(*note: I realize this is a ridiculously basic Lutheran understanding… but it’s news to me.)

I distinctly remember the moment I realized that becoming the mission pastor of Church of the Beloved also meant that I was going to need to preach on a regular basis.  My heart sank, because, for some reason, preaching had not been a part of what I had imagined my pastoral role to be… facilitating creative worship – yes, networking together a relational community – yes, helping organize missional expressions in the neighborhood, like the Theology on Tap, like the Valentine’s Day party for the world, like the Artist’s Way group, like the Beloved Table down at the Edmonds Halloween party… all that stuff – yes, yes, yes! But preaching… no.  While most pastors consider preaching a given, I hadn’t even considered it until I dove headlong into church planting.  Why?  I don’t know.

Maybe it was because I had already heard hundreds, if not thousands of sermons in my over churched life, but perhaps only a handful of them had I considered valuable.  And rarely had I heard preaching that I regarded as honest, and engaging, and not manipulative, arrogant, or just plain crazy.  Or maybe it was because I had experienced the gospel in so many other ways… in the exploration of a multi-media labyrinth, in a powerful story portrayed by film, or in a broken down conversation with a friend.  I had given up on preaching and yet I was perplexed, because for the last two-thousand years the proclamation of the Gospel was central to the life of the Church… how is it that I knew better than the saints through the ages?

But then! I heard good preaching.  And it was different than what I thought good preaching was supposed to be like.  I realized that I had confused (and most of the time still confuse) the proclamation of the Gospel with sound ‘Biblical Teaching’.  I had thought the point of hearing a sermon was to learn – to aquiring knowledge about God. And in the quest for preachers to teach something new each week they would resort to parsing ancient greek, hebrew and sometimes even aramaic words,they would bring to light the lost meanings of historical contexts, or, if you’re really lucky, outline systematic theological doctrines.  So when I heard these sermons I would ask myself, “Did I learn anything new?  If I did, did I really care that I did?  And what does this shmoe know that I don’t know anyways?”

The moment I realized that I was going to need to preach I had the terrifying thought:  “Well, what do I know that my people don’t?  What wisdom do I have that they haven’t heard before?”  In those questions I felt the pressure of the academy on the Church.  Universities had trained the Pastors of the Church… and it showed: Churches looked like little lecture halls with all the seats facing towards the front of the class room where the main act was the forty-five minute talking head.

And not only had I confused the proclamation of the Gospel with “Biblical Teaching”, but I had also confused the proclamation of the Gospel with “Christian Moralism”.  And this is what passes for 90% of all sermons.  Sometimes it’s called “rules for chirstian living”, or “life application” or if you are cool, “following in the way of Jesus”, but the sermon follows the same simple recipe:
Ingredient #1: “What’s the problem?”
Ingredient #2: “What you can do about it.”

This is a classic recipe.  Almost every good book, film, or play is built on this simple equation:  First everything is idyllic, then tragedy strikes and then the hero or heroin must find a way to make things right.  And the recipe works, because it’s how we work.  It’s survival.  It’s instinctual.  It’s empowering.  And it really doesn’t matter if you are a conservative Christian or a liberal Christian.  The ingredient’s of the sermon might differ a little for each, but the recipe remains the same – just plug in different issues.

For conservative Christians the answer is pietism, complying to the accepted do’s and dont’s, and the assumption that the world would be fixed if we just got everybody on the same page about evangelism, prayer in schools, outlawing abortions and same sex unions.  This is how you ‘get good’.  This is what you can do about the problem.

For liberal Christians the answer is charity, activism, complying to the accepted do’s and dont’s, and the assumption that the world would be fixed if we just got everybody on the same page about peace and justice, environmentalism, and tolerance for diversity (except for those conservatives).  This is how you ‘get good’.  This is what you can do about the problem.  So get busy!

Please don’t hear me wrong.  I’m not making a value judgment about the morality of these morals at all. Ethics, activism, devotion, morality, learning, charity…  all of this is important.  I’m just saying, “It’s not the gospel.”  Because when preaching is set up by these two questions, “What’s the problem and what can I do about it?” the answer is always “my own determination, my own will to do better, my own ability to create a new future.”  But the Gospel is not about what I am doing about it, the Gospel is about what God is doing about it in Jesus Christ.  Now that can really preach!

And that is what I heard, when I first heard good preaching.  It was different than “Biblical Teaching” And it was different than “Christian Moralism”  It was was what St. Paul talks about when he says: “Religious people demand powerful signs and non-religious people look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified – and it’s stumbling block to the religious and foolishness to the non-religious, but to those whom God has called, both religious and non-religious people, Christ crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of Christ-crucified is wiser than our wisdom, and the weakness of Christ crucified is stronger than our strength.”

What we need most is not more Biblical Teaching, or to learn or understand things better.  What we need most is not more Christian Moralism, or to do or not do more things.  The goal of both is to cultivate our own goodness, not celebrate God’s grace in Jesus.  What we need most is for the Spirit of God to open us up in such a way that we enter the very Story of God and encounter the mystery of the God who dies at our own hands for our sake.  And, to our surprise, instead of this reality crushing us, it drives us into into the loving arms of God.  It sounds stupid, it sounds weak, it trips us up – but this is the power and wisdom of God.  This is the Good News of Jesus Christ.  This is the seed that produces fruit in our lives – like charity and activism and community and so on.  But it is fruit that comes from faith, and not from fear.  This is the Gospel that changed everything for Martin Luther and once again sparked a revolution of grace.  He called it the Theology of the Cross.

Most preaching is good news for good people.  Most preaching is hope for hopeful people.  But the Gospel is good news for all people, and hope for people who do not even have the capacity to hope.  When I think about preaching at you…  When I think about having to come up with new teachings every week, or about telling you how to be good, or even worse – how to vote… That makes my heart sink.  But when I think about proclaiming the Gospel to you: about reminding, both me and you, of the story of a God who loves us through death and beyond, who turns the shame of the cross into life and peace, whose Spirit gives us the faith that drives us to grace…  Now that, that can preach.  And that makes my heart sing.