Introspection: To Preach, or Not to Preach?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

To Preach, or Not to Preach?

Some certainly preach Christ with jealous and competitive motives, but others preach with good motives...

What do I think about this?  Just this: since Christ is proclaimed in every possible way, whether from dishonest or true motives, I'm glad and I'll continue to be glad.

Philippians 1:15, 18 (CEB)

For years and years
I chased their cheers
The crazy speed of always needing more
But when I stop
And see you here
I remember who all this was for

From "From Now On" by Pasek and Paul

If you know me personally or if you have been following this blog for a while, then you might know that I am a certified Lay Speaker in my denomination.  In other words, I am certified to fill in for pastors on Sunday mornings when needed.  One could say that I am essentially a "substitute preacher."  Earlier this year, during the season of Eastertide, I went on a short "preaching tour."  For the three Sundays after Easter, I delivered three different sermons at three different churches, starting with the church I regularly attend.

I enjoy preparing sermons, preaching, and visiting different churches, but, after preaching for three Sundays in a row, I was ready to take a break.  Additional opportunities to preach came up, but, for a number of reasons, I wasn't very eager to accept them.  As I've already noted, I needed a break.  Preparing sermons takes time, and, since I already have a full-time job, it can be rather costly for me.  Also, during the summer months, I opted to work four ten-hour workdays per week so that I could take Fridays off, and I didn't really want to spend my days off preparing sermons.  I've also been rather angry about certain things going on within my denomination.

All that said, there were some other reasons that I was hesitant to preach again.

During my "preaching tour" this spring, I noticed something about myself, specifically that I tend to that I tend to use a lot of showbusiness language in reference to my preaching.  I tend to refer to the times I'm scheduled to preach as "gigs."  When one pastor asked me to preach on a particular Sunday, I told him that I was already "booked."  I've even caught myself thinking about the time a church service starts as "showtime."

It might also be worth noting that, to psyche myself up before I preach, I listen to songs from The Greatest Showman on the way to the church.

Basically, I started to wonder if I really am a preacher or if I'm really just a performer.

As I noted a few years ago, I sometimes experience a sense of trepidation before I preach or at least some cognitive dissonance.  Sometimes I feel like I am not the right person to do the things I do in the church.  I'm painfully aware that I am not the Christian exemplar one would expect the person behind the preacher's podium to be.  Sometimes I doubt the messages I deliver.  For example, early in the morning before I delivered the sermon at my home church, I lay in bed wondering why I ever thought the clustercuss of a sermon I had written was a good idea.  Sometimes I wonder if I really preach from my heart or if I just happen to know the right things to say.  I want to offer people hope when I preach, but I often find that I am not living with the kind of hope I want to offer people.

One day back in the spring, I remembered that, when I was a little boy, my grandfather built a small podium for me.  I asked my mother if the reason he built me the podium was because I wanted to be a preacher even then.  She reminded me that back then I wanted to be a game show host.  It seems that I've always wanted to be some sort of performer or public figure.  Maybe preaching and leading worship is the only way I've found to perform for an audience.

One of the sermons I preached during Eastertide was based on the story of the apostle Peter, who at one point denied knowing Jesus.  The main point of the sermon was that we must not allow ourselves to give into the temptation to give up when we've failed.  I began this sermon with a story about the founder of my particular branch of Christianity.  In the 1730s, John Wesley, a priest in the Church of England, traveled to the Georgia colony in order to be a minister to the colonists and a missionary to the natives.  He later returned to England as an utter failure.¹

One day, Wesley told his friend Peter Boehler, a Moravian priest, that he was going to quit preaching because he wasn't sure he had any faith left.  Boehler replied, "Preach faith till you have it; then, because you have it, you will preach faith."²

Even though I did not share any personal stories in this sermon, I still considered it a very personal one, because I've come to understand the stories of Peter and Wesley in light of my own past temptations to give up when I felt like I failed God.  I also happen to take comfort in Boehler's advice to Wesley regarding preaching.  Though I struggle to live like I believe the things I preach, my sermons are not empty words, for I do aspire to live like I believe them.  I might not always feel that I personally possess the hope I want to offer people, especially after the last couple of years, but, if I keep offering people hope through my sermons, I might someday find myself living with that hope.

In mid July, I finally accepted another opportunity to preach.  I suspect that I might be the go-to guy for one of the pastors in my area when he needs someone to fill in for him, and I wanted to continue being the person he calls.  As I prepared my sermon, the Scripture passage I had chosen did a number on me.  I saw myself in a very foolish individual in one of Jesus' parables, and I was forced to reconsider how I've been living my life.

I have decided that I will keep preaching, despite my trepidations.  I'll keep preaching because, even if I am more of a performer than a preacher, I might as well perform for a higher purpose.  I'll keep preaching because, if God does indeed give me messages to share with others, I had better share them.  I'll keep preaching because, if I keep sharing hopeful messages with others, I just might become a more hopeful person.  I'll keep preaching because someone out there just might need to hear the sermons I write as much as I need to hear them.


Notes:

1. Adam Hamilton.  Revival: Faith as Wesley Lived It.  2014, Abingdon Press.  pp. 62-67
2. Hamilton, p. 69

The photograph of the lectern was taken by Ib Rasmussen, who has released it to the public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Perspective: A Rejected King

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

A Rejected King

Then [Jesus] took the twelve aside and said to them, "Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.  For he will be handed over to the gentiles, and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon.  After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again."

Luke 18:31-33 (NRSV)

Surely life wasn't made to regret
And the lost were not made to forget
Surely faith without action is dead
Let Your Kingdom come
Lord, break this heart

From "The Power of Your Name" by Lincoln Brewster

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a story about a rich man who entrusts a great deal of money to three of his servants before going on a journey.  To one servant, he gives the amount of five talents, which is around seventy-five years' wages for a common laborer.  To another servant, he gives two talents, and, to a third, he gives one talent.  The first two servants put the money entrusted to them to work, and both gain a one hundred percent return on their investments.  The third servant, by contrast, is afraid of losing the money entrusted to him, so he buries it.¹

When the rich man returns, he is happy to find that two of his servants have used the money he entrusted to them to make him even more money, so hee rewards them and gives them even greater responsibilities.  The rich man is not quite so happy with his other servant, who has done nothing with the money he entrusted to him.²

The Parable of the Talents has been for me a reminder that I am called to boldly invest the life God has given me and that I must not allow myself to bury any part of myself out of fear.  Sadly these are lessons I've struggled to live out.

Recently I encountered a lesser known version of this parable in the Gospel of Luke, which is sometimes called the Parable of the Minas.  In this version, a rich man entrusts a mina, which is roughly three month's wages, to each of ten servants, instructing them to invest the money entrusted to them.  When he returns, some of his servants report that they have received a return on their investment.  For example, one has received a tenfold return, while another has received fivefold return.  These servants are commended and given greater responsibilities.  One servant reports that he was afraid of losing the mina entrusted to him so he wrapped it in a piece of cloth and kept it.  This servant is chastized, and his mina is taken away and given to another servant.³

The Parable of the Minas, like the Parable of the Talents, teaches us that, if God entrusts something to us - an ability, a resource, or any other kind of gift - then God wants us to actually put it to use.

What caught my attention about Luke's version of the parable are certain details Jesus tells us about the person who entrusts his money to his servants.  He says that the rich man was "born into royalty" and that he journeys "to a distant land to receive his kingdom and then return."  He says that this man is hated by the citizens of the kingdom he is inheriting, who have sent representatives to state that they do not want him to be their king.  He says that the servants who have faithfully put to use the money their master entrusted to them are put in charge of cities.  Jesus ends the parable, stating that, after the rich man deals with his servants, he has the subjects who have rejected him put to death.⁴

In Jesus' parable, there are echoes of historical events that Jesus' audience would have known.  After the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC, his son Herod Archelaus went to Rome to be affirmed as king of Judea.  Judean representatives also went to Rome to tell Caesar Augustus that they did not want Archalaus to be their king.  Augustus did allow Archelaus to reign over Judea, but he did not allow him to have the title of king.⁵

All that said, I do wonder if this parable might also be a foreshadowing of what is to take place in Jesus' own story.  According to Luke, Jesus tells this parable to the people traveling with Him because "they thought God's kingdom would appear right away."⁶  Jesus has just left Jericho and is heading toward Jerusalem, the capital their of Judea.  His followers, who believe that He is the Messiah, the long-awaited liberator who will free their people from their Roman oppressors and reign over them in an age of peace and prosperity, expect Him to be crowned king there.

In Jesus' parable, a nobleman inherits a kingdom but is rejected by his subjects.  Similarly, after Jesus rides into Jerusalem, like a king in a peacetime procession, He will be rejected by the people in charge, as He has repeatedly warned His disciples.⁷  Unlike the nobleman in His parable, who has the people who have rejected him slaughtered, Jesus will allow Himself to be slaughtered by the people who reject Him.  He will be crowned with thorns and enthroned on a cross.  Those who will reject Jesus and His kingdom of peace will invite destruction upon themselves decades later, when they attempt to establish their own kingdom by violently rebelling against the Roman Empire.

People continue to reject Jesus and His peaceful Kingdom whenever they resort to violence and other such measures to obtain and maintain power.  Today, on Christ the King Sunday, we remember that someday our King will return to establish His kingdom "on Earth as it is in Heaven" and to set all things right.  Until then, we, His servants, are called to faithfully put to use everything God has entrusted to us.


Notes:

1. Matthew 25:14-18
2. Matthew 25:19-30
3. Luke 19:11-28
4. Luke 19:11-28 (CEB)
5. William Barclay.  The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Luke.  2001, Saint Andrew Press.  pp. 280-281
6. Luke 19:11
7. Luke 9:22, 43b-44; 18:31-33

The Parable of the Talents or Minas was painted by Willem de Poorter in the 17th century.