Aren’t we clergy among the most stressed people in our society? Does any group know less about this incomprehensible peace of God? Does any group have less right to preach about it? Then compound that with the greatest threat the world has ever known to peace—nuclear war—and the quandry over this text flips into an absolute proof of its claim: such peace is indeed beyond our understanding. But that is a spot we are accustomed to begin in, week after week. We are not worthy of these things, as Paul says in another place. We never understand fully. Our lives are always light-years from exemplifying the truth we are bound to proclaim. So, once again, we silence our objections, and listen. . . . There is no need to worry. (All subsequent scriptural references will be taken from the Jerusalem Bible.) Right. That’s already part of what worries me—that so many people still aren’t worried! In my travels I have found, especially in the South, many clergy who simply don’t want to face the nuclear threat. Old orthodoxies about deterrence, the logic of which no longer fits a first strike strategy, lull them into a restless sleep. Many of them pastor churches rife with military-industrial employees. They have resolutely resisted the temptation to read Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth or Helen Caldicott’s Nuclear Madness, or anything else that might require rethinking or action. We don’t want to have to worry. We’ve lived with this nightmare for thirty-eight years now; that’s half a lifetime of low-level stress, and you don’t lightly stir up all the radioactive dust of that memory. So we find ways to stay busy. If only that were the whole of the problem! Then we could believe that our efforts to awaken each other would finally pay. Look how fast the nuclear movement has grown in just a year and a half ! Now over seventy percent of

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the nation favors a freeze. Surely that will begin to translate into policy, and we can go back to other things. But there is a deeper problem. Have you ever met anyone who was not for peace? But the world has known precious little of it. What is it in the human being that makes peace so illusive? We desire peace, but we in fact need war. We have needed wars to end our depressions and get the nations working again. Wars are fabulous consumers. Never mind that they wreck long-term stability; they provide short-term “fixes,” and the profits from them are enormous. We also need wars because we need enemies. As long as people generally remain unconscious of their own shadow-side, they will continue to project out on “enemies.” And where there is no enemy they will invent one. The Soviets are our scapegoat. They catch our projections. We can imagine ourselves to be essentially good if we can find someone else out there whom we can picture as essentially evil. When my wife and I were in South America for four months last spring, it was fascinating to see how the old red-baiting trick that Senator McCarthy taught the world gets used. Everytime priests or nuns or laity organized to protest policies that were exploiting the poor, they were branded “communists .” Marcos uses the same ploy in the Philippines, and now Reagan has ingeniously discovered that all us folks who simply want to survive and secure a future for our kids are “communist inspired”! (He should really be more careful —he makes it sound as if only Communists want the world to survive!). Yes, we need our scapegoats—let’s make Reagan one! We need someone to blame for all this. And since there’s not much sign that folks are ready to abandon this simplistic solution, and face their own darkness, and learn to love the Russians , there’s not much hope for peace. And Paul says, “Don’t worry”! That’s not all. We need war also because it’s been one of the few catalysts powerful enough to shake most people into life. Of course, in war many more die, but that can’t be helped. Why do so many men look back nostalgically at their experience in war—preferably earlier wars that the nation threw itself into without doubt? Because there were moments then when danger drove them to a kind of presence and communion with their buddies or to acts of heroism and selflessness that they had never been able to rise to in their normal lives—and never have since. Is it not the case that most people, most of the time, are all too much at peace—or better, asleep? Is it not the case that when we say “peace” we usually mean an absence of conflict, a state of inertia, the cessation of responsibility, tension, polarity, dynamic: in short, everything that makes life vital? Yet we know from experience that most of our real growth has come through conflict. That operation we had, or illness, or death or divorce or kid on drugs, or alcoholic spouse or disability or danger or social controversy: those were the (unpeaceful) moments when we dared to face and even to let go of our most deeply-seated egotisms, our most selfishly clutched possessions, our need for status, privilege, credentials, even perhaps our fear of death. How many of us, and for how much of the time, are able to live alert to our higher selves, by virtue of inner discipline? And if, or when, we will not, is

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it not the case that we trust in outer events to do it for us? Despite all our prayers for peace, there is an inner wisdom—the part of us that drives for wholeness, individuation, the image of God—that knows it cannot settle for the somnolent life of fractional living. Deep within us there is something that, if it cannot trust us to awaken ourselves to it, calls out for calamities, emergencies, conflict, or war. This is best put in an unlikely source, Geoffrey Hodson’s The Brotherhood of Angels and Men [Wheaton, 111.: Quest Books, (1927) 1982]:

Your higher selves—your angel selves—strive continually to awaken you, to send a vision through your dreams, and here and there a sleeper stirs and stretches, all too often to return to sleep; your dreams must be disturbed by the force of things external to your selves. Wars come to rouse you, and you pray to God to save you from more wars! Pestilence and famine stride hand in hand across your heedless lives, and only as you see them threatening your repose do you awake, and, for a time, become your greatest selves. Yet from these, you pray unto your Lord, asking Him to deliver you! The deliverer from these is with you all the while, it is your innermost self; but as you will not be aroused by the Self within you, you must be awakened by the Self without. Know that in wars, plagues, cataclysms , you see yourselves, the expressions of your soul, striding torch in hand, through the dormitories in which your bodies lie, to stir you from your sleep, to drive away the dark shadows of self-satisfaction and content . These other selves of yours will come again and again until you yourselves banish them for all time. They go from the nation, from those men, who, answering to the highest, live according to its laws; who seeing the greatest, strive ever to express it, who neither rest nor sleep, filled with a craving which drives them onwards from peak to peak of the mountains of the spiritual world. That is the way to release, brothers, and there is none other. He who tells you that war may cease by act of law, does worse than lie; he covers up the truth, so that men, feeling safe, sink back again into their dreams—and war returns in due season.

And Paul says “Don’t worry”! If at the conscious level we are intent on blocking all knowledge of the nuclear suicide we are so painstakingly preparing for ourselves, and at the unconscious level still need an enemy to blame all our own problems on, and long for war to ease our boredom and wake us to our own heroic possibilities, what chance has the slim shoot of peace of growing to maturity when the soil is so laced with salt? Don’t worry, indeed! To all of which Paul responds piously, “Pray.” But if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving. I have concluded that it makes no sense to argue about whether praying would do any good or not, or telling stories ad nauseum of answered prayer. We simly have to do it. Nothing can save us that is possible anyway. We might as well surrender ourselves to God’s impossible possibility. Nowadays it’s the only game left in town. It is not, after all, inconceivable that humanity could freeze, then reduce, and finally destroy the nuclear stockpiles that we have so long prayed and sup-

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plicated with all thanksgiving to give us peace. It is not at all impossible. It merely seems improbable, unlikely, far-fetched, given our record. So what; everybody God works with has a record. Moses was wanted for murder, Abraham for lying to Pharoah about not being married to Sarah, Jacob for theft of birthright, David for adultery, the prophets for sedition and Paul for disturbing the “peace.” We all have records, some earned in the line of duty, some earned for refusing our duty. God is not picky about who can be used. What if the real heroism of our time were already beckoning to us in the glistening sheen of our lethal warheads? What if we faced the issue dead-on and called people to the longest stride of soul they ever took—to risk everything for peace? What if we got off of generalities down to specifics, and organized levels of involvement all the way from letter writing to jail? What if, in short, we helped prevent war by absorbing that old unconscious need for war to wake us up to our duty before God and the future of our children? And what if, at the same time, we courageously faced that inner shadow, and owned our own evil? What if each church or town were to adopt a similar church or town in Russia, and exchanged letters, even visits, to bond themselves into a common humanity? Then that old need to scapegoat the Russians would stick in people’s throats, or get them laughed off the podium. Because we would know our “enemies” as flesh of our flesh, in the same substantial struggle to survive. And what if we did all this, not with a grim determination and fearful urgency, but bouyed up by thanksgiving, trusting that God can do far more than we can ask or think, living in expectation of miracle? What if we let God bear the issue, and we responded out of grateful hearts that God, in infinite mercy, has freed us from our nuclear paralysis and given us tasks we can do? Then indeed we would work with desperate urgency, perhaps, but not without hope or joy. Then we might incur controversy and even imprisonment, but not the dread sense of impotence. Then we might know what it means to have our hearts and thoughts (or bodies) guarded in Christ Jesus, no longer assaulted by unconscious fear and torn by unconscious needs for war. Then, guarded and thankful, we might even discover the peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, which will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

December 31, 1983
The Message of Christian Faith on the Occasion of the Burial of the Dead

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The Message of Christian Faith on the

Occasion of the Burial of the Dead

John H. Leith

Union Theological Seminary,

Richmond,

Virginia

The funeral is a critical moment in the life of any Christian congregation. Death breaks community and threatens faith and life with meaninglessness. It also, or at least frequently, leaves a painful void in the depths of the personal existence of those who have been bereaved. Hence on the occasion of death the church is challenged to confess the faith and to assert the reality of its communal existence. There is no uniform Reformed practice in regard to the burial of the dead. The ecclesiastical ordinances in Calvin’s Geneva simply declare, “The dead are to be buried decently in the place appointed. . . . It will be good that the carriers be warned by us to discourage all superstitions contrary to the Word of God. . . .” The first Book of Discipline in the Church of Scotland states, “We desire that burial be so honorably handled that the hope of our resurrection may be nourished; and all kind of superstition, idolatry, and whatsoever thing proceedeth of the false opinions may be avoided” (Cf. The Westminster Directory). These quotations are sufficient to indicate that the burial of the dead must be carried out with decency and soberness. They also reveal an awareness that death is the occasion for much superstition. Hence they all seek to reform the practice of burial by dependence upon the regular preaching and services of the church and by reducing the rites of burial to a bare minimun. It can be argued that the Reformers reacted too violently, but the superstitious practices against which they protested are a warning that funerals are easily perverted by the imaginations of the human heart. In the course of the years, Reformed communities have sometimes wanted a precise rite of burial. Such a rite would have served very useful purposes in communities in which there were no ordained ministers. However, there are certain advantages in having no established pattern for the burial of the dead. The uniqueness of every death demands more freedom of response and witness than the established rituals provide. There is need for the freedom for the Christian community to confess its faith and to demonstrate the reality of its community in ways appropriate to the situation. The following reflections are given in response to a request from the editors . They are not intended in any sense to be definitive but are simply presented as conclusions from one minister’s experience in the pastorate and in theological reflection. (1) “Good taste” is always in order in the presence of death. This admonition may appear trite, but it is nonetheless important. Death is an awesome moment, and in its presence soberness is a virtue. The occasion of death

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should never be exploited by the minister or by the church for controversial or eccentric purposes. Neither should it be used to teach or to exhort. At burial of the dead the community listens to the Word of God and confesses the faith that is the common experience of the gathered company of believers. In my own experience, the death and the burial of the dead is a time in which kindness should take precedence over our own ideas or preferences. Calvin resolutely refused to subordinate truth to love. There is, of course, a point beyond which we cannot go in accommodating the desires of the bereaved. Yet I found that I could participate in funerals in which the family wanted practices which I personally found objectionable, so long as I did not have to be responsible for them. The basic point I want to make is that in the presence of the awesomeness of death, “good taste” in dress, in words, in acts, is eminently in order. (2) Death and the burial of the dead is an occasion when ministers should be very much aware that they are ministers of the church. The minister, on the occasion of the burial of the dead, does not give a personal testimony as to his or her faith, but rather confesses the faith of the church. The eccentricities and novelties of a particular minister’s faith or lack of faith are inappropriate for the funeral. The ancient prayers of the church, the theology that has stood the test and challenges of time, the language that is the common vocabulary of the faithful, the hymns that are substantive confessions and supplications of the faith are the proper material of the burial service. The burial of the dead is not an appropriate occasion for either theological or liturgical experimentation. (3) Death and the burial of the dead is an occasion for the actualization of the Christian community. Church people attend funerals because the death of any member is a concern of the community, not primarily because of personal relationship with the deceased. The gathering for the burial demonstrates community . In addition, the confession of faith testifies to the reality of the church as a community composed of the living and of the dead. The host of heaven also gather with the church on earth for the burial of this believer. The reality of the church as community is actualized by deeds of kindness for the bereaved, food and useful services, as well as by supporting words. In these practical ways the church reasserts its community in the presence of the challenge of death. (4) In the burial of the dead, a word of thanksgiving for the deceased is appropriate. When I finished the seminary, I was committed to a service of Scripture and prayer, the same for all people. In these services there was an occasion for the mentioning of the name of the deceased, for a brief word of thanksgiving for the life of the deceased in the prayer and for his or her relationship to the family. I had learned this from ministers who were reacting against the pretensious and inauthentic eulogies that became common for many funerals. I gradually moved away from this practice, because in actual experience I found that the burial of certain persons irresistibly demanded some public affirmation of their service in the life of the Christian community as well as in society. The Second Helvetic Confession, 1566, disapproves of the cynics who never say a good word about the deceased. No one ought to want to go back to

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the old eulogy or to saying words on the occasion of a funeral that are not authentic and that are not self-authenticating among the hearers when pronounced . Appropriate references to distinguished service in the community or to a powerful Christian witness can be made in a discreet and sober way. When done soberly, the speaking of a good word does not create a precedent requiring a eulogy when it would not be appropriate. In the case of several very distinguished public figures, I found it fitting to interweave the Christian message with a more elaborate thanksgiving for the life of the deceased. (5) The service on the occasion for the burial of the dead is an appropriate time to affirm in a fundamental way the faith of the church. As I have indicated , my first funeral sermons were compilations of great Scripture passages, with a few introductory remarks. Every funeral service should contain a reading of the very great passages of Scripture which have meant much to Christian believers in every age. No burial should be without readings from the Psalms, John 14, Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15. The hymns which are sung on the occasion of a funeral are also opportunities to bear witness to the faith. My own preference is for the great hymns that confess the faith and that center attention upon God. The hymns that I particularly like for funerals are the following: “All People That on Earth Do Dwell,” “How Firm a Foundation,” “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” “Thine Is the Glory,” “Now Thank We All Our God.” I have increasingly come to the conviction that the burial of the dead is the proper occasion for the church to confess its faith using the Apostles’ Creed. The Lord’s Prayer also gives the people an opportunity to affirm their faith and claim God’s grace. In recent years, I have given the message on the occasion of burial a more theological structure. These burial sermons have tried to assert in the presence of death the reality of the Christian community, the meaningfulness of life, and the grace of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ upon which the first two affirmations depend. The theology that is appropriate for a funeral message should be the tried and tested theology of the church. It should be a theology that the minister has mastered and can conceptualize in his or her own words. It should be expressed in plain, simple English sentences that are distinguished by their coherence and clarity. The funeral is not the occasion for amateur theology. If the choice is between amateur theology and a service simply of prayer and Scripture reading, then the latter is clearly the proper choice. I have also found that the burial message is a proper place to assert the Christian faith over against the absurdity of many deaths. In a fundamental sense every death is absurd and a challenge to faith. Yet some deaths are an acute challenge to faith and are blatantly absurd. On the occasion of such a death, we can only honestly face the absurdity, trust God, and seek in our own actions to give some meaning to a death that otherwise is irrational and absurd . In the church the absurdity of death should be accepted, understood, and overcome. Long ago, Augustine did not try to explain away the brutality that Christians experienced at the hands of the Goths in the sacking of Rome. The dif-

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ference, Augustine said, between Christians, and non-Christians, was not in what happened to them in the world, but in their responses to what happened to them. Christians were distinguished by the faith, hope, and love with which they responded to the tragic events of their own lives. On the occasion of a death that was especially poignant for me—the sudden death of a beautiful, brilliant, committed twenty-nine year-old woman, an honor graduate of a great university, a wife and a mother, I said the following words:

A Funeral Sermon We have gathered here this morning as those who knew and loved We have also gathered here in awe before the mystery of life and in fear before a death that appears so absurd, that threatens our community and our faith. But we have gathered as the church to reaffirm the reality of the church itself in the face of death, to give thanks for and to pay tribute to the life she lived in our midst, to declare again our faith. I. It is very fitting that we gather as the church and that in the presence of the death of we reaffirm its reality. She was born into the church, and even those closest to her by ties of flesh and blood knew her in the church as soon as they knew her in the human community. And so we have come together not only as human beings who know human sorrow, but as the church of the living God to confess our faith, to share together in the common life that has sustained us thus far, and to affirm the reality of the church in the face of death. In this life together, we knew in the keenness of her mind, in the graciousness and humaneness and gentleness of her person, in the quiet dignity and stability of her life, in her commitment to and love for the church. We knew in her the wonder of human existence and the joy of human fellowship. By this fellowship we were all enriched. We find words inadequate to say precisely how we understood the wonder of her life and the wonder of our fellowship together. Yet we know that in knowing one another and in sharing in the common life of the church, we were deeply enriched and strengthened in the faith. And now we can best think of ‘s life as a means of God’s grace to us. We give thanks for the special human being she was—intelligent, kind, understanding, interested, committed to something more than herself. When she was married in this church in December, 1973, she asked—somewhat unusual for a wedding service—that these words from the Sermon on the Mount should be read. And I think she would want them read now. “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. . . .” (Matt. 6:25-34) We take assurance now in the truth of our faith that the church is a body composed of the living and the dead (some of whom are very dear to ) and that in Christ, the head of the church, we still have communion one with another . We are glad that we knew ; and it is our hope that we shall know her

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again in the fullness, beauty, and wonder of that life into which by God’s grace — has passed and into which we shall soon go. II. Now as the church, we confess our faith in the presence of death that the meaning of life, its significance and purpose, is revealed not in this death, which appears so irrational to us, but in the love of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We understand death in the light of God’s love, not God and life in the light of death. Over against —’s death we make at least three basic confessions of faith. 1. First of all, we confess our faith that ‘s life was established in the purposes of God. At the beginning of her life this faith was confessed in baptism . Her parents and the church claimed the promises of God for her. Her name was called, indicative of our faith that God thought of before she was, called her into being, and gave to her her identity, her individuality, her name, her dignity. And now at death we confess again this faith that was affirmed at baptism. We establish our hope in the fact that the eternal God knows us by name, that he searches us out and sets us behind and before (Ps. 139), that he numbers the hairs upon our head, and allows not a sparrow to fall without his notice. (Matt. 10:29-30). 2. We also as the church confess our faith that the eternal God who called us into being will complete and fulfill the work that he has begun in us. “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. . . . (John 14:1-6). 3. We come together as the church finally to confess that the last word today and every day is the grace of God. The evil in the situation, even the absurdity of this death, is not the last word. The last word is the grace of God, that enables us to take whatever comes and to use it in the building of a life of beauty and wonder and authenticity, that enables us even in the presence of this death to praise God and to enhance the meaning of human existence. God has made the world in such a way that deaths such as this do occur, but he has also made the world so that this death is not the final word. The final word is God’s grace. In the faith that liked to confess, we confess now that God works with those who love him for good in all things (Rom. 8:28). God made the world so that human life is precarious. In this world our hopes are frequently frustrated. We have to live in this dangerous world, where from the perspective of our hopes many events are irrational and absurd for those who believe in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. If God intended to make us comfortable, then clearly this is an incredible world. But God does not treat those whom he loves as his favorites. He causes his sun to shine and his rain to fall upon the just and unjust alike. Biochemical systems and the structures of the world impinge upon the good and evil with impersonal impartiality. The important differences between people are not so much in what happens to us as in our responses to what happens to us. If God’s purpose was to bring many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10) or to bring us to human maturity, as Paul said (Eph. 4:13), then this is the kind of world that challenges us to grow into the maturity of faith, of trust, of human sympathy. God could not and cannot by definition create mature human beings. He could and did create persons with the possibility of human maturity. And this maturity

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comes only as we respond to the crises and challenges of our lives. In the words of Unamuno’s great prayer, may God deny us peace but give us glory. It is good to push back the boundary of death and to fight against death, but more important than postponing death for a few years is the receiving of a wisdom, an insight, and a grace that enables us to face death and all the challenges of life with the dignity, poise, and serenity that comes from a great faith in God. So our final word is to claim the grace of God that works with those who love him for the good in all things, and to pledge ourselves to find in the irrationality and absurdity of this death an occasion to praise God and to enhance the meaning of human life. We cannot and we ought not to deceive ourselves. This death is an absurdity in God’s world. It will remain an absurd, irrational fact unless it becomes a means of God’s grace by which God’s purposes for his people are fulfilled. To this end we commit ourselves to work to make some sense out of ‘s death as a final tribute to her life.

December 31, 1983
What Is the Matter with Seminaries

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Protagonist Corner

What Is the Matter with Seminaries?

Barbara G. Wheeler

Auburn Theological Seminary, New York, N.Y.

Seminaries do not prepare their graduates for the practice of ministry. The reason for their failure is clear. Most Protestant seminary faculty have little experience in congregations and no sense of the demands of ministerial practice. Their careers have been restricted to academic institutions where they have adopted a “guild” mentality which determines what an how they teach. Therefore, seminary students are exposed largely to an academic style of leadership and an academic method of communication—classroom teaching . In the course of three or four years they become steeped in academic subject matter, attitudes and values. When they graduate and enter the ministry , they find themselves ill-equipped, even disabled, for the actual work of ministry. The first years are a difficult period, requiring the new minister to unlearn much of what seminary taught and simultaneously to acquire a more relevant on-the-job theological education. This view of the failure of seminary education is widespread. Many practicing ministers subscribe to it. It is advanced with special ferocity by national and regional church executives and held by some of the seminaries’ internal critics. Altogether it is the most popular explanation of what is wrong with seminaries. I think the view is more convenient than true. It does serve to sum up a vague, almost universal unease about seminary life and preparation for ministry . It is neat; it is plausible; it locates the blame. But it is difficult to sustain if one observes carefully the current state of the ministry and of academic life in seminaries. Where, for instance, is the evidence that ministers have been stamped in an academic mold? Only a few follow regular regimens of reading, writing and critical investigation. A much larger number are marked by their uncritical acceptance of tired conventions or fashionably popular ideas. Neither the good effects of scholarly formation, such as an appetite for ideas, nor the bad—pedantry, for instance—seem to persist in many ministers. Their absence leads one to question whether “exclusively academic formation” accurately describes what seminaries are doing wrong. If the academic imprint were as strong and deep as is usually alleged, surely the pattern of what Robert Lynn calls the “study-centered” ministry would be prevalent. The usual view of seminary faculty is, I think, similarly inaccurate. Though no one has thoroughly studied the background and training of seminary faculty, perusal of the resumes of the full-time teachers in five or six very different institutions reveals considerably more variety of backgrounds (including more parish experience) than the usual view allows. Even more inaccurately drawn is the role of the real villain in the piece, “the guild.” On exami-

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nation, the guild is very difficult to locate. Though several large associations for religious and theological studies do exist, they are not animated by the real mark of a guild, a single standard of performance. In fact, different denominational configurations and, within them, different seminaries, have different standards. For some, scholarship is paramount. In many more cases, teaching is most important, or service to the denomination, or even piety or orthodoxy. So far I have suggested that the problem with seminaries does not lie where it is usually located, with a powerful academic guild orientation that is transmitted through faculty to future ministers. It is still necessary, though, to account for the great discomfort most people feel with the job seminaries are doing. Seminaries’ activities are the consistent focus of criticism from their own graduates, from church officials, and from the few lay people who take an interest in them. What is the matter with seminaries? In my view, the problem that infects the seminaries and makes them so disliked has its origins in the wider church; the absence of an adequate image of the ministry. Currently we are in the grip of the so-called professional model, which defines ministry as a series of functions the minister must be competent to perform. No one, of course, could argue that ministry is not in some sense a profession. Sociologically it functions that way, and certainly competence in practice is a high value for ministry as it is for other professions. The problem arises from our current tendency to define ministry as only a profession. In standards for clergy evaluation, in the goals of “competency-based” curricula, in the content of most continuing education programs, the focus is on what the minister does, excluding from the field of vision what she believes, symbolizes or thinks. Further (following our society’s individualistic definition of professionalism ), we emphasize the competence of the individual practitioner rather than the faithfulness of the community. Finally, because the modern professions undergird social structures already in place, professional ministry has an affinity for the status quo and prevailing cultural values. It summarizes, rather than advances, our current understanding of what ministry can be. This inadequate image of ministry might better be named the functional model, since a professional, in contemporary terms, is little more than a highly skilled functionary. Such usage would rescue the word “profession,” which has been emptied of its rich, ancient association with the committed life. But the problem for the ministry (and, I would argue, other contemporary professions as well) goes beyond terminology. We have reduced not only the term, profession , not only our idea of ministry, but also our actual expectations to one narrow, functionalist dimension. It is the thinness of this image of ministry that afflicts theological education. Theological seminaries have both responded to the professional model, with verbal assent and some program adjustments, and resisted it. Competency has become the theme of most D. Min. program descriptions and many M. Div. programs as well. Courses in ministerial skills have been added to curricula. At the same time, large portons of the curriculum remain unchanged, pre-dating the professional model. Some of this resistance is deliberate, a healthy attempt to vary the uniformity of the professional model. Much of it, I suspect, is iner-

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tia, the tendency to go on doing things as they have always been done. But neither the response nor the resistance get at the root problem for seminaries, congregations and other expressions of the church: our earlier images of ministry are outmoded, and our current understanding is pale and thin. Sticking together old and contemporary views in a pastiche curriculum only confuses students and splinters their sense of vocation. It segments the faculty because they have no shared sense of what they can together accomplish . It leads to the listlessness, confusion and absence of educational passion which have made seminaries a perennial target of criticism. The solution to the problem of seminaries and the inadequacy of preparation for ministry is not near at hand. It requires a church-wide effort to reenvision the ministry: to explore biblical, theological, and cultural images which might enrich the fashionable pragmatic and organizational model; to correct its individualism by attention to our corporate call; to complement the concern for effectiveness with a renewed commitment to radical faithfulness. The problem of seminaries will only be addressed by a newly-luminous image of the ministry of the whole church.

December 31, 1983
Signals From The ‘Caribbean Basin’

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Protagonist Corner

Signals From The “Caribbean Basin”

Kortright Davis

Codrington College, Barbados, West Indies

I had the good fortune of paying another visit to North America earlier last year (1982), and for the fourth time I followed an itinerary that included Toronto along with some United States cities. Religious programming on television in Toronto on Trinity Sunday produced a surfeit of American preachers assuring their audiences that their money-making God was willing to share his secrets with them provided that they followed some codes and spiritual guidelines . A cathedral sermon in Toronto made it abundantly clear that the traditional doctrine of the Trinity could be expounded without relevance to current fears of nuclear war, rising unemployment, proliferating bankruptcies, increasing crime and human loneliness, or even rapidly expanding functional atheism within the churches. North American religion, both on the media and in church, appeared to have gone off on a Columbia Space-shuttle flight on that day—Trinity Sunday. But it is wrong to judge merely by appearances. American society, unlike most European societies, lacks the basic substreams of common cultural, historical, and anthropological antecedents which help to create and sustain genuine consensus, and indefatigable national determination and resolve. In a real sense America appears to be still in the formative (ancestral?) stages of its new social history, since, after all, what started in the seventeenth century as a colonial experiment could not be expected to emerge as a true society by the twentieth. Historically, most societies have evolved through the “out-of-many-one-people” route; America appears to consist of the “out-of-one-America-many” social formula. It is difficult to predict how this formula will work in any given era. America seems to be comprised of many Americas, some small, some great; and each appears to contain its own vitality and vision. How then does the one gospel of Jesus of Nazareth find place in each America? Or can it do so at all? The various patterns of human livelihood in America today seem to indicate that there is a constant occurrence of similar types of pressures and challenges , in spite of the social pluralism. These pressures and challenges manifest themselves in ways directly related to the kind of America in which one lives, or is struggling to live. They constitute genuine problems for human livelihood in the context of the gigantic social experiment in America, but they may also present new and varying opportunities for the deepening of faith in God, in whom most Americans still claim to trust. What are some of these problems of human livelihood? Space permits mention of only six of them: (1.) Wealth — its acquisition and distribution, its aura and imperatives (of class and crime), the distinctive ethical and spiritual structures it generates, the challenge to genuine human happiness which it proliferates. (2.) Technology — its precision, power, and promise all tend to inflate the col-

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lective human ego and to reduce the vitality of a theistic foundation for the building of the good life. (3.) Super-Power Consciousness — this permeates through many dimensions of American life, particularly in the media and in foreign relations, even at the person-to-person level: the American is usually a Super-person among others, especially in touring parties. (4.) Minimization of the Human Spirit — perhaps this is a result of growing materialism and the personification of inanimate objects (car, TV, gadgets); the value of the human spirit can never increase where the verb “to have” means more than the verb “to be.” (5.) Computerization of Social Relationships — the computer has apparently assumed full presidency of America and the Americans, and so much has been programmed and packaged into neatly arranged social systems that the agelong doctrine of the “imago Dei” has faded from functional efficacy, at least for the time being. Industrial ethos now requires men and women to accept the faith that the computer answers prayer. (6.) Vulnerability of the Person — people are much softer now, apparently as a result of these other problems. They are preoccupied with the avoidance of hurt, pain and suffering because the social experiment provides less and less scope for the survival of the weak and the weakened, and more promise and pleasure for those who can remain strong enough to escape the inherent frailty and susceptibilities of human personhood. The American scenario of litigation is perhaps one clear reminder of how vulnerable the human person has become. The Caribbean preacher who dares to utter all that has just been said may very well be “talking through his hat,” since the reality may be quite different from the appearance. America continues to be a social experiment that has so far succeeded industrially, technologically, militarily, and politically. Success is still to be achieved in other spheres of social experience. Besides this, it has promoted the spread of Christianity quite extensively in this century in the face of the European promotion of Communism. It still remains the most magnetic place of refuge and opportunity in the world today. Its 1776 Declaration of Independence still remains a working ideal that provides both a social agenda and a warning light at the same time. It is a country of immeasurable paradox. The gospel of Jesus of Nazareth also consists of an incalculable paradox of life-through-death, but the God and Father of Jesus cannot be recreated in the American image. America itself shares in the historical reflection of God’s creative activity. The American preacher is thus faced with an enormous challenge of Christian witness. The theological and evangelical task does not consist in rationalizing and sanctifying current systems of any sort, but rather in perhaps plumbing the depths of human response to God’s American call, and of human responsibility for God’s American activity in the face of the inevitable advancement of the world’s largest and most comprehensive social and industrial experiment. The American preacher must be equipped and prepared to identify , collect and preserve the many fragments of divinely-related humanity —both large and small, both societal and individual—which will outlast the

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tremendous pressures of today and tomorrow, and which may well constitute the evolution of a true and cohesive American society through the “out-ofmany -one-people” route, when the experiment is over.

December 31, 1983
Smashing a Scratched Record

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Page 28

Protagonist Corner

Smashing a Scratched Record

by Rush Otey

St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Tucker, Ga.

The year 1983 means among other things that it has been a decade since ordination for some of us, people who decided to “go into the ministry” during the 1960’s, whose time in seminary was marked by Viet Nam, whose first sermons were shaped by our reaction to Watergate and by whatever we could (nondirectively) sneak in from the human potential movement without departing too far from our exegetical, Niebuhrian superegos. A decade is not all that long, and ten years does not give us either the wisdom or ecclesiastical stature of an E. T. Thompson or a Rachel Henderlite; but a decade does prompt one to ask whether it was wise to have followed such a vocation as ours. There have been days when the answer seems to be decidedly negative, when the whining heart twangs its self-pitying solo. Here are the recurring chords: (1) The church and we are ineffectual in solving the world’s problems (Amen to Jesus’ statement, “In the world you shall have trials and tribulations . . . . ” I forget the rest of that.) (2) The church and we are more intent on self-perpetuation than proclamation and self-giving. (3) There are too many meetings, too many reams of newsprint, too many neurotics in pew and pulpit, too many conflicting demands and expectations. Joseph Sittler in his book The Ecology of Faith has a chapter on the “Maceration of the Minister.” Sittler asserts that “A minister has been ordained to an Office, and too often ends up running an office. . . . (Ministers) recall with a sense of joy the occasions when honest work and unhurried reflection gave a strange victory to their efforts. But these occasions are infrequent, set amid great stretches of guilt-begetting busyness” (p. 84). (4) Too few churches offer lawyer’s wages. (5) Idols proliferate. But, after ten years and more, I do not wish to hear that song any longer. It reminds me of a recoid which has a deep scratch on it and keeps repeating the same meaningless syllable over and over. I want to throw it away, after smashing it good. There is an affirmation of ministry which needs to be more proudly, more intentionally stated more often. Rene Dubos, the scientist and writer, ended what was to be his last book Celebrations of Life with these words:

We may differ in our tastes and goals; we may even despise much of what we see around us, but most of us would join in Thoreau’s clarion call in Waiden: “I do not propose to write an Ode to Dejection, but to brag as lustily as Chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roof, if only to wake my neighbors up”—for a Celebration of Life. (Celebrations of Life, 253)

I stay in the ministry as freely as I entered it. No one hogties me to the pulpit, or forces me to ponder theology instead of the Georgia legal code, or drags me

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to the hospital or the night shelter or the homes of parishioners, or pushes me to my knees for prayer, or drafts me to work for a nuclear freeze. There are at least four chords to this affirmation. (1) The ministry offers freedom within a community of grace. To be sure, this freedom may be the undoing of some, the beginning of maceration for others. Granted, it is not unlimited; it is in order to a greater power; it needs measures of discipline, action, suffering, death (Bonhoeffer, Stations on the Way to Freedom). But we cannot finally ignore the glad call of Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1). We have a unique opportunity to shape and order our own vocational lives and to enter the lives of others. We can in effect change careers in several directions without changing vocations. We can be interdisciplinary in our inquiry. We can be creative in our expressions of whatever truth discovers us. The basis of this freedom in human terms is the community of grace. I take seriously the notion of Bonhoeffer that the gospel can be found concretely in a group of people. “It is to the communion of the saints that the Word is given, as both creating it and as the instrument of its activity. Where the communion of the saints is present, the Word is not ineffective” (Sanctorum Communio , 161). The saints have at times disappointed me, chagrined me, chastened me; but they have never let me down or let me go. (2) The ministry offers an opportunity for dealing with both ultimate and penultimate reality. One minute someone walks in asking for twenty dollars for groceries. The next visitor wants to pray before a difficult decision. One child is born healthy, another seriously deformed; they are both baptized. A drunk asks at 3 a.m. in the night shelter, “What in the hell are you doing this for?” Somehow I’d be bored and lonely on Wall Street after this. It’s better to live with few illusions; tickertape mystifies me. (3) The ministry offers a chance to reconcile, to “build bridges.” In a decade I’ve seen fellow ministers (lay and ordained) at work in hospitals, bars, universities, corporation board rooms, governor’s offices, slums, suburbs, farms, death rows, newspaper offices, classrooms, textile mills, Appalachian hollows, even the Soviet Union. Most of them did more construction than destruction. They were in the midst of significant events, alongside their neighbors, grappling with fundamental issues. As a prison inmate once said about a Christian friend, “Some people talk about what is. Others talk about what is what is. He talks about what is what is what is!” (4) The ministry offers a sense of joy and humor. Perhaps joy is the gift of laughter in the midst of maceration. The imperative to rejoice in Philippians is all the more empowering because it was written from prison to people who were facing persecution and death. At their best, ministers do not take themselves too seriously. Recently at a Presbytery meeting there was a resolution that in view of the economic depression in the land, all clergy should voluntarily take a 5% cut in salary and give the money to the unemployed. We were trying to weasel out of such a program while maintaining decency, dignity, and order. But then one

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minister rose in support of the motion, saying, “This proposal asks us to give up 5%. Jesus asks us to give up everything. I think we should vote for the motion since it represents a 95% savings!” The motion failed, but the truth was heard. There is a passage from Luther’s Table Talk which I do not have on my bulletin board because I’ve not been in much danger of forgetting it since reading it a few years ago:

Unless those who are in the office of preacher find joy in him who sent them, they will have much trouble. Our Lord God had to ask Moses as many as six times. He also led me into the office in the same way. Had I known about it beforehand, he would have had to take more pains to get me in. Be that as it may, now that I have begun, I intend to perform the duties of the office with his help. On account of the exceedingly great and heavy cares and worries connected with it, I would not take the whole world to enter upon this work now. On the other hand, when I regard him who called me, I would not take the whole world not to have begun it. Nor do I wish to have another God. (November, 1531)

December 31, 1983
Her Name Was ‘Fifi’

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Protagonist Corner

Her Name Was “Fifi”

James A. Wharton

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, Houston, Texas

Her nickname among the junior high students was “Fifi.” We called her that out of early teenage insecurity and cruelty. She was not a person to us—only a teacher. There were teachers so charming and seductive that we forgave them for being teachers and admired them anyway. Fifi was not such a teacher. She was easy to ridicule because.we found her appearance comical, and because her eageness to be our teacher was not matched by our eagerness to be her students. And we human beings never look more ridiculous than we do when we are trying hard to mean something to other people, and it is just not working. We called her Fifi because she loved the French language, and she made heroic efforts to throw in French phrases, and pronounce them in proper French style, and explain to us what the French phrases meant. We thought she was just showing off. We snickered behind our hands, and traded malicious glances, and dismissed Fifi as an inherently ridiculous person. The malicious merriment became acute when Fifi began to rhapsodize about her trip to France over the summer. There she had seen Mt. Blanc, the highest peak in Europe. It was obviously, for Fifi, also the loveliest sight in the known world. She pronounced it “Moan Blawnnnnnnk,” as if the drawn out nasal sounds were part of the beauty of the mountain, and inseparable from it. We sensed that the alleged beauty of this mountain, and its lovely French name, and Fifi’s self-esteem were all tied up together. We were instantly prepared to ridicule the mountain itself, as well as its elaborately pronounced name, simply because we were so sure that Fifi herself (and therefore anything she prized dearly) was self-evidently ridiculous. For the better part of a term it was “Moan Blawnnnnnnk” this and “Moan Blawnnnnnnk” that until we all went into a frenzy of heartless hilarity every time Fifi honked the name. I don’t think Fifi ever dared let herself wonder why the class broke up every time she mentioned her beloved mountain, or alluded to her peak experience of actually being there, and seeing it. She remained convinced that if these incomprehensible young people could have stood where she had stood, and seen what she had seen, and felt what she had felt, the silly laughter would give way to sheer wonder at the magnificence of it all. So Fifi announced publicly that she had resolved to bring color slides of “Moan Blawnnnnnnk” to class. Now, at last, we would see this obviously ineffable wonder for ourselves. The snickers would cease. We, in our turn, would be overcome by beauty and would share Fifi’s experience at proper depth. No matter that the very announcement sent Fifi’s class into still another protracted paroxysm of wicked glee. The color slide would speak for the moun-

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tain, and Fifi was certain the mountain would speak for itself. The day came. The projector was set up and focused on the silver screen. Black fabric shades were lowered over the windows, darkening and hushing the room. The lights were turned off. Tension mounted. The projector bulb was at last switched on. And all the imps of hell could not have matched the screech of laughter that greeted Fifi’s ears from her hysterical students. There stood Fifi, in her inimitably ridiculous profile from head to foot, filling at least three quarters of the screen. If you looked upward to the left, you could see a tiny snowy triangle, perched saucily on Fifi’s voluminous bosom . The tiny snowy triangle, we were told, was none other than “Moan Blawnnk,” glittering in the background. Then, if ever, Fifi must have come to believe in the Calvinistic doctrine of the total depravity of the human race. Or at least in the total depravity of the pubescent fraction thereof. Even if they found her own person utterly ridiculous , how could they possibly extend their scorn to a vision so self-evidently superb as her beloved mountain? It is only recently that I have gained the maturity to wonder how Fifi managed to cry herself to sleep that night. What storms of rejection and failure and personal defeat she must have faced in her room, alone, with the memory of that hellish laughter not only tearing her apart, but tarnishing beyond recognition her fleeting experience of the sublime! Forgive us, Fifi, wherever you are. We didn’t know. . . . I personally beg your forgiveness, because I grew up to become a Presbyterian parson. It is now my turn to try to express to other people what I take to be transcendent wonder . In my heart of hearts, when the clarity of faith is on me, I cannot imagine any wonder remotely comparable to the victory of God’s self-giving love for this world in Jesus Christ our Lord. I wonder, in my turn, how anything so self-evidently magnificent could appear trivial to anyone else. Yet every time I stand to proclaim the wonder, I am painfully aware that it is my comic figure, and my ridiculous words, that confront people in the foreground. I have to hope that people can somehow concentrate on the snowy triangle of the gospel, perched somewhere indecorously on my person, and perceive the wonder in spite of me. I have to recognize that my particular enthusiasm for the gospel, and my strange way of pronouncing it, never pointed anyone to the mountain. It is not important that they duplicate my feelings for the mountain. Then they would only become as ridiculous as I. But God help me see it clearly, and point to it without standing in the way. God grant that my next slide-show will let the mountain fill the screen, and let the magic of the mountain do its own marvelous work on those who see it clearly, for its own sake.

December 31, 1983