It would be
naïve for me to suppose that I can say much at all about preachers or preaching,
so these are merely a few scattered jots from someone without authority.
Many Sundays
passed listening to my dad preach, and little did I know that one day I would
do the tremulous thing and stand behind the pulpit too.
I remember
thinking when I was a kid that preachers must have some secret knowledge to do
what they do with such astounding and awe-inspiring conviction. Some years
later, I discovered much to my surprise that preachers are not angelic beings
with special knowledge; preachers are regular humans whose knees begin to shake
every time they stand behind the pulpit. Preachers are regular folks who
sometimes mistake themselves for extraordinary folks. Preachers are like
everyone else. Preachers are regular folks who come from the congregation. They
are regular folks who beg God for mercy each Saturday night before they must
speak to the congregation Sunday morning. Preachers are human like any other.
Why then should they be the ones to speak? I have asked
myself this too many times to count as I have ventured through seminary: “Why
should I be the one to preach? There are many others far more suited!” If the
preacher is simply a topsy-turvy human like any other, then what makes the
preacher’s words worth listening to?
The words are
powerful not because of the preacher speaking them but because by God’s mercy
God would use even those feeble words of the preacher for the proclamation of
good news to an aching world. Without the active presence of God working in our
midst, preaching devolves into a futile endeavor of public speaking, futile
because such preaching will be nothing more than some fanciful rhetoric with no
transformative power.
The preacher
then does not have a halo nor does the preacher need to pretend to have one,
for the preacher’s words are important only because with astounding mercy God
patiently uses them.
Where do the
preacher’s words come from? It would be easy to say the Bible. However, it may also
be said that they come from the Spirit’s workings in the church’s compost pile.
And it is for this reason in part why we should not preach, if we are not
willing to wash the church dishes or take out the church garbage.
A good preacher
is like a referee who does not make any headlines the following day. A good
preacher is like a butler whose presence is hardly noticed at the front door. A
good preacher is a humble finger pointing to the crucified messiah and to the unsettling and hope-filled
reality of God in our midst.
