Heard the Word: Barbara Brown Taylor

Barbara Brown Taylor and students from Eden. Boom.

You can access the full-text of BBT's sermon here courtesy of Time.com.

It started of well. A hymn about darkness (Brian Wren's "Joyful is the Dark"). A vivid reading of Exodus 20: 18-21 and Luke 9: 32-36. The beginning of a sermon titled, "Inside the Dark Cloud of God." Taylor set out her preaching task early on--that while instead of preaching in the direction everyone was looking, that she instead was wandering from the crowd, looking in the opposite direction, and finding God in the darkness.

Taylor made clear that this was not some apophatic effort on her part. Rather, through Exodus 20, she digs into the idea that God IS dark. Dark like a cloud. And that dark is so, so much harder to look at, but so very formative to who we are as people of faith. She called us into a place where we wandered into the darkness, telling us that the darkness was not a place to pass through, but is actually God's home. This home is completely off-putting--we have no sense of control, of direction, of ability to use any of the tools and equipment we rely on in the light. Instead, we only have what we came in with, and the stark faith that we realize has only really taken us where we want to go anyway. The darkness, Taylor said, inspires us to hold out the broken pieces of ourselves to God and to say, "Here. Do what you want with these." It is place of true humility, true uncertainty, and true promise.

And then the sermon ended.

I wish I were kidding. As we rose and shared the responsive prayer ("A Prayer for Darkness in an Age of Glare" by Rod Jellema), I was confused. What just happened? I turned to my preaching professor who was sitting next to me and asked him, "What just happened?" He was uncertain as well. And as others filed out the door, I continued to ask myself and my classmates, "Seriously. What just happened?"

Because I had just started to step into the darkness of that cloud with Taylor. I had just begun to see how the resourcelessness, the darkness, and the loneliness might just be something where God could do some amazing work. And I was preparing to step in more fully. I was preparing to learn how the preacher might lead into that cloud. I was hoping to also find some grace in that cloud. But my expectations were left hanging, and I was left completely disoriented. Was she leaving us in the cloud to illustrate a point? Was she just pressed for time? Why didn't she deal at all with the Luke text? What is going on?

And so, after scribbling my notes, I went to make my way out of the sanctuary. And exiting at (nearly) the same time (I had to loiter just a few moments) was Barbara Brown Taylor herself. And I had to tell her. I had to stop her and say, "You know, I am completely disoriented by your message." And her response, "Well, you should be. It's not something that is preached on often. We don't talk about it." She went on to say that Scripture, Christian tradition, and our own experience all testify to the darkness, but that we still don't talk about it. And we need to. And that's when she laid it on me. "So, that's your job. You preach it so that it's not so disorienting in the future." Whoa. That was heavy. I mean, I still managed to smile for the photo, but whoa.

I still don't know about the message itself. Part of me is cynical enough to wonder a little bit about whether it was an excellent tease for her latest book. But part of me is feeling like the sense of unease I felt (and still feel) about that message is illustrative of the deeper truth of the thing--that darkness is disarming and uncertain, and you can't preach on it without experiencing a bit of it yourself. In any case, now I have to go read Learning to Walk in the Dark. Not such a horrible task, I suppose.