Preaching in the Prophetic Key

Acts 17: 22 – 34

May 1, 2005

I.

I remember several years ago I took a group of Columbia Theological Seminary Students out to dinner. They were winsome and funny and excited about the church; curious about their callings; and anxious to know what God had in store for them.

One of them, a young woman, was completing an internship at Central Presbyterian in Atlanta. Central Presbyterian is one of those big steeples in our denomination – thousands of members and sitting right across the street from the Georgia State Capital. At dinner she was telling us of her final sermon. Her delivery. Her exegesis. Her attempts at humor.

What she was most proud of though, was her conclusion. “I let them have it,” she said, “I told them that the Presbyterian Church was antiquated and outdated and that until we have a real conversation about sexual ethics and about who we let into ministry and who we keep out we will not be a faithful people.”

“You could just see some of them squirming in their seats.”

II.

It was one of the few times in my life that I sat quiet. The other students, I think, were proud of her to some degree. But I was mostly quiet and a little sad.

To be sure, ministers rarely go around telling each other what to preach. The Presbyterian Church, running through our Book of Confessions and through our Directory for Worship, has a long standing appreciation and commitment to the freedom of conscience of each believer and each minister. She could preach what she wanted to.

I was quiet because of the pride she took in making people uncomfortable. The expression “Bully Pulpit” does indeed carry a lot of weight – and she had apparently used it in just such a way. I was quiet because there was too much to tell her.

I wanted to tell here that while all preaching was theological, not all preaching needed to be prophetic. That sometimes in preaching the right approach is to be pastoral. I wanted to tell her that there was a time for both and that the most difficult task of preaching was discerning which was correct. I wanted to tell her that it was easy to attack people when one is an intern – it is much more difficult when you are the pastor. For when you are the pastor one is responsible for the lives of all the people in the church – those that disagree with you, those who agree with you, those who sing your praises and those who wish some other church would call you away.

I wanted to tell her that you one day will do funeral for your biggest fans and your biggest detractors. I wanted to tell her that while preaching was never to be trivial, but when it was prophetic it was best to be done with humility instead of pride.

III.

I wanted to tell her what I had learned and have since heard other more seasoned preachers than I say. Writing recently in a book called What’s the Matter with Preaching Today, scholar Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “All [we preachers] can tell you is what it takes to rise to this call – to love these words, to believe in this music, to produce these sounds with absurd faith in their power to heal the living and raise the dead – but once they are out of our moths, we lose all control over them. Our speech falls on ears as different as the faces they frame. What sounds like justice to one sounds like judgment to another. What sounds like pablum to one sounds like God’s own manna to another.” (171)

IV.

Imagine if you Paul, writer of the largest portion of the New Testament. Wandering around Athens, trying to evangelize a city that had greeted him with cold and stoical indifference.

Sometimes in his missions, Paul was pastoral and sometimes he was prophetic. Reassuring the Corinthians that even when their prayers would appear unanswered that the grace of God would never abandon them and be sufficient for their every need. Sometimes, as with the Galatians he is angry -- calling them foolish and greatly expressing his displeasure. Paul seems to know that in ministry there is a time for both – the pastoral and the prophetic.

Before we go any farther, I think I need to share that prophetic doesn’t always mean “visions of the future.” Sometimes it means calling people back to God, helping folks see their errors. Trying to set the world right. Saying something unpopular because it is the right thing to say.

Today we find Paul in Athens, which was undoubtedly at one time the most important city in the world. And he has noticed that the Athenians have many idols around their city. They have covered all the bases – even carving an idol to an unknown God just in case they have left one out. And Paul, using his prophetic voice challenges them and proclaims to them the Gospel. Paul questions their use of idols and instead tries to show them the way of Jesus Christ.

V.

What we have from Paul here is what I want to call a “sermon in the prophetic key.” Paul is not trying to make them feel good or laugh. And indeed, I am sure that many of the Athenians do not feel good about themselves when it is over. Many of them scoff. I am sure Paul got some hisses and some boos. But some of the hearers that day listened. Some would even come back and believe.

Anyone who has ever preached has the experience of having someone being unhappy with what has been said, with what has been preached. If everyone is happy, if no one is ever made uneasy by our Christian gospel which calls us to place every aspect of our living and our dying simultaneously before the throne of almighty God then perhaps we are not preaching a word that is authentic in the least. After all Jesus himself is nearly run out of Nazareth and other places for preaching his word. There are times when we are called to be equally unpopular as we are prophetic. A preacher who only preaches prosperity and happiness is a preacher afraid of ALL the truths and lessons and convictions of Jesus and the gospel.

In much the same way everyone who leads also has this problem – for not everyone will be happy with every decision that is made. It was someone more famous than I who said, “You can please some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time but you can’t please all the people all the time.”

It is equally true, though, that if someone is leading only by the current of popularity, and not being realistic or truthful in her/his leadership then those who are looking to the leader for guidance are not really getting the best the leader has to offer. In other words, a leader who tells us that the sun is shining when in fact there is blizzard outside and it is the dead of night is a leader who should not be permitted to lead.

VI.

There was once a man at my church in Charlotte who was young. Barely in his 30’s he had already been married 3 time and by the time I met him he was on his 6^th or 7^th different job. He was a nice guy with lots of promise but he just couldn’t seem to make the columns add up, couldn’t get out of his own way long enough to find his way. At the root of his problems lay the fact that he was unable to make a decision about anything.

He had come to me and the other ministers over and over again, always wanting us to decide something for him that he couldn’t decide, to provide direction for him. Time and time again we had been pastoral, helped him make decision by making the decisions for him and told him that everything would be OK. Time and time again he would come to announce another divorce, another failure, another poor decision.

Finally the fourth time he came to see me, I had the courage to become prophetic. As humbly as I could I told him what I thought. “God has given you a good mind, a fine family. There are some things in your life that you need to work out and work out soon – the truth is you’re making a mess with your life and in coming here you are following the same path, once again going down the wrong road. Stop looking to everyone else and their approval when you make your decisions – decide who and what you want to be and stick to it. I’ll help you do that and nothing else.”

Did I tell him the truth? Yes. Did I tell him as pastorally and honestly as I possibly could? Yes. Did I ever see him again? No.

Instead he asked a friend who told him what he ought to do and 6 months later he was out of work again.

VII.

St. Francis de Sales once said, “The test of a preacher is that the congregation goes away saying, not, ‘what a lovely sermon!,’ but ‘I will do something!’”

Preaching this way requires conviction and the courage to tell the hard truths of the gospel as Jesus and His gospel confront human life and human culture. To tell that tortured soul in Charlotte that he was just OK and that he needed to change nothing about himself would have been a shameless lie. Just as to tell a dying church that its growing, or an addicted life that it isn’t suffering, or to enable those who worship empty idols (no matter what form they may take) are all lies in their own rights. The only way to do this is by preaching in the prophetic key, by challenging ourselves to know God more and be more greatly known by Him and the eternal truth of God.

Or, if we might make this really local for a moment: If we are going to become the best and finest Presbyterian Church in our Presbytery, if we are going to become the best Presbyterian Church that we can be, then we are going to have to assess, and pray, and discern, and then do – what exactly? – well that remains to be seen and said. But we discover our direction by taking ourselves and our church and holding them under the prophetic light of the gospel and daring to follow where that gospel light leads!

VIII.

The next two weeks I am going to be following Paul in the Book of Acts during the sermons in our worship. While doing so I am going to be preaching in the prophetic key. I will be preaching not to wield a weapon or to belabor my points by brow beating worshippers with the righteousness of God and the sinfulness of all people. No, that is not the point of prophetic preaching or the prophetic nature of our scriptures. I will not be preaching about the ills of the world or the failings of culture. I will not be pointing fingers outside our walls to that group or this people – those who are failing and declare us a success. Why? Why not point a finger at others and direct our critique and our gospel light at them?

Well, first of all, notice that is not what Paul does in Acts. If I am going to preach along side of him and with him then I had better follow his example. Paul for his part preaching about what is in front of him – about the challenges and opportunities facing the listeners there. He does not preach a gospel removed from them – he preaches the one that they need to hear (note: this is what Jesus does as well).

This exposes the second larger point – Paul’s example points out the that the church falls most often into: we loudly and vociferously preach against problems and challenges which are “out there.” We turn the gaze of our scriptures outside our walls -- labeling others as the ones with the need to change and as the ones who need the gospel. Very rarely do most churches, and really most preachers, look at ourselves.

So the sermons I am going to preach are going to be about our church, and the challenges and opportunities that I see before us. The prophetic key, in my sermons from this pulpit the next two weeks will not be tuned toward the world outside of our walls – even though the world surely is in need of redemption. The sermons in the prophetic key will be tuned toward Howard Memorial and the ways we are in need of redemption and the places to which we are being called.

IX.

Today I mark my 1 year anniversary with you. I began officially at Howard Memorial Presbyterian Church on May 1, 2004.

I feel called to use this anniversary as a time to reflect and to share vision with you. Without a doubt, just as with Paul at the Aereopagus, just as with all prophetic and self-analytical preaching, some of you will like what you hear. Others of you might not. But I promise as I lay before you what I believe God has laid before me to be your pastor, just as I promise each and every Sunday, I promise to walk into this sanctuary and stand in this pulpit as a humble servant of the Lord, the mark of whose service is my commitment to you and to Howard Memorial Presbyterian Church. A commitment that has but one point of focus and desire – that we might be a community of faith and practice – orthodoxy and orthopraxis – that takes its mission seriously and enacts its mission joyfully.

Our Question these two weeks: How does Howard Memorial become the finest church in our Presbytery? How are we going to become the most faithful, generous, and dedicated church we can become?

I am interested in how you might answer just such a question.

The next two weeks I’ll be sharing my answers as I set before my vision and my goals for our church as your pastor.

On behalf of my wife Colleen, and my children, Patrick and Gabriel, I thank God for our calling to be here and our time here with you thus far, and I thank you for a year that has gone very well indeed.

Amen.