Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Preaching, real preaching, is a task that I just as soon relinquish to others. However, for myself, I am compelled (perhaps in some ways like Paul) to do what I do on Sundays. The difficulty in preaching is not that preparing a "lesson" is hard or that doing exegesis is drudgery. Most of the time, I find delight in my time with texts and study and research and reading. No, the difficulty is in the speaking of the Word.

Most weeks what I discover while residing in the world of Scripture is a vision for the kingdom, a way of living, that is quite distinct from the status quo. And frankly, the clear call for change and growth--the demand to abandon current ways of thinking and living--is not a popular message. Its not popular with my fleshly side, nor does it always tickle the ears of Sunday's congregation.

The confession of most preachers is that we, in our weaker moments, would rather follow the way of Dr. Tickle-text. Dr. Tickle-text, a name created by John Byng years ago to describe a certain preacher who preferred to keep his hearers (particularly his patrons) happy. Alas.

Indeed, as Halford Luccock writes, "We can put religion into a place of ignominous subservience to things as they are not only by vigorous contention for present unchristian conditions, but also by indifference, by a placid serenity which will not allow itself to be ruffled by indignation and is an anaesthetic to the pricks of conscience." Week by week, by God's grace, the faithful preacher must move beyond his own ease to hear and to declare the prophetic Word. Otherwise, the preacher becomes complicit with the powers that be and the Word is lost in the wild cacophony of voices that fills our ears.

Faithful preaching, for me, rests not merely in solid exegesis, healthy theology, and good homiletic theory. Faithful preaching is preaching that resists the ever-present temptation to be something less than the disclosure of God's will for God's people.