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More Unsolicited Advice for Preachers: Preach to Pain
Dec 19, 2007 15:33:49
| More Unsolicited Advice for Preachers: Preach to Pain | |
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Petersen Posted on: Dec 19, 2007 15:33:49 |
Preach to pain. We sometimes forget this at Christmas. Strangely, I think we even forget it sometimes at funerals. We need to remember that Christian joy is not giddiness and generic feelings of happiness or good will toward the world. It is not simply gratitude that we have nice families who like us and a day off work. Christian joy is better captured by the mood of Silent Night than it is by Jingle Bells. It is solemn and serious. It runs deep. It knows suffering and sorrow and fear. Shepherds quake at the sight of God laid into a manger in infant weakness. So should we at the thought of it. It is not all glitter and eggnog and new toys. There is something deeply troubling in the sorrows of Mary and the hardships endured by her Son already during His first night on earth. Those who have mourned for years are more conflicted and troubled at Christmas than most any other time of the year. They don't know how to feel. They are hurt and yet they are at peace. They joy is painful. That pain is righteous. The faithful are disappointed with the world, outraged at its injustices, weary of its failures and disease. At Christmas they glimpse anew the love of God that has entered into our brokenness to restore and recreate us. The good work that has been begun in them is not yet complete. They are waiting. They are eager for the end. They are full of fear and love of God and awed by the magnitude and consistency of grace. Faith is always disaffected with the world, always eager for the new creation, and on this side of glory it always hurts. "Preach to pain," Dr. Deffner used to say, "and you'll always have active listeners." Not only that, I say, but you might actually help them. You might give them some understanding of their suffering, some encouragement that their suffering is not in vain, and some hope of the Day when what they long for will be delivered in full. |
Comments...
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Dec 24, 2007 15:41:30
Re: More Unsolicited Advice for Preachers: Preach to Pain
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From all in our family who have suffered,
A profound, tearful and grateful Thank You.
Blessed Christmas. -
Dec 23, 2007 10:23:34
Re: More Unsolicited Advice for Preachers: Preach to Pain
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Dave, I've been thinking a lot about this post and among the many wonderfully thought-provoking things you've posted here, I think this is truly one of the finest. I would encourage you to expand this into a full-blown article for the CTQ, or LOGIA.
I have come in my own preaching to recognize that this is precisely the very thing that is key to preaching, as opposed to:
Lecturing
Dogmatizing
Rhetoricizing (is that a word?)
Teaching
Musing on certain topics
Browbeating
Chiding
Nagging
Scolding
Cajoling
Manipulating
This however is preaching. This is proclamation.
Dave, do more with this post. Flesh it out into an article. I think it would be extremely helpful.
We tend to come out of seminary believing that if are able to parse every verb, decline each noun, and analyze grammar, syntax and theme, we will have a good sermon; similarly, if we are able to give a dogmatic lecture, more fitting for the seminary classroom, or bible class, we have a good sermon. We believe if we follow a somewhat slavishly formulaic pattern that goes: law, gospel, come take communion, we have preached a good sermon.
As I read the sermons of the fathers, and listen to good sermons, I am struck, repeatedly, by precisely what you say in your post. "Good sermons" -- those that reach me the most deeply, that speak to me most profoundly, are sermons that are actually speaking to the hearer. The pastor is talking to me. He is preaching to me. He is not trying to impress some long-distant seminary professor. He is not attempting to "follow the formula and get it just so."
He is preaching. He is, as you say, preaching to pain. The pain of my sin is preached to, with clear words of God's judgment against that sin. The Gospel is preached concretely so that the great "for you" is "for me."
The more I ponder these things, the more I come to appreciate and understand what was said about our Lord, "And looking out on the crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd."
All of which is to say, Pastor Petersen: well done and many thanks for a fine post! -
Dec 22, 2007 21:09:53
Re: More Unsolicited Advice for Preachers: Preach to Pain
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Thank you for this unsolicited advice. Consider any future advice for this Vicar to be solicited.
-Matt -
Dec 21, 2007 20:03:42
Re: More Unsolicited Advice for Preachers: Preach to Pain
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Dave, your words are very, very true. Pastors must learn to preach sermons that actually speak to the hearers. They may be able to give dogmatic lectures, masterpieces of rhetoric, scintillating stories, but...if and when they are not communicating to the hearers, speaking to their very real emotions, pains, touching on their life experiences and circumstances, they will not be effective communicators.
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Dec 19, 2007 23:33:48
Re: More Unsolicited Advice for Preachers: Preach to Pain
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This is one of the things that attracted me to Lutheranism.
Even though I am a spoiled American teenager, there is still that bit of Law dangling over my head and hidding around the corner that says, "You will eventually die..."
Lutheranism doesn't dish out happy-clappy choruses to those who are grieving. The Lutheran Church gives the grieving and the non-grieving alike the medicine of immortality. Death is presented as the wages of our sin and Christ is the answer.
The comfort of "preaching to pain" is indescribable.
For an superb example of preaching to pain, read any of Rev. Cwirla's sermons. http://www.google....la%27s+blogosphere
God's blessings,
Ben
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