Tap Dancing and Prize Fights (But Not Preaching)

I’m a preacher … lately retired, and now back again as an interim. 

So, why not listen to some sermon podcasts?

I did … a “progressive” podcast, so to speak … good speakers in historic Protestant Churches … la la la.

I listened with hope - maybe I could land a few good ideas, some punchy phrases … insights with some creative way of saying it … who knows what? I listened in good faith.

What I heard was tap dancing - clickety clack, clickety clack, furious and fancy footwork … all around, toward, and post-haste away, from anything that would merit the term “sermon” in days such as ours.

What I heard were preachers scared to death - scared to face the reality of the day, scared to preach Jesus … preaching the Bible rather than preaching Biblically … offering nostrums and platitudes, sweet throwaway phrases devoid of meaning, seasoned a bit with the appearance of exegesis and maybe a fine quote or two.

Another image came to mind - that of prize fighting, when a boxer, for whatever reason, pulls her punch … holds back, looks good, flails around, with sweat and spit, yet fails to deliver the punch.

The world is teeter-tottering from one disaster to another … for me, good preaching considers the hopes and fears of all the years present in the congregation. 

Folks know, full-well, what’s going on, if not in detail, then at least in their bones. They’re rattled and bewildered, even if they’re full-tilt running away from it all. 

I was disappointed.

I turned, instead, to a political podcast created by some fine historians.

Historians who tell the truth, run to the smoke, and not away … who are rattled and bewildered, as we all are, but find solace in the truth - the truth that offers hope, the truth that includes the darkest of potential outcomes - danger, defeat, and destruction. 

The prophets offered both hope and the warning … Jesus called the people to faithfulness, with the reminder that the present course could well lead to disaster. History is loaded with hope, and with a crushing reality - that sometimes the worst will happen. 

Guernica is bombed. Ukraine is being demolished. The Supreme Court is in the hands of the Federalist Society.

Truth has a hard edge … the enemies of truth are legion, and those who abide in the truth know the cross. 

This is not surprising, is it?

Give me truth-tellers … not tap dancers.

Truth-tellers who deliver the punch.

"This Is My Body!"

 When Jesus lifts up the bread and declares, "This is my body," he affirms his

connection to the material world - not only the bread in his hand, and the bread on the table, but all the elements that made that bread - from the very dirt of God's earth, the seeds and the weather, to the farmer and the baker - all of it in that piece of bread, the whole of creation, from beginning to end, "This is my body."

Paul the Apostle challenges the impetuous Corinthians to "see the Body of Christ" in their gatherings (1 Corinthians 11.29) ... to see one another as belonging to God, from the widow with not enough, to those with much too much ... and in so seeing the Body of Christ, recognizing it in one another, in that gathering, in the world around them - from the bread and drink that sustains, to the very presence of Christ which redeems, to then confront and diminish the social gaps, created not by God, but human greed and desire - to then fulfill Paul's hope for a better world, expressed so eloquently, clearly, directly, in 2 Corinthians 8.15.

"This is my Body" reaches all the way back to the earliest moment of creation ... and reaches ahead to the End, the Omega Point, wherein all is made new ... the Body of Christ, raised and gloried, in particular, as a promise of that which is to come for all ... the healing and reconciling of all creation ... and the task ahead of all who ever sit at a table - to see the glory of God, to behold the Body of Christ ... in the burger we eat, the milk shake we drink, the waiter who brings it all to the table, the cook in the kitchen, the farmer in the field, the sun above, and the rains that fall.

"This is my Body!"

Faithful Preaching

Via some digital platforms, I've had the disagreeable task of listening to some ivermectin church pastors deliver "sermons."

Not without prior exposure to the mega/MAGA church, it once again hit me: just how empty of content all of this is, yet bulging with sentimental cute stories of gramma's attic, and then veiled threats of hell - with a lot of huffing and puffing, and chugging across the platform like a runaway train, untucked expensive shirt flapping in the breeze, brightly pressed jeans proclaiming hipness.

Yeah, I tried that for awhile, and I'm not proud of it. I'd rather forget it ever happened. And after awhile, I returned to clerical shirt and robe - because it's not about me, but about Christ, and the church's story (both glorious and shameful).

Yes, to lift up the fallen and reclaim the lost, but to do so with a keen and unyielding sense of letting our light shine in such a way that the world will give glory to God - not in 11 words repeated 7 times in mindless and feel-good praise songs, but in deeds, and life well-lived for the sake of others, paying attention to God's good earth and its moaning, moaning under the weight of extractive industry and the detritus of our throw-away world.

A life lived in and through and by the love of Christ is always and forever a life of deep and transformative politics - i.e. how we live together east of Eden - each of us possessing something of Abel, something of Cain, and something of Seth ... faithfulness, vengefulness, and recovery.

The stage-prancers entice the eye, beguile the ear with nostrums, confirm privilege and place, and fill their pockets with the indulgences of the rich and poor alike.

Give me a preacher who takes the task of study and reflection seriously ... the preacher who reads widely ... the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other (or, these days, the digital platforms) ... the preacher who appreciates the power and challenge of language, who understands something of rhetoric, oral speech, and how to tell a story, who honors the disciplines of careful writing, who seeks the glory of God, and the wellbeing of those who worship, a wellbeing not of self-satisfaction, but the authentic wellbeing of a life devoted to justice, kindness, and humility before the giant mysteries of creation.

A preacher who clings to the pulpit, because the pulpit represents the presence of Christ, and never to

stray from that presence, but to abide in Christ ... and there to remain, steadfast and faithful, faithful in season and out of season, faithful to the promises of Christ to build the church, to build as is fitting for the times in which we presently live.

Faithful preachers ... who labor to craft one true sentence on any given Sunday ... and upon that one sentence, to craft a sermon worthy of the name, knowing full well the some sermons will be surpassing, others less so, and some not at all - but each of them flowing from the deepest kinds of desire, the desire to love God, and the twin desire to practice the ways of loving our neighbor.