Session 1: Crossing Bridges (Preaching)

 

Crossing Bridges (Preaching)

Barbara Brown Taylor, Paul Scott Wilson, and Luther

 

Scripture: Acts 17:16-34

Paul, being Paul, refuses to lie low, even when he really should. Instead, he finds the busiest place he could, and mixes it up with the philosophers offering up their truths on the open market. There, spitting their philosophy, are Epicureans, who among other things avoid and deride superstition, and Stoics, who speak of the unity of all people and kinship with God. It is worth noting the location of this marketplace, the Hill of Ares. This hill is associated with the first trial, where Ares is acquitted of killing another god’s son, though he was in fact guilty.

In this saturated marketplace of ideas, Paul is misunderstood. Folks hear him describing Jesus’ resurrection, and think he’s telling them about two gods, Jesus and his consort, Resurrection.

I put all of these pieces onto the table, because the author of Acts wants us to see how, after the crowd’s initial misapprehension of Paul’s proclamation (resurrection as a goddess) Paul builds bridges with his listeners.

He quotes two different philosophers and a poet. He shows the Stoics a point of agreement, we are all God’s sons, and relativizes the idols, something that the Epicureans might have approved of. Then, he even uses the geography to point to Christ. Here, the King of War, guilty of murder, is none the less found innocent of killing another god’s son, but what Paul proclaims is something stranger still, God’s son, the Prince of Peace, innocent of all wrongdoings, found guilt and executed.

 

The Bridge:

          There is a space between text and context, the Scriptures and our life in the Year of Our Lord 2024. One of the tasks of the faith is moving the bible into the heart of the reader and the hearer. For example, if I was preaching the above section of scripture from Acts to all of you, I might take some time to consider what a modern-day Epicurean or Stoic looks like, what stories we might tell that are highly charged mirror images of the Christ story. All this to speak the Gospel in idioms that you understand, to prepare the soil for the Spirit to gather the Gospel in your heart. So, today we’ll look at how three thinkers, Barbara Brown Taylor, Paul Scott Wilson, and Luther, conceive of the Bible crossing into our day to day through preaching.

 

From The Preaching Life:

“No other modern public speaker does what the preacher tries to do. The trial attorney has glassy photographs and bagged evidence to hand around; the teacher has blackboards and overhead projectors; the politician has brass bands and media consultants. All the preacher has is words. Climbing into the pulpit without ropes or sound effects, the preacher speaks—for ten or twenty or thirty minutes—to people who are used to being communicated with in very different ways. Most of the messages in our culture are sent and received in thirty seconds or less and no image on a television screen lasts more than twenty, yet a sermon requires sustained and focused attention. If the topic is not appealing, there are no other channels to be tried. If a phrase is missed, there is no replay button to be pressed. The sermon counts on listeners who will stay tuned to a message that takes time to introduce, develop, and bring to a conclusion. Listeners, for their part, count on a sermon that will not waste the time they give to it.”—Barbara Brown Taylor

          Think of the Preacher’s improbable hope, with nothing more than the spoken word, we’ll cross this bridge from scripture to the hearer’s soul!

 

“Most of us would be hard pressed on Sunday morning to say whether we are in church because we believe or because we want to believe. Like the father of the epileptic boy in Mark’s Gospel, we do both: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (9:24) The preacher balances on the round top of the semicolon along with the rest of the world. I cannot preach without belief, but neither can I preach without some experience of unbelief. Both are built into the human experience of the divine, and each tests the strength of the other. The movement of the sermon, like the movement of Christ in the world, is meant to lead from doubt to faith. We may begin by knocking on God’s door, unsure whether anyone is now or has ever been at home, but when the door opens and we are led inside, doubt becomes moot. Our host takes it from us and hangs it in the closet with the dustpan and galoshes.”—Barbara Brown Taylor

          Part of crossing this bridge is a movement from doubt to faith, unbelief to belief. You’ll know you’ve reached the other side because the claims of the Faith are believable, if not forever, if not for everyone, at least in the moment, for the day. We’ve been given belief for the day, our Daily Bread even. This is a continual movement, and that’s okay. Unbelief is not a sign of unfaithfulness, but part of the journey of faith. “I believe; help my unbelief.”

 

“Something happens between the preacher’s lips and the congregation’s ears that is beyond prediction or explanation. The same sermon sounds entirely different at 9:00 and 11:15 A.M. on a Sunday morning. Sermons that make me weep leave my listeners baffled, and sermons that seem cold to me find warm responses. Later in the week, someone quotes part of my sermon back to me, something she has found extremely meaningful—only I never said it.”—Barbara Brown Taylor

          Two things to point out here.

1. Context! Even the different composition of parishioners from 9 and 11:15 worship is enough to make the word hit differently. The hearers have to be considered when preaching—that bridge must be crossed.

2. Ultimately it is God’s doing. Sure the preacher can and must do the hard exegetical work of understanding the text and the context, but the bridging of the two has something ephemeral and mysterious to it. I never said it, but it was heard!

 

What the Word does:

          For Lutherans the Word acts in two ways, as Law and as Gospel. As a caveat, Hebrew Scripture can be experienced as Gospel just as much as the Greek New Testament can be experienced as Law.

For that matter, within worship the Word is administered in the reading of scripture and preaching of it, as well as during the Confession of the Church and in communal prayer as well. This connection between the sermon and confession and prayer tells us something important about the sermon. The sermon is the preacher’s confession at that time and that place, preached on the edge of prayer; this is why preaching someone else’s sermon is not only ineffective, but slaughters the soul.

So, you will know that text has met context when it is experienced as Law and Gospel. But what does that look like?

We experience scripture as Law in two ways, as a mirror and as a window. As a Mirror it is a device that shows us ourselves, warts and all. We are stuck by the reality that we have fallen short, that we are in fact sinners. As a Window scripture allows us to look out at the world and notice injustices and ways malice is not being restrained.

          We experience scripture as Gospel when we receive it as a love letter. Just as the Mirror showed us as we are, the Gospel shows God as God is; God is the one who loves us and will never abandon us, who will die for us so that we might live with God.

 

Connecting Word and World:

          Paul Scott Wilson gives an interesting way of constructing a Law/Gospel sermon, to ensure that text meets context. It is a four-part sermon structure.

First, an experience of the text as Law, or Trouble in Wilson’s language. Then, the preacher points to an analogous type of trouble in the world is lifted up for the congregation.

Third, the preacher points to the text speaking a word of love and mercy, Grace in the Text, as Wilson calls it. Then, finally, in a move parallel to the move from Trouble in the Text to Trouble in the World, the preacher proclaims a sighting of Grace in the World.

 

Conclusion:

          So, putting it all together: using the weak medium of words, translating Scripture to a variety of audiences, the faithful are regularly moved from doubt to faith. This is not the preacher’s doing, but the Holy Spirit’s.

          The Word, read, preached, confessed, and prayed, is experienced by the hearer as a Mirror and Window, as well as a Love Letter.

One method of preaching a solid Law/Gospel sermon is to point out where there is trouble and grace in word and world.