I was once told by one of the congregation, after preaching on a particularly astringent passage from the Gospels where Jesus was berating the religious status quo, that I needed to preach like that more often. When I asked ‘Preach like what’?, I was told ‘Give us a hard kick up the backside’.
I have to confess I was a bit surprised – I suppose it hadn’t fully registered that
a) preaching might have had that kind of aim expressed in such unevangelical terminology
b) there are those who expect to come to church and be the regular recipients of that kind of ‘team talk’!
But at the same time I recognise the truth of Thomas Merton’s comment that the church suffers from ‘chronic niceness’, a capacity to be accommodating and non-confrontational, and that in so doing the church is being unfaithful, avoiding the pain and rejection of being both critic of the status quo and exemplar of another way.
Which brings me to a passage from my A year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer daily readings book. Some of Bonhoeffer’s writing is an unmistakable example of ‘a hard kick up the backside’ for the Church. The words below were written at a time when the church’s silent acquiescence let evil go unchallenged.
The church confesses itself guilty of violating all the Ten Commandments. It confesses thereby its apostasy from Christ. It has not so borne witness to the truth of God in a way that leads all inquiry and science to recognise its origin in this truth. It has not so proclaimed the righteousness of God that all human justice must see there its own source and essence. It has not been able to make the loving care of God so credible that all human economic activity would be guided by it in its task. By falling silent the church became guilty from the loss of responsible action in society, courageous intervention, and the readiness to suffer for what is acknowledged as right. It is guilty of the government’s falling away from Christ. (Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 140-1)
Leave a Reply