|
We Preach
by Lieut.-Colonel
Richard Munn
The
Salvation Army - USA Western Territory
College For Officer
Training
Commencement Address to ‘Ambassadors of Holiness’
June 10th 2011
Title:
‘Ambassadors and Heralds’
Text:
2 Corinthians 4:4 - 16
Aim:
To exhort the cadets and encourage the congregation to esteem
the ministry of preaching
Proposition: The
weekly proclamation of the gospel affords a unique,
God-ordained privilege to speak divine life into people.
Its simplicity can move mountains.
Introduction
For a number of years it was my
pleasant routine, representing The Salvation Army, to
regularly attend Rotary Club. I enjoyed the easy-going
camaraderie, the ready laughter, the clipped, disciplined
programme, and the immediately conferred, tacit chaplain role.
For an international organization with the time-tested motto
‘Service above Self,’ it’s easy to see why Rotary and The
Salvation Army are perfect together.
We met weekly,
sang songs, opened in prayer, raised money, served local and
global needs, warmly greeted visitors, elected local officers,
paid dues, highlighted a weekly 15 minute speaker and had
numerous opportunities to recreate together. It was
absolutely expected that you would serve on a committee and
that you would recruit new members. During one season we
even had weekly testimonies from Rotarians on ‘the difference
Rotary has made in my life.’ For some of my
long-standing fellow Rotarians this regimen was a sheer
delight, and they exhibited a religious devotion.
At
one point in this season, I began to privately wonder what
distinguished Rotary Club from the Corps, my community of
faith?
Almost as quickly as I asked myself the
question it dawned on me – we never ‘worshipped’ at Rotary; we
never had the public reading of scripture. Those two
actions, quite possibly brief in duration, distinguish a
community of faith from a service club and make all the
difference in the world. Remove the weekly rhythm of
worship and the public reading of scripture, and the community
has simply another service club.
It is into such a
cadence that our esteemed cadets are about to march.
Indeed, they will be expected set the pace and gauge the
tempo. It will on occasion feel like the hotel porter
who greeted the incoming guests, ‘Follow me, I’m right behind
you.’ Though, perhaps more cogent is the image of the
servant, the one who goes before to light the way.
A
key part of that weekly worship-scripture tandem is preaching.
What an electric moment, standing in the pulpit, notes at the
ready, fleeting silence, eye-ball to eye-ball with the
assembly of the saints.
Frederick Beuchner uses the
picture of a casino:
“In the front pews the old ladies
turn up their hearing aids, and a young lady slips her six
year old a Lifesaver and a Magic Marker. A college sophomore
home for vacation, who is there because he was dragged there,
slumps forward with his chin in his hand. The vice-president
of a bank, who twice that week has seriously contemplated
suicide, places his hymnal in the rack. A pregnant girl feels
the life stir inside her. A high-school math teacher, who for
twenty years has managed to keep his homosexuality a secret
for the most part even from himself, creases his order of
service down the center with his thumbnail and tucks it under
his knee…. The preacher pulls the little cord that turns on
the lectern light and deals out his note cards like a
riverboat gambler. The stakes have never been higher.”
Scripture
The tension of the moment is
contained in our Corinthian passage. We begin with the
‘god of this age’ who ‘blinds the minds of unbelievers.’
And, we conclude with the ‘God who shines light out of
darkness.’
Here are two massive cosmic forces –
one which blinds, one which illuminates. And that very
same tension is present in the weekly gathering of a
congregation. Assembled are people consistently
assaulted by the ‘god of this age’ through powerful secular
forces that batter away at their imprinted image of God.
Ethical compromise, private secrecy, abusive power, benign
neglect, erotomania, libertine hedonism … well, the list could
go on. Whether in the corporate board room, the college
dorm, the factory floor or the household kitchen, these forces
assail. And yet, this stubborn, humble gathering,
containing the magnificently disciplined and the momentarily
inquisitive, is convinced that ‘divine light’ can indeed
illuminate this world. Like Zacchaeus in the tree, the
message from the itinerant preacher from Galilee stirs
something within. They come. They loiter.
And
it’s the little hillock in-between these two mountains,
stunningly, that can make all the difference … ‘we preach.’
We preach! From the pulpits of the ones whose
study and training we celebrate today, will soon come forth
the very words of life. In those short moments,
sometimes eloquent, more often than not less than we would
hope for, will come words that crack open dark vaults, and
illumine with divine light. Indeed, the image is almost
beyond powerful. The very light that blazed into
primordial darkness, the empty morass at the very beginning of
time; the holy light, that burst forth creation, is the
self-same light that brings a person into new life in Christ.
‘God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made
his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.’
It was in such a setting that I came to living faith in
Christ. In the relative earthiness of a summer camp
staff Sunday morning worship, amidst the stuffy summer heat of
a wooden chapel, sitting on a metal folding chair, that I
heard the preacher of the day string together a phrase that
would topple me into the Kingdom – ‘A life without Christ is
life without purpose.’ My cleverly erected defenses
collapsed. John Wesley described it, ‘my heart was
strangely warmed; Charles Wesley set it song, ‘my chains fell
off, I rose went forth and followed thee.’ Martin Luther
nailed it – ‘one little word shall fell him.’
And so,
this is a plea – to cadet, officer, soldier and
church-attender alike - to treasure, nurture and esteem the
regular proclamation of the gospel from pulpit, lectern and
music stand. Whether with carpeted, stained-glassed,
mahogany surroundings; or, as more likely, within linoleum,
cinder-block, all-purpose rooms, anticipate with eager
expectation the weekly exposition of the word.
It is a
double-edged sword that cuts through the murky fog of the
week. It is a light that illumines the path ahead.
It is a seed that even dormant for eons, can one day burst
into life, bearing fruit that remains. It is honey,
sweet to the taste and packed with natural goodness. It
is bread for the hungry, bread that satisfies. It is a
hammer that smashes idols.
Like the unnamed disciples
excitedly recalling their walk to Emmaus with the risen
Christ, may your congregations say over Sunday dinner:
‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he opened the
Scriptures to us?’
‘Preach the Word; be prepared in
season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with
great patience and careful instruction.’ (2 Tim 4:2)
And, may the ‘Lord anoint you to preach good news to
the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom
for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.’
(Is 61:1)
And so beloved, from Alaska to Hawaii; from
Arizona to Wyoming, communities of faith and pulpits of all
shapes and sizes await you.
“Think yourself
empty; read yourself full; write yourself clear; pray yourself
keen; then into the pulpit, and let yourself go!”
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:4-6
4 The god of this age has
blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image
of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves, but
Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for
Jesus' sake. 6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out
of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of
Christ.
|
