Good News for Lutheran Pastors

This blog entry is adapted from a sermon I preached at the closing worship of the Pastor's Study Conference of the Saskatchewan Synod last fall.  While it is primarily directed at Lutheran Pastors others may find some value in it as well.

A Reading from Romans 10:13-17

All who call on the Lord’s name will be saved.

So how can they call on someone they don’t have faith in? And how can they have faith in someone they haven’t heard of? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who announce the good news.

But everyone hasn’t obeyed the good news. As Isaiah says, Lord, who has had faith in our message? So, faith comes from listening, but it’s listening by means of Christ’s message.

This cartoon made me chuckle.  It actually makes me think of the challenge we have in our current context - proclaiming the Gospel to our neighbours without people rolling their eyes, or slamming the door (metaphorically speaking).  We all know how ineffective it would be in today's world to knock on someone's door and introduce the conversation with “I’d like to talk to you about Jesus.”  How can we talk about Jesus in a way that is heard in our contemporary culture?  We can't stop talking about Jesus altogether, as the Apostle Paul asks “How can they have faith in someone they haven’t heard of?”

The problem we face as we think of preaching the gospel to our neighbours might be summed up with another question: Which Jesus have they heard of?

We have come to know a Jesus of grace and love, of inclusivity and a heart for the outcast.  Is this the Jesus that our neighbours have heard of?  If not, how do we preach the good news to those who think they have heard?

Paul asks “How can they have faith in someone they haven’t heard of?”  I would like to suggest that many people in our communities still haven’t heard of this Jesus that we have faith in.  Thus it falls to us, this important task, this important calling – to preach the good news of Jesus.

I believe that Lutherans stand uniquely positioned in our culture to meet the evangelism needs of today’s younger generations.  I believe that we Lutheran preachers have an unique opportunity presenting itself to us, if we can only see it and respond accordingly.  If only we can find a way to be heard in the cacophony of an increasingly complex world.

 

Before I look at how to be heard let me pause for a moment and explain why I think Lutheranism, the variation represented by the ELCIC and ELCA, is well positioned to tap into the spiritual undercurrents of our current society.

1) First of all we are HISTORICAL – we are not some fly by night group, sprung up in the heat of religious entrepreneurialism.  We have had centuries to refine and deepen our religious resources and rituals.  And we stem from an even longer history of the church catholic. 
 

People today are naturally skeptical, including skeptical of religious claims – but our approach to the spiritual questions of life have some historical heft.  Some people will see this historical connection as a sign of value and worth when asking the big questions of meaning and purpose.  We are not some crazy cult sprung from the mind of a science fiction writer, we are not some overnight success of a television personality that is here today and gone tomorrow.  We trace our heritage through a long history of the church, with all its rituals and traditions, writings and wisdom.

Many people today, when looking for spiritual answers, are not interested in the trendy and the transient, they are looking for something tried and true. They have watched the hollow and self-centered spiritual questing of the consumer culture, and they have found it wanting. 

Some are looking to the past for substance as evidenced by an article I read last month with the eye-catching title “Evangelical youth are getting high.”  The article talked about Evangelical young adults being attracted to worship that is sometimes called High Church.  What I see happening here is that certain young people are looking for something that taps into that ancient sense of mystery and awe.

2) We are a REFORMING church, we are flexible and adapting, not content to remain with the status quo if it is not appropriate.  We are not stagnant, we are a living and responsive body, recognizing that things change and so should we.  We take our cue from Jesus who was willing to change how the Law was interpreted and applied, who broke the kingdom of God out into the wider world – with all the changes that brought to the way people worshipped and lived out the command to love others.

We do not shut our eyes and ears to new information, we allow ourselves to be informed by science as well as scripture.  We reflect, then respond, and when needed reform.  So while we are connected to history we are not bound to repeat it in everyway.  This adaptability will be increasingly important in a world that is changing more and more rapidly.

3)  We are a GRACE-CENTERED church – or to put it another way: we are about acceptance.  The need to be accepted, to belong, is as powerful now as it has ever been – maybe more so since we live in an age of hyper-judgementalism and competition.  People live in constant fear of being voted off the island, of being sent home by the judges, by not measuring up.  Reality Shows remind us over and over that only the minority make it, and the rest are “has beens”… outcasts.  Thus Jesus’ message of acceptance of the outcasts can deeply resonate with a contemporary audience – and a grace-centered church can speak that message with authenticity – we can speak it with word and deed.

In a modern world where people thought the end goal was certainty, then legalistic churches could flourish.  But we are shifting into a post-modern age where certainty is not the ultimate, where doubt is expected, where the action of Love speaks far louder than the shouting of Law.  Grace, costly grace, meaningful grace, the grace of God resonates with our context.

4)  We are a CONGREGATIONAL church – and though many might not see the need for community quite yet I believe the time is coming when being part of a supportive community will become more and more important.  There is still a powerful message of individualism permeating our society, but as the American dream slowly crumbles – and that is already taking place – people will rediscover the need for community.  It will not be enough to say “me and Jesus are cool” – it will be become we and Jesus.  Belonging to a congregation does not mean losing one’s identity and uniqueness, we are not a cult – our sense of the body of Christ means that with us people can belong, be supported, yet be themselves.

To sum up – I think the Lutheran church is uniquely positioned to respond to the spiritual needs of our current culture because we are an Ancient/Future church.

So now back to our original questions:

• How can they have faith in someone they haven’t heard of?
• And how can they hear without a preacher?
• And how can they preach unless they are sent?

We are preachers, we’ve been sent… but as I asked earlier:

How do we preach the good news to those who think they have heard?

This is a problem the Apostle Paul never had to face.  This is problem unique to our time and place.  Here we live in the shadow of fundamentalism, which has often been the easy target of those who wish to reject religion, those who wish to reject anything that might make a claim on their life – anything that might move them out of the center of their universe.  The easy way to reject Jesus is to point to those who claim to follow him, yet mostly display bigoted, judgemental ignorance and hatred.

So I ask again, "How can we be heard in such a society?"

Part of the answer comes in the last verse of the passage Romans referred to earlier:  “faith comes from listening”.

Though not exactly what Paul meant, I would like to contend that to be heard we must listen.  We need to listen, before we share.  Too often we are tellers primarily.  We who are preachers have a compulsion to talk, as evidenced here at this study conference – where people will be talking while someone is presenting.

Thus we might ask “Listening to who?”

First, we must listen to God – in scripture, of course, but also in contemplative prayer.  Richard Rohr believes that contemplative prayer is the only way significant changes can happen in one’s life.

Second, we must listen to others.  People need to know that we truly, honestly take an interest in them, that we value them.  So few people feel listened to these days – I suspect that is part of the appeal of texting and social media – one can express one’s self without being interrupted and cut off – at least not as obviously.  People are longing for someone to listen to them, and we are called to listen first, then speak.  In this culture that is the way to get past the suspicion of hypocrisy.  To listen without an agenda, to listen because we honestly want to hear, we truly want to get to know the other.

Then we can ask others to listen to us.

Donald Posterski once said that in our current pluralistic context we must give permission for others to share their stories.  Then we must take permission to share ours.  But it must happen in that order… which requires patience.  But as Paul reminds us “Love is patient”.

You are sent into your own contexts, into your own communities, into your own challenges.  But you do not go alone.  God’s Spirit goes with you, this we believe.  But also we go with one another – we remain a team even as we are dispersed.  We might work in our own parts of the field, but even so we can call out encouraging words to one another.  We are not alone, we are part of the church catholic.

The harvest is large, and the workers are few.  But it is not as bleak as we might feel.  At the beginning of the 4^th century, when Constantine came to power, the estimate is that Christians made up 10% of the Roman Empire.  But 10% was enough to turn a continent to Christ.  We are at a higher percentage than that, and yes the workers are few but we are here.  And we are an answer to prayer.  We preachers are an answer to someone’s prayers.  We have this special calling, we have beautiful feet, we have a holy task – to tell the GOOD NEWS.  In a world filled with Bad News, this is a wonderful gift, an awesome calling, and you are holy people, set apart to proclaim.  So go forth into the future to fulfill your calling buoyed up with hope. We are sent into the world, our world, with this Gospel. Thanks be to God!