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Tom Steagald's Preaching Journal








Praying this morning in the midst of a pretty wicked winter thunderstorm, thunder and lightning attending, with three of my most faithful church members… something about that confluence of sensory stimulants: darkness, with flashes erupting; the dimmer but more stable candle flame; the sound of rain pounding on the roof, echoing in our largish sanctuary which, if one has the eyes to see it, with its exposed and curving beams, looks like the inverted hull of an ark; a scrap of memory from my childhood, the first verse of an old Baptist hymn, inspired by the words of the prophet Ezekiel (35:26) “There shall be showers of Blessing, this is the promise of God. There shall be seasons refreshing, sent from the Savior above. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we need: mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead.” So too, the Psalmist: “Thou visitest the earth and waterest it, thou greatly enriches it…Thou waterest its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.”
I remember how the spiritual writers, many of them, speak of the hard earth of the heart, and the need for the softening, settling rains of mercy that alone can make the heart hospitable to the gospel’s seed. 
Ezekiel speaks of the showers coming in the midst of a covenant of peace, and surely both Micah and Matthew express the characteristics of that covenant in the lessons for Sunday. Surely Paul speaks to what makes such a covenant possible.
And so, this morning, in the darkness we awaited the light—and I praised God for the darkness which in its own way testifies to the light and our need for it. I praised God for the silence, which offers a space into which the Word may deign to come. I thanked God for the rain, confessing that sometimes the showers that are promised are themselves frightening in the moment of their advent. 
I read the beatitudes—not as moral exhortation, which is the way they are often preached and thereby set a standard which few if any can meet and thereby prove to be something other than the Good News of the Kingdom (Matthew 4:23) and instead one more indication of how we have failed and fallen short—but just read them, and heard in them something of the eschatological blessing. 
Yesterday I was reading in W.D. Davies’ magisterial The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount, and I was reminded, duh, that Jesus appeared “as a preacher of repentance” (425). How Jesus conceived of this repentance is the subject of many pages of (to our eyes and ears) stilted consideration. But the question of how Jesus’ preaching was related to his teaching and healing is an interesting one—beyond my pay grade to say with any certainty—but I am thinking about it in these terms. 
It has long been noted that, in Matthew, Jesus retains to himself, until after the Resurrection, the teaching office. Whatever authority he gives to the disciples in the way of preaching or healing, he alone is the Teacher. The irony, of course—and I believe it was Norman Perrin who made the observation—is that in Matthew, anyone who calls Jesus “Teacher,” is not his friend or follower. He is the Teacher; but don’t call him that. True followers know him as Lord. Be that as it may, Jesus’ preaching is that the Kingdom has drawn near (4:17). Repentance is the first, best, most urgent response to the sermon, and whatever that might mean in its fullness, it means at least leaving behind what has been normative before: nets, family, vocation. In Mark, the disciples also leave the synagogue, so that all the former definitions of life are relinquished in favor of a new identity as disciples (see my Shadows, Darkness and Dawn). Into the void came the teaching of Jesus—like Moses’ commands to Israel, who were newly free but as yet unformed—Jesus begins to give definition to the new community by means, ultimately, of five discourses, the Sermon being only the first. First in order, and perhaps in authority. 
In any case, the kingdom has drawn near. The healings of the crowds demonstrate it to be so. Now does Jesus shift to “impossible” responses to the kingdom’s coming, throwing the responsibility of the new movement back onto the disciples—that it is no longer God’s grace but their obedience to this rigid ethic that will carry the kingdom forward? That is how it is most often preached. I am wondering, though, whether Jesus teaching is benediction, not hortatory or imperative. Which is to say, if people are sitting there listening, whether crowds or disciples, and they are reacting to the absolute claims in anything like the ways we would—it is impossible, it is strategy (I will be meek so I can inherit the earth!), it is absurd (happy are the sad?)—Jesus may be saying something more like this: You are half-there already. When you already experience a hunger for righteousness, because you have been on the short-end of the stick and you wish for justice, not just for self but for the world, you will be satisfied. You really will. When you have grieved and felt some little comfort in the midst of it, you have a foretaste of the solace divine. 
That is not all Jesus is saying, of course. He is not just blessing what already is…at least not entirely. But he is a good preacher, and I suspect that part of what he is doing here is indicating by means of these admittedly eschatological pronouncements that all the people within the sound of his voice, not just the sick and possessed, have already experienced something of the Kingdom’s healing power. Eventually the world will be healed, and all will enjoy it together. For now, there is a proleptic quality that must be recognized—and I am wondering if recognition itself is a kind of repentance: not just going in a different direction but looking at it in a different way, from a different angle. 
Is the darkness just dark? Is grief just sad? Is hunger always a matter of privation? Or is hunger itself a kind of appetizer? Is grief a testimony to the preciousness of life and loved ones? Is the dark a canvass on which light will be painted?
Another thought, of course, is this: Jesus is describing himself in the beatitudes. He is and will be all these things, and so the real teaching is his example, defined and refined by his logia. The disciples, as students of the rabbi, will observe him closely to become what he is.
As an aside, those of you familiar with Rob Bell’s nooma series might take a look at his “Dust” video. A colleague in our study group mentioned it in conjunction with last week’s lesson, but it may work as well for this week. I have to say I liked all of it save the “self-doubt” interpretation of Peter’s sinking in the water. Sounded a little Osteenish to my ear. The “doubt” in that story occurred before Peter got out of the boat when, after Jesus had said, “Do not be afraid; it is I,” Peter said (sounding very much like the Tempter), “If it is you, command me to come to you…” Needing proof is not faith; it is doubt. Otherwise the video is interesting and the lesson informative (though whether all Jewish boys had the kind of educational opportunities he enumerates is a matter of speculation/debate). 
We learn from Jesus. Even more, we learn Jesus. Luke Timothy Johnson has reminded us that the holy life is a matter of learning to live Jesus, as we live by learning and observing. And so it was almost eerie the prayer assigned for the day from Dr. Baillie: 
“O Thou to whom I owe the gift of this day’s life, give to me also, I beseech Thee, a spirit to use it as I ought. Forbid that I should stain the brightness of the morning with any evil thought or darken the noontide with any shameful deed. Let Thy Holy Spirit breathe into my heart to-day all pure and heavenly desires. Let Thy truth inform my mind. Let Thy justice and righteousness make a throne within me and rule my errant will. Let Christ be formed in me, and let me learn of Him all lowliness of heart, all gentleness of bearing, all modesty of speech, all helpfulness of action, and promptness in the doing of my Father’s will” (day 26, morning).



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