Peculiar Preacher

            Some of the best stories in the Bible are the ones that we usually don’t preach.  The book of Genesis contains some dull stories that portray Jacob as a shining example of faith.  We preach those stories.  The story of Jacob’s two weddings is the kind of R-rated, embarrassingly candid story that we usually avoid.  When we read the scripture Lauren tried really hard not to blush.  Maybe we should have suggested that you read the passage silently and raise your hands when you’re done.  If I had planned ahead more I would’ve asked Alan Culpepper to read it.  He could make it sound like it belongs in the Bible.  You may have noticed that God isn’t even mentioned in this story and may be glad to be left out of it. 

            While most preachers tell the carefully edited stories, someone like the teacher of the Rebekah/Ruth Senior Adult Women’s Sunday School Class is more likely to enjoy hanging out the dirty laundry for everyone to see.  

            During my first semester as a student at Baylor my father suggested that I visit the teacher of the Rebekah/Ruth class—his great aunt in Gatesville about forty miles away.  Aunt Ruby was eighty years old.  I didn’t know her well.  At first we had trouble finding anything to talk about, but then just as I was beginning to think of excuses to leave she said, “I’ve got a photo album that you might enjoy.”  My parents had told me about my great-grandfather who was a circuit-riding Baptist preacher.  They had failed to mention the great-grandfather who was a foreman on the railroads.  He hired workers who spoke no English, so that he could pay them half of their salaries and keep the other half.  Aunt Ruby told me stories about my grandfather that I don’t think my father has ever heard.  I knew that grandpa was, at that point, married for the fourth time, but I hadn’t really thought about why I had so many ex-grandmothers.  Aunt Ruby gave me details, intimate details, details I didn’t need to know.  She showed me an old photograph of a family reunion.  She went down the line giving commentary that would have shocked the writers of Genesis:  “Your great great uncle was a good person when he was sober, but that wasn’t very often.  Your great great aunt slept with anything that wore pants.  Back then that limited her to half the population.  My cousin, your fifth or sixth cousin, was quite a gossip, so I spent a lot of time with her.”

            Aunt Ruby must have loved the story of Rachel and Leah.  This unapologetically explicit account was important to those who first read the story, because they were descendants of Leah and Jacob.  This is their embarrassing great-great-grandparents’ story. 

As a young person Jacob is unthinking, cruel, and dishonest, but God blesses him anyway.  God promises that Jacob will be the father of a great nation, even though Jacob isn’t married and isn’t getting any younger.  Then Jacob meets Rachel.  Her father Laban is as big a con artist as Jacob, and Laban has an advantage—Jacob is madly in love with Rachel.  She is the kind of gorgeous woman with whom lots of men think they’re in love.  Angelina Jolie should play her in the movie version.  Jacob will pay any price, so Laban comes up with a stunningly excessive demand for a dowry.  Without even arguing, Jacob agrees to work seven years for Rachel.  Don’t ever go into business with your family.   

            Laban conveniently omits a minor detail in his verbal contract with Jacob.  He says something ambiguous like, “I guess it’s better to give her to you than some other guy.”  They shake hands and Laban forgets to tell Jacob that in his culture the oldest daughter has to marry first.  Jacob labors for seven sweaty years.  At the wedding, Jacob makes a sacred promise to the woman standing beside him covered by what we assume is an extremely dark veil.  Jacob has too much to drink at the reception.  The wedding night passes and the morning sun shines on the plain face of Leah.  Jacob is horrified.

            The writers of Genesis are careful not to say that Leah is ugly.  They only report: “Leah’s eyes were lovely.”  This is the ancient equivalent of “She has a great personality.”  The text is extravagant in its praise of Rachel—“graceful and beautiful.”  Leah is the old maid, the second choice.  Can you imagine how painful this is?  On her first morning as a married woman, Leah’s lovely eyes gaze into the petrified face of a disappointed husband.  How horrid would it be to have your new husband tell you that he wanted your little sister on the honeymoon?   

            Jacob promises Laban another seven years if he can have Rachel, too.  The agreement is marry now, pay later.  Weddings last a full week, so as soon as the semi-celebration of Jacob and Leah’s wedding ends, Jacob marries his true love.  The storyteller is brutally honest: “Jacob loves Rachel more than Leah.”

            If there’s a patron saint for those who’ve drawn the short end of the stick, it’s Leah.  Her wedding day is supposed to be the high point of her life, but by the end of the week, Jacob is in the arms of her little sister.  Leah feels abandoned, because she has been.

            After Elizabeth Taylor’s last wedding, one journalist wrote, “Poor Elizabeth: always a bride, never a bridesmaid.”  It isn’t often that we pity the bride, but no one deserves more sympathy than Leah (George Thompson, “When We are Second Choice,” Pulpit Digest, May/June 1994, 57).

            She’s a good person to think about when we’re not the first choice.  Charlie Brown goes to his psychiatrist Lucy and says, “I have an inferiority complex.”

Lucy helpfully asks, “When did it begin?” 

“At the very start.  When I was born the doctor looked at me and said, ‘Not right for the part.’”  

            When we feel inferior, it’s because in some ways we are inferior.  When meeting with the finance committee, most pastors ask questions about interest and loan rates, but a few of us know better.  We understand that our chances of humiliating ourselves with our fourth grade math is several times greater than our chances of suggesting something that will increase the rate of return on the endowment fund.  So we pretend we’re taking notes when we’re really working on our to-do list.  We are all inferior in one way or another, and so we learn to hide our failings.  None of us can do everything we’d like to do.  We can’t do some of the things we need to do. 

            When we feel inferior, it’s because some tell us we’re inferior.  Our friends, family, and strangers let us know that we’re not all that we could be.  A research group followed business executives for six weeks and recorded all their communication.  They found that 67% of the input they received was negative.  Two-thirds of what they hear is a put down.  What do you think the numbers are for deacons’ meetings?  Sometimes the membership report feels like our personal report card.  We know that it’s not our fault when members move to Connecticut, but do they have to join another church? 

            When we feel inferior, it’s because we have unrealistic goals.  In 1996, Baylor University polled religion writers and preaching professors to make a list of the twelve most effective preachers in the English-speaking world.  There were great preachers on the list—Fred Craddock, Gardner Taylor, James Forbes.  Baylor invited all twelve to Waco to preach on Wednesday nights, assuming that churches would dismiss their own services to hear these great preachers.  In a city with a hundred Baptist churches and 40,000 Baptists, surely several thousand people would attend.  At my church, Lake Shore Baptist, on the first Wednesday of the series, we ate supper, said a prayer, and went to hear Barbara Brown Taylor.  I was surprised at the small crowd.  There may have been a hundred and fifty people.  Why wouldn’t pastors want their congregations there?  Barbara Brown Taylor is a wonderful preacher who helps us recognize the presence of God.  I began to understand why there weren’t more churches present when, after a magnificent sermon, a member of my church said, “Brett, wouldn’t you love to hear that kind of preaching every Sunday?” 

I said, “Yes.  That’d be great.” 

Another said, “We just don’t hear that kind of creativity in the pulpit.” 

“No, I guess not.” 

Then a third, “I’ve never heard preaching like that, have you, Brett?” 

“Nope, not even close.” 

The tiny crowd suddenly made sense.  Why would pastors want their congregations to compare them to the best preachers in the world?  It’s like selling Saliere tickets to a Mozart concert.

Every week you read the text carefully.  You study the commentaries.  You pray for your congregation.  You ask God what they need to hear.  You thoughtfully write the sermon.  You say it out loud a couple of times.  You ask the Spirit to be with you.  You take your calling seriously.  You’re a good preacher.  And as you preach some in your congregation look bored.  A couple of the teenagers sit on opposite sides of the sanctuary so they can text message through the sermon.  One of your Sunday school teachers takes notes on what he’s going to argue against in class the next Sunday.  Most of the ones who shake your hand on their way out would say, “Enjoyed your sermon,” even if it was on the special place in hell for church members who don’t tithe. 

If we compare ourselves to preachers we imagine are better at what we do, then we’ll focus on the ways we fall short because we’ve been taught that the only thing that matters is being number one.  We think we’re supposed to be the best and brightest.  W.C. Fields cynically put it, “No one ever remembers numero two-o.”  It’s either climb to the top of the heap or be dissatisfied that you’re not at the top.  Most preachers discover that it’s lonely at the middle, too.

            Leah played the hand she was dealt, and she’s one of the great heroines of Israel.  Her story is a subtle yet profound reminder of God’s grace.  The writers of Genesis make it clear that God’s promise to bless Jacob would have been made null and void had it not been for Leah, his second choice.  Sisters being married to the same man simultaneously isn’t recommended in the best of circumstances, and in this case it is in many ways a disaster.  And yet, out of this Jerry Springer kind of mess, Leah has six sons and a daughter: Dinah; Issachar; Zebulun; Reuben whose name means “the Lord has looked upon my affliction”; Simeon, “The Lord has heard that I am hated”; Judah, “I will praise the Lord”—the honored name of Judaism comes from Leah’s offspring; Levi, whose descendants founded many of the traditions that form our worship.

            Jacob loved Rachel more, but then Rachel died young.  They buried Rachel near Bethlehem in an unceremonious spot, and Jacob grew fonder of Leah throughout their long life together.  They buried Leah near Jerusalem next to Jacob, with Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah.  Jews, Muslims, and Christians visit the place as a holy shrine.  One of the descendants of Leah was Jesus, another patron saint of second choices.  

            Leah’s story is a word of hope to every preacher who has had a church member hand them a DVD of Joel Osteen and say, “I think you might like this;” whose deacons love the previous pastor just a little too much; whose deacons seem to be looking forward to the next pastor; who reads published sermons that aren’t as good as hers; who, when asked how big the church is, mentions the Easter attendance.

This story is hope to all the second choices who keep trying.  Our future is being shaped by a God who sees beyond our limitations to our possibilities.  We are indispensable to God, because we aren’t defined by what we can’t do, but by who we are in God’s grace.  We are God’s children. 

            If we sit pouting in the corner, sulking because we aren’t somebody else, then we haven’t recognized who we are.  Martin Buber, the great Jewish thinker, wrestled with his limitations.  He longed to accomplish greater things than he was doing.  Then one day he realized what God would say to him when he died.  He would stand before the Almighty and God would not say: Why weren’t you Abraham?  Why weren’t you Moses?  Why weren’t you David?  God would say: Why weren’t you Martin Buber? 

Why aren’t you who you are?  We don’t need to give the world what we don’t have to give.  We need to see what’s ours and share that. 

We don’t have to be the shiniest preacher in the tool box.  We are unique and different because God wants us to be unique and different.  We don’t have to be the best at everything we do.  We don’t have to be the best at anything we do.  It’s okay for us to wish we were Mozart, but we can’t let it keep us from playing the music we’ve been given to play. 

God won’t ask why you weren’t Billy Graham.  God will only ask if you were the one you were created to be.   

Years ago Grady Nutt wrote a book entitled, Being Me.  When he autographed a copy for my wife Carol, he wrote, “Be Carol.”  He didn’t write, “Be Barbara” or “Be Walter” or “Be Fred.”  He wrote a holy word.  It is a sacred blessing.  “Be Brett.”  “Be Lauren.”  “Be Rusty.”  “Be Peter Rhea.”  “Be Kyle.”  “Be Felix.”  “Be John.”  “Be Louise.”  “Be Susan.”  “Be Kewon.”  “Be Nikki.”  Be the one God created you to be.

Every once in a while a student asks me to name the best preachers.  They expect me to list Tom Long, William Sloane Coffin, Dock Hollingsworth—you know the list—but I have learned to give a more truthful answer:  “I don’t know the names of the best preachers.  They’re pastors who aren’t famous.  They aren’t trying to get a bigger church, a turn at the Kiwanis Club, or a cable access show.  They are giving their lives to their congregations.  They listen for God’s word and share it with God’s children.  Nothing is more pleasing to God.”   

 

“When We’re Not Walter Brueggemann”

Genesis 29:15-30

Preaching Consultation at St. Simon’s Island

September 28, 2009

Brett Younger

 

 

Every week you tell yourself to start the sermon earlier, so on Monday morning you pour a cup of coffee and take out the file for the next Sunday. 

What were you thinking when you decided to preach on the prodigal son again?  What could there possibly be left to say?

            The story has been worn so smooth in the telling and retelling that you’re tempted to start the sermon by asking, “How many think you know just about everything I’m about to say?  Is there anyone left who hasn’t heard a preacher suggest that we should call this the parable of the waiting father?  If I point out that feeding pigs would be particularly disgusting for a Jew will that be news?” 

You once heard about a minister who preached the parable from the point of view of the fatted calf.  Maybe you should try that.

            Or you could preach about the poor cook trying to throw together a barbecue at the last minute.

            You could talk about the prodigal’s mother.  Or the grandmother?  The little sister?  The family’s pastor? 

            What about a sermon on the harlots in the far country?  Does anybody ever think about their feelings?

            Once you heard someone suggest a three point outline of madness, badness, and gladness.  Or was it sadness?  Wouldn’t sadness be in there?  Or what about this outline—he wanted his ten, he fell into sin, and he came home again.

            The story has become so tired in the preaching and repreaching that it makes you tired just thinking about it.  It’s almost a relief when the phone rings. 

            Bessie calls each Monday.  She’s an accomplished sermon critic.  It’s like having Pauline Kael in the fifth row every Sunday.  Bessie teaches the Rebecca/Ruth class and feels the need to tell you everything that happens there.  You know she liked the previous pastor more than she likes you so you always pretend you’re listening. 

            On this occasion she has a new issue, “Pastor, do you know what your little Minister of Education said to me yesterday?”

            “No, Bessie, I don’t.”

            “He asked if I thought my class would be more comfortable meeting in the parlor.”

            Scott’s a fine Minister of Education—and there are precious few of them—but he should have asked before running headlong into this particular fiery furnace.

            The Rebecca/Ruth class is all that’s left of a senior adult department that was thriving only three short decades ago.  They meet in the largest room in the church with a grand piano, a stained glass window of the Good Shepherd, and the only American flag you haven’t hidden.

            When Charlotte’s bursitis isn’t acting up, there are five women meeting in a space that will seat 100.  At the other end of the hall there’s a young adult class running 25 in a parlor that might hold 15 comfortably.  

            Bessie continues, “I’m not one to complain”—it’s good that she can’t see you roll your eyes, “but he needs to respect his elders.  We’re the people who built this church.  We worked hard.  We earned our place and you can’t give it to people who just showed up.  Do you think your precious thirty-year-olds tithe?”

            You try to make it clear that you understand how much the Rebeccas and Ruths mean to the church.  “Bessie, I know how hard you work.  I appreciate everything your class has done.  In fact, the Rebecca/Ruth class is probably my favorite class in all of the world.”  You say this with your fingers crossed. 

            Bessie has just given up and said goodbye when the phone rings again.

            This caller begins, “You’d don’t me.  My family lives about a hundred miles from you.  We raised our son right.  His father and I dropped him off at church every Sunday.  My son doesn’t work hard, but as long as he was under our roof I knew he was safe.  But now he’s at college and he’s an English major.  We thought he was going to get a nice business degree.  He’s spending money like the government is going to bail him out.  I think his fraternity may have a few drinkers.  I need you to invite him to your church.  I know he’s up on Sunday mornings, because when I call he’s always out.  But you can’t tell him I asked you to call.” 

            You’re off the phone before you realize that you’ve agreed to call a college student and act like you pulled his name and number out of the campus directory at random. 

His first question is going to be, “Did my mom tell you to call?” 

You decide to answer, “Yes, of course she did.  You know your mother.”

            You don’t get back to the sermon for three days.  Every Monday you make a list of things you need to get done, and every week you learn again that you’re not in charge of what you’ll get done.  You have to respond to fifteen e-mails.  You think of church before the internet as the good old days.  The chair of the stewardship committee is worried about last month’s financial report and wants you to talk to the committee about it.  You spend too much time preparing for Wednesday night.  There’s a reason no one picks Judges for the Annual Bible Study.  And then, horror of horrors, you get the shocking news that on Sunday morning—without you even noticing—an eleventh grade girl wore flip flops while taking up the offering.  You could make money selling bumper stickers at preaching conferences that say, “Church happens.”

            On Thursday you tell yourself, “I have to write my sermon and I have to write it right now.  If the Holy Spirit shows up great, but I need a rough draft by the end of the day.” 

When you went to seminary, some dear church people gave you a complete set of The Broadman Bible Commentary.  At the time, you thought it was the most liberal thing ever written—now, not so much. 

            You read material you’ve read before:  how the younger son would have been expected to keep at least some of the inheritance to support his father in his old age.  You’re relatively certain your children aren’t saving to support you either. 

When the son comes to his senses the word used is a medical term.  Doctor Luke describes the response of a person who has awakened from a fainting spell.  You wish you had rich doctors in your congregation so that a detail like that would jump out. 

            Then you find something.  The Talmud describes the ceremony of the pessausa.  A father disowned a son by taking a pot filled with burnt corn and nuts and breaking it in front of the house.  It’s like the shun of the Pennsylvania Dutch.  No one was ever to speak to the boy again.  The pessausa was applied only to Jewish males who married immoral woman or lost money to Gentiles.  The prodigal must have wondered if his father would disown him.   Now that’s interesting, somewhat. You’re just not finding much that’s going to move them to the edge of their pews—unless you actually throw a pot of burnt corn.

When you took preaching at seminary—which is for many the high point of their lives—you thought that every week you’d be examining textual variants and parsing verbs, but it’s been a while since you opened your Greek New Testament.

You wonder if there’s anything on desperatepreacher.com.  What would you get if you googled Fred Craddock plus Luke 15?  What would happen if you suggested that the younger brother is like Sarah Palin’s future son-in-law Eli?  Would it be wrong to describe the party as tailgating at a Georgia game?           

Just before you give up for the day, you find something in The New Interpreter’s Bible.  Your favorite New Testament scholar, Alan Culpepper, writes, “In the end we all return home as sinners, so Jesus’ parable invites us to trust that God’s goodness and mercy will be at least as great as that of a loving human father.  The elder brother represents all of us who think we can make it on our own, all of us who might be proud of the kind of lives we live.”

That’s pretty good.  Your church has lots of proud people.  You’ve got some who think that “charter member” implies infallibility.  You have wealthy folks who believe the money they give puts them in charge of who gets a party.  You have deacons whose mothers must not have hugged them nearly enough. 

And you understand the older brother.  You feel underappreciated much of the time. 

HHhhERIt’s time to write the central idea.  Your first preaching textbook insisted that every sermon needs a focus of ten words.  You’re going with, “This church is filled with elder brothers who need to repent.”  It’s eleven words—close enough. 

On Sunday morning, you tell the old, old story, yet again.  Once upon a time there was a father who had two very different sons.  The younger is completely unreliable, and the older thoroughly dependable.

            One day the older brother overhears his irresponsible little brother ask their father for money so he can go out on his own.  The older brother thinks: “Now, he’s gone too far.  Dad’s going to hit the roof.” 

But to his amazement, the father writes the biggest check any of them has ever seen.  The younger son slaps a “Party Animal” bumper sticker on the back of his camel and rides off.

            The older brother never says a word.  With his baby brother gone, he has even more work to do—though not much more.  He works in the field all day every day.  Every muscle aches.  Each night he works late and falls asleep exhausted only to get up early the next morning to do it all again.

            Then one evening as he comes in from the field, sweat dripping down his face, he hears music.  It’s the first music he’s heard since his brother left.  He smells charcoal briquettes and asks a servant what’s going on: “Your brother’s returned and your father’s having a barbecue.” 

Can you believe this?  This young upstart ne’r-do-well ungratefully demands his inheritance, takes the money to Las Vegas, blows every cent on booze and bad women, and when he comes slithering home, his father throws a party.

            It’s easy to understand the older brother’s reaction.  We know this feeling.  It’s when you find out that your friend who never goes to the office on Saturday is paid more than you are.  Why is the world so unfair?  Why can’t people get what they deserve?  Why do some have everything handed to them on a silver platter?  The unfairness of almost everything makes us keep track of the unfairness of almost everything. 

            The older brother confronts his father with what he knows to be the truth:  “All these years I have worked like a slave.  And I’ve never had a party.” 

            You’ve told this story so many times.  You know it so well that your mind wanders and you look at your congregation.  You really look at them.  There are older brothers so far out in the field that they can’t hear the music.  Scribes and Pharisees get lost in the rules.  Bessie just wrote on her order of worship.  You’re going to get a call in the morning.

            A few prodigal sons, wandering in the far country, haven’t figured out it’s time to come home.  Sometimes sinners waste their lives running from the rules.  The college student with whom you had an awkward conversation isn’t there, but one of his fraternity brothers, who had the misfortune of going to college in the town where his parents live, is there on two cups of coffee and four Tylenols. 

            Then it hits you—something you hadn’t recognized before, something you wished you had thought of on Monday morning.  Your congregation isn’t just elder brothers and a few prodigals.  The room is filled, more than anything else, with waiting fathers and mothers. 

            Bob Parsons sits on the back row, because he has trouble walking.  His son is an alcoholic.  Bob’s never been good at tough love.  He’s always waiting with open arms and a new pair of shoes, a ring, a robe. 

If she had been there, Lee Ann Seely, who’s in the choir behind you, would have been praying every day for the prodigal, his father, his brother, for everyone and everything.  She prays as though she is helping God carry the burdens

Fran Patterson, in the balcony with the youth, would have been constantly e-mailing the prodigal.  She would send a care package during finals even though he dropped out.

Donella Ware, always on the third row, would have invited the prodigal’s mother for coffee.  She would have listened carefully, like a real friend. 

Claudine Marion, on the left near the front, loves planning parties.  She would have had steaks waiting in the freezer and a recipe for charcoal-grilled T-bone fatted calf with broiled onions cowboy style taped to the fridge. 

            Dan Freemyer is on the right, halfway back.  He would have gone to the pig sty to get the prodigal, taken him to Dan’s house, showed him to the shower, loaned him his best suit, and gone with him to talk with his father. 

Why didn’t you see it before?  God’s church is filled with people who love like God does.  You are surrounded by saints who want to welcome you and anyone else who will come to the party of God’s grace. 

            These loving people are the way God is waiting to embrace you and Bessie and the freshman with the hangover.  God loves us all—even ministers—through God’s family.

            You’re coming to the end of the sermon.  The older brother stands in the yard feeling sorry for himself.  His father asks him again to come in and have some fun.  Then the father walks toward the party he had hoped would bring his complaining child back to life.  As he looks at his angry son, the father feels old.  The music from the party drifts from the house and hangs in the air between them. 

Then suddenly the father is no longer tired.  The joy of his heart overflows into his feet.  He begins to dance, hoping the music that he can’t resist will bring his child, his true inheritance, his delight, back to him.

Standing in the pulpit, during your own sermon, right there in church, you hear God calling you to come home, inviting you to see that there’s a party going on and join in the dance.

 

 

Let us pray.

God who is our home, we pray with grateful hearts, for you have gathered us in your love.  Our churches, our communities and our world desperately need the hope of reconciliation with you and each other, through Jesus Christ.  Amen. 

 

Law and Grace in the Pulpit

St. Simons Preaching Consultation, September 29, 2008

Luke 15:11-32

Brett Younger