Scott E. Hoezee

This prayer of confession originally appeared in "Are We Faking It?—Lent 1: A Convenient God?"PrayerEternal God, you do not change. You have revealed yourself to us in your Word. You call us to worship you in Spirit and in Truth. But we confess that we often worship not your true Self but who we wish you to be. We too often ask you to bless what we do rather than seeking to do what you bless. Forgive us for seeking concessions when we should be seeking guidance. Forgive us when our worship shapes you into what we want instead of shaping us into what you want. Help us to meet you here in your house that we might bow before your unspeakable majesty and so live for you now and ever, in the Christ. Amen.

This call to worship originally appeared in "Are We Faking It?—Lent 1: A Convenient God?"Call to WorshipLet us worship God."He is our refuge and our fortress, our God in whom we trust" (Psalm 91:2, NIV).Let us confess with our mouths, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead."Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13, NIV).Let us then call upon our true God, believing him in our hearts, confessing him with our mouth, worshiping him in Spirit and in Truth.Revised Common LectionaryYear A: Season after Pentecost—Proper 14 (19)Year C: Lent—First Sunday in LentYear C: Season after Pentecost—Proper 21 (26) 

This is part of the worship series"Are We Faking It?"Introduction | Lent 1 | Lent 2 | Lent 3 | Lent 4 | Lent 5FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENTLent, Grace, and GratitudeCall to Worship Let us worship God who has done great things.We rejoice in our God who had made a way through the desert of this world.Let us worship God who has caused streams of mercy to flow in the wasteland;We are the people God has formed through Christ, we worship him and we rejoice!Let us worship God in Spirit and in Truth.We praise God for the grace that has saved us. Alleluia! We rejoice!—Adapted from Isaiah 43:16–21Sermon Text Philippians 3:4b–14Sermon IdeasLast week we considered a Nietzsche-like squinting at our virtues in order to recognize and then root out the sins that often cling to them. When our virtues spring from improper motives (like trying to make God love us or trying to gain public approval) they do not please God. We must recognize that we are saved by grace alone and that nothing we do will ever add to or detract from that perfect work.But where does that leave the moral life and all the religious practices we've been considering this Lent? If living virtuously will not save us, then why be good at all? Paul's words in Philippians 3:4b-14 give us an interesting opportunity to explore this theme. Paul is at pains in this passage to make clear that in the light of Christ's ultimate sacrifice on the cross (a light that literally blinded Paul on the Damascus road) even our brightest efforts look like a 25-watt bulb on a sunlit beach. In fact, Paul claims, our moral efforts are not only dim, but are exposed as rubbish (and no one is saved by accumulating rubbish!).But all is not lost: God's love is not earned but is freely given. Salvation is a gift. Paul states that earlier in his life he thought salvation was all about ow doing, but in Jesus he learned that it's all about Gods doing. Still, receiving this gift does not render us inactive. No sooner does Paul distance himself from his former life of legalism than he begins to talk about earnest striving, pressing on toward a goal, and, most incongruously, earning a prize. If salvation is a gift, why would Paul still focus on our strivings?The answer has to do with the awesome power of God's grace—a power so mighty that it not only saves, it transforms. After baptism, we Christians start to become interested in matters in which we previously took no interest. Principally we become interested in Jesus and his resurrection power. "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection."Nietzsche was convinced that there are never pure motives behind even the most virtuous of actions. We Christians know that having such pure motives is possible, but only through the Spirit. The only motive that is finally proper for living the moral life is that of gratitude. The person who is truly self-forgetful, who focuses on Jesus and on the glory of God, who does what is virtuous because this has become second nature to her—this is the one whose Christian life has the right focus.As a Lenten message, this sermon climaxes our look at religious practice by focusing believers on the awesome love of God displayed in Holy Week. When we see the cross, our mouths drop open, our minds go numb, and we desire fervently to become better acquainted with the God who would go so far to save. We Christians confess that often we do have mixed motives, as Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche grimly suspected. But Lent and especially the upcoming Holy Week fill us with the proper motivation of gratitude and God-glorifying praise in the wake of Jesus' awesome sacrifice of love. Following Jesus down the way of the cross is our task as we strain by the Spirit toward that lofty goal of being Christlike in gratitude for all God has done. Such a life truly does worship God "in Spirit and in Truth."Prayer God of salvation, in Christ you have done great things— our hearts are filled with joy. By your power you lifted us out of the wasteland of sin and brought us with joy and laughter into your kingdom. Salvation is your gift to us. But we confess that often we try to replace your gift with our own efforts. We try to complete what is already perfect; we try to add to what is already full; we try to earn what we already have. Forgive us for our foolishness. Help us to focus on your grace. Help us to live grateful lives in return—not so that we can go to heaven, but because by grace you've brought us there already. For Jesus' sake alone, Amen.—Adapted from Psalm 126 Psalm and Hymn Suggestions Opening Hymn "Christ, the Life of All the Living" Homburg Hymn of Confession "And Can It Be" WesleyHymn of Preparation or Response"Amazing Grace-How Sweet the Sound" Newton"O Jesus, We Adore You" Russell"O Sacred Head, Now Wounded" Arnulf, St. Bernard of ClairvauxRevised Common LectionaryYear C: Lent—Fifth Sunday in Lent

This is part of the worship series"Are We Faking It?"Introduction | Lent 1 | Lent 2 | Lent 3 | Lent 4 | Lent 5 FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENTA Squinting ConfessionCall to Worship Let us worship God who reconciled us to himself through Christ.We are new creations, the old has gone, the new has come!Let us worship God as Christ's ambassadors.Through us and through our worship, may we announce the Good News to all.Let us worship God in Spirit and in Truth.Praise God! We are reconciled, redeemed, renewed!—Adapted from 2 Corinthians 5:16–21 NIVSermon Text Luke 35:1–3, 11b–32Sermon IdeasUnlike Freud and Marx, who looked at broader religious movements, Friedrich Nietzsche hits closer to home by probing the believers heart. Nietzsche believed that actions, including apparently virtuous ones, are never what they seem and that people are always seeking after power, mastery, and fame. With narrowed eyes, Nietzsche would squint at even the most humble of acts and conclude, "He's not really self-effacing! This, too, is just a power play!"Although he carried it to an absurd extreme, there is merit in Nietzsche's "genealogy of moral virtues." Where do our virtues come from? What is motivating us when we act morally? Christians have always acknowledged that self-deception is an exceedingly powerful player in our hearts. Hence Scripture's call to rigorous self-examination.For instance, let's say an attractive (albeit married) coworker presents us with the temptation to flirt or be suggestive. But then let's say we resist. Later we may pat ourselves on the back for doing the Christian thing—even though our motivation sprang less from virtue than from sheer cowardice. Perhaps we feared rejection. Perhaps we feared getting caught. The most frightening question a Christian can ask is, "How much would I do if I knew I'd never get caught?"Scripture clearly teaches that God has little use for right actions done from wrong motives, Wrong motives for the Christian can include social convention, fear, Nietzschian desires for power or acclaim, or the desire to make God love us so we can earn our salvation. And once we start thinking our morality is earning us points, we soon begin using our virtuous lives to elevate us above those who do not live so well. In any event, we lose sight of grace.As Westphal points out, this is also the theme in New Testament clashes between Jesus and the Pharisees. This sermon and the next center on God's grace. This week we focus on how the Pharisees (represented in Luke 15 by the prodigal son's older brother) lost sight of God's grace and so had impure motives for even the most virtuous of their actions.The older brother spent his life doing the right things. But to him it was merely a "slaving away" and not, as it may have appeared, a genuinely loving service to an abundantly loving father. By focusing on the older brother and what motivated him to do good in his life, the congregation can ponder what motivates many of us. When we act morally, are we expressing gratitude for grace or are we trying to earn it? Are we acting out of love or fear? Are we self-effacing or self-serving?The sin that dwells in the fruit of the Spirit when our motives are bad is like a worm in an otherwise good-looking apple. This message calls for recognition of such sins. Of course, unlike Nietzsche, we believe that genuine, rightly motivated virtues are possible. Yet we confess that many times our deeds are not so pure. Squinting at even our own virtues should become a daily part of our confession of sin. No matter how glittering our lives appear on the outside, we are all finally prodigal sons and daughters who every day need grace—often for what's wrong even with what we do right! (Note: The next message will try to detail what should motivate our moral lives in the light of grace.)Prayer Righteous God, in Christ you became sin for us. You took what we are so that we might become what you are. But we confess that often we ignore our sin. We confess that we too often do not confess. We keep silent about the sin that clings to us. But our sins are too great a burden for us. Forgive us. In Christ take away our iniquity. You are our stronghold, our hiding place. May we confess our sins that we might then rejoice and be glad in you and in the righteousness that flows over us as a mighty stream of grace. In Christ, Amen.—Adapted from Psalm 32Psalm and Hymn SuggestionsOpening Hymn"Amid the Thronging Worshipers" Public Domain Hymn of Confession"Out of Need and out of Custom" Medema"How Blest Are They Whose Trespass" Public Domain "Lord, I Pray" KeegstraHymn of Preparation or Response"When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" Watts"Have Thine Own Way, Lord" Pollard"Lord, I Want to Be a Christian" African-American spiritual Revised Common LectionaryYear C: Lent—Fourth Sunday in Lent

This is part of the worship series"Are We Faking It?"Introduction | Lent 1 | Lent 2 | Lent 3 | Lent 4 | Lent 5 THIRD SUNDAY IN LENTThe Monday GapCall to WorshipLet us worship God, for whom our souls thirst and our bodies long (Psalm 63:1, NIV)."Listen, listen to me, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare" (Isaiah 55:2, NIV).We have come to hear the Word God has sent.God's Word will not return empty but will accomplish through us his holy purpose.Let us worship God in Spirit and in Truth.Then we will go out with joy and be led forth in peace, the mountains and the hills will sing, the trees of the field will clap their hands.Sermon Text Luke 13:1–9Sermon IdeasThe most well-known line Karl Marx ever wrote is doubtless "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Marx, like Freud, believed that Christian beliefs are not revealed from heaven but are invented on earth. Actually, Marx approved of Christian concern for justice, righteousness, and peace. The problem with religious people, Marx thought, is that instead of working to make this life more just, righteous, and peaceful, they pin all their hopes on a future world.When Marx called religion "an opiate," he meant that religion is like a drug that numbs people's minds to the injustice around them. Because they anticipate a better world to come, religious people fail to work to make this world a better place today. A pie-in-the-sky hope for the future makes people passive in the present.Marx's message, shorn of its political baggage, convicts us that at times we are guilty of religious quietism. Too often our lofty spiritual talk never leaves the sanctuary. Someone once wrote about "The Monday Gap." What they meant is that Sunday's message often doesn't have an impact on a person's business practices come Monday morning. On Sunday we sing that "Jesus loves the little children of the world," but during the rest of the week we don't do much to improve the lot of this world's children. Although we all know that the Christian life is to be one of spiritual fruit-bearing, the limbs of our spiritual trees seldom sag under the weight of too much holy produce.This Sunday's Lectionary reading from Luke 13 touches on the Lenten theme of repentance but follows that immediately with a parable on the need to bear fruit—or else. In last week's sermon we touched on the notion that we are not to look for the kingdom of God to be institutionalized in any government or society of this earth. But that does not mean we are to withdraw from society or that we should not be concerned with issues like justice and peace for all. The kingdom of God is not of this earth, but it does impinge on our lives now. So we must work in all segments of life to trace out the kingdom's holy contours.During Lent we speak much of the cross and of the repentance that it properly inspires. But repentance devoid of a subsequently changed life is false and hollow. God is only interested in a repentance that issues in clusters and clusters of rich, succulent, spiritual fruit. If our Lenten repentance does not issue in a vibrant post-Easter life of service, then we may have followed Jesus part of the way to Golgotha, but we obviously never finished the journey.So this sermon should focus on overcoming the Monday gap by connecting our liturgical words and deeds of Sunday to our ordinary speech and actions during the week. We dare not allow our Sunday worship to be a narcotic that soothes our hearts but paralyzes our hands. "Liturgy" means "service," but when the postlude is finished our service has only just begun.PrayerWord of God Incarnate, you came to this world to accomplish salvation. By your grace you call us to repent, to be crucified with you that we might be raised as a new creation. But we confess that we often do not live as renewed people. We confess that often we "go with the flow" instead of stemming sin's tide. Forgive us when we do not show evidence of renewal. Forgive us when we let the fruit of the Spirit be choked by the weeds of evil. You have made us your children, members of your kingdom. Help us to show evidence of that every day as we work to bring your justice, peace, gentleness, goodness, love, joy, and hope to all we meet. For Jesus' sake, Amen.Psalm and Hymn SuggestionsOpening Hymn"O Lord, My God, Most Earnestly" Public Domain"O God, You Are My God" Webber"The Trees of the Field" RubinHymn of Confession"Not What My Hands Have Done" BonarHymn of Preparation or Response"Fill Thou My Life, O Lord, My God" Bonar"God Works His Purposes in Us" Topp"The Fruit of the Spirit" Gillette"O God, My Faithful God" HeermannRevised Common LectionaryYear C: Lent—Third Sunday in Lent

This is part of the worship series"Are We Faking It?"Introduction | Lent 1 | Lent 2 | Lent 3 | Lent 4 | Lent 5 SECOND SUNDAY IN LENTA Christian Nation?Call to Worship based on Psalm 27Let us worship God who is our light and our salvation.The Lord is the stronghold of our lives.We desire to live in God's house and to seek him in his holy Temple.We have come with shouts of joy, to sing and to make music to the Lord.Let us worship God in Spirit and in Truth.Teach us your ways and make straight our paths in this hour of worship and always.Sermon Text Philippians 3:17–4:1Sermon IdeasKarl Marx believed that Christianity is frequently used to "deodorize" or legitimize the sometimes evil practices of governments. Marx asserted that instead of shaping and, where appropriate, decrying the policies of the state, the Christian religion is very often used as an ideology to justify those practices in the name of God (thus placing them above reproach). Unhappily, the history of the church bears out much of what Marx asserted.Today American civil religion (and its equivalent in other nations) proclaims that America is a Christian nation, founded by Christian people, established and regulated by Christian principles. Whether and to what extent those ideas are accurate is a matter of heated debate. But whatever their political views, all Christians should agree that their highest allegiance must be to the kingdom of God. Christians are called to incarnate the ways of Christ, whether or not those ways are in accord with or approved by the state.As members of free nations, we Christians can be profoundly thankful for our country. The Bible frequently calls on us to pray for our leaders, pay our taxes, and be law-abiding citizens. But we must be wary of baptizing any one nation as "Christian."Lent is a time when we need to be reminded that the cross, unadorned by any nation's flag, determines our true citizenship in God's kingdom. In Philippians 3 Paul makes clear that a focus on earthly things can lead us to neglect the cross, which in turn malforms our Christian lives. The cross, Paul says, is to shape us in every significant way. Our lives are to be examples of humble service, of self-sacrifice, of obedience, and of dying to sin that we might live for Christ (cf. Philippians 2:5-11).As a Lenten message, this sermon need not be "political." Rather, given Paul's clear concern for the cruciform life, the message could highlight ways in which the "earthly things" of our own culture may distract us from the way of the cross. Some sample ideas might include the influence that capitalism has on our perceptions of grace; the influence that radical individualism has on our sense of community in the body of Christ; the influence that our culture's infatuation with power (power lunches, power ties) has on the humble way of the cross.These days the media and many Christians focus on "litmus test" issues like abortion or homosexuality, often in an attempt to make a "Christian nation" out of our land. But while such issues may be of proper concern for Christians (cf. the message for next week) we should acknowledge that God's kingdom will never be built on this earth or represented by any government. When we attempt to make it so, we easily come to believe that our culture's patterns are the patterns of the kingdom. And when this happens, we cease being what we should be: namely a distinctive, counter-community of the cross.In Lent we are called to walk with Jesus on the way of the cross, the only way that leads to life in God's kingdom in which all believers are citizens.PrayerGod of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we are your covenant people—one church, drawn from all nations. Our citizenship is in heaven. Yet we confess, O Lord, that we sometimes lose sight of your kingdom and its ways. We confess that we sometimes live more as citizens of our own land than as citizens of your kingdom. By your truth you call all peoples into account. Forgive us for losing our distinctiveness. Focus us on your cross and on the salvation we await from heaven, from him who is the Lord and King and Judge of us all, Jesus the Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.Psalm and Hymn SuggestionsOpening Hymn"O Lord, You Are My Light" (Psalm 27) Watts"Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies" WesleyHymn of Confession"Lord, We Cry to You for Help" ZwingliHymn of Preparation or Response"O God of Every Nation" Watkins Reid"Christ Shall Have Dominion" Public Domain Revised Common LectionaryYear C: Lent—Second Sunday in Lent

This is part of the worship series"Are We Faking It?"Introduction | Lent 1 | Lent 2 | Lent 3 | Lent 4 | Lent 5 FIRST SUNDAY IN LENTA Convenient God?Call to WorshipLet us worship God."He is our refuge and our fortress, our God in whom we trust" (Psalm 91:2, NIV).Let us confess with our mouths, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead."Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13, NIV).Let us then call upon our true God, believing him in our hearts, confessing him with our mouth, worshiping him in Spirit and in Truth.Sermon TextMatthew 4:1–11 (for year C use Luke 4:1–13)* *The Lectionary for Year C calls for the Lucan account of the temptations, but Matthew's version has some homiletical advantages for this message.Sermon NotesSigmund Freud believed that Christian doctrines are not revealed by God but are rather invented by Christians as a way to sanction their wishes. These doctrines, and the religious ceremonies by which they are expressed, said Freud, serve as ways to legitimize peoples desires.For example, Freud viewed the Christian ceremony of marriage as a way to legitimize sexual relations. To his way of thinking, it was not that God established marriage as the place in which to enjoy sexuality, but rather that marriage was invented by Christians so that they could enjoy sexual practice without guilt. In short, God did not create Christian doctrines; Christian doctrines created a God of convenience.The Lectionary readings for the first Sunday in Lent remind us of the need to bow only before the true God as revealed in Scripture. But Jesus' temptations teach us that Satan regularly attempts to make us worship anything but the true God. As Richard Mouw wrote, "The Devil does not want us to worship God, but outside of that he's flexible—anything goes."In the temptations the Devil tries to distort Jesus' view of God. First, since God had just declared Jesus to be his Son (cf. the baptism in Matthew 3:17). the Devil tries to make Jesus doubt God. "If you are the Son of God, prove it! Turn stones into bread, and then we'll know whether or not God lied back there at the Jordan!" But Jesus takes God at his Word. Next the Devil tries to make Jesus doubt that Word (the Scriptures). "If God's Word is true, test it—step out onto it!" Again, Jesus resists by relying on the Word. Finally the Devil tips his hand and shows what has been his goal all along— worship of himself instead of the true God. In the end the Devil is defeated through the one verse that always slays him, "Worship the Lord God and serve him only."In our lives the Devil is equally interested in distorting the Bible's presentation of God. If Satan can't keep us out of church, he can at least try to distort our view of the God we worship there (cf. Lewis's The Screivtape Letters). Freud thought that Christians always distort God into someone more to their liking. By pointing this out, Freud unwittingly unmasked one of Satan's more common tactics.As a Lenten message, this sermon focuses on the ways in which we distort God and so end up worshiping a God of convenience. Self-deception is that powerful player in our hearts by which we justify our sins (or by which we simply fail to notice them in the first place). In our self-deception we also make God what we want him to be—someone who ignores our sin by sanctioning our lifestyles.In the temptations Jesus was essentially being asked to bargain with God. "Lord, I'll believe you if..." But the true God is not a God of bargains. Our role as Christians is not to negotiate our sins with God but to confess them and then, by the Spirit, to reform our ways. Our true God encounters us through the Word and sacraments not to do our bidding but to remake us into his image through Christ. Only a true, thorough knowledge of God's Word (note Jesus' refrain "It is written...") can serve as a defense against the distortions of God to which the Devil tempts us.PrayerEternal God, you do not change. You have revealed yourself to us in your Word. You call us to worship you in Spirit and in Truth. But we confess that we often worship not your true Self but who we wish you to be. We too often ask you to bless what we do rather than seeking to do what you bless. Forgive us for seeking concessions when we should be seeking guidance. Forgive us when our worship shapes you into what we want instead of shaping us into what you want. Help us to meet you here in your house that we might bow before your unspeakable majesty and so live for you now and ever, in the Christ. Amen.Psalm and Hymn SuggestionsOpening Hymn"Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise" Smith"He Is Lord" VestHymn of Confession"My Faith Looks Up to Thee" PalmerHymn of Preparation or Response "O Jesus, Joy of Loving Hearts" Bernard of Clairvaux"At the Name of Jesus" Noel"O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High" KempisRevised Common LectionaryYear A, C: Lent—First Sunday in Lent

Over the last nearly ten years I have had the privilege of writing more than forty “For Pastor” columns in this space. But with Reformed Worship’s transition to an online-only format, this will be the last such column.In my first column, way back in RW 117, I wrote:Very often when talking to students about their upcoming preaching careers, I remind them that no single sermon is remembered for very long. Even sermons that go over well and that garner lots of wonderful comments at the narthex door sooner or later—and it’s very often sooner—fade from people’s memories. What sticks for people is the pattern of any given preacher’s sermons. What are the themes that get hit again and again, week to week and month after month? What words, phrases, emphases, and priorities build up in the congregation like a lovely residue over time? Those are the things—far more than individual sermons—that shape the congregation’s lived-out theology.—Scott Hoezee, “Missional Preaching for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany,” Reformed Worship 117, © September 2015, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Used by permission.Looping back to that in my final column seems fitting. Beyond whatever specific thoughts on preaching I conveyed in any given issue of RW, what I hope has stuck with you is the overarching theme of how vital I deem preaching to be in Christ’s church. The first thing that happened after the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost was a sermon, and subsequently in the book of Acts there are about as many sermons as there are chapters in the book. There has never been an era in the history of the Christian church when preaching was not a central part of worship. Lengths, formats, and styles of preaching have varied from time to time and from tradition to tradition, but there has never been a time or place where someone concluded, “I think we can do without preaching.” Preaching has endured across the millennia, and the reason seems plain enough: the Holy Spirit likes to work through the sermon. It was how the Spirit got things rolling on Pentecost, and nothing about the Spirit’s work has changed since that day. Preaching has persisted not because the majority of sermons in history have been so stellar. Indeed, the church has always had to contend with preaching that may qualify as weak or dull. But somehow the Spirit gets things done even in those situations because, as Neal Plantinga often observes, when the Holy Spirit of God is blowing in the sanctuary on a Sunday morning as the sermon is being proclaimed, you never know what might happen. Rev. Fred Rogers—better known as children’s television host Mister Rogers—once related the anecdote of having sat through a sermon one Sunday morning that he deemed less than effective. Rogers turned to the person sitting next to him to convey as much when he was stopped in his tracks: his neighbor in the pew had tears streaming down her face, having been moved and comforted by that very same sermon.Experienced preachers also know that a preacher will somewhat regularly be thanked by someone for something the preacher did not say. There is a sense in which no sermon ever delivers only one message. By the Spirit, people hear as many different versions of the sermon as there are people listening to it in the sanctuary. Preaching matters, and the church has survived centuries’ worth of subpar sermons because somehow this is the vehicle through which the Spirit builds up faith and thickens our union with Christ. Preaching challenges us, preaching consoles us, preaching teaches us, preaching comforts us, preaching convicts us. Preaching keeps the good news of the gospel in front of a world desperate for something to hold on to.Preaching is particularly needed in this season of fierce divisions and conflicts around the world. Preaching has never been easy, and perhaps it’s not supposed to be. But many pastors say they are navigating some especially difficult sociopolitical and cultural shoals of late. Yet I contend that the very things that make preaching a bit perilous today are exactly why preaching remains so vitally important for the church. In a world where everything seems up for grabs, in a time when so much is shifting beneath our feet, people everywhere need to hear over and over that old, old story of Jesus and his love. In these disorienting times, we desperately need the reorientation that can come when we encounter afresh the living word of God in preaching.One of the themes of this final print issue of Reformed Worship is crossing thresholds. Indeed, we seem to be living in a liminal moment. Following the COVID pandemic and in a time of great political turmoil, we have this sense of leaving behind a world we once knew and crossing a threshold into a future whose exact contours are by no means clear. We may never get back to how things once were. The disruptions we have experienced in the last decade will (we hope and pray) eventually even out. But what the new world we pass into will look like is not clear.Our primary hope is that what will endure from one time period to the next is the holy word of God. The gospel has survived times of persecution as far back as the Roman Empire. The gospel has survived the era of the catacombs. The gospel has survived the bubonic plague, world wars, holocausts, slavery, racism, tyranny, communism, socialism, and every other thing you could name as a historical epoch. The faithful preaching of God’s word and Christ’s gospel is not the only reason the truth of God and the hope of Christ Jesus our Lord have survived. But preaching certainly has played a big role in keeping the bright and beautiful things of God before the watching eyes of an oft-weary world. This “For Pastors” column is coming to an end, but Reformed Worship will continue to find ways to support preaching because the need for faithful heralds of the word will never end until such time as the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth the way the waters cover the seas, until that time when no one will have to teach their neighbor about Jesus Christ because every knee will already be bowing to and every tongue will already be confessing Jesus as Lord. Especially as we cross thresholds into new worlds, we will continue to declare in public worship, “The word of the Lord,” and God’s people will always respond, “Thanks be to God.”

As I write this column, the 2024 presidential election in the United States is just over three weeks away, and by the time you read this, you will know what happened and what the aftermath has been, one way or the other. Your congregation might not be located in the United States, but I am sure you can relate to a situation in which your congregation, or at least your community, is of two very different minds—a situation in which friends might begin to view each other as adversaries. How does such a taut atmosphere affect preaching? Like the proverbial coin with two sides, that question can be asked in two different ways: How does this environment influence how preachers write their sermons, and, on the flipside, how does this environment affect how people hear sermons? If I could satisfactorily answer these questions, I would write a best-selling book and retire! Instead I will only venture a few tentative thoughts. First, all of us who preach know that in recent years being a preacher has been a very lonely experience. And preachers have professed to me in various encounters that they feel not just lonely, but vulnerable and afraid. Many preachers have a keen sense that they could be one verbal misstep away from being shown the door—or at least be subject to withering criticism.The result for many is a new tentativeness. Caution seems to be the name of the game now in crafting sermons. But not a few preachers feel guilty about this. Aren’t we called to be bold proclaimers of the gospel? Aren’t we called to challenge people in their lives of discipleship, to help them see their lives bathed in a saving and renewing grace that ought to make a significant difference in most everything they do? But these days that may be just the kind of boldness that will not be received well. So preachers hedge. They come within sight of boundary lines, but they don’t dare get too close, and they surely don’t cross them.This sense of a heightened critical atmosphere is not something preachers are imagining. The exact same words and phrases and sentiments that people might have heard as a whisper thirty years ago now come across as shrill, partisan screams. This is due in part to social media. Too many people spend their weeks being ginned up by peers to watch out for triggering words or phrases that might mean the person uttering them is woke or divisive or sharpening a partisan political axe. Churchgoers may be parsing their pastor’s every word in public prayers and sermons to make sure no one gets away with smuggling in rhetoric they have been taught to reject in the echo chambers of Facebook and X.Ours is a difficult cultural and ecclesiastical moment. So what to do? A recent documentary film provides one picture of what it might look like for pastors trying to live in this fraught moment. Leap of Faith is directed by Nicholas Ma, who also directed the recent Fred Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Ma made this new movie in conjunction with The Colossian Forum.  Led by Michael Gulker—who features prominently in the film—The Colossian Forum is an organization based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that is dedicated to helping congregations and individuals speak together about divisive issues in the hopes of modeling civil dialogue that helps people respect and care for one another, even across fierce political, theological, and ecclesial divides. Leap of Faith documents the organization’s efforts across one year to help twelve pastors from the Grand Rapids area talk to one another and try to come to care about one another despite big differences of opinion. Ma collected three hundred hours of footage from interviews and from multiple four-day retreats attended by the dozen pastors and Colossian Forum staff. The pastors no doubt discussed many topics, but for the sake of the film, issues relating to LGBTQ+ discussions became the focus. Since one of the pastors is a woman who is in a same-sex marriage, the conversations were frequently fraught, deeply emotional, and frankly quite painful for all of the pastors in the group. If you are a preacher reading this column and have not seen the film, I highly recommend you do so.So far as I can tell, in that group of twelve pastors no one significantly changed their views. But by listening well to one another, they got closer to the goal of seeing the person with whom they disagree as a real human being made in the image of God. The person with whom you disagree is not just a walking aggregate of opinions, but a flesh-and-blood person with a beating heart and with feelings as real as your own.In our congregations, can we talk with one another in ways that help congregants see their pastor as not just the sum of varying ideas and opinions, but as a fellow disciple of Jesus who loves the Lord as much as anyone and is seeking to be faithful to their calling to serve that Savior? Can pastors in turn see even those whom they deem to be the most suspicious members of the congregation as disciples of Christ trying to do their best for the God and Savior they also love? This is something the church needs to be praying about. We need to be praying together about this. Could preachers and congregants also find creative ways to widen the circle of sermon preparation? Perhaps discussion groups could be convened to generate ideas for a given sermon ahead of its being written. Similarly, after a sermon is delivered, various people could come together with the preacher to talk about what went well, how a sermon was heard or perceived, and how going forward the preacher could articulate certain ideas in ways that will reach more people instead of fewer, thus heading off unnecessary misunderstandings.None of this is free of peril. While ideally groups like this could become a place of constructive understanding and healing, on the other hand they could become places where a different spirit takes over and damage gets done. But if there is one thing recent years have proven to many preachers it is that not addressing such things head on produces nothing positive. Over the years of my writing these columns in Reformed Worship, I hope I have made it clear how much I esteem the preaching craft and care deeply for all who engage in it every week. Most regular subscribers to this journal know that this is my second-to-last column before the magazine transitions to a new online format. Thus, I hope you receive this column as a kind of “Before I go . . .” plea for the church to find ways to live together as preachers and congregants such that preaching is strengthened and God receives glory. The proclaimed word of God is in a measure of peril just now. We look to the Spirit of God to lead us to a better moment.

Preacher and teacher of preaching Tom Long once related a story he heard from a colleague who served as a hospital chaplain. On Ash Wednesday one year, this chaplain left work long enough to take in a midday service at which he had ashes imposed upon his forehead. When he returned to work and entered the hospital room of an elderly woman, she spied the smudge of ash on his face and immediately grabbed a Kleenex, saying, “Come here, dear, you’ve gotten into something!” The chaplain then explained the meaning of the ashes. “This reminds me that I am a sinner and that I am mortal but that Jesus sacrificed himself to forgive me and give me life eternal.” The woman thought for a moment and then said, “I’d like to get in on that.” So the chaplain ran his index finger over the ashes on his forehead and made a smudge on her head also (Thomas Long,  Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, 2004, pp. 127–8).As much as anything, we preachers should hope that after hearing our sermons about the grace of God and the beauty of the kingdom of God, those listening to us will say too, “I want to get in on that.” In a recent preaching seminar, participants were pondering how to motivate people to feel gratitude toward God and to live lives that display ongoing gratitude for all of God’s gifts to us. It’s a worthy question for all preachers to reflect upon.All preachers know that altogether too many sermons seek to encourage virtue or moral living by waving the proverbial bony finger in people’s faces. Preachers warn. They threaten. They cajole. They use guilt to motivate people to behave better. In doing so they preach what I have referred to in this column before as “should-y sermons” that conclude with long to-do lists through which people may earn the favor of God.And it may be the case that guilting people works. Guilt and fear of punishment are strong motivators. But alas, inducing guilt simultaneously accomplishes a few other things that we preachers ought to avoid. Guilting people can lead to thinking of God as stern, fierce, punitive. God is depicted as forever holding a rolled-up newspaper over our heads, ready to swat us such that we cower before God the way a dog cowers before an angry master.Guilt also can be a short hop, skip, and a jump down a path that leads to a legalistic framing of our salvation. People have a hard enough time remembering that “there but for the grace of God go I.” When people ponder the difference between themselves and nonbelieving neighbors or coworkers, there is a tendency to compare the moral arc of our lives. The difference then is not that I have been swept away by the glorious grace of God that forgives and renews me beyond all telling of it and infinitely beyond my deserving; no, the difference is that I am more moral than some of the nonChristians around me—I live better. We can understand why people think this way. Grace is invisible, while moral behavior and good deeds are easy to see and seize upon. Still, neither the portrait of an angry God (due apologies to Jonathan Edwards) nor a works-righteousness should be what our preaching props up week after week.So how should preaching motivate people? By presenting the kingdom of God and our lives as new creations in Christ in such vivid, beautiful ways that people find themselves wanting to get in on that action. “I want to be part of that,” people may say in response to the portrait of God’s kingdom of grace that our sermons sketch for them. We want our sermons to give people new eyes—or better said, we want them to use the new eyes they have already received in their baptisms and through their subsequent union with Christ.Theologian Ellen Davis once wrote about a friend who teaches art classes at a large public university. Few of her students would ever actually become professional artists, but that did not discourage the professor. “My goal,” she said, “is to teach them how to see, so they never have to be bored again” (Ellen Davis, Wondrous Depth: Preaching the Old Testament, 2005, p. xiii).A new way of seeing. A new way to apprehend the signs of God’s kingdom that break through the veil of this world in ways that quicken one’s pulse and thicken hope. Preaching can depict God not as forever ready to swat us, but as a generous God who is eager to share the wonders of creation and of the kingdom of God’s Son with us all.A key way to accomplish this in our preaching is closely connected to one of my mantras as a teacher of preaching: “Show, don’t tell.” This is something we learn from TV and movies. When a movie moves you, causes you to well up with tears of joy, how does the filmmaker accomplish this? Well, it is not through long descriptions of abstract ideas that never get down to brass tacks. No, it is usually through a moving portrayal of someone’s love in action, a vivid vignette of what mercy looks like.Think of the conclusion of the film Field of Dreams. We know for almost the whole movie that the lead character, Ray Kinsella, had had a falling out with his father that never got resolved before the father died. And we knew that Ray’s teenage rebellion expressed itself by dissing his father’s beloved game of baseball, leading Ray to refuse to play catch with his father.At the end of the movie, it turns out that Ray’s father is among the long-dead baseball players who come back to life on the magical ballfield Ray built in the middle of an Iowa cornfield. Finally we know the meaning of “If you build it, he will come.” And when Ray, with a voice choked with emotion, says, “Hey, Dad? You want to have a catch?”, most of us dissolve into puddles of tears. That same emotional reaction would never come about if someone merely analyzed for us the dynamics that might underlie such a reconciliation. No, the movie showed it to us in indelible ways such that we wish we could get in on the action—we long for a similar reconciliation with the people from whom we may be estranged.Jesus knew this as well, which is why he never dryly explained the principles of his kingdom. Rather, through imagery, parables, and dialogue among the characters of his stories, Jesus showed us what the kingdom looks like. For those who understood Jesus’ meaning, surely there was a desire to “get in on that” in their own lives and experiences.Doing this well is one of the greatest challenges in crafting our sermons. That may be why so many sermons stop just short of showing concretely what this all looks like on a Wednesday afternoon or a Friday morning. But when the beauty of God and of God’s kingdom is shown vividly, people may clamor to enter that world themselves.