The responsibility of preaching scares me sometimes!
We had two great services yesterday.
In the morning, Raewyn preached on anger, and with everybody wondering just where the sermon was likely to head, she cleverly talked about Jesus’ anger at corruption and the subjugation of those who are not in a position to resist it.
A major challenge was forthcoming also with Raewyn asking us what would Jesus do if he walked into SAJ today, would he be happy with us or would he make a whip and chase us out and overturn tables?
In the evening I spoke on 1 John 2:12-17 with a special emphasis on how the world takes us into spiritual captivity surreptitiously, not wanting us to deny Christ, but happy that we quietly accept “little” sins and then justify them to ourselves.
God moved in both services and it’s great to see our people opening themselves up to God’s Holy Spirit and the conviction He brings.
However, as I was preparing for that message, I was highly aware that the best I can do is preach my understanding of the word. Yes, I work with commentaries from truly learned people, but at the end of the day, I have to decide what I’ll say about it!
What if I get it wrong (in a bad way)?
What if I speak without total clarity and someone takes something out of it that I wasn’t trying to say?
Oh, I love preaching but the responsibility really does weigh heavily sometimes. Praise God that He is forgiving, that He upholds us and that He somehow uses our often pitiful words to make life change happen.
yep, yesterday was a good day, even coming off last week’s high!
as I twittered “2 good church services today, social justice this morning, personal alignment with God tonight, now for a blog post, and then some reading” http://twitter.com/gavinknight/statuses/803095133 (didn’t get the blog post done as something else intervened, hopefully tonight)
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Here are six challenging qualifications Bonhoeffer gives on preaching:
1. A sermon is only relevant when God is there. He is the one who makes its message concrete.
2. God speaks to us through the Bible. Therefore, our task is to expound the Bible and not to elaborate it!
3. All texts are relevant and it is no part of the preacher’s task to find topical texts.
4. The preacher has no word of wisdom suited specially to the moment. He has to proclaim what he knows of God in the situation.
5. The concrete situation represents only the material to which the word of God can be spoken. There are no moments of eternal significance, heavy with God’s message for us. All historical moments are ambiguous – in them God and the devil are at work!
6. The truly concrete situation is not some historical happening, but the sinner standing before God, and the answer to that situation is in the crucified and risen Lord.
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Too often we rip our sermons out of the headlines rather than out of Scripture. I do believe we need to know our world and be able to speak about it and to it. But when we are preaching, surely the written word of God should get more than a cursory mention or inclusion as part of proof-texts?
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Obviously I shouldn’t have used the symbols I did. Found these comments on the Armybarmy blog written by Aaron White (and Bonhoeffer!). Good food for thought. Paul I think you’re right…preaching is a big deal – and hard work!