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WITNESS OF A FRAGILE SERVANT
Who really wants a God that we can fully comprehend or place in the confines of our feeble words? Who really wants a God where you and I choreograph the dance of our lives and bring in the divine only to follow our lead? Who really wants a God that we have domesticated and whose will is our will and whose ways are our ways? Preaching grows timid when God is made in our image. As proclaimers, we take people into the world of the Bible and speak of a God who is big enough to have God’s way and who doesn’t give us easy answers in a complex and ambiguous world. We want our hearers and ourselves to experience God, to love God with mind, heart, and soul. Our daughter recently came home for a short visit. When I picked her up at the airport, I watched her emerge from the baggage area and saw the young adult she’s become. Laura Beth is working on her dissertation in New Testament. In a meaningful way, she and I are theological colleagues. We talk about cognitive matters. I love her bright mind. But, of course, I love her because she’s my daughter. All of me, however you want to label the parts, loves her. I love her because she’s my child. When our family is together, we experience the fullness of each other. Label that fullness “heart, mind, and soul.” It’s beyond description. So is God. In our world with its confusion, the minister doesn’t say, “I have all the answers.” We point to God and allow ourselves to experience the fullness of God’s presence. “How can we know the way?” the disciples asked as Jesus was preparing them for life after the cross. Jesus personalized the reply. “I am the way,” Jesus said. In preaching, we don’t begin by calling people to believe ideas about Jesus. Instead, we call people to believe in Jesus. In the journey of our faith, there is not an infallible roadmap that guides us unerringly to discern all the ways of God and all the ways in which God may lead us. Jesus doesn’t tell his followers “the way.” He is the way. Jesus calls them to trust his loving preparation for the future and to move forward by faith. That way of living stays open to mystery, to surprise, and ultimately to the God who refuses to be pinned down by our desire for absolute certainty.
What Is Pastoral Preaching? Pastoral preaching incorporates the dynamics of any kind of preaching. However, in speaking about pastoral preaching per se, I see two elements that are important to emphasize. Pastors look at themselves and their