Powerless Preacher, Powerful Word

I think every preacher worth more than his salt has a memory chest full of moments like mine from this past Sunday.  It had been a tight week, the sermon had puzzled me all week, and when it was finally together, I wasn't particularly pleased with it. I never really came to a sermon structure I particularly liked, and the sermon teetered between being too simplistic and useless and overly dramatic and bullyish. It was a tricky sermon to get out, partly because the text (Luke 6:27-36) is so raw that it seemed to be defying me to do anything but read it slowly.  It didn't want to be massaged or tweaked, it just wanted me to listen to it.Anyway, whatever the cases for my unease, I just didn't feel like I had my A-game that day.  I just wasn't feeling great about what I had put together.But nonetheless, people were, in that instance still able to hear the Word of God in the sermon moment.  I felt like I was at my least effective moment, but the effect of the word was clearly felt by many in the church.Look, count me among the people that gets a little gagged when I hear things like "God really showed up!" when we talk about stuff like this.  I usually don't like it because it feels really trite and cutesy.  I'm not a robot, but I just don't like that kind of emotional stuff.  It's probably because I really value intentionality and control.But this past week was one in which I really did feel as though the power of the word of God was functioning in a powerful way in our community, regardless of my performance.  For someone that flirts with hubris, that's a good thing.  (I have a website with my name in the domain, people.  I'm more vain than I should be. If I didn't realize I had arrogance issues, that would be an issue.) It's a good thing to realize that preaching, even when I am practicing my craft well, isn't really about how well I perform.  Preaching is about how honest I am with the word, and how well people hear the word. So, this week I want to do the best I can, but I know that the best part of the sermon won't be some cute saying I made up with or any smoking hot exegesis.  It'll be in the moments with the Word, when we simply listen together to the Word.That's where the power is.  That's where the power has always been.

The Other Beatitudes—A Sermon from Luke 6:20-26

Everybody knows the sermon on the mount.  Unfortunately, if I got up this morning and started reading, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are those who [yawn] mourn, for they will be...", it wouldn't be long before I'd see your eyes glaze over, and we'd have to have a coffee break for everybody to stay awake for the rest of the sermon.Everybody knows the sermon on the mount.  It is familiar, beautiful, and powerful.  It is full of language that is burned into our conscious consciences, a part of our ethical core as disciples.  And it should be well known!  It is, after all, the living and powerful word of God! It deserves a place in our ethical core!  But unfortunately, like is often the case, familiarity breeds contempt. In our familiarity with the Sermon on the mount, we have lost something of our ability to really listen to what it really says.But, what if the sermon on the mount had a little brother?  I have a couple of little brothers.  They're both tough as nails.  They don't mess around much, say what they mean and mean what they say.  To top it off, they're stubborn as all get out.  If you can get that mental image in your head—the little brother, fists up, ready to get nasty if need be—I'd like to introduce you to the little brother of the sermon on the mount.  It's name is "the Sermon on the Plain", and it waits for us in the middle of Luke 6. (The sermon doesn't even get its own chapter!  It shows up here just after Jesus has named his twelve apostles.  It almost seems to function as their introduction into what being a disciple of Jesus is really going to be about.)The Sermon on the Plain is really a distilled version of the sermon on the mount.  They have a lot in common, but the sermon on the plain is shorter, tougher, punchier.  Maybe it's just because it is less familiar that it feels a little more stubborn and unrelenting than its big brother does.  But instead of talking about it too much in generalities, let me show you what I mean, and let's read a little bit of it together.  It starts out with a set of beatitudes, just like the sermon in Matthew.  They read a little bit differently, though.  We'll start in Luke 6:20. These are the "other beatitudes'.

And He lifted his eyes to his disciples and said, "Blessed are the poor, because yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who are hungry now, because you will be filled.  Blessed are those who are crying now, because you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you and when they exclude you and insult you and throw out your name as something evil because of the son of man. Rejoice in that day and jump for joy! Because, listen—your reward in heaven will be greater, because their ancestors did the same sorts of things to the prophets.

On the other hand, [this might be a good time to pull your toes in] cursed are you who are rich, because you have received every bit of your comfort. Cursed are you who are full now, because you will go hungry. Cursed are you who laugh now, because you will mourn and cry. Cursed are you when everyone says good things about you; because that's how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

I find these "other beatitudes" to be intense, raw, and inescapable. I look into them, and I easily see myself.  Unfortunately, I see myself on the wrong side, not among those who are blessed, but among the cursed.  Jesus paints two pictures.  One is of a group of people who are poor, hungry, saddened.  They are outsiders, and everyone talks and thinks badly of them. Jesus looks at that group and says—you are blessed! In his eyes, they're the lucky ones!and then there is another group.  They are rich.  They have full bellies.  They are happy and laughing, and everybody likes them because they're easy to get along with.  Doggone it, that's a pretty good picture of just the kind of guy I've wanted to become my whole life.  Isn't that just a cup of cold water to the face?  The very kind of person I've spent my whole life—Jesus says they're cursed.  He looks at them and says, "Man.  Gotta feel sorry for you guys."This set of beatitudes says that in Jesus' eyes, the reality of the world is the opposite of everything I've ever known.  He takes all my assumptions about the world, and politely blows them to pieces.Anybody else bothered by that?If we're really reading it, we're bothered by it.  It's so unrelenting and demanding.  It's so physical that it won't let me spiritualize it and shoo it away.  no "poor in spirit" here.  It's the poor that are blessed.  No hungering for righteousness in this sermon, only the really physical feeling of hunger that comes from not having enough food to eat.Faced with such a demanding text, I think two options present themselves.  "Option 1" is that we take these simple sayings and tease them out, dissect them down, gradually interpreting them in ways that dull their sting a little bit.  In option 1, we interpret them away, and I have to admit that this is a pretty compelling path.  I would love to do that, to employ whatever sophisticated exegesis and interpretation methods might promise to soften the blow a bit.  I wish I could take these things that Jesus says and turn them into what I think he should say.  I would love to somehow transform these beatitudes and woes into something interesting.  But they aren't that, are they?  Not on their own.  This text isn't interesting—its dangerous.  It is sharply critical of my vision of my very life.Option 1 is to interpret them away.  In Option 2, we let them interpret us. What if we could let these words diagnose us?  What if I could let them shape me into the kind of person that Jesus admires? What if I could let them really challenge my idea of what the good life is really all about, and provoke me into letting Jesus teach me about his way of life, his vision of life.This week, sometime when you're by yourself in front of a mirror, I want to ask you to take a few moments and let these other beatitudes challenge you with a couple of questions.  Stop and look, literally, into your own eyes and ask yourself a few questions.First, "Who am I becoming?" What kinds of things characterize who you are, both inside and out.  What dominates your life?.Second, and more interesting, "Who gets to decide who I am becoming?" Looking at where you're headed is a good start, but for people who claim to be disciples of Jesus, a more basic question is whether or not we are really letting him determine the vision for our lives.  The guy who said these beatitudes is really painting a radical vision, but am I willing to let that vision really affect me.  Drive me?Finally, "What about everybody else?" It's not just about me. These beatitudes not only change the way I see myself, but the way I look at almost everyone I see.  People aren't good or bad, lucky or unlucky, blessed or cursed in the same ways I normally think about it.  My ideas of status and value just don't hold up in the face of these beatitudes.  But, it's not my ideas of value that really matter anyway.  It's what Jesus values that really matters.  After all, he is the master.  I am the student.I've got a lot to learn.(Audio version here: The Plain Beatitudes. This is part one of this series.)

A Note about Sermon Manuscripts

I'm going to publish sermon manuscripts here from time to time, and I wanted to say a little bit of how the manuscript functions for me.  It is rarely a word-for-word version of what actually gets delivered from the pulpit, but its part of my preparation cycle when I'm taking the parts of thesermon and working out how they might fit together, how they might sound.  It gives me a chance to tweak the sermon structure and do some word-smithing with particular parts of the sermon.  It's a part of crystalizing the sermon itself, part of the discipline of preparation, but I don't usually think of the manuscript as the final version.  and it might sound like a weird nuance, but I want to be clear that between the manuscript and the actual spoken word event, the real sermon is the latter.  The manuscript is a written document reflecting the sermon, the sermon itself is a spoken word.  I think they are both useful, although not exactly the same thing.I welcome any feedback on either versions of the sermons I intend to post here. As with any post, if there's an element in the sermon that leads you to another though, please share in the comments.  The more voices, the better!