don't take the sting out of the tail

[this post origianlly appeared here at the Kiwi-Made Preaching blog]

Nearly two years ago I was reading a book by John Wright, Telling God’s Story. One of the book’s valuable observations is that as preachers we tend towards comic rather than tragic sermons.  This has nothing to do with being funny or not, but is rather the tendency to resolve our sermons on good notes rather than leaving the listeners hanging and feeling bad.  So, for example, we might preach on the story of the rich young ruler, but we will make sure by the end of it the congregation doesn’t feel the need to sell everything they possess.  For Wright this has the effect of letting the listeners off the hook. Scripture confronts them with a harsh challenge but the preacher does his or her best to soften the blow so that the congregation can end the sermon feeling good, rather than convicted.  The comic sermon has a happy ending, and so it seldom provokes a response.  The tragic sermon leaves the listener unsettled and thus provokes transformation (in theory at least).


Providentially, as I was reading the book an invitation came up to preach at another church, which gave me an opportunity to try out Wright’s tragic ending without jeopardising my relationship with my home church.  Even more providentially, the text I was asked to speak upon was James 5:1-6.  I could not have dreamed of a passage more amenable to tragic preaching! During the sermon I fastidiously avoided the urge (and it was strong!) to mitigate or moderate the withering fire of James’ diatribe.  I gave it to them with both barrels.
I half expected to get run out of town at the end of it, or at least have them take me to the top of a cliff and threaten to throw me off (is my messiah complex showing?).  To my amazement, in my discussions with people after the service I realised that they had all supplied their own comic endings to the sermon that I had deliberately preached without one.  The congregation didn’t need me to let them off the hook, they knew how to do it themselves.  My conclusion then was that people are so used to the comic sermon that if one is not provided they reflexively soften the message regardless.

About two months ago I was pleased to be invited back to that church.  An invite back can either be understood as approval or a gracious second chance.  I took this as the latter.  This time the story of Naaman was my text.  I had preached on this text before, but as I prepared it this time I realised that previously I had ignored the story of Gehazi which concludes the narrative sequence.  The seemingly comic story of Naaman’s healing is subverted into a tragedy by Gehazi’s sin.  Once again I preached a tragic sermon (you can read an outline here).  This time though the tragic ending seemed to bite home, I certainly felt in conversations afterwards that the point had gone across much better.  It was a long time between the two sermons; it couldn’t have been a cumulative effect.  Besides, half the congregation didn’t even remember me.  Then I began to wonder if the problem with the first sermon had not been so much a congregation unable to receive a tragic sermon as a preacher who was not used to giving them.

Let me know what you think

Some Pagan Wisdom

Pseudo-Crates, Epistle 15

Shun not only the worst of evils, injustic and self-indulgence, but also their causes, pleasures. For you will concentrate on these alone, both present and future, and on nothing else. And pursue not only the best of goods, self control and perseverance, but also their causes, toils, and do not shun them on account of their harshness. For would you not exchange inferior things for something great? As you would receeive gold in exchange for copper, so you would receive virtue in exchange for toils.

From this book.

I especially like the last sentence. As a teacher I have found this one of the hardest things to help students appreciate. The rewards of hard work! But then it took me thirty years to work it out, so why should they be any quicker? Of course, the satisfaction of hard work and the development of self control and perseverance are not without their own dangers: pride, self reliance, and addiction to work. It's a good quote for a pagan but I prefer Ecclesiastes 2:24,

There is nothng better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

Or even better, our NT purveyor of wisdom, James 1:17

Every generous at of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

The good deeds and the good things are all from God, so particpate and enjoy with thankfulness.

James 1:2-4

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

This letter from James is probably one of the earliest documents in the NT. The early years of the church were marked by periodic bursts of persecution (e.g. Acts 5:17-42; 7:54-8:3; 9:23-5; 12:1-5; etc) and I think it fair to assume that even without overt acts of persecution the new sect of Christians would have been treated with suspicion by both Jews and Gentiles. The 'testing of your faith' is exactly that, your faith being put on trial. Because we in the western world so seldom (if ever) are put on trial for our faith we miss out on the benefit of developing endurance/staying power. For James, to be under suspicion, to be discriminated against or persecuted because of the faith is the path to maturity in the faith.

I'm reminded of an old anecdote of uncertain provenance (might have originated in the old soviet union?), but which makes the point. A masked gun man walks into a church meeting and tells everyone who isn't ready to die for Christ to get out of the building now. After half the people leave he takes of the mask and asks to be told about Jesus. Fair enough, after all you want to know that the people sharing the Gospel with you are the genuine article and not someone who might change their mind later and tell the authorities about you.

We tend to quote this verse ('count it all as joy') when we get a parking ticket or have a unpleasant colleague at work but these things are not a result of our faith but just part of everyday life. At the risk of over translating, 'mature and complete' (τέλειοι καὶ ὁλόκληροι) could be rendered 'having reached the purpose and goal of your existence and being a completely integrated and complete person.' So are we disqualified from reaching that maturity and completeness without persecution? Well James allows us a way in by refering not just to 'trials' but 'trials of any kind.' Parking tickets and grumpy work colleagues are not in themselves trials of our faith, but they can become so if we use them as oportunities for our faith to come into action: To test how much better it is to confess your sins - rather than try to wriggle out of the ticket, or to love our enemies - rather than bad-mouth them to the boss. The greatest tests for us perhaps come when we encounter death, illness, failure, or dissapointment in our own lives. Those times when we need God the most are also those times when it is most possible to decide that God can't exist if God allows such things to happen to us or those we love. And yet James says to us that these are the times to grow, these are the times when our faith will be strengthened, these are the times when our faith has the most potential to change us into who we are meant to be. These are times to prove that we are God's and God is ours. These are times of joy.

James 1:1

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes
in the diaspora: Greetings.

• James is held in church tradition to be the (half) brother of Jesus (Matt 13:55; Mark 6:3; Gal 1:9), who became the leader of the early church in Jerusalem (Acts 12:17; 15:13-19; Gal 2:9-12) despite his unbelief in Jesus prior to the crucifiction/resurection.
• Even if this is a different James writing here the only credential the writer sees fit to give is one of servanthood towards both God and Jesus.
• This is an unashamedly Christian document and yet by refering to the recipients of the letter as 'the twleve tribes' James is showing both how he understands the Christian community to be a continuation of Israel but also the fulfillment/restoration of Israel (which had been reduced to only two tribes by the time of the Roman occupation). He also demonstrates this sense of continuity in the letter by drawing heavily (and directly) on the Old Testament.
• This fulfillment/restoration though is only partial however, not least because the 'twelve tribes' are a disapora, a dispersion, a scattered people. The book of James is often refered to as a catholic (all embracing) epistle (letter) because it is not addressed to a specific situation or set of circumstances (e.g. Paul addresses infighting amoung particular factions in 1 Corinthians 3) but is a more general letter aimed at a wider audience, although still within a certain historical and cultural context.