Dear Friends in Christ,
As a preacher of the Gospel, I worry a lot about what happens when I get up to preach. I really want it to be worth your while Years ago, I read Anthony Trollope’s novel, BARCHESTER TOWERS, and this paragraph terrified me and has remained with me:
There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind
in civilized and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons.
No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of
compelling an audience to sit silent and be tormented. No one but a
preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms, and untruisms and
yet receive, at his undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour
as though words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from
his lips. Let a professor of law or physics find his place in a lecture-room
and there pour forth jejune words and useless empty phrases, and he
will pour them forth to empty benches. Let a barrister attempt to talk
without talking well, and he will talk but seldom. A judge’s charge need
be listened to perforce by none but the jury, prisoner, and gaoler A
member of Parliament can be coughed down or counted out.
Town-councillors can be tabooed. But no one can rid himself of the
preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we
Sindbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sunday’s rest,
the incubus that overloads our religion and makes God’s service distasteful.
We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more than that.
We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay, we are
resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship, but we desire also
that we may do so without an amount of tedium which ordinary human
nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be able to leave the
house of God without that anxious longing for escape which is the
common consequence of common sermons.
All Christian denominations have sermons and, I assume, take preaching very seriously, but for Lutherans sermons have an almost sacramental status. Luther called the sermon “the living Word of God.” It is the pastor’s job to make the text of the Bible come alive in the ears of his/her congregation. But Trollope reminds me (very forcefully) that we preachers often fail to achieve anything close to “living” Word. Often it is inert and boring, which may be worse than being wrong. At least with wrong, the congregation has something to react to!
I have been fortunate that I have been blessed over the years with congregations who “listen well,” to use Emerson’s phrase. I want to thank you for that. I really never worry too much about being “right” in my sermons; I’m much more concerned to be honest, to engage the text existentially and to hope that in my wrestling with the text, in the context of my/our lives, that it will perhaps get you thinking about the text and your spiritual lives as well. We Lutherans believe in sinning boldly and trusting in grace alone to get us through. I trust that God will forgive my eccentricities as a preacher and that you will hear me kindly.
So, every once in a while I take down BARCHESTER TOWERS and let Anthony Trollope remind me of my responsibility, put the fear of God into me, but then I sit down and write the next sermon. It is what I have been called to do. Churches today are becoming more programmatic and entrepreneurial, but I am still an old-fashioned parson (albeit very progressive theologically) who believes that the heart and soul of church needs to be Word and Sacrament ministry. I try very hard, with the Holy Spirit’s help, to make it Living Word. I don’t always succeed, but I want you to know that your love and support are really important on those miraculous Sunday mornings when it does work and you do not leave church agreeing with Anthony Trollope.
In Christ,
–Pastor Bastien
Subscribe by email