2 Kings 5:1-14; Psalm 30; Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
preached by the Rev. Preston Parsons, July 8th, 2007
I'm going to start this morning by talking about a finger. It is an especially long finger. This finger belongs to John the Baptist, and it is in a painting by a painter by the name of Grunewald. In this painting, just above John the Baptist's hand, read the words "He must increase, I must decrease."
Where is John the Baptist's finger pointing? It points to Jesus, but not only Jesus: but to Jesus on the cross. John the Baptist, with his long index finger, points to Christ crucified.
It was the favourite painting of one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, Karl Barth, because for Barth this was the task of any theologian, any preacher: to point. To point away from him or herself, and to Christ crucified.
By this action of pointing, the priest, the preacher, and the church, all live up to our vocation, becoming what we are pointing to – we become the body of Christ by pointing to Christ and the cross.
***
I think it's about time to talk about preaching. And after that, to talk about the eucharist, and get some preliminaries clear about the role of the priest and the preacher.
I'd like for us to begin by turning to Galatians, specifically to verse 14 and 15 in chapter 6, where Paul writes: "May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!"
Paul's opponents were claiming converts to the Mosaic law. They were counting circumcisions because circumcision was the first observation of the law for any convert to the law.
But for Paul, there is no boasting, no story to tell, no story about his success, no personal illustration apart from the cross of Christ and new creation in the resurrection. Paul does not wish to tell any story, to boast and tell personal anecdotes about himself or what he has accomplished in the Galatians:
"May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!"
And in the end, this is his only story, and if he has a personal story to tell, it is about how the world has been crucified to him, and him to the world, but only through the cross of Christ. All other stories, his own, and the story of the Galatians,and the story of the whole world, is known only through the cross of Christ and his resurrection.
***
I spoke about this last week, about the central story Christians tell. The story central to our faith is that of the crucifixion of Christ, and that of the resurrection. This narrative, this story is the story that makes sense of our whole lives as Christians. This is the story that precedes and makes sense of our experience. This is how we make sense of scripture
and the life of the church. The story of the crucifixion is how we make sense of the world, of history. It is all made sense through the cross of Christ, the central event around which all things turn.
As Paul writes, the story of the crucifixion and the resurrection is the only story we really have to tell, the only story the church has to tell, the only one the preacher has to tell: Christ crucified, Christ resurrected.
Crucifixion and resurrection is the central story by which we identify ourselves, because to know and tell this story is to know Christ, it is to know how to be the body of Christ, it is to be who we are.
What we point to is what we become.
***
Think of baptism. In our baptism we die, and rise, in Christ. All identity outside our being in Christ, being dead and raised through baptism, anything besides this is peripheral. Our true self is now the one hidden in Christ, the one who died and rose again.
Further, this central narrative of the Christian life, that of Christ's crucifixion and his resurrection, your experience of this, our experience of this, our becoming what we point to is not a personal experience.
First of all, any experience that we have of the death and resurrection of Christ is already shared – because it is Christ who is crucified and resurrected first, and we share in that experience.
Secondly, even before it is personally shared, it is ecclesial – it is the experience of the church, it is the experience of the body of Christ.
We become what we are pointing to through our elder and experienced Christians, the ones who have learned the way of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection lived daily, and lived in hope.
But we also become, not just through the example of our elders in the faith, but it is also made true by the way we read the Psalms together, especially Psalms like the one we just read, Psalm 30. When we read the Psalms together, we read them as the body of Christ, the same Psalms that Jesus quotes n his life and on the cross. And we become this living and suffering body of Christ when we say together such things as:
“I will exalt you, O Lord,
because you have lifted me up *
and have not let my enemies triumph over me.
O Lord my God, I cried out to you, *
and you restored me to health.
You brought me up, O Lord, from the dead.”
This is the story, the one Paul insisted on boasting in rather than his own good deeds, the story of the one who is lifted up from the grave, the one whose enemies do not triumph, the one who cried out in pain, the one whose life was restored, the one who is the Christ, Jesus the crucified one, Jesus the risen one: through the Psalms, we point to Christ; and by this pointing, and speaking the words, we become the community of the crucified.
***
So what about the preacher?
Let's talk about the kind of preaching that is truthful to the task that is set before the preacher.
The truthful preacher will not tell personal stories, so much as he will always be pointing,
like John the Baptist in that painting by Grunewald, pointing to the crucified one. Because if the preacher points to him or herself, the cause is lost.
"He must increase." This is the story of Christ.
"I must decrease." This is not about me.
The proclamation of the church embodied in her preachers does not reveal the preacher nor the Scriptures. The proclamation reveals Christ, and him crucified.
"May I never boast of anything
except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ".
"a new creation is everything!"
Likewise, when you see the presider at the table, you better not be caught looking at him. Preaching is not about the preacher, neither is presiding about the presider. I'll be at that altar in a few minutes. And when I'm praying that great prayer of thanksgiving for you, don't look at me. Don't care about my voice. Don't care about my haircut.
No – Look at the cross. Look at the altar. Look at the bread and wine. Look there because that is how we do what we do, this is how we live out the Christian vocation, as a church, as a baptized people, a people baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, this is how we do crucifixion and resurrection: we signify our lives of crucifixion and resurrection by passing through the waters of baptism to our place at this table, participating in the crucifixion and the resurrection, at this table becoming what we point to.
We remember God's acts in history, we remember his crucifixion, we remember is resurrection, and we do what he asked us to do: "This is my body which is broken for you." "This is my blood which is shed for you.” Take and eat. Take and drink. "When you do this, you do this in remembrance of me."
Look at what is being pointed to: Christ and his crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ, each remembered and made true at this altar.
Take and eat, take and drink, become the body of Christ.
Because this is what makes us who we are: not the preacher, not the presider. We are made Christ, as we reveal and witness to Christ, the crucifixion and the resurrection become our own by pointing to the one greater than us, and by this pointing to the one greater than we are, by speaking his words, by participating in him at this table, then we become the one who has been lifted up from the dead, we become the body of Christ, and him crucified.
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