The Pulpit. 2 Samuel 11:27b -12:7a 1 Thessalonians 2:1-4, 13-16a

Transcription

1 The Pulpit 2 Samuel 11:27b -12:7a 1 Thessalonians 2:1-4, 13-16a An older colleague in the Church of Scotland had seen service as a military chaplain, and once told me about another chaplain preparing for worship in his unit s temporary accommodation. The men had arranged a room as best they could and had even hammered some crates together to create a pulpit. He was highly amused to note that they had failed to remove the labelling on one of the crates, so that the front of this makeshift pulpit proclaimed Danger: Explosives, which he thought was a pretty appropriate description of the pulpit s impact. That was certainly the case in our readings today. God sends the prophet Nathan to confront David over his outrageous sins of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. Nathan spins a seemingly unrelated story about a rich man who, despite his own wealth, exploits a poor neighbor, and then explodes: You are the man! It was also the case with Paul at Thessalonica. He recalls the trouble when he preached in Philippi and great opposition in Thessalonica, in both cases caused by the gospel breaking down the barriers between God and humans and more controversially between Jews and Gentiles. Those controversies were explosive. As Protestants we stand in the tradition of explosive preaching. Next Tuesday marks the 500 th anniversary of Martin Luther s explosive 95 Theses that birthed the Reformation. Luther, Calvin and other Reformers exercised their greatest impact through preaching preaching and blew apart the medieval church and world. 1 And, on the day when Susan retires, I m conscious of music as a form of preaching Luther s hymns, for example; and the words of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: What the word makes clear, music makes alive. In our Presbyterian tradition, John Knox s sermons were literally and figuratively explosive. In May, 1559, Knox s sermon in St John s Kirk in Perth so stirred up the congregation against the superstitions of idolatry that the congregation became a rascal multitude and sacked several local monasteries. One contemporary noted.. the voice of one man is able in one hour to put more life is us than five hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears. 2 The Second Helvetic Confession actually states The preaching of the word of God is the word of God. 3 Scripture agrees. Reminding the Thessalonians of their faith journey, Paul says, 1 Of Luther s sermons 2,300 have survived, out of a possible total of around 10,000. 1,460 of Calvin s sermons have survived out of some 2,300 that he preached. 2 The assessment of Thomas Randolph, the representative of Queen Elizabeth I. W. Stanford Reid, Trumpeter of God. New York: Charles Scribner s Sons, 1974, 216. Page 1

2 when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God s word, which is also at work in you believers. (1 Thess.2:13) Paul maintains that, when he was speaking, God was also speaking. Through his words, God was working in them! Now that is something we re not used to. We re used to joking about preaching like the one about the preacher who says, Why did you invite me to address your glitzy, $1000-a-plate fund-raiser? I m just a poor preacher. Yeah, I know. I heard you last Sunday! Well, despite all our jokes, most preachers approach their work with apprehension. When John Knox was challenged to consider a call to be a preacher, he burst into tears!! 4 My old teacher, William Barclay once admitted: all my life I have regarded preaching with dread... For me to enter a pulpit has always been a terrifying experience. 5 Another of my teachers, Ian Pitt-Watson calls preaching "the fearsome, frustrating, burdensome... thing we face Sunday by Sunday..." although he also admits that he would not have wanted to do anything else with his life he was glad he was a preacher. 6 So what s going on here in church when someone gets into this pulpit and begins to preach? The definition offered by the 19 th century New England preacher Phillips Brooks has become a classic. Brooks said preaching is the bringing of truth through personality. 7 You can see both truth and personality in today s readings and then more There s truth: the truth of the gospel. In chapter 2 Paul speaks three times of the gospel of God. He means the good news that God so loved the word that he sent Jesus, and, thanks to Jesus, we are redeemed from a life of self-serving lostness into a new life oriented towards God and God s will. God has made Paul, former Pharisee into a Christian; Thessalonians, former Jews or pagans into Christians. Gospel truth has changed them. 3 Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Stewart J Lamont, The Swordbearer John Knox and the European Reformation London: Hodder and Stoughton,1991, William Barclay, Testament of Faith. London: Mowbrays, 1975, Ian Pitt-Watson, Primer for Preachers. Grand Rapids, MI., Baker, 1986, Phillips Brooks, Lectures on Preaching. London: H R Allenson Ltd., n.d., 5. Page 2

3 But it s there in the Hebrew scriptures, too. It was the Lord who sent Nathan to show David just how outrageous his behavior had been, how unworthy of all that God had done for him and all that God had given him. It s God s truth that cornered and convicted David. But God s truth conveyed through the personality of Nathan the prophet. What a clever, crafty, cunning story Nathan used to bait the erring king. His story about a little girl and her pet lamb and her callous, greedy neighbor was a simple story of shocking truth and shattering implication: You are the man. That s what you are like! Nathan stitched David up and there was no way out! A powerful personality indeed. Notice personality is important for Paul, too. He reminds his readers of his behavior during his ministry his motives, his integrity, his gentleness, his transparency. He recalls the way his preaching often got him into trouble shameful mistreatment at Philippi, strong opposition in Thessalonica. The personality of the new, Christian Thessalonians puts them in line with Jesus and the prophets before him. But there s more to preaching than simply truth through personality. There s also God. It was God working on David s heart that convicted him. Nathan reminds the king of all that God had done for him all the ways that God had blessed him, and that was enough to convict David and move him to repentance. And it was God, Paul acknowledges, at work in his ministry. Verse 13 again: when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it, not as a human word but as what it really is, God s word, which is also at work in you believers. He then details the way their becoming Christian roused opposition and hostility and that developed their faithfulness through their experience of God s enabling strength. So there s more going on in preaching than simply truth through personality. There s God working in truth through personality. It s still the same today. There s the truth: Will Willimon once preached a sermon on forgiveness at Duke University Chapel. After service, an angry woman accosted him, Do you mean to tell me that Jesus expects me to forgive my abusive husband who made my life hell for ten years until I got the courage to leave him? I m supposed to forgive him? Somewhat taken aback, because preachers are never at our best at the church door, Willimon spluttered his excuses: we can t cover everything in one twenty minute sermon etc. Hesitantly he went on, But I do feel that, though I am deeply concerned about the problem of spouse abuse, Jesus does tell us to forgive our enemies, and who is a greater enemy than your exhusband? I do think that Jesus probably did mean for us to Page 3 She interrupted him. Good, she said. Just checking! And Willimon comments,

4 With that she went forth, going forth, I think, with a burden placed upon her back, a burden not of her own devising, to walk a narrow way quite different from the ways of the world. 8 The Gospel of God changes us! There s the personality that God uses. One of the great Scottish preachers, George Macleod, was a very gifted preacher and at times a strong controversialist, especially at General Assembly. Towards the end of his life, one of his sternest critics in the Assembly, paid him this compliment: I seldom have listened to Dr MacLeod when I found myself entirely in agreement with him, but he always contrives to make me unhappy for my own good. 9 Unhappy for my own good. Isn t that what Jesus did and does? Jesus makes us unhappy, restless, dissatisfied Jesus challenges us to resist conforming to the culture around us and live, instead, with him and for him. Living by higher standards than the world, walking, as Willimon just put it, a narrow way quite different from the ways of the world. Doesn t he? Isn t that the Christian way? We re called to standards that from the outside look daunting and demanding; but inside are warm with love and rich with grace and make life better than we d ever dared imagine it could be. As Isaiah said, My ways are not your ways, says the Lord The hymn we close with in just a moment speaks of love beyond our own. 10 And that I believe is what preaching is intended to inspire and encourage. We should think of God s truth changing our personality making us more like Jesus. God s at work. Fred Buechner tells of the day he became a Christian. He was attracted to a church because of its star preacher. One Sunday, the preacher said, Jesus Christ refused the crown that Satan offered him in the wilderness, Buttrick said, but he is king nonetheless because again and again he is crowned in the hearts of the people who believe in him. And that inward coronation takes place, Buttrick said, among confession, and tears, and great laughter. It was the phrase great laughter which did it It was not so much that a door opened as that I suddenly found that a door had been open all along which I had only just stumbled upon. I am left with no other way of saying it than that what I found finally was Christ. Or was found. It hardly seems to matter which. Twenty-five years later, someone sent Buechner a printed copy of that sermon. The key words weren t there! And Buechner comments, Page 4 8 William Willimon Pastor The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry. Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2002, Ron Ferguson, George MacLeod. London: Collins, 1990, T ingfang Lew, O Christ, the Great foundation in The Presbyterian Hymnal # 443, v.2.

5 so I can only assume that he must have dreamed it up at the last minute and ad-libbed it and on just such foolish, tenuous, holy threads as that, I suppose, hang the destinies of us all. 11 Foolish threads? That s the foolishness of God, as Paul said. For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our preaching to save those who believe. 12 Page 5 11 Frederick Buechner, The Sacred Journey. London: Chatto and Windus, 1982, Corinthians 1:21.