PREACH THE WORD!

2 Timothy 4:1-8 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

Herald the Word! Proclaim the good news. That is your task, if you are a preacher. And you are to be at hand, to be “right on the spot” when listeners recognize that a word from God is needed and the season is favorable. But, as the text tells us, you are also to preach the Word when the timing is out of season, or unfavorable. Lenski comments, “The Word knows no difference as to kaipoi (times) or seasons; it is proper for all seasons, everlastingly in season; there is never a time when it is not needed.” I have preached at favorable times and other times unfavorable: during mortar attacks, in prison chapels with hostile inmates, and in a number of Presbyterian churches!

I was recently asked to write an article about preaching on “special occasions.” In our world of satellite communications, 24-hour news channels, and internet immediacy, what they meant by preaching on special occasions suggested the unfavorable times we are all too familiar with: terrorist strikes, anthrax attacks, economic crises, public disasters, and, of course, wars and rumors of wars. I want to share some of the things I learned with you today. First, I want to talk with you about preaching “in season,” or during favorable times in the church. Then, we will look at preaching in unfavorable times occasioned by the “abnormal” events that capture the attention of our congregations. Finally, we will consider three simple observations about preaching in light of the previous two discussions. Bryan Chapell writes that “the expository preaching task is to communicate what God committed to Scripture in order to give God’s people his truth for their time.” (Christ-Centered Preaching, 31) I think this is another way to state our text: “to give God’s people his truth for their time,” whether that time is favorable or unfavorable.

First, it is important to examine the assumption that there is such a thing as preaching during “normal” times in our congregations, i.e., times that are favorable. By favorable we may refer to those days of calm when we are not in the throes of shock over a space-shuttle disaster, a category four hurricane, or the derailing of an AMTRAK passenger train. However, even when our congregations are not experiencing some public, collective trauma, remember that individual members of our congregations may be experiencing the shocks of life in all their raw power. As D.A. Carson writes, “suffering of one kind or another is always taking place.” (How Long, O Lord, 221)

In a given congregation, it is possible that someone’s mother has just received an unexpected, even devastating medical report. A father is facing cutbacks and layoffs in the workplace. A family is experiencing conflict with children and someone’s husband is involved in an extra-marital affair. As Calvin Miller explains, "The Sunday service is a gathering of troubles. Half of those who enter the church and take their seat before the pulpit are moving in a privatized fog of their own ills. In the words of Thoreau, they are living lives of quiet desperation. They are the dying anonymous." (Preaching, 41)

Not even small churches are exempt and sometimes everything changes in the space of a mere week. Last week, the Lord’s Day was an occasion of joy and praise. It was good to be in the house of the Lord! Then came the shattering blow that changed everything. The cares of this world bullied past the front door and filled the home with their oppressive, unrelenting presence. Now, gathered again to worship, these shattered people desperately need to hear a word from the Lord. For them, the unfavorable time has come.

I am not a pastor. Yet, recently, within a very short period of time, I received the following requests for prayer: for a young First Lieutenant who was nearly killed in a horrible wreck in Oklahoma, for the family of a Sergeant who was murdered, for an elderly saint who has a brain tumor, for a young woman who died suddenly from a blood clot, for the well-being of a newborn baby, for surgery to treat a serious infection, for a church member who had surgery and is unable to keep food down, for a young wife who lost her job, for a friend who has terminal liver cancer, for a former student diagnosed with breast cancer, for another friend who has a pre-ulcerous condition.

And the list goes on. Nearly all of these are members of some particular church, and, except for those who have died, most will be listening to some preacher this coming Lord’s Day. And, as Miller writes, they are not coming to church because they want to know “whatever happened to the Hittites.” (Ibid.) They will be in church because they need the fellowship and support of God’s people. And, most importantly, they need to hear a word from the Lord that will give them comfort, hope, and direction. The first thing the preacher must do, then, is get a handle on what favorable really means. Many in our congregations are like ducks swimming on the pond. Above the surface, everything appears calm and controlled. Unseen beneath the surface, however, little duck feet are churning at warp speed. In other words, there is more “out of season” or unfavorable going on than you might imagine. In the words of Pulitzer-prize winning author, Marilynne Robinson, “There’s a lot under the surface of life, everyone knows that. A lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn’t really expect to find it, either.” (Gilead, 6)

Perhaps it is the immediacy and accessibility of media that makes our time seem so frantic, so out-of-control. The closing of a small-town Chrysler dealership may have little impact on the global economy; it is, however, devastating to the 43 employees who worked there—and the “local” story may well show up on CNN or FOX news. With never ending news cycles, we are light years from the fifteen-minute newscast of the 1950s. Whether it is an IED explosion in Afghanistan, an attack on hotels in Mumbai, or a backed-up toilet on the space station, everyone with a television or a personal computer has access to the latest information. The buffers of time and space have effectively evaporated, and we are all exposed to more information than we can handle, coming at us faster than we can process it. What once would have been only of peripheral interest now is thrust front and center, demanding that we give it a hearing. And, sometimes, the global village, or some significant portion thereof, is affected in a powerful way.

I was knotting my tie, glancing in the mirror to make sure I wasn’t strangling myself, while watching the television out of the corner of my eye. I was thinking about the meetings I had scheduled later that day. That day I was running late, and I was definitely suffering from caffeine-deficiency. But something caught my eye. I had already turned back to check on my tie when my pre-frontal cortex, my lizard brain, processed the image from the TV. I had seen, however briefly, what appeared to be a tall building on fire. I turned to look at the screen even as I reached for the remote to adjust the volume. As the sound increased I heard the news anchor report that an airplane had flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Like many other Americans, I watched in horror as another airplane screamed into the South Tower approximately seventeen minutes later. And then, one minute before ten o’clock, the South Tower crumbled, followed by the North Tower at 10:28 AM. By virtue of the magnitude of the horror, the near-universality of the experience, or the immediacy of the reporting (or some combination of these factors), such events leave indelible scars. What does a preacher do the Sunday after more than 3,000 people are killed in the worst terrorist attack in American history? Stick with the lectionary? Move on to the next few verses in Ephesians? Talk about “out of season!”

I was in church the following Sunday, September 16, 2001, expecting to hear a sermon that addressed the shock, the fear, the sadness that so clearly affected everyone in the sanctuary. I was wrong. The sermon was the same sermon that had been planned weeks before. Had it not been for the pastoral prayer, no one in those pews that morning would have known that the horrors of 9/11 had occurred but five short days before. There is no other word for it; this was ministerial malpractice. If ever a people need a word from the Lord, it is at those times when we are reminded afresh that life is relentlessly contingent and hangs by a mere thread, “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). This was one of those times. And instead of edible bread, indeed, Living Bread, we received a homiletical brick.

The second thing the preacher must do, then, is develop the wisdom to know when to adjust the sermon to address times that are unfavorable—and cultivate the skills to do so with agility. Such wisdom will probably come only with experience, and the agility to shift “on the fly” is as much a developed skill-set as it is a temperament trait. Mostly, however, the preacher needs to be sensitive to the needs of the flock and open to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

In light of the earlier discussion, there are many more issues worth considering. However, I will limit my comments to three simple observations. First, simple observation: the minister who seeks to be a faithful shepherd must remember that he preaches, not in a vacuum, but to flesh and blood people who are immersed up to their necks in life. This means it is never enough for the preacher simply to “give the meaning of the text.” Some preachers confuse the exegesis of the text with exposition of the text. Fred Craddock warned: "It is possible that a sermon that buries itself in the text, moves through it phrase by phrase, and never comes up for air may prove to be “unbiblical” in the sense that it fails to achieve what the text achieves." (Preaching, 28)

The faithful preacher, who seeks transformation and healing in his congregation,
will be ever mindful of the interplay between the context of the Scripture and the
context of his listeners. John Stott writes that we need preachers "who struggle to relate God’s unchanging Word to our ever-changing world; who refuse to sacrifice truth to relevance or relevance to truth; but who resolve instead in equal measure to be faithful to Scripture and pertinent to today." (Between Two Worlds, 144)

Such preaching requires more than reading the daily newspaper or following the evening news, though it certainly requires no less. Just as the shepherd of old knew his sheep, even so the under-shepherd of God’s flock must know his sheep and care for them tenderly. There are wounds that need binding, and the role of the preacher is interwoven with the role of the pastor. Is it strange that, almost as soon as he mentions the Chief Shepherd, Peter reminds his readers to cast their cares on him, “because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7)? Sinclair Ferguson says “we have to understand the soul condition of those to whom we preach, and address them in an appropriate way.” Preaching is more than throwing doctrinal truths at parishioners. The preacher must bring the Word of God and the listener into vital connection through skillful exposition and application.

Second simple observation: the preacher needs to preach the whole counsel of God. “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable”—and this means preaching that a sovereign God is in control of life’s circumstances, even when the gears are grinding, the temperature gauge is in the red, and the wheels are about to come off. D.A. Carson addresses the problem of ministering to those who encounter suffering and evil. He writes that "part of learning to live as faithful children of the sovereign God is therefore tied to trusting him when he can at best be only dimly discerned behind events and circumstances that the Bible itself is quick to label evil." (How Long, O Lord, 65)

To preach “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), the preacher must be prepared to deal with the hard subjects, including the sovereignty of God in suffering. To be sure, the Westminster Confession warns that “the doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care” (WCF 3:8)—and so it should. But avoiding these matters entirely is hardly handling them with special prudence and care. Avoidance is not a method of engagement. The unfavorable times do not go away because we cover our eyes.

The doctrine of God’s decrees, predestination, providence—these are the doctrines that are the most difficult to reconcile with events of monumental evil. In the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks, how many times did you hear the question, “Where was God on 9/11?” Or, as one hears in the “normal situations” of life, “Where was God when I lost my job? . . . or became ill? . . . or lost my loved one?” It is at such painful points that we find it most difficult to reconcile our profession with our experience. When God does not act predictably, i.e., as we expect him to act, we can find our faith challenged and our previous understanding of God inadequate. Most pointedly, we may flinch at the notion that God ordained this for his own glory and become stupefied by the thought that God will use that for our highest good.

Such powerful, cognitive dissonance means it is all the more important to preach that God is our loving heavenly father (Matthew 7:11). That our God is concerned about those things that concern us (Matthew 6:31-33). That our God is at work even in the midst of evil to bring about the good ends that he has always intended (Genesis 50:20, Romans 8:28). The preacher must treat these doctrines not as abstract concepts, but as the lifeblood of evangelical religion. Cold, abstract speculations will do little to grant comfort to those in the unfavorable times of life; but the confidence that God is at work will comfort God’s people (Acts 27:21-26) in the midst of trouble (2 Corinthians 1:3-7). These doctrines are perishable and we must preach them frequently if we wish to fortify the soul.

Third simple observation, this preaching must be done before it is needed. The preacher must inoculate his listeners, preparing them for the day of evil. All last fall, the news was filled with reports on efforts to develop the vaccine for the H1N1 (“Swine”) flu virus and prepare for a possible outbreak. The plan included the vaccination, or inoculation, of targeted populations that are especially vulnerable. But—the vaccine is only good if administered before the victim contracts the flu. Even so, preaching on the attributes of God, his sovereignty, and his providence, needs to occur before it is needed. The fact is that all God’s people will come into unfavorable times sooner or later. Jesus told his disciples, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33; cf. Acts 14:22). Indeed, if becoming a Christian provided immunity from the cares of life, our churches would be packed and we could permanently retire our evangelism committees.

Carson writes: "One of the major causes of devastating grief and confusion among Christians is that our expectations are false. We do not give the subject of evil and suffering the thought it deserves until we ourselves are confronted with tragedy. If by that point our beliefs—not well thought out but deeply ingrained—are largely out of step with the God who has disclosed himself in the Bible and supremely in Jesus, then the pain from the personal tragedy may be multiplied many times over as we begin to question the very foundations of our faith." (Ibid.)

The preacher who waits until tragedy occurs will find he has wasted precious time. The preacher who preaches faithfully when it is favorable and exercises wisdom and agility in the times that are unfavorable, must teach his listeners that suffering is part of the Christian’s calling (2 Corinthians 1:5-7), that suffering is not to be compared with “the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18), that suffering, ultimately, is “according to God’s will” (I Peter 4:19). The vaccine will do its job, but only when used properly.

A couple of months ago, On Army Reserve duty, I sat in two airports as both of my flights were delayed, delayed again, and delayed even further. The weather over Atlanta was angry and Air Traffic Control grounded many inbound flights until the thunderheads exhausted their wrath. After an hour and a half delay at the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport, we were cleared to fly. I made it Atlanta—only to find that my outbound flight was also delayed—repeatedly! As I waited at the gate, I watched frustrated travelers rushing through the terminal as they tried to make connecting flights. I listened as standby passengers negotiated, cajoled, and finally pleaded with Delta agents to miracle them a plane seat. All around me there was disappointment, frustration, and anger. Oddly enough, I was relatively calm—which is not my normal response to such situations. I did have nearly a three-hour margin between flights, so I confess that it is easy to be holy when you have a long lay-over! But there was something else at work. Thinking about this topic forced me to revisit some of my most basic beliefs.

This much I can say with certainty. My recent reflections on God’s goodness, sovereignty, and providence provided fresh reminders that none of the frenetic activity around me occurred apart from the powerful, loving, and kind disposition of my heavenly father. For our Heavenly Father, “all times are favorable.” And then one more thought came to mind. I wondered how many of the frantic multitude surrounding me in Terminal B of the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport had that same confidence. Some of those travelers were soldiers returning to war. Others, businessmen and women, were rushing off in desperate search of the deal that might keep their businesses alive. Many travelers were saying goodbye to family members who lived a good distance, perhaps even an ocean away. Some would fly off to face new troubles before the day, week, or month is past. Almost all will remain forever nameless to me, but some will have new troubles played out on the nightly news. How many of these dear people, rushing to and fro with the many burdens of life, had heard a sermon, any time in recent memory, that inoculated them for the favorable and unfavorable events of life they inevitably will face?

Calvin Miller tells a story that reminds preachers of their calling: "Pain comes in all types and sizes. . . . A preacher that I much admire wrote of a time when his daughter was very ill with a condition that would soon take her life. He confessed that these were very dark days for his family and that during her illness he never went to church casually to hear the casual preaching of a casual parson. He went to church desperately because his needs were desperate. Most of the time he heard three-point sermons filled with lots of information about the Bible. But what he really wanted was not more biblical information but a pastor who would bleed with him. . . . Sermons are not placebos prescribed to make people feel good. But they are a stab at kingdom togetherness, and they are a balm for the broken. Audience analysis reaches its heights when something like 9/11 happens. For one brief, shining moment, sermons all weep from church to church nationwide. We have no answer for the great pain, but not to offer the hurting a God-word is sermonic shame." (Preaching, 54)

Indeed. We who preach do not have magic solutions to the cares of life, but we do have the Word, and we must proclaim it when things are favorable—and unfavorable.

Some of you may be scheduled to preach this coming Sunday. You will have listeners hoping to hear a word from God. For someone, this Sunday may be a favorable moment; for someone else, the world is all out of frame, and their times are desperately unfavorable. Preach the Word! God has promised to bless it—and your listeners desperately need to hear it. In C. S. Lewis,’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy asks the Great Lion, Aslan, if the four Pevensie children, will visit Narnia again? And further asks if that return visit can be “soon.” When Aslan agrees, Lucy continues, “Please, Aslan . . . what do you call soon?” “I call all times soon,” said Aslan. My friends, the God who calls all times soon, also calls all times his, for he is at work, even in our suffering, for his own glory and our highest good.

Preached in Chapel, Erskine Theological Seminary, 14 April 2010