An Encounter with My Own Stereotypes
We went back to the same church described in the previous entry last Sunday. A different preacher this week - younger, buffer, with shoulder-length blond hair tied back in a pony-tail. My mental filing cabinet threw out some cards. This one will be bluff and hearty, the cards predicted. He will speak with great conviction and much gesturing of his hands and arms. He will be enthusiastic. When the sermon began, the preacher spoke with great conviction and many strong and sharply punctuated hand gestures. He was enthusiastic, bluff, and hearty.
Continuing the series on Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, the preacher began by noting that Paul wrote the letter as a response to, “divisions within the early Church,” and that the modern church is also plagued by division. Division, he said, is a bad thing. I’ve been down this road before. The logic is as follows: Division is bad. Humans, because we are inherently divisive, are bad as well. The only way to solve this problem and cure this badness is to erase the divisions within the church, which can be done only by realizing that there is only one right way - which happens, by a stunning coincidence, to be the way of the preacher. Nothing new here. I almost stopped listening completely, but it’s a good thing I didn’t because he didn’t tell that sermon at all.
Instead, he went back to the cross - describing in medically accurate and fairly gruesome detail what actually happens during crucifixion. The point, he said, is to realize that in God’s mind, you are worth dying for, and so is every other person you will ever meet. So what are we arguing about? Division is a problem not because differences are bad, but because they are ultimately irrelevant. They distract us from the reality of our situation - God died for us, and calls us to die as well.
And then, to my delight, he bridged into a lovely parable (still riffing off Paul’s letter) about how our failings as humans are valuable precisely because they reveal the power of the cross, and how the absurdity of the Christian message (God calls us to die, and the way out of suffering is revealed in a historical death-by-torture) is in fact central to its purpose. It was one of the most thoughtful and provocative sermons I’ve heard in years - and the way it completely pulled the rug out from under my preconceptions was, frankly, brilliant.
One might almost say: Providential.
Continuing the series on Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, the preacher began by noting that Paul wrote the letter as a response to, “divisions within the early Church,” and that the modern church is also plagued by division. Division, he said, is a bad thing. I’ve been down this road before. The logic is as follows: Division is bad. Humans, because we are inherently divisive, are bad as well. The only way to solve this problem and cure this badness is to erase the divisions within the church, which can be done only by realizing that there is only one right way - which happens, by a stunning coincidence, to be the way of the preacher. Nothing new here. I almost stopped listening completely, but it’s a good thing I didn’t because he didn’t tell that sermon at all.
Instead, he went back to the cross - describing in medically accurate and fairly gruesome detail what actually happens during crucifixion. The point, he said, is to realize that in God’s mind, you are worth dying for, and so is every other person you will ever meet. So what are we arguing about? Division is a problem not because differences are bad, but because they are ultimately irrelevant. They distract us from the reality of our situation - God died for us, and calls us to die as well.
And then, to my delight, he bridged into a lovely parable (still riffing off Paul’s letter) about how our failings as humans are valuable precisely because they reveal the power of the cross, and how the absurdity of the Christian message (God calls us to die, and the way out of suffering is revealed in a historical death-by-torture) is in fact central to its purpose. It was one of the most thoughtful and provocative sermons I’ve heard in years - and the way it completely pulled the rug out from under my preconceptions was, frankly, brilliant.
One might almost say: Providential.