Shocking and Humble

I'm not preaching on John 10:22-30 as many preachers will be this coming Sunday--I'll be in Acts with Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch thanks to the Narrative Lectionary--but as we were talking about John's Gospel at our local text study one subject that came up was the radical nature of what Jesus was saying: "The Father and I are one." That is a stunningly bold statement. Honestly, I'm not surprised that the immediate response of the Jews was to pick up rocks to stone him. Jesus was without a doubt violating the first commandment--openly and blatantly. Any observing Jew would have felt the same way those early ones did--in fact, in their shoes I would have been the first one picking up stones.

Time and again in the gospel witness, Jesus does and says a thing that is utterly shocking, which is an important thing to remember for we Scandinavian pastors who are so utterly not. It's astounding how we make a message that is so radical and earth-shattering so completely normal. Each of us are called to proclaim Christ crucified and risen, as Paul says, "a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:23). Well, how have we made that message so utterly lame? Why are our words not equally shocking? I don't doubt that our people are sometimes complacent, but we're fooling ourselves if we don't believe that there are things we believe that will shock them. The Gospel I want to proclaim is utterly absurd; it absolutely flies in the face of the way that pretty much everything in our world works. It should be absolutely jarring to hear. So, why won't I preach it?

The push-back from my colleagues was a good one. They pointed out that there are boisterous preachers saying things for shock value alone--they mentioned the late Jerry Falwell, and I will add Mark Driscoll and Fred Phelps, who, as far as I can tell, rejects the gospel in its entirety in favor of shock. Clearly, there has to be more to effective preaching than emulating Howard Stern from the pulpit. There is, but only if we stop to consider a rather profound question: For whose glory are we doing this: ours or God's? You see, I think too many preachers who go out looking to shock are doing a good job of emulating Christ in his brashness and utter disregard for the law, but they are forgetting something rather important: they are not God. In fact, that's probably the biggest pitfall that pastors face. In a place of authority in the religious community how do you remind yourself again and again that this is not about you?

Today, I had a parent pop into my office with a question that his step-son asked after Sunday worship in the car ride home. The question was this: "Each Sunday the pastor begins the service by forgiving us our sins, but doesn't God say that he is the only one who forgives? So why does the pastor forgive us every week?"

I have a HUGE temptation to give that question an easy answer; something like, "Somebody needs to stand in the place of God and offer that forgiveness, even though it is not me but God who does it." But too easily even that puts me in a place I cannot stand. Of course, I believe that it's not me doing the forgiving, but how do I convey that when I am the one standing before this young man every week? How do I convey the shock of limitless grace that reaches beyond our human ability to forgive when I am oh-so-human? Too easily pastor and God become intermingled. That is a challenge before us preachers, because whether it is in the confession and forgiveness, the proclamation of word or the sharing of the sacraments, we are the ones who stand in the place of God.

Our problem is our pride. We live in a world that has made pride into a virtue and humility into a vice. We list all of our accomplishments on applications and raise our banners in the school gym. Pastors are lifted up as ethical models and spiritual examples. This isn't really a bad thing--and neither is school pride or acknowledging your strengths on an application--but it is absolutely to the detriment of a shocking message. It risks making our preaching tame because pastors have a particularly narrow tight rope to walk. We must be both shocking and humble--shocking because the message we are preaching should be life and death; it should change people; it should, honestly, make us question how it is that we live, our commitments, and the way that we steward what God has given us every time we hear it. It should shock us as much as any horrific thing we see on the news. But pastors should also be so damn humble about it that no one can hear the words and say, "There is a pastor making a name for himself." Instead, they should say, "I honestly don't remember that pastor's name, but damn was that a good message."

That's what I'm after. That's what all of us--ordained or lay--should be after every time we talk about God. On the one hand, it should be a message that shakes the foundations of the world, and on the other it should be a message so devoid of human authorship that in a week no one should remember who it was that told them about it. That is a fretfully tough place to stand, but I think it is the only place I can faithfully be. In fact, I think it is the only way that the proclaimed word regains its edge, because too much of Christianity has become about making a name for one's self. That is categorically not what we are about. We must be shocking and we must be humble--not either/or; always both/and.

Let's get on it.