Reading up: The Idolatry of God by Peter Rollins

What's unique about The Idolatry of God: Breaking our Addition to Certainty and Satisfaction is that it's not a book for pastors, for preachers, for people who are thinking about preaching, or for church leadership (though any of them would get something out of the read). Rather, it's written in a way that the average unchurched or nominally-churched person could read it. The content is good, but what I'm interested in is how Peter Rollins puts the thing together.

Rollins is a great storyteller, and it's through storytelling that he illustrates some pretty dense theological material in a way that is understandable to people whose only experience of theology is through popular culture or the Christians who make it on the news. What I think is important about how Rollins writes is that it isn't dumbed down--he uses theological language, latin phrases, deep philosophical concepts, and theoretical ways of exploring ideas that aren't pedantic or pandering. I think this is the biggest fault of many church leaders seeking to reach a biblically illiterate generation--they speak and preach as though this illiteracy is actually infancy rather than taking the wealth of experience and theologizing the individual has likely done on her own before a religious professional even walked in the room.

Rollins incorporates stories in ways that layer upon each other, so that he's drawing you into a comfortable textual world in which you he introduces you to stories, then points out their relationship to the faith world. In discussing idolatry, he refers to "the MacGuffin," a term used in film making to discuss the item everyone's after, the magnet of the film, so to speak. In a chapter on self and identity, he uses a Miami Vice episode to explore the concept. And the conclusion is a sketch of a poor but whole woman who works miracles, raises suspicions of the authorities, and brings a renewed sense of peace to those she encounters (sound familiar?).

Though the use of popular culture is often taken as good "illustrations" for sermons, it's rare to see them used to such excellent effect as Rollins does. He's not using them to look cool (I mean, Miami Vice?). He's not using them in a way that sounds inauthentic. Rather, he's using them because they are vehicles that make his point in ways that are easily understandable and don't depend on an entirely new theological vocabulary to engage. They take the stuff of theology and make it accessible, make it so it seems like something that actually happens in real life.

The book itself is more a theology book than preaching text, but I do think that the way Rollins puts together the work is worth taking note of. First of all, he takes pop culture seriously as a story-telling medium that can convey meaningful information. He doesn't appropriate it simply to be hip and with it. Instead, he fleshes out the vehicles in ways that are legitimately helpful. (I had never seen an episode of Miami Vice and yet found his explanation quite compelling and easy to follow.) 

So...it's got me back on my line of thought about language. Rollins spends much of the text redefining, nuancing, and massaging some hefty theological terms. But he doesn't do it in biblical terms, theological terms, or in terms related to church history. Instead, he's focused on stories. And stories that people will be literate to. I think this in itself is an important notion in my developing understanding of vocabulary for preaching--that stories matter more than the language does, in many cases. Perhaps it's a Brueggemann case after all, with the contents being more important than the vessel.

Reading Up: Proclamation and Theology by William H. Willimon

The first book I picked up on my Festival of Homiletics reading list was William Willimon's Proclamation and Theology. In so, so many ways, I think that this was the exact book I needed to be reading now. The book reads like an enthusiastic, exhorting, cheering, encouraging, instructing sermon to preachers to get their theological act together about their preaching. He argues that the main issue with preaching today isn't an issue of style or accessibility, but rather is an issue of theology--AKA that it's needed in preaching.

This book was so chock full of gems that I'm going to have a tough time only sharing a few. But the biggest pieces I'm taking away have to do with the idea that in a strong theology of preaching, and preaching that takes its theological task seriously, the preacher doesn't matter all that much. God does. God, a constantly communicating Wordsmith, is taking our imperfect little selves and using us as vessels for the Word still being spoken out into the world today. For Willimon, the preaching task isn't to be taken lightly, isn't to be blown off, but is to be participating in God's continuing creative acts in this world.

What I especially love about Willimon's book is that it addresses failure. Failure by preachers, failure by the Word, failure as it realistically happens when the Word is not received. As a perfectionist, I'm struggling with this in my own preaching life, having a hard time not feeling like if I just studied harder, presented myself more generously, chose better words, that I would be able to pristinely convey this incredible message I've been given to share. Willimon says that's just not possible. And it's a relief, honestly.

My main issue with the text comes in the section in which Willimon encourages preachers to "talk like the Bible" (47). While his indication that this means presenting rich, multilayered sermons, various literary forms, and to honor the biblical world (he almost talks about it like the written Word is the New Jerusalem...hmm...) is something I can get on board with, I really struggled with his idea that we need to be teaching a new vocabulary to the congregation through preaching. I get what he's getting at--words like 'salvation,' 'sin,' 'suffering,' need to be given biblical context in order to really understand them as people of faith in the here and now. At the same time, I'm concerned about inaccessibility. To me, an important part of the preaching task is ensuring that this vocabulary isn't just adopted with definitions handed down. Rather, preaching turns that vocabulary inside-out, reaching deep into it to pull out meanings that reverberate in the present context. I think Willimon could get on board with that, but he walks a fine line in this section.

My favorite chapter was entitled "Cross and Resurrection in Preaching," and Willimon did an excellent job of fleshing out why preaching without the cross and resurrection is simple foolishness. What Willimon calls us to is Pauline foolishness--a turning upside-down of expectations to the point that the incredible things that come out of it absolutely have to be the work of God. And I'm all about some Pauline foolishness.

I love that this isn't a text that's a 7-step sermon preparation process, but instead is both the before, after, and why of a way of living life as someone who preaches. Like I said, right book at the right time.

Here are some particular gems:

• "...preaching is not about us--not about you the listener or about me the preacher. Preaching is about God and by God or it is silly" (2).
• "There is a reletntlessness about the speech of this God, an effusive loquaciousness, a dogged determination not to rest, not to fall silent, not to cease striving until every single one of us is part of the conversation. Therein is our hope. Here is a divine-human dialogue that is initiated and, at every turn in the road sustained, by a living, resourceful, long-winded God, thank God" (15). 
• "We are to love the text more than we love our congregational context" (20).
• "Much Christian worship ought to be predicated on the premise that, if we can get a group of ordinary, otherwise voiceless people to strut their stuff before the throne of God on Sunday, we will be able to do the same before the city council, or the Pentagon, or the administration on Monday" (27).
• "Preaching is that sort of public speaking that strives never to be original. Preaching is Christian only when it is biblical, when it is obviously derivative of, submissive to, and controlled by the biblical word" (33).
• "Favorite historical-critical questions--What is the earliest strata of this passage? How can this statement be credible to modern, scientific, western minds? Are these the genuine words of Jesus?--are not as relevant as Scripture's originating, homiletical question: Will you come forward, be part of a new, countercultural people of God, and follow Jesus where he leads you?" (34).
• "The pastor bears the burden of listening on behalf of the whole church" (42).
• "To be forced through our daily reading and interpretation of Scripture to see ourselves not primarily as servants of the whims of the congregation but rather as servants of the demanding Word can be true pastoral freedom" (46).
• "The Word, by its very nature not self-evident, is prone to incomprehension and misunderstanding. Failure is everywhere for the Word" (52).
• "A preacher is caught in that incarnational tension of having to speak a word for God but being utterly unable, by our humanity, to speak for God. The preacher must therefore stand up and proclaim in a  resonant, strong voice, 'Thus saith the Lord!' but at the same time confess with the young Isaiah, 'Woe is me! I am a person of unclean lips and dwell among a people of unclean lips'" (61).
• "Sometimes the best sermons do not argue the congregation into something they have not yet known but rather point to and name that which the congregation undeniably knows" (76).
• "'He is risen!' In a sense, this is as far as faithful preaching goes" (77).
• So if preaching fails and fails often, preaching also, by the grace of God, succeeds. Despite all obstacles and hindrances, people do hear" (79).
• "If there is one thing we preachers fear more than the possibility of crucifixion it is the potential of resurrection" (79).
• "The essential patience required of preachers, the freedom from homiletical anxiety over the reaction of our listeners, the confidence in the power of the preached word to accomplish what it wants, is possible only if, in fact, Jesus did rise from the tomb" (82).
• "Any pastor who is not tempted by despair has probably given in to the world too soon, has become dishonest or deceitful about his or her homiletical failures, has become too easily pleased by and accommodated to present arrangements, is expecting too little of the preached word. Weekly confrontation with the gap between what God dares us to say and what we are able to hear leads many of our best and brightest to despondency" (85). 
• "Easter keeps differentiating the church from a respectable, gradually progressive, moral improvement society" (87).