VillagePastor

FINDING A FUTURE IN THE PAST

Recently, our church—this Emertional church that is trying to figure out its identity—and maybe it is because we are too diverse to fit under any one tag—Traditional, Contemporary, maybe a hint of Emergent—has also become more and more Liturgical. It’s not that we haven’t been. In one sense, like any church, we have always had liturgy—form, order. As Buchanan puts it, “We love our traditions, even our rigmarole, every bit as much as the next guy, only ours is earthy, rustic, folksy.” And yes, liturgy can become dull—but so can gardening and water polo—and even lovemaking. But liturgy can also be vibrant and vital.

I experienced this recently in our first ever Lenten service. Because we have become more sensitive to events on a church calendar (days which should have more importance than days we make sure to observe in church on a secular calendar), we gathered to experience Lent. I sat there during the service—a Baptist pastor—both amazed at what was transpiring, and reveling in the moment. I was coming to grips with the fact the Reformers never intended to free us from such traditions. Lifeless liturgy, works oriented rituals meant to somehow suggest we are not good enough—these are things that needed reform. But it was never their intention that, in the name of sola scriptura, we arrogantly condemn creeds, art, or calendar.

Prior to all of this, I had a vague notion of Lent. Something reserved for Catholics. Occasionally, someone would talk about some trivial thing they were giving up—like watching Desperate Housewives or eating junk food. Seemed to time out nicely for those needing an extra impetus to diet before the summer season. I never really understood or cared—just happy I grew up in a tradition in which I didn’t have to think about giving up anything for forty days. I was going to come into Easter rejoicing!

It’s understandable that Lent is not popular. It is associated with self-denial. And it doesn’t help that it is preceded by Ash Wednesday, which is its own reminder we are but ashes, dust—that we are people with clay feet who struggle with our frailty, our sin. During the course of our Lenten service, the music, the texts called for repentance, penitence, for a renewed desire for change. Reading Psalm 51 in the silence of the evening, in a room lit only by candles, the Spirit called me to face up to the layers of hardness that still define my heart, the affections that transcend my love for God, the love that I too easily withhold from others, the attachments that have a grip on me, and the idols I serve—the things I put before God. And in the act of being confronted and called to contrition, I felt more cleansed, more free than I had felt in a long time.

It’s not that it has passed. I am in the midst of this forty day journey, on the way to Good Friday. I am wearing a black, leather bracelet to remind me of the need for self-denial. Each week, we have dedicated a particular fast. Our worship team has done an incredible job. I’ll only mention one, for its effect was so compelling. We were called to a technological fast. So for one day, I made a vow—no cell phone, computer, TV, radio, IPOD. It was—at first—unsettling. I kept reaching for something. I started wandering around the office. As the day wore on, I realized how much I had given myself over to hurry and noise—how attached I was to things that say I am important. That afternoon I took a long walk and drunk in the silence. It was exhilarating. I know for monastic types out there, this is a pretty lame illustration. It’s such a small and brief act of sacrifice. But it is a big step for someone in need of serious detox from this culture.

Hopefully, I am emerging out of the past into the future, not as a Catholic or an Orthodox—an Emergent, or even a Baptist, but as a serious Christian less and less isolated from the rich tradition of the past—which has all too often left me far too thin, superficial, and trendy. I am becoming more and more aware of the expansive nature of worship, one step at a time.

The Famine of Decent Preaching

Some years ago, one of the leaders in my church shared a perception his eight year old daughter had of preachers.  She asked, “Daddy, I know Pastor John preaches on Sunday, but what does he do the other six days of the week?”  It may be a question adults sometimes wonder as well.  Rick Reilly, who writes the back page of Sports Illustrated, tells about a moment his daughter asked a similar question—“So after writing this one page, what do you do with all of the other hours of the week?”, to which he replied, “Worrying about what I will say when I write this one page”.  It’s the same with pastors.

And there’s good reason for worrying.  As John Armstrong, in his recent column put it, the state of American preaching is anemic.  There’s not a lot of good preaching to be found.  No one has underscored this as clearly as Barbara Brown Taylor, a former pastor herself, who wrote a book aptly entitled, “When God is Silent”.  In it, she laments that the landscape of preaching is a swampland of mediocrity. Nourishing words are hard to find—words with no razor blades in them, words with no chemical additives.  Most of the words offered have been chewed so many times there are no nutrients left in them.  What we crave are fresh words from the mouth of God.  What I believe most hunger for, should they set their foot in a church door, is to hear a sermon that invites one into the presence of God, where something of life has the possibility of becoming transformed.  But all too often, this does not happen. 

There are lots of explanations for this mess we are in.  Part of it goes back to poor training.  For all too many pastors, courses in homiletics were long on stories and short on training.  My homiletic notes were lost shortly after seminary, and I confess I have never missed them.  To me, they were as relevant as instructions for growing tropical plants in Iceland. Nice for the shelf.

Part of it relates to the effort required to preach.  As I shared in an earlier blog, I know of few disciplines that require more careful thought, creativity, prayer, and tenacity than preaching. It is just about the hardest thing I do. There is a rigor that comes in knowing you must discover the intent of the text, and represent it well. There is mystery to work through—much of which you never work through.  Yesterday, I preached Heb 11:29—by faith Israel walked across the red Sea as on dry land.  But the story of Exodus leaves you wondering—where was the faith?  There’s something in the story demanding careful search.  On top of this, you are asking yourself not only what it says, but what this text is doing. It is rigorous because you are called to be a prophetic voice, and the last thing you want to do is misrepresent God. After all, carrying the Word of God is speaking at risk of one’s life.  It is, as Taylor put it, “like carrying nitroglycerin around in a crystal goblet.” 

It is a discipline that one must submit to, because you can go off on frightening tangents if you haven’t thought this through.  One day I was driving down I-205 listening to ESPN.  The announcer was talking about a controversial athlete who had walked into a room.  As he put it, “the room got so quiet, you could hear a rat pissing on cotton.”  I thought about how quiet that must have been, and in a sermon, in a weak moment, thinking off the top of my head, I used it to illustrate something I was saying.  Yes, I really did—only I softened the language so religious types would not be offended.  “It got so quiet, you could hear a mouse urinating on cotton”.  And those words fell as flat as an Intel wafer.  People wondered, did he really say that?  I wondered myself.  I forgot the adage that, while it is okay to head down a rabbit’s trail, the rabbit better have meat on it.

Some can just succumb to letting someone else do it, and buy their sermons.  A best selling author offers a "complete year of sermons”. This teacher promises that his preaching kit will take your congregation on a journey which will establish core values, teach practical applications, answer commonly asked questions, teach people how to control America’s number one illness-stress, and help them realize their true potential in God, all for 149.95 But unless a sermon comes out your own journey with God, is as tasteful as canned peas.

But there’s another part to the problem, one most people do not think about.  It is the willingness of the hearer to come with a heart that desires to hear.  That’s tough in an age of so much distraction.  It used to be only doctors walked into a service with a pager. Now everyone walks in with a cell phone.  Now we are all that important.  And given the excessive amount of information at our disposal, the tendency to text message, keep cells on during the service, preaching can sometimes feel like an airliner landing at Chicago-O’Hare.  There’s a lot of traffic to get through.  The reality is, it doesn’t matter how good a message is, if the hearer has not come to listen.  And listen we must, because the voice of God is not a scream, a shout.  The revelation of God is often a whisper.  And in order to catch it, we must lean forward and listen carefully.  The Word of God is not for distancing eyes, but for contemplative ears. 

But it is also fair to say—no one will listen to us unless we who preach offer evidence we have also listened.  We have also entered this silence.  Our authority to speak is rooted in our own ability to remain silent and hear.  Otherwise, we offer up a lot of junk food.  We chase rabbits down trails, rabbits that have no meat on them.  We become blowhards, rambling with no sense of restraint.