In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The sad state of preaching may have more to do with the theological darkness that has come over the Church than a sudden crisis in the style of preaching. The other two lessons today assert that Epiphany is the season to see the light of Christ shine in the darkness. In both Isaiah and Matthew, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.” If Christ is not preached, then our preaching is in darkness. Are we a people who walk in darkness – who dwell in a land of deep darkness? Are we a people who, through preaching Christ, have seen a great light – who have had the light shine upon us?
In Paul's day, there were preachers who were more eloquent than he was. Through their human rhetoric and preaching style, they were able to persuade some in the Corinthian congregation to move away from Christ and his cross. In terms of practicing their craft, these men were good preachers, maybe even great ones.
They appealed to the human desire to be tantalized by a moving speech, even if the content was trivial or even bad. Some of these preachers developed their own personal following, an idolatrous kind of cult, that complemented the tendency among the Corinthians to create divisions coinciding with those who baptized them – a baptismal clique for Paul, and one for Apollos, and one for Cephas, and one for Christ.
Does this sound familiar? How many churches develop allegiances to pastors with dynamic preaching styles and charismatic personalities? How many people identify themselves as members of Pastor Perfect's church instead of Trinity Lutheran, or, more importantly, than members of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church?
Today's religious and secular culture tells us that there is a particular style of speaking that people like. But is not Paul telling us that, even in his generation, there was a style of preaching that was antithetical to the cross of Christ because it emptied the cross of its power? Paul's words prove, once again, that content must supersede style, that substance is more important than eloquence. As one homiletics professor once said to his students, “I hope all of you are good preachers, but none of you are great ones.”
St. Paul asserts that he was not sent to preach as the great rhetoricians of his day, “but to preach the Gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” In every age there are those whose preaching is better than that of the pastors of the Church. Just watch C-SPAN for awhile and listen to the speeches made in Congress, or read the orations of some of the ancient philosophers, or attend a performance of one of Shakespeare's plays. One could make lists of orations and speeches that are more interesting, more beautiful, more well-crafted and better polished than a good Christian sermon. Schoolchildren do not study sermons in English class, but rather sonnets.
However, the wisdom of this age empties the cross of its power. The pontificating of this day and age would make the message of the cross to be exactly what Paul warns – foolishness and a stumbling block. At best, it might be considered an acceptable form of private devotion. At worst, it is a subversive message of intolerance and bigotry that should be banished from our land (at least from New York).
Even those who are charged with proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a world in darkness are tempted to forget that charge and emulate the style of the world's preachers. A pastor often feels pressure to be more sonorous, more melodramatic. Many a homiletics lesson is devoted to the craft of wordsmithing – designing a turn of phrase so as to delight the ear.
But what is the point of eloquent speech? Is it to get the point across, or to draw attention to the speech itself and the talent of the speechwriter? So often, especially in politics, the point is less about the content and more about the style. You want people to like you, to listen to you? Then say what you want in a way that makes them feel good. There is an old saying that diplomacy is the art of telling a fellow to go to hell in such a way that he thanks you for the trip.
However, when such rhetoric enters the pulpit, hearers beware. For rhetorical devices and tricks may fall pleasingly upon the ear, but they often lead to dangerous false allegiances, drawing the hearers not to the Word of the Lord, but to the speaker of the day. And the proclamation of the Word is not about the speaker, but about the One who spoke the Word in the first place – Christ the Word of God Incarnate.
The pastor is not in the pulpit to draw attention to himself. He is not here to show how smart he is, or how cleverly he can turn a phrase, or how loudly he can declaim this, that, or the other thing that we don't like today. He is here to follow John's example, and be “a voice in the wilderness, crying 'Prepare the way of the Lord!'”
The pastor's task is not to embrace the wisdom of this day, or the wisdom of the ages, but the Wisdom that comes down from above, the Light in which we see light. The pastor's task is to destroy the wisdom of this age by the preaching of the cross.
For the wisdom of God is Christ Crucified for sinners. The wisdom of God is that while you were yet sinners, Christ died for you, the ungodly, the rebellious, the sin-sick, the dead. The wisdom of God is that while you were dead in your sins and trespasses, alienated and enemies of God, He broke into your poor, miserable existence and defeated sin, death, and the devil not with fancy words and beautiful rhetoric, but with the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us and who died for us men and for our salvation.
This is, of course, a stumbling block to the Jews. What self-respecting Jew wants a dead messiah, after all? What the Jews need is someone to save them from the Romans, or the Muslims, or the Nazis, or the Egyptians, or the Assyrians, or whomever is oppressing them right now. The Jews do not need someone to clear up the divine book-keeping; they need someone to set up the Jewish nation in the state of Israel and clear out the pretenders to the Temple Mount.
Perhaps even more than a stumbling block to the Jews, the preaching of the Cross is folly to the Gentiles. What the world needs is more love, more joy, more feelings of being affirmed, being accepted, being okay with who you are right now. Why do you need a savior when there is nothing wrong with you that a few more tax dollars or a bit more therapy or another dose of pills cannot cure?
However, faith rests upon the power of God and the wisdom of God – that is, upon Christ Crucified – and not upon the wisdom and grandiloquence of men. The Word of the Lord does what He says, not because the human mouth that speaks it is all that great, but because it is the Lord's Word to begin with, and what He says, He does – always.
Paul warns in today's reading that individualism and cultural appeal creates division within a congregation. The Corinthian congregation was split over baptismal allegiances. Some followed Paul, some Apollos, some Cephas (Peter), and some claimed to follow Christ. Paul expresses gratitude that he only baptized a few people in Corinth, so that they could not build up a following around him. He says that he was sent not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel in plain and clear words.
He preached, doing the work of an evangelist, and if some were baptized as a result, so much the better, but Paul asserts that his work was not to baptize but to pave the way for Baptism. For the preaching of Christ Crucified precedes Baptism. Or, to put it in a more familiar way, “What does such baptizing with water indicate?”
What is the point of a splash of water on the head, or even a dunk in a cold stream or lake? Is it simply a pious bit of nonsense, a hold-over of bygone ages and ancient superstitions? By itself, the splashing of water is nothing. There is nothing inherently holy in the water itself.
But when the Word of God is spoken with it, attached to it, and hemmed around it, then that bit of damp becomes a sin-killing, Law-fulfilling, death-defying, life-giving flood, rich in blessings, flowing from the pierced side of Christ. It is the flood of Noah, overwhelming sin, death, and the devil. It is the Red Sea, admitting the children of God to the Promised Land but closing over the world with its death and destruction.
Baptism flows from the proclaimed Word as water flowed from the pierced side of Christ on the cross. In that blessed flood, the water is filled with, endued with, encompassed by the Word of the Lord that makes it work “not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God” (1 Peter 3:21-22).
In this holy Sacrament, you find not division and cliques, but unity and communion with God and with one another. The dividing walls of hostility have been broken down between God and Man by the death of Jesus on the cross. And the dividing walls of hostility between brother and brother have been broken down by the dying and rising of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” says St. Paul (Romans 8:1). And if there is no condemnation before God, there is no barrier between brothers and neighbors.
For we are all members one of another, sharing together in the common life together that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. You were called sons of God through Christ, having been buried through Baptism into His death and resurrection. He is now your head, and just as there is only one Head, so also is there only one body, you the Church. Because you have been forgiven of all your sins, freed from condemnation, and joined to Christ, you are now free to forgive your brother his sins against you, work together for the good of all, and support the weaker members among you.
The Lord's Supper – the Bread of Life which we break and the Cup of Blessing of which we partake – is an expression of this unity among us, literally a holy communion. This sharing in the Supper is an outgrowth of our Baptismal unity, a visible representation of the Church at peace, coming together around the table of the Lord to eat the feast of the Lamb in His kingdom. We do not exclude people from this table because we do not like them or do not want to eat with them, but we hold sacred the blessed unity of faith which our Lord gives us, and we desire that all come to a knowledge and confession of the Truth. The Lord's Supper unites all who believe the Lord's Word and desire what He promises here. But for those who do not believe, the Supper is a sign of judgment on unbelief.
The Corinthian congregation was being led astray into factions and divisions, and into all manner of great shame and vice, by their itching ears and the crafty tongues of their favorite preachers. When Christ is not the center and subject of every sermon, it is all too easy to go astray and to fall into our own set of shames and vices.
The only thing that conquers sin, death, and the devil and sets you free from bondage to your flesh and your old sinful nature is Christ crucified for sinners and raised for your justification. The proclamation of the atoning death of Christ for you, for the forgiveness of your sins is the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. Not the flattery of the world. Not the crafty rhetoric of a talented speechwriter. Not the soothing words that fall lightly on itching ears. Christ Crucified for sinners, of which I am the chief. This message – and no other – sets you free from condemnation and reconciles you to God in heaven.
A good sermon is not one that motivates you, not one that uplifts you, not one that gives you a program to follow or advice on how to live a better life. A good sermon is one that breaks down the walls of division between you and God and between you and your brother by the power of the cross of Christ. A good sermon holds up for you the cross before your closing eyes and points you through the gloom to the skies above, to the resurrection of our Lord and the inheritance you have in Christ. A good sermon proclaims that Christ is here now to forgive your sins once again, and again and again – every Sunday. A good sermon does not give you a good feeling inside – it gives you Jesus, crucified and raised for the forgiveness of your sins and the salvation of your soul.
In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
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