Towards My Next Sermon
Forgive the uber-cliche postmodern insertion of "towards" in the title here. I mean it in a practical and not an epistemological sense. Rather, I just have not written the sermon yet, although I know very well what I am preaching about.
Text: Mark 11:27-33
Any good sermon about Jesus cannot help but be political. Preaching about Jesus leads one into speaking about the realties that Jesus confronted head-on. Avoidance of "political" implications is to harness the Gospel and perhaps even deny the humanity of Christ. We are political animals. Yet the word "political" today can scarcely be uttered without risking the audience parsing every word that follows into one of two categories. Is this preacher a Democrat or a Republican?
My response is to ask you in turn "Was Jesus not the Christ? Doesn't Jesus fully reveal the God of creation so that there can be no doubt Who created this world?" Before you answer, I would recommend a careful study of this text from Mark. Jesus' opponents have become quite nervous. They want answers. They want to know whose side Jesus is on. They have seen great miracles and heard marvelous teachings come from this man, but they do not trust him. His teachings and actions threaten to tear the entire system apart. So they ask him whose side he is on. Is Jesus from God or somewhere else?
The response comes in the form of a question. Before Jesus would tell them what side he was on, Jesus demanded to know something about their allegiance. Were they willing to acknowledge that God was at work in a new way, perhaps even standing before them as Christ? They talked it over. Much was at risk for the leaders of the people. They knew that either answer condemned the very systems that claimed their allegiance. Revolution or conversion confronted them, for the people were listening. So they gave a most skillful political answer: "We do now know." Jesus walks away.
The moral of the story is simple. Before we can know which side Jesus is on, we must confess which side we are on. The first question cannot be: "Is Jesus a Democrat?" or "Is Jesus a Republican?" We must first decide if we are followers of Christ. Then our political allegiance is crystal clear. We can accept neither a war that denies an obligation to protect life nor a peace that ignores the suffering of an oppressed people. We can accept neither the violence of 9/11 nor the destruction of Baghdad.
Additions? Suggestions? Critiques? Be gentle: unfinished work
Text: Mark 11:27-33
Any good sermon about Jesus cannot help but be political. Preaching about Jesus leads one into speaking about the realties that Jesus confronted head-on. Avoidance of "political" implications is to harness the Gospel and perhaps even deny the humanity of Christ. We are political animals. Yet the word "political" today can scarcely be uttered without risking the audience parsing every word that follows into one of two categories. Is this preacher a Democrat or a Republican?
My response is to ask you in turn "Was Jesus not the Christ? Doesn't Jesus fully reveal the God of creation so that there can be no doubt Who created this world?" Before you answer, I would recommend a careful study of this text from Mark. Jesus' opponents have become quite nervous. They want answers. They want to know whose side Jesus is on. They have seen great miracles and heard marvelous teachings come from this man, but they do not trust him. His teachings and actions threaten to tear the entire system apart. So they ask him whose side he is on. Is Jesus from God or somewhere else?
The response comes in the form of a question. Before Jesus would tell them what side he was on, Jesus demanded to know something about their allegiance. Were they willing to acknowledge that God was at work in a new way, perhaps even standing before them as Christ? They talked it over. Much was at risk for the leaders of the people. They knew that either answer condemned the very systems that claimed their allegiance. Revolution or conversion confronted them, for the people were listening. So they gave a most skillful political answer: "We do now know." Jesus walks away.
The moral of the story is simple. Before we can know which side Jesus is on, we must confess which side we are on. The first question cannot be: "Is Jesus a Democrat?" or "Is Jesus a Republican?" We must first decide if we are followers of Christ. Then our political allegiance is crystal clear. We can accept neither a war that denies an obligation to protect life nor a peace that ignores the suffering of an oppressed people. We can accept neither the violence of 9/11 nor the destruction of Baghdad.
Additions? Suggestions? Critiques? Be gentle: unfinished work
posted by matt at 5:08 PM
1 Comments:
yeah, the language still needs tweaking. I am not sure I would understand any of it on a Sunday morning at 9am. The final product will read less like a seminarian's manifesto.
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