Lately I’ve been rethinking God’s work in preaching. For a lot of my early ministry I was convinced that if I just delivered an out-of-the-park home run of a sermon, that was the goal.
Except all that tends to do is occasion immediate laudations from some hearers.
Then I went through a phase which in a sense I’m still in where my focus is more the slow and steady work of discovering the Spirit at work in the reading of the text together in community. In this sense preaching is one revealing part of the larger Word, which is also heard through the response of the assembly and the life of the church in the world.
But now in 2022 I have an additional way of seeing God’s Word in community. It has to do with seeing the spiritual gifts for preaching emerge in the congregation itself.
We now have a team of six preachers who preach through the year in rotation. And as they have been preaching they have been inspiring even more.
This weekend Nanci will be our preacher, and she was called in an especially humorous way. We kept thinking she was in the preaching rotation even though she wasn’t. I guess some people start simply because people assume you’re one of the preachers and you haven’t preached yet and that tells you something.
We also have an 11-year-old in our congregation scheduled to preach on Palm Sunday. She was inspired to preached when a non-binary member of our congregation and the founder of The Transition Closet, Amare Roush, preached for our Reconciling In Christ (inclusion) Sunday.
And I’m especially excited for another member of our congregation Erin to preach next Sunday because she’s one of the funnier and more eloquent people I know. You know lawyers do know how to speak.
I guess I’d like to think God’s Word doesn’t get translated through my rhetorical prowess but rather is seen in the emergence of a mutually empowered community who can say: Yes I have a word from the Lord also.
My mom tells me this makes us Quaker Lutherans.
Anyway, here were the two things I told our 11-year old when we talked last week about what preaching is “for.”
First, I think preaching is someone inviting the community into shared reflection on an ancient text, which in Christian tradition is primarily (although not exclusively) the Bible.
It’s a chance to help the community consider a few things, discover a few things.
Second, preaching is for the delivery of some good news. Basically, as we read this text together, here’s a surprising thing you might want to know (or have forgotten) about how great God is to us.
That’s it. As complicated as we sometimes make it, that’s basically the whole thing.
A favorite theologian of mine also liked to say that preaching is “Jesus Christ walking around among the congregation.” I’ll take that one too.
I think that's true. You are a Quaker Lutheran Pastor. I'm hearing the continuing revelation of the Spirit in you a lot.
I was very deeply moved when you took off your shoes in Quorum Court Thursday night, and let yourself be taken out of the court, rather than see another man be treated so unfairly. That was incredibly Christ-like. I was also moved when Quinn followed you in doing that. That was pretty Christ-like too.
Interesting things are going on over in your congregation.