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I want to thank President Wardlaw for the very gracious invitation extended to me to be a part of this lecture series. I'm a proud alumnus of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and regard this as a great honor to

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be here today. No small part of the honor has to do with sharing in this series with such distinguished folk as Barbara wheeler, roger Nishioka and my own boss brian blunt. I'm not sure whether this

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sol belongs among those profits, but I've decided to embrace the pretense and enjoy the moment. Coming back to a place where you went to school, uh , evokes a lot of memories for me. I'm

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not going to rehearse them all to you, but I want to tell you that in this sanctuary I was married to my wife Peggy. My father officiated on that occasion. The last time I stood here

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was to preach my senior sermon, in comparison to which this occasion doesn't hold a candle uh, in terms of anxiety. Uh, but what really got me was last night as we were going into the

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tent to enjoy a delicious meal and past a grove of live oak trees. Big trees. I remember those day the day those trees were planted big trees on the wall above the doorway in our living room

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is a print depicting the characters in chaucer's Canterbury tales , all of whom are on the road looking faintly ridiculous as they make their way to Canterbury, the holy blissful martyr for, to seek. The print

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is really more of a character. Sure, depicting the pilgrims in all their irreverence, pride, hard won piety and silliness. Yet this painting has informed my view of ministry. It depicts folk who are

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traveling together. They're not just a company of pilgrims , they are companions. Ministry like the christian life is inconceivable without such companions. You will be hearing stories from me poems, insights from those who have

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sustained me along the way. I make no apology for that Toward the end of his life, Whr wrote a poem entitled Thanksgiving Without You Auden said of various good companions and mentors Without you. I couldn't

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have managed even my weakest lines. I suspect every minister could say much the same thing of those who have accompanied him or her along the way. Also , these pilgrims on the road to Canterbury are sustained

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by stories. I think ministry, like the church itself is sustained by the stories we hear the ones we hear of strange joys, unbearable sorrows, sacrificial gifts, unexpected laughter and deep gratitude. The Canterbury

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pilgrims set out from a tavern where they agree that the landlord will choose among the stories they tell which one is best. The prize being a supper paid for by the company, but of course they do

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not return to the tavern. They find themselves ultimately at Canterbury where another lord awaits them, having already paid for their supper, whose tail is not only the best story of all, but includes all of

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theirs and his, which is the third and most important way. This painting continues to instruct me, jesus christ is the true minister and ministers to us all with all our distorted selves and ridiculous concerns and

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are unbearable piety and foolish defiance. He invites us to enter his ministry. All I hope to do is to bear witness to the way in which his ministry shapes those who undertake it. Lana mentioned the

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title of this whole series. Today I want to focus on Faith and this afternoon Love and Tomorrow Hope . But it is the title I want you to hear again, Dancing with the one Who Brung us

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, Jesus Christ and the Work of Ministry. That is what makes these pilgrims look faintly ridiculous. They're all learning how to dance. The title is obviously cribbed for me anyway, from one of Darrell Royal's

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quips uttered, I believe, before Cotton Bowl game when he was asked whether he would make any adjustments to U. T. S. Wishbone offense to take into account the opposing team's defensive strikes. No

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, he said, we're going to dance with the one who brung us. Now, if you heard that quote, you may not have noted the theological depth of Royals comment, but given his stature in

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the home in which I grew up, his words have approached the authority of Holy writ and so part of my task today will be to exaggerate this text and draw your attention to the theological implications of that

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quip, particularly as it relates to the work of ministry. The history of Israel, for example, might be read as the history of God's people. Their efforts mostly failed efforts to dance with the one

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who brought her out of Egypt through the wilderness, across the jordans, through victories and defeats exile and diaspora, the gospels and even paul's letters recount what it meant to dance with the one who brung disciples

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on a long walk to Jerusalem and beyond and what it might mean for disciples to dance with the living lord today. Indeed, the history of the church has largely been a story of this strange partner who

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insists on dancing with the unlikeliest of folk, drawing them into his life, teaching them impossible steps and summoning them to awkwardly graceful moves, which they failed to master again and again. Yet somehow by which

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in his company they find themselves, even in their clumsiness. Dancing. The quip certainly means at least that, but hidden in the quip and not so very far underneath the surface is a trace of embarrassment

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With the one who brung us our partners, not the one we might have chosen. Not, perhaps the most attractive or popular. We're dancing with this partner mainly because, well, this is the one

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who brung us and our dancing is in its own way of testimony to the persistence and to be blunt forgiveness of our partner, but not to any enchantment with these moves or with the figure. Our partner

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cuts our embarrassment becomes more cute when we survey, so to speak. The alternatives. There are partners who would not embarrass us nearly so much who's dancing fits our skill set so much better and our self

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image and whose moves do not seem nearly so demanding . Dancing with the one who brung us can be terribly constraining an embarrassment of sorts that refuses to let us go our own way. The task of these

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lectures will be to probe the nature of that embarrassment , particularly in regard to ministry and to suggest that such embarrassment in fact, offers a clue to understanding the nature of ministry, both in terms of its

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most fervent aspirations and all too obvious failures. Central to this vision of ministry, however, and undergirding the whole of it is a deeper embarrassment which I want to begin with and lay before you. One

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that is not mentioned that much by theologians or pastors , but whose mysterious gift and settles us even more . Not with its radical discrepancy, but with the abundance of its riches. An abundance that leaves us

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mumbling docks, ology, ease of gratitude with paul and the psalmist. Oh, the depth of riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unser chewable are his judgments! How inscrutable his ways! Who

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has given a gift to him to receive a gift in return to him, be the glory forever. Amen the embarrassment. This embarrassment is the true scandal at the heart of ministry, at the heart of

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faith and has everything to do with the one who brung us. It is the embarrassment of riches that makes it possible to dance at all the intrusive presence of God who is already in our midst, one

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we have not conjured or conceived or contrived, one who's not afraid to embarrass us with real presence, especially when we pretend that this one's far away difficult to find, that it's our job to boost ourselves

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up or argue this one down. One who persistently embarrassed Israel with judges and prophets and priests, one who embarrassed the women and other disciples with his refusal to stay in the grave one who shows up and

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draws near to us whose word is on our lips and in our hearts, whose love as the him has. It will not let us go. That is the great embarrassment where all of theology and ministry

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must begin. Such embarrassment is worth reflecting upon, particularly as it bears on the work of ministry. In his essay, the spiritual formation of the pastor , William Willimon notes that what makes the ordained ministry

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different from the calling of every other christian is its official nous, it's office that is its communal or ecclesial ecclesial function in what might be called the church's home economy, Willimon insists at the outset insists on

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this at the outset, because he widely fears our efforts to locate the specialness of ministry in something less embarrassing and even more romantic than in our baptism. Perhaps d located in something special in. Well,

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me, since the reformation ordination has not been a sacrament, at least in most protestant churches, and therefore, it has not been viewed as delivering or partaking of some special virtue in possession of the clergy

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, person with our roman catholic friends. On the other hand, being married to the church indicates that this virtue, while sacramental in nature, does something on to logically, to the priest, setting him

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apart from the non ordained who occupy a second and if not lower, at least, more mixed level of faith. The priest is different from you and me and in some in sport and in some important

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respects, can do things that you and I cannot do now, whatever one might think of this notion of ministry, it has the virtue of certain objectivity , that is, it has nothing to do with

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the priest personality or spirituality for that matter. But rather its ecclesial, logically rooted and sacramental lee ordered still graces dispensed by this officially sanctioned figure. A charismatic figure. Two other individuals who depend upon something

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special in him for their reception of God's salve effect gifts. The liberal protestant version of this has been to romanticize the notion of ministry dispensing with its ecclesiastical trappings and reclaiming its work as a matter for the

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spiritually gifted in whose whose virtuosity extends far beyond the simple baptism, baptismal inheritance of every christian and issues , and something more. What is that more? Well, it varies from place to place and time

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to time, but perhaps a brief mention of what theological seminaries are sometimes expected to produce will suffice to indicate the range the development of servant leaders, the cultivation of spiritual virtuosos, the training of great preachers

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, the identification of wounded healers, the preparation of students for the academic study of religion, the shaping of prophetic, socially conscious advocates, whatever the result . Clearly a second level of something is implied here

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as if the real work of ministry were quite beyond the scope of our baptismal calling. But as Willman in personally points out, this is how we get people in seminary who do not want to be pastors

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, the task of ministry. It's not about embarking upon a deeper spiritual journey than otherwise might be available in our culture. Today, there is nothing embarrassing about such spiritual journeys. Indeed, they are depressingly

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abundant as our so called great preachers and students of religion and chaplains to socially conscious nonprofit agencies. What ministry engages and where it begins to blush with real embarrassment is in its participation in the church's effort to

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dance that is in the baptismal calling of the whole church's mission to proclaim, live with and under and serve and rejoice in that one who raised jesus christ from the dead, who creates life together out of

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nothing, who forms dry bones into living body of praise, who claims the community of faith as the appropriate earthly historical witness to the trying God. It is the church where we learn to blush, and

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perhaps most need to. But in any case, there is where we learn about embarrassment. Willimon concludes , you see, I'm not a community person by natural inclination. Tell me I have some charismatic flair

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for leadership, praise me for the art, my art of preaching, or the empathy of my pastoral care. Just let me share myself and pour out my feelings, urge me to become a spiritual virtuoso

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, but please do not force me to find what I do and therefore who I am among those who gather at my so very mundane congregation. Let me do freelance ministry. Give me a degree, and

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tell me I'm special encouraged me to tack up a shingle, allow me to have some special, exotic spiritual know sis that makes me holy, but do not hold me accountable to the church. I love

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jesus, and I want to serve him. But he married beneath his station for me, the real scandal of ministry, the ultimate stumbling block. The thing I avoid in fear most is the church.

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Which embarrassment ought to be a clue that we're onto something dangerous here dancing with one whom we did not choose, and whose way of bringing us into his body in the company of others, whom we have

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not chosen is exactly what makes this dance uncomfortable, and therefore evangelical e fruitful the french Reformed Church's baptismal formula captures this embarrassment nicely in the words the minister has called upon to say to every newly baptized infant

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words that make clear the embarrassment of every christian's calling little child for you, jesus christ came into the world, he did battle in the world, he suffered for you. He went through the agony of

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Gethsemane and the darkness of calvary for you, he cried, it is finished and for you, he triumphed over death for you and you little child do not yet know anything about this, but thus is

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a statement of the apostle confirm we love God because he first loved us. You do not know anything about this. Only in the company of this strange partner. Could the dance of ministry begin like that

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? The fact of the matter is, there are many lines of work that are not nearly so embarrassing as ministry that is rooted in that kind of calling . If you go to business school or law school

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or graduate school, no one in our culture will be scandalized by your decision. You want to become a lawyer or a banker, a doctor, good for you. You want to become a professor of

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religion even more excellent. But if you say I'm going to seminary and hope to become pastor of a church. This may require some further explanation. The culture knows this. Look at the way ministers are

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portrayed in movies novels, tv shows and plays, he or she is depicted either as a likable fool or harmless idiot or perhaps sometimes as a bigoted in truth, this form of depiction is not new jane

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, Austen Shakespeare chaucer all knew how to send up the clergy, often with brilliant results. Mr Collins is so deliciously ludicrous that he almost crowds Elizabeth, Bennet and Darcy off the stage. There is something

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comically absurd about ministry. Jim Horton and his illuminating essay on theology and ministry and hebrew scriptures begins by noting the connection between the word ministry and the word minus. A minus is a lesser person, who

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undertakes something on behalf of a greater a magus, a master, The discrepancy between the lesser and greater invites laughter, even ridicule as it often does in scripture, one thinks of Goliath looking at the boy

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, David with his five smooth stones, as a ridiculous defender of Israel, or naming the Syrian, who knew of much bigger and better rivers at home to bathe in than the river jordans. But the

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wisdom of the Corinthians that seemed to them so much more impressive than paul's more excellent way. Eberhard Becky in his biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer reports that when Bonhoeffer let it slip at age 14, that he intended

00:23:15.620 - 00:23:30.080

to be a theologian and pastor, his siblings refused to take him seriously, arguing that he would be wasting his time devoting himself to an enterprise that was poor, quote, poor, feeble, boring,

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petty and bourgeois Later in 1932 recalling his school years , Bonhoeffer wrote about himself in the third person one day, in the first form. When the master asked him what he wanted to study, he quietly

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answered theology and flushed. The word had slipped out so quickly that he did not even stand up. In that case, the teacher said, you have more surprises coming In 1934, Bonhoeffer received what,

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in retrospect can only appear as a remarkable note from his father. His father, who had no real interest in the church at all, wrote to his son in 1930 for when things were really heating up

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in Germany the following at the time, you decided to devote yourself to theology. I sometimes thought to myself that a quiet, uneventful minister's life would really almost be a pity for you. Yes, well

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, that was one thing papa Bonhoeffer did not have to worry about, but that is often how this minus is construed. Ministers if they're not thought of as living uneventful lives, are sometimes thought of as

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kind of spooky folk, a bit unpredictable or even weird. Nothing I found stops the conversation quicker on an airplane than to reply to the question, what do you do with the words? I'm a presbyterian

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minister? Oh, I've sometimes wondered also in a culture whose pursuit of happiness is largely defined in monetary terms, whether the ministry seems baffling because it seems to summon lucrative profession. The embarrassment stems not so

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much from the salary level, but from the perceived lack of ambition that such a salary must represent. But perhaps something deeper is to be discerned here. Perhaps the embarrassment that our culture feels in the presence

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of those who minister dismissing them as likable fools as timidly unambitious slackers who waste their gifts as a minus . Perhaps all of this embarrassment disguised as a real if vague recognition that ministry is a dangerous profession.

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One capable of exposing us in the most humiliating of ways directed by something or someone who is capable of regularly embarrassing us with his with deeply intrusive presence. One we cannot control little child. You do not

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yet know anything about this and the culture of expertise . What kind of word is that so much of life seems to be a kind of energetic effort to flee from that embarrassment and to assure ourselves of our

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self sufficiency. Ministers are themselves well acquainted with such efforts, often disguising their own embarrassment as a minus . By turning their vocation into something big a magus , a career or success or something more major that

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can be assessed and properly measured. Or it sometimes happens has happened to me the respectability of the Academy beckons and provides justification for an otherwise suspect line of work. And this connection is salutary to remember,

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I think it is Kirk Guards mocking question. What is the Professor of Theology Kirk regards wit can be absolutely brutal. What is the Professor of Theology? He's a professor because someone else was crucified. That

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embarrassing truth is why there are such things as professors of theology and ministers minus. Indeed, which explains why theologians and pastors scramble so hard to look for a more respectable basis for their work. Herman Article

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Key, A New language Theory, a particular kind of therapy, a political ideology, anything would be better than the scandalous minus hanging on the cross. So the embarrassment persists and comes to painful expression in

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the local congregation when a quite flawed human being is called upon each week to stand up and speak the word of God to other, quite flawed human beings being called to proclaim that word is what embarrasses most

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deeply, and the temptation to seek an easier line of work. One that will not place us in such a ridiculous position is overwhelming. Yet ministry begins not in fleeing from that embarrassment or apologizing for it

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, but in acknowledging and even embracing it. In a lecture given to a group of ministers in 1922 , Carl Bart spoke of his own attempt to be a minister of the Gospel, he writes, it

00:29:08.110 - 00:29:25.330

was not as if I had found any way out of this embarrassment. Exactly. Not that what else can ministry be, but the truest possible expression of this embarrassment into which a man falls when he ventures

00:29:25.330 - 00:29:45.630

upon this task and out of which he cannot find his way, a cry for rescue arising from great need and great hope, embarrassment is the situation most characteristic of the profession for which theology desires to prepare

00:29:48.980 - 00:30:03.360

. According to Bart, this is exactly the complaint that Luther brought against the Catholicism of the Middle Ages , namely that it desired to be liberated from that embarrassment. How deep this embarrassing need continues to be

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, and how little it has to do with more congenial definitions of professional ministry can be seen in Bart's nasty little question to those who will construe ministry as a career. That same essay, he asked,

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what is the nature of true satisfaction in ministry? Do the prophets and apostles not to speak of jesus christ? Give us the impression of being people who have succeeded generally in their careers, who could at

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the end of their lives look back upon a blessed and satisfying life. Strange that we do so much better than they. What can it mean? Bart thought that such attempts to describe ministry in terms of

00:30:49.640 - 00:31:10.290

our credentials or satisfying careers or success should set alarms off in our heads. Is the word of God . So easily managed ministry so readily negotiated preaching so un embarrassing and activity? No, this work begins

00:31:10.290 - 00:31:25.070

with a crying to hope, the one who brung us is not so easily put off. And there's nothing like the dance to reveal our clumsiness. This ministry is not undertaken out of our abundance or self

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sufficiency, but constantly requires us to look to another self giving and like a little child compels us to ask daily for help, which is why we're so embarrassed and why our culture that prizes abundance and self

00:31:45.020 - 00:32:07.690

sufficiency and a church that often does so too has such a hard time understanding ministry. We're not use to asking. There are surprisingly few courses offered in theological curriculum, at least where I teach on prayer

00:32:10.080 - 00:32:27.530

. Yet the embarrassment of preaching is only unsettling because it's rooted in the deeper scandal of the one whose abundance beggars description the reality of the God who speaks , who is not silent, who addresses us,

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whose word is living and calls ours into being. In recent years. A great deal of theological attention has been given to the task, the important task of interpreting tax. And certainly there's been a temptation

00:32:43.000 - 00:32:57.110

in our own reform tradition to think that the word of God is in the first instance a written thing that requires a good deal of biblical and ecological analysis and interpretation to be rightly understood. We are and

00:32:57.110 - 00:33:17.400

we are proud to be people of the book and of books. Yes, Stephen Webb reminds us, Israel was not first of all enjoined to read or transcribe or even preserve or study Torah, but rather

00:33:17.400 - 00:33:39.230

the first divine command to Israel was here. O Israel. Thus said, the Lord is the bible's reframed Eli's words to Samuel and join him to pray . Speak Lord for thy servant. Hearing ralph would

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tells of his pastor. Warren carr who when he reads scripture tells his parishioners to put the bibles down . Don't read. Listen, he says, listen , faith comes from hearing the God who reveals self

00:34:00.320 - 00:34:21.550

by hiding from our site, who cannot be captured by image or text. This God is the one who speaks and is also the God who listens web notes that God's hearing is as scary as God speaking

00:34:22.620 - 00:34:42.070

when for example, God tells the hebrews not to abuse widows and orphans, God declares, if you do abuse them, when they cry out to me , I will surely heed their cry. The psalmist

00:34:42.070 - 00:35:01.490

knows the psalmist know that it is the God who hears, who is able to draw intimately close, not some unmoved mover who sees all and is merely omniscient, who is God, Hear my prayer O

00:35:01.490 - 00:35:16.390

Lord! Let my cry come to you, incline your ear to me, answer me speedily in the day when I call someone oh two or the famous refrain from psalm 107. Then they cried to the

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Lord in their trouble and he saved them in their distress. He sent out his word and healed them . Such prayers can be risked only by those who understand that they have been addressed by another that they

00:35:32.850 - 00:35:50.010

have heard God speaking through these words. This is a different situation from one who has a text to interpret only and everything I want to say in these lectures hinges on that difference. Perhaps an illustration might

00:35:50.010 - 00:36:06.850

help Carl Bart has famously drawn attention to the way Anselm begins his pro slogan, that is his address , in which Anselm attempts an extended reflection on the divine name drawing out the implications for understanding God's being

00:36:07.960 - 00:36:24.030

. In an earlier work monologue in and Salman conducted a monologue in which he attempted to think rationally about the nature of God seeking quote by silent reasoning with himself to learn what he does not know. And

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some later pronounced himself unhappy with his early efforts and chose to cast his second theological effort in the form of an address, not a monologue, but an address. An address to someone that begins with prayer

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to God teach me and sound praise to seek the for I cannot seek thee unless thou teach me or find thee unless thou show me thy self before it is. Speaking about theology is speaking to and even

00:37:02.560 - 00:37:22.660

more listening to famously in his opening prayer and some sites, song 27 verse seven, whose verse seven reads here, Oh Lord, when I cry aloud , be gracious to me and answer me. And

00:37:22.660 - 00:37:40.110

the verse that follows, come my heart says, seek his face your face Lord, do I see the welsh sport and anglican priest r. S thomas has written in the same vein about the role that

00:37:40.110 - 00:38:02.720

prayerful listening plays in ministry and a poem, a beautiful poem entitled the answer. He writes the following . There have been times when after long on my knees and a cold chancel a stone has rolled from

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my mind. and I have looked in and seen the old questions lie folded and in a place by themselves, like the piled grave clothes of love's risen body. It is the reality of God's self revelation

00:38:24.460 - 00:38:45.600

that makes ministry possible and makes theology possible, both ransom and for those who undertake it. This showing of God's self through God's word. This recognition that the one who speaks addresses us seeks and creates fellowship

00:38:45.600 - 00:39:00.570

with us, and not in such a way that our voices smothered or we are rendered speechless, but precisely so we can find our voices and address God speaking to God and on that basis, faithfully understand

00:39:00.570 - 00:39:22.500

and proclaim what we have heard and believe what Anselm discovered. What are as thomas sees is that theology is not first of all about God. First of all, it is from God and to God,

00:39:22.690 - 00:39:37.540

and only on that basis are we able also to think faithfully about God. The great temptation of theology and for that matter of ministry, as Bonhoeffer once noted, is to speak of God as if God

00:39:37.540 - 00:39:57.840

were not in the room. It is the living God who addresses us. The reality of and God said. This word that is voiced before it is written. The scandalous nearness of God. That is

00:39:57.840 - 00:40:14.480

the embarrassment that both reveals our need and supplies its remedy in his book on Bart joseph man Gina makes what I think to be a very interesting point that bears precisely on this matter. Man Gina takes note

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of the protestant, not to say reformed polemic against idolatry and shows how in its modern form it gains its traction by conceiving of the theological task as a prophetic critical one, the test of which is its

00:40:30.330 - 00:40:45.880

willingness to identify and contend against the human propensity to idolatry. This, of course, is what calvinists have been trained to do from birth, Having learned as much from john Calvin himself, who argued that

00:40:45.880 - 00:41:04.760

human nature is in fact a perpetual factory of idols . This is what human beings do, Calvin claimed . They're so religious that they will worship anything most especially the gods. They constantly create the prophetic aspect

00:41:04.770 - 00:41:21.000

of theology then makes its appearance supposedly at precisely this point, paul Tillich, for example, is Man Gina notes, argues that genuine religion has to do with ultimate concern, whereas idolatry involves the elevation of

00:41:21.000 - 00:41:38.340

preliminary concerns to Ulta Macie. In a similar vein , H Richard Niebuhr contrasts the biblical god of radical monotheism, monotheism with the false gods of class nation , race or political ideology. Among the most important

00:41:38.340 - 00:41:53.820

idols to be resisted are those of institutional religion, which often seeks to manipulate God in service of its own self interest. The hedge against idolatry is found in what Tillich calls the protestant principle and in what

00:41:53.820 - 00:42:10.920

neighbor called the stance of radical faith. In both cases, the protest consists in a refusal to give allegiance to anything less than the one god so far so good, this kind of task we understand,

00:42:10.930 - 00:42:25.860

and even preaching on the basis of this theological self understanding strikes us as prophetic, in the best sense of the word. However, Mangina notes that this way of doing theology is not what Bart is up

00:42:25.860 - 00:42:43.490

to, even if one takes into account the language of the epistle to the romans, with all its emphasis on God's transcendence, Bart is strangely uninterested in protecting the transcendence of God. Man Gina concludes,

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the God of the protestant principle tends to lack the concreteness and terrible intimacy of Bart's God, who distinguishes himself from the idol, not in the end by being transcendent, but by becoming incarnate in jesus christ

00:43:01.980 - 00:43:16.210

, the theological task, and for that matter, the task of ministry is not in the first instance , to protect God from idolaters, much less is it to believe in a principal whose virtues will establish

00:43:16.210 - 00:43:37.650

our own theological integrity, but to attend to God's self giving in jesus christ, there is where the word becomes flesh Principles, especially the protestant principle, are embarrassed by the incarnation, finding it impossible to

00:43:37.650 - 00:43:57.080

accept that God's identity and being could be enacted in the events of this one. Life from Bethlehem, to galilee, to Gethsemane to Jerusalem as Man Gina notes, that's just two particular wrists, for good

00:43:57.080 - 00:44:10.200

, modern liberal christians to accept, resulting in a protestant principle, which in its quest to keep us safe from idols, proceeds to devour the very core of the gospel. This of course, is a

00:44:10.200 - 00:44:30.140

just a flannery. O'Connor's complaint against an acculturated protestantism that so many of her stories send up jesus, as the misfit says, in one of her stories , thrown everything off balance. Even evidently our principles

00:44:30.150 - 00:44:45.990

, which in another of her stories seem to be the first thing folks lose upon entering the kingdom of heaven. But this is also why O'Connor and bark for that matter. Found much of liberal protestantism so

00:44:45.990 - 00:45:02.190

joyless. The task of clearing out the idols is never ending and always grimly serious. It requires a great deal of explanation. Many words, though always suspicious of the fleshly nous of that word which intrudes

00:45:02.190 - 00:45:16.030

upon us and summons us to listen. What I'm talking about here is illustrated very well. I think in a story that W. H. Auden tells , tells about himself, Arden was in my judgment

00:45:16.040 - 00:45:35.770

, a great christian and he would read the bible and occasionally try to imagine uh to take roger's uh theme, imagine where he would be in this biblical story. And so he reads the passion narrative and

00:45:35.770 - 00:45:47.040

ask, where would I be as we were all in Adam, he writes. So we were all in Jerusalem on that first good friday when there was as yet no easter, no Pentecost, no christmas

00:45:47.040 - 00:46:02.970

, who was I? I asked myself what would I have been doing one of the disciples in a state of spiritual despair and physical terror ridiculous. I'm not that faithful. One of the sanhedrin. No

00:46:02.980 - 00:46:17.280

, I'm not that devout a churchman pilot. No , I'm not a political big wheel Now, I see myself in this story as a Helen. Ized jew from alexandria, taking an afternoon stroll with a

00:46:17.280 - 00:46:35.620

friend, engaged in a philosophical argument. Our path takes us near Golgotha. I look up and see a familiar sight, three crosses surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. Really, I say it's disgusting the

00:46:35.620 - 00:46:49.180

way the mob enjoys such things. Why can't they execute criminals quickly and mercifully? By giving them like Socrates a draft of hemlock. Then I banished the disagreeable spectacle from my mind and we resume our fascinating

00:46:49.180 - 00:47:08.020

discussion about the nature of the true, the good and the beautiful. So do we miss the word as we cling to our principles? The word made flesh is too embarrassing. We would rather explain Aaden

00:47:08.020 - 00:47:24.420

story illustrates one of the ways we seek to get around the embarrassment of jesus christ and in so doing reminds me of what my revered teacher, thomas f Torrance called the latin heresy of the West. Torrence

00:47:24.420 - 00:47:40.120

believed that almost built into the way the people in the West received the gospel was an inability or downright refusal to think of God in trinity Terrien or crystal logical terms. We always seek God in another way

00:47:40.890 - 00:47:55.700

, less embarrassing way that would not require us to engage jesus christ beginning with totally in the Gospel of jesus christ could be and often was interpreted in the West as a moral law, a remedy that answered

00:47:55.700 - 00:48:13.530

to our guilt and need of forgiveness. Augustine's confessions certainly describe the christian life in this way and are surprisingly quiet about jesus christ as the chief clue to God's identity. Like totally in Augustine also knows another

00:48:13.530 - 00:48:28.330

way around jesus christ, a more mystical or spiritual way. Indeed, when Augustine describes the beatific vision , he and his mother Monica have looking out the window in Ostia, he celebrates the fact that they

00:48:28.330 - 00:48:43.810

both left for a moment. He says, they're embodied existence behind and enjoyed a kind of spiritual ecstasy with what he called the self same, a neo platonic term for God. The apprehension, the apprehension

00:48:43.810 - 00:48:59.030

of which did not require evidently knowledge of Jesus christ . Even Augustine's famous prayer, with which he begins the confessions, describes the metaphysical relationship with God, which seems to operate apart from God's self giving and

00:48:59.030 - 00:49:16.110

jesus christ, O Lord thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in the that is the locust classicists for that homesickness upon which so many 19th century revivalist hymns play

00:49:16.920 - 00:49:31.020

describes very well in its own way the more romantic longing of the religious individual for a sense and taste of the infinite one cannot help but think it is also the basis for what Harold bloom called the american

00:49:31.020 - 00:49:51.980

religion writing is a non believing religious critic, a literary scholar who is interested in modern forms of gnosticism bloom is wholly illuminating on precisely this point, he writes, The american finds God in herself or himself

00:49:52.050 - 00:50:09.400

, but only after finding the freedom to know God by experiencing a total inward solitude. Salvation for the american cannot come through community or the congregation, but is a one on one act of confrontation. It

00:50:09.400 - 00:50:27.220

is annoying by and of an uncreative self, a self within the self and the knowledge leads to freedom , a dangerous and do meager freedom of freedom from nature, time, history, community and especially other

00:50:27.220 - 00:50:43.450

selves, sort of like Augustine and Monica. The point of all of this is the enduring vitality of the latin heresy of the God within or the God perceived through nature or morality or in some other way

00:50:44.000 - 00:51:00.950

its power to relieve us of the embarrassment of the God who speaks, who addresses us and whose try in life is revealed and enacted in the person of jesus christ. We find a way to do theology

00:51:00.950 - 00:51:17.160

and ministry without the embarrassing presence of christ. The latin heresy described by Torrance is in fact, the religious effort to escape from that embarrassing presence whose being is a life together, a father Son and holy

00:51:17.160 - 00:51:31.410

spirit and who cannot be known apart from those whom jesus christ is already called into his own life, Folk whom we have not chosen, folk who are not like us, folk we would never have chosen

00:51:31.420 - 00:51:51.070

, who have been going to this dance by the same one who brung us. I want to emphasize the embarrassing nature of this strange way of salvation by looking for just a moment at the reformed doctrine of

00:51:51.070 - 00:52:05.830

Election and Leslie New Biggins book The Gospel in a pluralist society. He has a chapter on the logic of election. In that chapter, he cites Rousseau as saying that he could not understand why if God

00:52:05.830 - 00:52:17.750

had something to say to jean Jacques Rousseau, he could not say it directly, but had to go through moses to say it. This of course, is exactly what bloom was talking about in his description

00:52:17.780 - 00:52:35.070

of modern, not to say american view of salvation . Why do we have to depend upon another In response. New Vegan offers what he considers to be the logic of election taking Romans nine through 11.

00:52:35.070 - 00:52:50.150

As his text. He notes first of all, that Russo finds in what Russo finds embarrassing is that the knowledge of the God of Israel and jesus christ is always mediated. Knowledge, knowledge that is received

00:52:50.150 - 00:53:06.230

in the company of and through others knowing God implicates us in a web of relationships, the community. This understanding of knowledge of course runs counter to the enlightenment conviction that intelligent human beings are to leave the

00:53:06.230 - 00:53:22.910

age of minority behind and take up their rightful places autonomous creatures who in concert words dare to know for themselves. New, begin following alister McIntyre suspicious of the enlightenment vision of autonomy and notes that scripture more

00:53:22.910 - 00:53:40.400

often talks about human beings in terms of genealogies and Barbara, you'll have to forgive these tribes and relationships dependence upon one another, he writes, is not merely part of the journey toward the goal of salvation

00:53:42.090 - 00:54:01.350

, but is intrinsic to the goal. There is there can be no private salvation, no salvation which does not involve us with the other. There is no salvation except one in which we are saved together

00:54:01.350 - 00:54:17.210

through the one whom God sends to be the bearer of salvation. Which means his Kirkegaard would remind us that Jesus is not a kind of guru or teacher whom we can dispense with after we've mastered his lessons

00:54:17.950 - 00:54:35.230

, but that we are always and ever dependent upon him, whom we have not chosen, and whose salvation implicates us in the lives of others whom we have not chosen. How can this be New begin

00:54:35.230 - 00:54:50.440

interprets romans nine through 11, in a remarkable reading , which I think brings true to the whole of the Gospel. What does it mean that Israel has rejected the messiah New begin interprets Paul is saying that

00:54:50.440 - 00:55:02.920

God has hardened the heart of Israel so that the Gospel which they reject will bounce off of them and land on the gentiles. Israel would never have chosen a salvation that looked like that, nor would the

00:55:02.920 - 00:55:20.200

gentiles have expected to receive such a gift from, of all people, the jews. But this is a strange way God works. The apostasy of Israel results in the salvation of the gentiles. Does this

00:55:20.200 - 00:55:35.000

mean, Israel is lost by no means impossible. God can never cast off his chosen people. And how's it To end? The answer is an eschatological vision. The hardening of the heart of Israel will

00:55:35.000 - 00:55:50.950

last until the full number of gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saying in the end . Therefore, it is through the gentiles whom Israel would never have chosen and would not choose. That

00:55:50.950 - 00:56:12.710

. Israel will be saved. And the logic of election is complete. We're always saved by the wrong people because of course we're saved by the wrong person . The one who insists on bringing us to the

00:56:12.710 - 00:56:30.180

dance. New begins. Answer to this question is that salvation by grace means getting well acquainted with the embarrassment of having to depend on another, even the wrong other. And in discovering that we are dependent

00:56:30.180 - 00:56:46.960

upon lots of folk whom we thought we did not , and would not ever need in order to know this strange God who rules the world from the cross . Before my father died. He invited me to

00:56:46.960 - 00:57:05.500

take what I wanted from his study. I took a few books, a little paperweight of a be encased in amber, and a brass armadillo ensconced on the great state of texas, but on the top

00:57:05.500 - 00:57:19.970

shelf of his study was what looked to me like the bone of some kind of large animal with some of the teeth still intact. What is that? I asked him. You want it? He replied

00:57:21.520 - 00:57:36.290

. Well, what is it that my father told me is the jawbone of an ass which is fit well in this preacher study. And I gladly pass it on to you as a reminder of what God

00:57:36.290 - 00:57:51.610

can do through those who are called to preach. It now sits on the top shelf in my study , where it continues to instruct me. Doctors of arts, medicine, law and philosophy can be made

00:57:51.610 - 00:58:05.110

by the Pope, the Emperor, and the universities wrote Luther, but be quite sure that no one can make a doctor of Holy scripture, save only the Holy Ghost from heaven, as christ says.

00:58:06.340 - 00:58:15.360

Now, the Holy Ghost does not ask after red or brown robes, or what is she? Oy , nor whether a man is young or old. Lay, or clerical, monastic, or secular,

00:58:15.360 - 00:58:35.470

virgin or married. Indeed, he wants spake by an ass against the prophet that rode on it. Would God we were worthy that such doctors be given us The joy that such comedy gives rise to is

00:58:35.820 - 00:58:49.180

, I believe, impossible to miss in the Gospel . In his little book, Dog Matics and outline . Bart talks about easter and the strange joy that only this comedy can bring to those who find themselves

00:58:49.180 - 00:59:05.360

in its service. He writes. If you've heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humorless existence of a man who has no hope. One thing still

00:59:05.360 - 00:59:21.410

holds, and only this one thing is really serious , that jesus is victor, a seriousness that would look back past this, like Lot's wife is not a christian seriousness. It may be burning behind,

00:59:21.420 - 00:59:36.270

and truly it is burning, but we have to look not at it, but at the other fact that we are invited and summoned to take seriously the victory of God's glory in the man, jesus,

00:59:36.640 - 00:59:51.330

and to be joyful in him. Those words ought to be bound as a sign on every minister's hand , and fixed on every pastor's forehead and written on the door post of his or her study, To

00:59:51.330 - 00:00:00.000

dance with. The one who brung us is to learn to laugh not at the ministerial tasks that are before, sort of inscrutability of the one who has called us to this work, or the fact that

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

we do not yet know anything about this, but at the wonderful comedy of it all, that this one who speaks to us has need of us. And even though we be dull as asses, he

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

has used such before to carry him into the city , and will use us to bear his word to those whom he has gathered to hear to hear him speaking. Ministry is. Comedy may not strike you

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

as what theological seminaries ought to be teaching, but this comedy is far from the cheap laughter of mere irony ridicule. This comedy encompasses our Brokenness and shares with us deep and humane laughter that can only be

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

discerned through the tears, I think it must be the kind of comedy that the disciples knew when they picked up 12 baskets full of scraps after telling Jesus they had so little with which to minister. It's

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

funny when you think about it in one of his essays and this out close. I know I've gone over time often talks about christian comedy and compares it to classical comedy and this image seems to me so

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

rich for ministry, Classical comedy says, is based upon the division of humankind into two classes. Those who have virtue and those who do not, and only the second class fools, shameless rascal slaves are

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

fit subjects for comedy. If you've ever seen the musical, a funny thing happened on the way to the form. You know what I'm talking about, christian comedy is based upon the belief that all men

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are sinners, no one, therefore, whatever his Reich or talents can claim immunity from the comic exposure and indeed the more virtuous in the greek sense a man is, the more he realizes he deserves to

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

be exposed. While classical comedy believes that the rascals should get the drubbing, they deserve christian comedy believes that were forbidden to judge others and that it is our duty to forgive each other. In classical comedy

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, the curtain falls, the audience is laughing, but those are on stage or in tears and christian comedy. The characters are exposed and forgiven. And when the curtain falls the audience and characters are laughing

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

together. Which is why when the final curtain comes down, according to ST john the Divine, There is one who wipes away every tear from our eyes . Not a tragedy, not tragic work, this

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

ministry, but a divine comedy in which to play a ministerial role is to learn to dance and to laugh even through the tears. Thank you. I know you share with me the gratitude to roger.