Words That Explode … Into Life

June 7, 2009

Psalm 29, Romans 8:15b-16, 26-27 and John 3:1-17

When I was a kid, I longed to be like Bob T.

You don’t know him, but Bob was the pastor of our church in St. Louis, starting when I was in ninth grade. There was a lot about him to admire even beyond his 6’ 7” frame. He was outgoing, outspoken, and energetic. It was rumored he had a chance to play professional basketball, but turned it down to go into ministry.

I counted it a bonus that he paid attention to everyone, including teenagers like me, struggling to figure out this life for the first time.

What I valued most – no, honestly, what I quite sinfully envied – was his ability to stand in the pulpit every Sunday and preach. Really preach, in that rich, resonant baritone of his with just a hint of Southern accent.

I longed to do that too, not just for the sound he produced, but to be eloquent and interesting and inspiring as he was. I longed to tell ancient stories from scripture and tie them to current events–especially in the apocalyptic days of the late 1960s.

But I knew better. I was clever enough to be afraid of such yearnings.

Bob could read the Old Testament prophets and New Testament Gospels (and everything around them), and declare “Thus says the Lord” in ways that made sense.

He embodied what Swiss theologian Karl Barth once described as the goal of theology: to hold the Bible in one hand and daily newspaper in the other, and make sense of both.

For the first time, I actually looked forward to going to church every week, no matter how late I was out with my friends on Saturday night.

But I was terrified too. Not by the things he said or the way he said them, but by the urge that kept welling up … for me to do likewise.

As early as age 14, I wanted to preach. And I knew it was hopeless. If I ever stood in a pulpit to speak to or for God, I’d be hit by lightning, and I knew it. Or I’d drop dead on the spot, smited by the hand of God. I dreaded the thought that my words wouldn’t explode into life, but just “bomb.” And I dreaded being exposed as an pretender.

Years later, after I was in ministry, Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. You remember it. At the end of the film, Nazi soldiers open the Ark of the Covenant, and the fire of God vaporizes them, body and soul, like cheap wax. When I saw that, I said, “Yeah. I was right. Get too close to God and that’s what happens.”

The Nazis pried open their box. I tried to keep a lid on my secret. I ran from it as much as I longed for it.

* *

Obviously, I didn’t win. My tactic of hiding didn’t work. But to my surprise I haven’t died from it yet either. What led me into preaching will be told some other day.

But forty years after I first felt it, I still get butterflies every Sunday when I’m called on to preach. The dread hasn’t abated. I’m still daunted by the task of speaking to and for God, bearing holy words from God to humankind, and back.

I haven’t quit having Saturday night nightmares either – like the recurring one about not being able to find my sermon at the last minute, or being lost in a strange church, unable to get to the pulpit, while the bells toll to signal the start of the service.

Even worse … Have I ever told you? In those dreams, I never have on any clothes. Worstof all: everyone knows it! And nobody cares!

That has never actually happened. But other parts of the nightmare have.

Like the time, during my intern year in New York City, when I left a page of my sermon in the office. Imagine reaching page three … and only finding page four!

And during seminary, 50 students and professors went on a “preaching caravan” to various churches across Virginia. The school wanted young upstarts like me to get some practice in the “real” world, and for the churches to see what capable and polished young ministers were being created by the school so the financial support would continue, and some of us eventually might even find jobs.

I was sent to a congregation where the preacher retired the previous week after 37 bountiful years in that pulpit. He was a man known and loved throughout the South. The church, no doubt, missed him terribly already. I was over my head, and I knew it. But I was greeted warmly. I didn’t embarrass myself with the sermon. As I finished, I turned to go back to my seat, I looked at my bulletin to see what came next in the service. I took a step, and completely missed the three tall stairs leading up to the pulpit.

The congregation saw me … then they didn’t … though they heard me land!

I didn’t die on the spot as I always expected. It was close! I wanted to! It confirmed what I always suspected. No one in their right mind has any business speaking for God.

God was toying with me, playing rough and tumble, forgetting God’s own strength. It was a swift and harsh lesson about the handling holy things. I felt lucky to get off without any visible scars.

I staggered around the pulpit into view. I thought the congregation would give me an ovation. Or laugh. But they just stared at me.

All I could come up with to say was, “Our next hymn is number …”

* *

Those memories come back to me all week, as today’s readings remind me what strong effect God’s words have. These words have power. They push us and prod us and purge us. Rarely do they leave our dignity intact. They don’t let us pretend for long that we’re in control. But they reinforce the fact that God is.

As Psalm 29 tells us, God’s voice is like a storm. It thunders “over mighty waters.” It “breaks the cedars” of Lebanon and “flashes forth flames of fire.” It “shakes the wilderness,” “causes the oaks to whirl,” and “strips the forest bare.”

God’s voice is dangerous, like playing with lightning. Don’t trifle with it. Author Annie Dillard says we should wear helmets to church and put seat belts in all the pews (Teaching a Stone to Talk).

God’s words are confoundingly difficult, too. When Nicodemus comes to Jesus, they engage in conversation that goes over Nicodemus’s head completely despite his education and training. Jesus ends up scolding him, “We speak of what we know, and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive [what we say]. If I’ve told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?”

By the way, when Jesus says “you” in that passage? It’s plural. God’s speech is hard … not for Nicodemus alone, but everyone. (Why, then, was I of all people called to proclaim it?)

At least there’s some comfort in the words Bonnie read from the Apostle Paul. He says that when we are at a loss for words, the Spirit speaks and prays for us “with sighs too deep for words.” God’s speech isn’t confrontational and abrasive all the time.

Or is it? What are we so reluctant to have, that the Spirit has to ask for it for us? What do we not want, that the Spirit prays for anyway within us?

I used to believe that the “sighs” of the Spirit were sympathetic to us. But lately, I’ve wondered if those sighs are brought on by frustration. I almost hear the Spirit groaning, “(Sigh.) Do I have to do everything for you? (Sigh.).”

* *

For all its abrasiveness, God’s word is for us not against us. As Isaiah declares, “God’s word goes forth and does not return empty, but accomplishes its purpose.”

Inwardly and outwardly, it is always troubling us in the direction of becoming the true people of God – even when we think it might kill us, or that we ought to keep a lid on it, or that it will blow up in our face any minute.

The word of God compels and propels us to speak – and act – for the sake of mission that not only wins converts, but that enacts justice. That promotes fairness. And that looks out for the interests of others. We ourselves, however, don’t always want all that, much less the sacrifices required of us to get it.

The living, mighy Word dresses up in human flesh and comes to dwell among us “full of grace and truth” – but not in a saccharine, touchy-feely way; rather as one who has to die for us to live.

Brazenly, without apology or shame, this word holds us, calling us to be the best we can, and better than we thought possible. It claims us for a covenant that existed before we were born, and that grows larger and more inclusive in each generation.

It latches on to us as tightly as Jacob and the mysterious stranger grappling with each other by the River Jabbok in Genesis 32, refusing to let go until a blessing is given. And received.

Then it calls us into the house – into the household of God – to sit down at table, side-by-side, stranger and friend, sister and brother, healthy and sick, strong and weak, young and old, rich and poor.

It is a dangerous thing, I tell you, this Word of God is, always unsettling, always exploding … into Life.

Yet, finally, it sits down beside us. Sits down at table among us … living, breathing and ready to die … not to condemn the world but so that the world might be saved … even as it breaks bread and declares, “As often as you do this in my name, I am with you” …

Then (scariest of all) it sends us out newly nourished … with wisdom and compassion and courage and love to offer the world.

To the glory of God.