00:00:21.340 - 00:00:37.250

Good morning and welcome to day three of Austin seminaries , midwinter lecturers, my name is Dave Jensen and I'm the academic dean here at Austin Seminary. Today's schedule will include the concluding lectures from Matt Devonta and

00:00:37.250 - 00:00:56.110

Anthony pin will conclude midwinter's then with some closing remarks by President Wardlaw and by announcing our senior fellowship awards , it is my pleasure to introduce our jones lecturer for this year, Matt bevin to who is senior

00:00:56.110 - 00:01:14.630

pastor at University Presbyterian Church here in Austin before he was called to University Church reverend juventus served as pastor at Amherst Presbyterian Church in Virginia as well as chaplain at sweet briar College. His degrees, publications and

00:01:14.630 - 00:01:30.360

podcasts are impressive and I encourage you to read about them on the university church website. But what is most impressive about Mats at least to me, is his pastoral presence. Matt has a remarkable way of

00:01:30.360 - 00:01:52.640

inviting others into conversation. He listens first, he doesn't waste words. He exudes a warmth of spirit and a genuine compassion for others in session meetings. He invites congregational leaders to find their voices and to

00:01:52.640 - 00:02:13.770

offer their visions for the congregation. In his sermons , he challenges the congregation to hear a difficult word of God all the while crafting unforgettable stories. Sometimes the stories include baseball at other times. They include

00:02:13.770 - 00:02:35.360

cooking and it's still others. They include broadway musicals and yes, even stand up comedy and in telling these stories, Pastor Matt invites each person in the congregation to find their own story in the sweeping majestic

00:02:35.740 - 00:02:54.100

and life giving story that is God's gift to the world in jesus christ in his first jones lecture reverend Derventa invited us to re examine the relationship between subjectivity and vulnerability in preaching and stand up comedy. And

00:02:54.100 - 00:03:13.050

in the process, he instructed us to reconsider the eye of preaching and the establishment of trust between preacher and congregation. In today's lecture, he will turn our attention to the why of preaching, comedy,

00:03:13.440 - 00:03:29.130

outrage and catharsis as part of the pastoral task of proclaiming the word of God reverend. Given to welcome again to Austin Seminary. We are eager to hear the words, the stories and the humor that you

00:03:29.130 - 00:03:54.130

bring to us this morning. Yeah, thank you Dave for such a kind and gracious introduction. It's good to be with you all again. And before I begin in earnest this morning I want to say

00:03:54.130 - 00:04:08.600

a word of thanks to Austin Seminary for its hospitality and particularly this morning for all the folks who work behind the scenes to make events like this happen even virtually, I couldn't begin to name everybody and wouldn't

00:04:08.600 - 00:04:19.220

want to leave anybody out. But certainly in alumni relations and hospitality and food service and I t here in the library across campus, even a virtual event takes a lot of hands and I just want you

00:04:19.220 - 00:04:35.170

all to know that I see you and I appreciate you The most critically acclaimed work of comedy of 2018 came from what many at least in America would have considered to be an unlikely source, a working Australian

00:04:35.170 - 00:04:50.740

comic named Hannah Gadsby at the time of her release of her netflix special, Nanette Gadsby had built a name for herself as an observational comic in her home country but had also grown tired of the performative work

00:04:50.750 - 00:05:04.750

of the medium. Yesterday, I attempted to suggest that part of what comedy teaches us about preaching in 2022 is that it puts the teller, the joke teller, the sermon teller, front and center and

00:05:04.750 - 00:05:18.730

there's neither preaching nor performing without an eye because what they share is trade in the most rarest currency of the moment, which is trust. But we also noted that such work can be costly for those who

00:05:18.730 - 00:05:32.810

deliver it, which would certainly not be news to Gadsby who carried onto the stage with her the emotional scars of having grown up gay in a fairly conservative part of Tasmania, which is part of what makes

00:05:32.810 - 00:05:48.170

the net an unusual work of comedy in form, it resembles stand up Gatsby's at a microphone in front of a crowd and talks for a little more than an hour very frequently. She makes jokes, but

00:05:48.170 - 00:06:02.260

even more central to her set is the claim that she makes that she is in fact leaving comedy. She makes this claim very seriously and much of the show is pitted as an explanation for her departure,

00:06:02.270 - 00:06:15.470

namely, and admittedly in my words, that doing comedy as a gay woman has required of her a degree of self deprecation that she is no longer willing to do? She wants to make the argument that

00:06:15.470 - 00:06:30.680

comedy should not require people who have learned harmful self deprecation from the culture around them to willingly participate in . And repeating cycles of that self deprecation. She doesn't want to do it. She's angry about it

00:06:30.690 - 00:06:41.050

. She's tired of it. It's hard to find a clip here that captures the whole well, so to some extent you have to take my word on this one, which by the way she would hate

00:06:41.440 - 00:06:58.690

. But I want you to at least get a taste of it if you haven't seen it already. So let's just watch a little snippet. Yeah, look, I am angry. I apologize. I

00:06:58.700 - 00:07:13.840

do, I apologize. There's a few people in the room are going, I think I think she's lost control of the tension. That's correct. I would eat a bit there. So I'm not very

00:07:13.840 - 00:07:26.700

experienced in controlling anger. It's not my place to be angry on a comedy stage. I'm supposed to be doing self deprecating humor. Um People feel safer when men do the angry comedy, they're the kings

00:07:26.700 - 00:07:39.840

of the genre when I do it. I'm just a miserable lesbian, ruining all the fun on the banter when men do it. Heroes of free speech . I love, I love angry white man comedy

00:07:40.640 - 00:07:58.420

. Oh, so funny. It's hilarious. They're adorable one. Angry. What's up little fella. What are they angry about God can't work it out there, like the canaries in the mine, aren't

00:07:58.420 - 00:08:18.850

they? If they're having a tough time, the rest of us are gonna us. So in some ways Gatsby is grabbing onto the cost of what I was hoping to get at yesterday. The cost of

00:08:18.860 - 00:08:33.520

having the self so inextricably on display during the act of performance. But as a preacher, I also hear something else underneath. I hear in Gatsby's anger , a sort of existential cry about the very purpose

00:08:33.520 - 00:08:50.230

of the form itself. What is the point of making you laugh? She asks if in that laughter , I am underscoring systems of subjugation inequality. Nanette was developed as Australia was debating nationally the legalization of

00:08:50.230 - 00:09:03.890

same sex marriage and in God's peace lament. I hear the question, what is the purpose of my comedy? If not to materially participate in making the world a more just and equitable place? Maybe admittedly

00:09:03.890 - 00:09:16.180

, I hear this question because I feel it regularly . Legend has it. That Gardner taylor, the Dean of american preaching of the last century was once asked how many points a sermon ought to have to

00:09:16.180 - 00:09:33.900

, which he famously replies at least one we should know, we should know what the point is. We should know what the purpose is. I enjoy preaching as a creative act. I like putting the

00:09:33.900 - 00:09:46.010

words together. My ego is not so un inflated that I don't like standing at the door and having folks complement the sermon. It all feels very nice , but it doesn't mean the sermon has a point

00:09:46.940 - 00:10:01.190

. It doesn't necessarily mean that the sermon has a purpose. So why are we preaching? What are we hoping to accomplish? What makes a sermon successful ? We've heard a good word from hebrews the past

00:10:01.190 - 00:10:13.360

couple of nights and I'm also reminded of the priests and chapter 10 who stands day after day at his service offering the same sacrifices that can never take away sense. So maybe I'm selfish, but I'd like

00:10:13.370 - 00:10:26.960

to, I'd like to matter a little more than that if we're going to do the work of being honest and authentic and putting ourselves vulnerably on stage, I'd like to know the point what makes preaching matter

00:10:28.830 - 00:10:39.230

. And once again, I want to suggest that thinking through the lens of modern stand up can be helpful. First, I want to think about the ways in which preaching can join comedy and providing a

00:10:39.230 - 00:10:52.170

kind of ha Miletic of catharsis, particularly in moments of anger and grief. Second, I want to think about ways in which comedy and preaching can converge in a call to action, a sort of ha

00:10:52.170 - 00:11:05.430

Miletic of conversion. Both of these are relatively easy to document and understand. And also, I want to suggest a little bit unsatisfying at the end of the day. So I'd like to conclude by grasping

00:11:05.430 - 00:11:20.170

for something a little bit less concrete and perhaps more meaningful, what I'll call Aha Miletic of imagination. These sound like fancy academic terms and in some ways they are. But my goal isn't academic, What

00:11:20.170 - 00:11:31.360

I'm really hoping to find here is not the creation of some formal scholastic taxonomy, but rather an answer to the burning question inside my own preachers soul, which is namely what's the point of what I do

00:11:33.740 - 00:11:43.540

before I continue, I want to repeat some of the disclaimers made yesterday. The first is that, as I've just noted, I'm not a scholar of home politics, I'm a working preacher and for better

00:11:43.540 - 00:11:56.440

or worse, that means I'm most literate in the archive of my own experience and not in the formal disciplinary back and forth. The second is also that I'm not a scholar of comedy. So we should

00:11:56.440 - 00:12:09.850

just avoid making sweeping generalizations about comedy based on my examples. They are only in and of themselves. Finally, and especially today, a reminder that comedians like to push boundaries. Today, we'll hear some

00:12:09.850 - 00:12:22.930

mild language as well as jokes about sensitive topics, including a long story about a sick newborn and a little bit of making fun of both France and Canada . I'm not here to endorse any of those jokes

00:12:24.000 - 00:12:37.050

, but I do want to at least put them on the examination table and pry them apart. Some more so first pass. Maybe the purpose of preaching is to make people feel better. That sounds pretty

00:12:37.050 - 00:12:50.350

good. If you were with us yesterday, you may remember the way that techno tomorrow's comedy said about her own cancer diagnosis, becomes an occasion for pastoral care. She keeps having to check in on the

00:12:50.350 - 00:13:01.840

audience, it's gonna be okay. And she says , well it might not be okay, but it's going to be okay for you. One of the costs and joys of entering into a relationship with someone

00:13:01.840 - 00:13:13.150

we trust is that we open ourselves up to the possibility of care. And the Taro is so honest with the crowd and earns their trust so quickly that she assumes a kind of legitimate pastoral authority in the

00:13:13.150 - 00:13:28.790

room. Even despite the total absurdity of her as cancer patient doing the emotional work of taking care of strangers, she has never met as they react to her grief. The very nature of the transaction forces

00:13:28.800 - 00:13:41.100

a kind of care onto them, which is, on its face, absurd but also inescapable. It's part of what makes it funny and what I think I'm describing here is a comedy of catharsis. The

00:13:41.100 - 00:13:56.260

audience reacts to having their own emotions acknowledged and joined and processed. And while I think Notaro set certainly represents that in some ways the norm of Catharsis in comedy in 2022 is certainly not sets like hers.

00:13:56.640 - 00:14:09.900

It is as it has been for years now, the catharsis, that underscores a comedy of anger. Part of the appeal of comedy as a form in 2022 is that it gives people a place in which

00:14:09.900 - 00:14:22.700

to feel and process their anger. As you heard part of the appeal of Gatsby's The Net is that it offers its audience, particularly those who have been victimized by patriarchy and homophobia. It offers them a

00:14:22.700 - 00:14:37.580

collaborator in their anger. Amber Ruffin, one of the writers we saw yesterday in the jokes Seth can't tell segment also has a recurring feature called Amber's Minute of Fury, in which she takes on some hot

00:14:37.580 - 00:14:50.970

button issue of the Day with Righteous Seal. None of this is new. Of course Richard Pryor was angry and Lenny Bruce was angry, Jonathan Swift was angry. But as anger and especially political anger have

00:14:50.970 - 00:15:01.880

taken up such profound residents in our discourse. They've also taken up quite a bit of room in our comedy. So much so that I imagine we don't need to watch a clip, But let's do it

00:15:01.880 - 00:15:13.310

. Anyway, let's go back to the archive and watch Lewis Black on the daily Show and observe how little time he spends trying to be funny and how much time he spends trying to be cathartic. Let's

00:15:13.310 - 00:15:37.600

watch that one. This country's finances are in the dumps were officially poor, Which is appropriate because guess who's to blame people who are perfectly content to live at the expense of others. The moocher class out

00:15:37.600 - 00:15:45.750

there. I'm getting food stamps. I'm getting government checks. I'm just going to spin it on whenever I went to the bottom 50% in effect have no skin in the game. And yet they're benefiting from

00:15:45.750 - 00:16:00.280

the cost of government that others are paying for. That's simply not right kick in a buck. Getting something. Yeah, the poor are so tight fisted . Those pricks get in the box because what problem

00:16:00.280 - 00:16:15.380

can't be solved the same way you organize a beer run. Well, if they're not gonna kick in money, we're going to have to raise it somehow . I got it. Cigarette tax, a very

00:16:15.380 - 00:16:29.860

regressive tax will be raised from cigarette smokers who are disproportionately poor and poorly educated. So the right wants the poor to kick in. Just not their cigarette money when it comes to coughing up a buck or

00:16:29.860 - 00:16:45.560

a lung lung wins. There must be some way to separate poor people from their hard mooch money. The tax of 1% per ounce on soft drinks sweetened with sugar could be a major source of revenue for

00:16:45.560 - 00:17:00.440

health care reform. Perfect. Make those cigarettes, smoking soda guzzling tubby's pay for their own. Obamacare . The notion that soda is being placed on a list of sins worthy of being taxed into oblivion will

00:17:00.440 - 00:17:19.110

actually hurt more poor people than anybody else. Yes , conservatives will fight for the poorest right to see the only doctor who doesn't make you healthier so he can't tax cigarettes or soda guns. I'm worried that

00:17:19.120 - 00:17:32.050

particularly poor people, the ones who are most likely to be victims of violent crimes, particularly poor blacks in high crime urban areas are going to be priced out of being alone. a gun. Yeah.

00:17:32.840 - 00:17:51.030

The citizens of poor areas in America today suffer greatly from the scourge of gun sticker shock. You're bleeding them dry of their money. Why does the government want to tax these things anyway? What are they

00:17:51.030 - 00:18:03.170

going to use all that money for part of President Obama's signature health care plan be paid for in part with money from a sugary drink. Excise tax, Universal background checks that would pay for police, that

00:18:03.170 - 00:18:29.160

would pay for public safety programs. Universal pre K will be paid for by a cigarette tax smoking to support education. That means I can start my own charter school. Go fighting, wow. So if

00:18:29.160 - 00:18:48.420

we raise taxes it hurts the poor. If we don't raise taxes it hurts the poor. I think we only have one option here. We've learned so much from the romans, john thank you louis louis

00:18:48.420 - 00:19:11.090

black everybody. We'll be right back back in every way that rhetorically counts. I have preached that sermon more than a few times. Not about those specific events, but I have preached that sermon more than

00:19:11.090 - 00:19:25.240

once a sermon that both taps into and performs a kind of anger about the world. That is intended to make everybody feel better in solidarity. There are no shortage of topics. I preached that sermon about

00:19:25.240 - 00:19:40.950

poverty. I have preached that sermon about gun violence have preached that sermon about institutional racism and climate change and gender discrimination and more. I remember a Friday afternoon and the advent of 2012 when I was freshly

00:19:40.950 - 00:19:52.670

graduated and scheduled to supply preacher at a little congregation , I hardly knew. And then suddenly the news went to Sandy Hook Connecticut and I had to do the thing that every one of my colleagues has now

00:19:52.670 - 00:20:03.970

gotten far too good at, which is I had to figure out how to adopt adapt my sermon to speak about the latest unraveling of the world and what that really means underneath is that I had to figure

00:20:03.970 - 00:20:15.890

out what to do with my anger. Of course , you can ignore it. You can just preach the sermon. You're going to preach before whatever new thing in the world broke and the benefit of this

00:20:15.890 - 00:20:29.570

is twofold. First, you don't have to rewrite your sermon and second you can avoid the risk that your anger will make somebody else mad at you in return. But then the ha Miletic of catharsis kicks

00:20:29.570 - 00:20:40.550

in. What if the congregation needs a place to process their own anger? What if my anger will be to them as pastoral care? Because I have no doubt about it. What what Lewis Black is

00:20:40.550 - 00:20:52.360

doing at what Amber Ruffin is doing and what Jon Stewart's entire run on the daily show was doing was providing pastoral care under the guise of angry comedy. And so as a preacher, I make a decision

00:20:52.360 - 00:21:03.330

that I can have my own catharsis. I can work out my own anger in the sermon in such a way that it provides cathartic care to my congregation . And if some random person gets mad. Well

00:21:03.330 - 00:21:18.370

, that's the cost of doing business. The problem , of course, with the ha Miletic of catharsis , is that nothing necessarily changes. The very fact that I have preached about gun violence at least half

00:21:18.370 - 00:21:32.200

a dozen times following major incidents of gun violence is in and of itself testament to me that preaching about gun violence is clearly not actually really helping new incidents of gun violence happened. And my instinctive reaction is

00:21:32.450 - 00:21:42.770

but I thought we talked about this and maybe we did. But what actually happened is that I shared my room, anger with a room full of people who if they agreed with me received that sermon as

00:21:42.770 - 00:21:56.880

pastoral care, and if they did not agree with me, may be unable to receive that sermon at all. Few opinions were changed and fewer actions inspired after the shooting at Stoneman Douglas, I preached angry

00:21:56.880 - 00:22:10.260

and received more than a few responses from the congregation along the lines of thank you so much for giving voice to this. You put words to just what I've been feeling, which of course I want to

00:22:10.260 - 00:22:22.150

do that kind of pastoral care, but and I asked this question to myself, and very much not to the wonderful congregation who was listening. If I just said what you've already been feeling, what was

00:22:22.150 - 00:22:37.460

the point of saying it. Catharsis is good. Feeling better is good, But surely we can hope for more, surely we can hope for transformation. Surely we can hope that our words would actually inspire

00:22:37.460 - 00:22:49.770

some thing. And by this measure, I can easily tell you about the best sermon I ever preached and my former church in Virginia, we had one young woman worshiping with us trying to find her way

00:22:49.770 - 00:23:04.160

in the world and bringing down the average worship age by several decades. one Sunday I preached about hunger . I have no memory of the sermon of the text nor any of the amazing anecdotes that I must

00:23:04.160 - 00:23:15.010

have included. All I remember is the phone call I got that afternoon from this same young woman who said, thank you so much for your words. Tell me about meals on wheels. I want to

00:23:15.010 - 00:23:30.470

volunteer. That was a high, I've been riding that high for most of a decade. Somebody in that town got fed a hot meal that week. Who might not have otherwise been fed a hot meal

00:23:30.470 - 00:23:45.430

because of words that I wrote, Somebody made a decision about their life, a change in their life and arguably for the better because of words that I wrote that's powerful and meaningful and it's not just meaningful

00:23:45.430 - 00:23:57.170

because we all felt better. It's it's not Catharsis , it's it's conversion, This is preaching that aims not just for an emotional experience in the moment of hearing, but rather than specifically for transformation in the

00:23:57.170 - 00:24:10.440

hearts of listeners for new behavior for new life, for preaching for new creation for preaching. That says , if you have been to church that morning, it should be evident. It should matter that you

00:24:10.440 - 00:24:27.390

heard a sermon, it should change something. The world should be visibly different. Measurably healthier, more , just more peaceful, more merciful, more something because of the sermon that you heard, of course

00:24:27.390 - 00:24:41.380

, one of the great challenges is that it can be seductively easy to mistake hommel ethics of catharsis and conversion. It can be seductively easy to imagine that the sermon I preached in my anger will necessarily do

00:24:41.380 - 00:24:52.420

the great work of convincing or converting or transforming that the whole crowd was going to vote one way before they came to church, and now they're going to vote the other way because in my preaching, I

00:24:52.420 - 00:25:08.600

converted them when in reality what I've offered up this catharsis, perhaps a bomb of anger for those who came in angry and perhaps an inaccessible word for those who did not catharsis is good, pastoral care is

00:25:08.600 - 00:25:21.730

good. Sometimes what we need on sunday morning is to gather up our anger and grief and despair and feel it together in community and feel the profound koinonia of knowing that we don't suffer alone. These are

00:25:21.730 - 00:25:37.060

good things, but they're not the same thing as transformation and we should know which one is which again , I think comedy can help on May 1st of 2017 jimmy Kimmel host of late night talk show on

00:25:37.060 - 00:25:52.290

abc delivered a powerfully unusual monologue, especially by jimmy Kimmel standards. Some days earlier, he told the crowd and fighting back tears. He and his wife had given birth to their second child who had been

00:25:52.290 - 00:26:07.510

happy and healthy for the first three hours of life before a nurse noticed a heart murmur and purplish coloring in his skin. The baby wasn't getting enough oxygen , which immediately flooded the recovery room with doctors and

00:26:07.510 - 00:26:21.390

machines who finally diagnosed that the baby had been born with a blocked pulmonary valve and a hole in between the two sides of the heart. A few days later, the baby underwent emergency open heart surgery and

00:26:21.390 - 00:26:33.060

came through on the other side. And as kimball finished his story, he took a long time to thank the litany of doctors and nurses and specialists and technicians who had journeyed with them over the weeks prior

00:26:33.410 - 00:26:48.700

. And then jimmy Kimmel did a very un jimmy Kimmel thing. He started talking about politics. Let's watch the end of this monologue And I want to see one other thing. President Trump last month proposed

00:26:48.710 - 00:27:10.640

a$6 billion Congressman made a deal last night to not go along with that. They actually increased funding by$2 billion dollars And I applaud them for doing that because more than 40% of the people who have

00:27:10.640 - 00:27:21.020

been affected by those cuts of the National Institute of Health, our Children. And it would have a major impact on a lot of great places, including Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, which is so unbelievably

00:27:21.020 - 00:27:30.010

sad to me. We were brought up to believe that we live in the greatest country in the world . But until a few years ago, millions and millions of us had no access to health insurance at

00:27:30.010 - 00:27:38.790

all. You know, before 2014, if you were born with congenital heart disease, like my son was, there was a good chance you'd never be able to get health insurance because you had a pre

00:27:38.790 - 00:27:51.070

existing condition. You were born with a pre existing condition. And if your parents didn't have medical insurance , you might not live long enough to even get denied because of a preexisting condition. If your baby

00:27:51.070 - 00:28:02.360

is going to die and it doesn't have to. It shouldn't matter how much money you make. I think that's something that whether you're a Republican or a democrat or something else, we all agree on that

00:28:02.360 - 00:28:18.660

. Right? I mean, we do well, whatever, whatever your party, whatever you believe, wherever you support, we need to make sure that the people who are supposed to represent us, that

00:28:18.660 - 00:28:30.040

people are meeting about this right now in Washington, understand that very clearly, let's stop with the nonsense . This isn't football. There are no teams. We are the team. It's the United States don't

00:28:30.040 - 00:28:49.840

let their partisan squabbles divide us on something. Every decent person wants, we need to take care of these. I saw a lot of families there and no parent should ever have to decide if they can

00:28:49.840 - 00:29:04.630

afford to save their child's life. It just shouldn't happen. Not here. So anyway, thank you for listening. I promise I'm not gonna cry for the rest of the show. Please say a prayer

00:29:04.640 - 00:29:18.930

for or send positive thoughts of the families with Children who are still in the hospital now because they need it. And um thanks, we have a special show tonight. We'll be right back with dr ross

00:29:23.940 - 00:29:40.360

. What follows is somewhat remarkable. This monologue goes viral substantially generates its own headlines. Senator Bill Cassidy who at the time was co sponsoring a repeal of many of the chunks of Obamacare shows up as a

00:29:40.360 - 00:29:52.120

guest on Kimmel and the two of them together end up coining something called the jimmy Kimmel test, which suggests that no healthcare bill should be supported if it would include the possibility that a child could be denied

00:29:52.120 - 00:30:06.210

coverage because of their family's finances. And when the legislation comes back around in the fall, Kimmel needed no guest nor personal story to step back into the breach, noting that this new proposal quote does pass

00:30:06.210 - 00:30:18.640

the jimmy Kimmel test, but a different jimmy Kimmel test. He explained with this one, your child with a preexisting condition will get the care he needs if and only if his father is jimmy Kimmel By

00:30:18.640 - 00:30:33.170

late September two critical things that happened. One is that Senate leadership had decided to scuttle the proposed amendment . The other is that jimmy Kimmel had parlayed the trust inherent in his comedy into actual political credibility.

00:30:33.640 - 00:30:48.950

Pulling at the time showed that by a margin of 47% to 34% Americans trusted Jimmy Kimmel on healthcare policy more than Republicans in Congress. And I know that we're all jaded about Congress and politics and maybe this

00:30:48.950 - 00:31:03.170

number shouldn't feel doesn't feel surprising, but it should , it should surprise us that a comedian who used to produce a show called Crank Yankers is a more trusted name in an arena of domestic policy than the

00:31:03.170 - 00:31:17.310

elected representatives who live and breathe it day in and day out. But of course as ha Miletic, this is also the dream. He wrote some words and they mattered not just because they made people feel

00:31:17.310 - 00:31:29.970

something, but because real policy happened. There are Children alive right now because of jimmy Kimmel and I got to tell you if I could preach a sermon like that every week, I would do it in

00:31:29.970 - 00:31:47.760

a heartbeat. The power of that impact would be almost irresistible. The challenge is that it's so rarely happens. The world is a notoriously immovable thing, at least for most of us most of the time

00:31:47.760 - 00:31:59.280

. And the problem with the ha Miletic of conversion is that I think it is also a recipe for preachers to drive themselves to despair if you spend a year in the pulpit digging into racism and then the

00:31:59.280 - 00:32:10.880

search committee brings back five all white candidates. If you spend a year in the pulpit digging into climate and then the church votes to bulldoze the trees to make more parking. If we as preachers measure the

00:32:10.880 - 00:32:22.560

effectiveness of our preaching only by the change it provokes and real people making real decisions, then I begin to worry that we are not always going to have enough gas in the tank to finish the race.

00:32:22.730 - 00:32:37.160

At some point we're just offering up the same sacrifices over and over that do not take away sins or trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So I think we need something else and

00:32:37.540 - 00:32:51.300

I'm sorry to bring this up, especially in a seminary, but I think we need jesus. I know classic feature move, but when I say we need jesus, I don't only mean that we should

00:32:51.300 - 00:33:06.840

be preaching about jesus though, please preach about jesus . I also want us to preach with jesus. One of the problems of both of the homily ticks I've described is that this is the way that they

00:33:06.840 - 00:33:21.130

operate on a relatively closed loop and aha Miletic of catharsis, I have feelings and I invite the congregation to join me in them in a hemolytic of conversion . I have objectives and I invite the congregation to

00:33:21.130 - 00:33:36.450

participate in them and neither case does the interpretive equation of the sermon require or even invite the participation of the try and God and so much like how I was instructed to behave at the middle school dance.

00:33:36.460 - 00:33:49.010

I want aha Miletic, that leaves a little bit of room for the holy spirit. Yeah, I want to open up that closed loop and I want something like a hemolytic of imagination. So one last

00:33:49.010 - 00:34:01.110

turn to comedy. One more clip this time. It's not some landmark historic set on some national broadcast . It's just, it's a comedian named Hannibal Burress . You may know him working at a very normal

00:34:01.110 - 00:34:14.610

comedy club, filmed for broadcast. Otherwise we wouldn't have it. But what I mean is that this is an unusual comedy. It's just routine. But I want to listen to what he says and I

00:34:14.620 - 00:34:27.280

also want to listen to what he doesn't say. Let's watch, I got a jaywalking ticket in Montreal . I couldn't believe it. I've jaywalked so many times in my life. It's such an easy thing

00:34:27.290 - 00:34:37.100

to time out. Is there a car coming nah , let me get across there. I've done it thousands of times. But this time it was me and this old lady, we were jaywalking together,

00:34:38.240 - 00:34:50.070

we went together like that. But if we were , so what mind your business. I just met , y'all. So me and this old lady, we get across the street then a Montreal cop approaches

00:34:50.070 - 00:35:14.390

. They're speaking in french french. I said, hey man I don't talk like that. That's not how I talk. Can you talk to me how I talk? That probably wasn't the best way to

00:35:14.390 - 00:35:23.660

start off our interaction by mike and his native language . But who cares I take risk in life. And he said you were jaywalking and I said sorry about that and I tried to keep going about my

00:35:23.660 - 00:35:35.740

day because I thought that's how jaywalking was handled as a crying with you with jaywalking my bad we're done here, right, that's it. I acknowledged that I jaywalked. I apologized not for the actor jay

00:35:35.740 - 00:35:44.960

walker but how my jay walker made you feel. I tried to jaywalk in the future while you're watching but trust I'm gonna do with the rest of my life. It's the best way to go about being

00:35:44.960 - 00:35:52.060

a pedestrian. And he says don't have to give you a ticket, give me your I. D . I said you don't understand. I only give people my I. D. For real stuff.

00:35:52.340 - 00:36:02.000

This is not real. This is a fantasy crime that you're enforcing to cover up the fact that the city is having financial problems right now. The city is broke and they put you out here with a

00:36:02.000 - 00:36:13.890

quota and that's fine. I will donate 60 of your colorful as dollars. So you broke a city . Let's just do it like that, no paperwork and it's good. Guess what? Two more cops

00:36:13.890 - 00:36:25.310

show up now we have three Montreal police officers working this high profile jaywalking case. Three cops for me and jay walker. Fair enough. I decided during the time I'm just gonna talk trash to the cops

00:36:25.310 - 00:36:34.650

standing closest to me because I don't like him or what he represents. So I just wanted to mess with him and just say whatever I could say to mess with him because he's wasting my time. So

00:36:34.650 - 00:36:43.180

I said, hey man, how much money do you make it yet? Which is a douche thing to do. But you know what else is going to have three cops working a jaywalking ticket that's overkill

00:36:43.180 - 00:37:00.360

. I only have two legs. That's a cop and a half her leg. That's a waste of city funds. That's why this city is broken now . What's this clip about? It's about jaywalking of

00:37:00.360 - 00:37:12.950

course, a fantasy crime. It's a little bit of classic fish out of water cultural comedy at the end of the bit Boris acknowledges that they in fact did give him a ticket. But don't worry he

00:37:12.950 - 00:37:22.030

didn't pay it because since Canada is not a real country, he's also making fun of himself. Of course he's a drug to the officers. He said on the joke, he sees what we see which

00:37:22.030 - 00:37:37.500

is such a key part of the establishment of trust that we described yesterday but there's also so much that goes on said here the unspoken reality of this bit is the everyday danger of being a black man in

00:37:37.500 - 00:37:50.750

an encounter with the police. And when Boris does the math, I've only got two legs, that's 1.5 cops per leg. He's preaching about the systematic , over policing of black neighborhoods and black communities.

00:37:51.630 - 00:38:01.690

He doesn't say it, He doesn't really have to say it. And I certainly can't speak for him . Maybe he'd love to say more, but doesn't want to offend the crowd or jeopardize his career or

00:38:01.700 - 00:38:15.140

any number of the potential consequences that face comedians and preachers, both who get too political. But I do want to observe that in some ways the effect of his monologue is to leave room in our imagination

00:38:15.150 - 00:38:30.120

for the real weight of it to hit and take hold. Of course, comedy and imagination are hardly strangers. It's in the very nature of comedy that it's trying to poke holes in the order to see

00:38:30.120 - 00:38:44.450

beyond the visible, to imagine something else. Hannah Gatsby is trying to stoke our imagination, lewis black in his own ways, trying to stoke our imagination . Even jerry Seinfeld, even the most, the

00:38:44.450 - 00:38:58.190

least controversial observational stuff out there is trying to stoke our imagination when he says, what's the deal with airline food? The implicit invitation is to imagine a world where this thing made sense. But I would

00:38:58.190 - 00:39:10.900

submit that one of the reasons we talk about comedians at least some comedians as modern day prophets is because it is endemic to the very nature of the form that they share some trace of that vintage walter Brueggemann

00:39:10.990 - 00:39:24.710

prophetic imagination that they're hoping to help us see something beyond. And it's certainly not new. If I asked you to name a moment of comedy and scripture , I bet half the room would come up with

00:39:24.710 - 00:39:40.370

Sarah laughing at her pregnancy. And what is that laughter? But the opening up of something previously unimaginable . This is the preaching. I want us to remember preaching that leaves room for the imagination because in

00:39:40.370 - 00:39:52.830

that imagination is the work of God, the creator son and holy spirit preaching that is content not to have all the answers, preaching that can stop in the middle of a sentence and just let the word

00:39:53.220 - 00:40:07.850

do its work and I hear and feel the objections I know at this point that I'm also talking to preachers directly, what if I really need to say the thing? What if it just so obviously needs

00:40:07.850 - 00:40:16.920

to be said? Didn't you see the news? Shouldn't we name it for what it is? And I would say two things. And the first is of course you can. There's plenty of room in

00:40:16.920 - 00:40:30.030

the preaching life for catharsis and conversion. Both. Please preach things that make people feel better and please preach things that try to make the world measurably better . And if you need to name the thing that

00:40:30.040 - 00:40:42.240

to make those sermons work do it, we should do it. If we can't do it. If we can't name systematic racism or patriarchy or environmental collapse or whatever else, then we're not speaking the language

00:40:42.240 - 00:40:57.880

of the world that needs to hear something of God's word. And Lord knows we need it. But also what I'm really trying to bring is a word of grace. Being a preacher right now is not

00:40:57.890 - 00:41:09.430

easy. I hear it from colleagues all the time . I wrote my sermon on friday and then the world broke on saturday. And now, what do I say? And how do I say it?

00:41:10.210 - 00:41:22.360

And what about the people who will disagree and how do I say something true and hold my church together ? And how do I make everybody in the church feel better? And how do I balance the integrity

00:41:22.360 - 00:41:34.030

of the gospel against the integrity of the budget and how much harm political courage can we really afford in times when our communities feel so fragile? And just because I can name those questions doesn't mean I have

00:41:34.040 - 00:41:49.990

the answers to them. But and I say this as much as to myself as to anyone listening. You're not in it by yourself. This is not a closed loop. The people in the pews are

00:41:49.990 - 00:42:01.870

not hearing your words and your sermon just the way you wrote them. They're hearing them through the lens of whatever jesus christ is up to in the world and in the moment. And if your words don't

00:42:01.870 - 00:42:15.580

work, I want you to blame him. And if your words do work, I want you to blame him. I want you to know that you will never have the right words and it's okay because

00:42:15.580 - 00:42:29.200

you have the right word. I want a ha Miletic of imagination, so that we who stand and deliver the gospel can remember that the gospel is so much larger and more powerful than we are, so

00:42:29.200 - 00:42:39.510

that those who speak and those who listen can gather side by side in a shared amazement and wonder and curiosity and awe. I want us to preach in such a way that we open our hearts and open

00:42:39.510 - 00:42:52.310

our minds and open our arms and open our perspectives and open the confines of our imagination so that jesus can can get in and so that jesus can rummage around and so that jesus can do his work.

00:42:52.300 - 00:43:05.730

Surely at the end of the day, this has to be the very purpose of preaching itself to open us up. So that jesus can do his thing . I want us to preach as opening acts.

00:43:07.000 - 00:43:30.110

Every halfway decent comedian has been an opening act. Check! Even Jesus was an opening act. Thanks be to God, thank you so much, matt , you have stoked our imagination, You've reminded us

00:43:30.110 - 00:43:44.270

what preaching is and what preaching might be. Thank you. Um we do have time for a couple of questions um I invite those of you who are remote to submit them and um I will get them

00:43:44.270 - 00:43:59.300

on my phone and as well as the audience here , um maybe I'll start with this question when I think about comedy, it often goes right up to the line of offensiveness and sometimes it steps over that

00:43:59.300 - 00:44:20.390

line. Um and sometimes preaching does the same thing talk about that relationship between offensiveness and humor and the preaching task? Well, um, I think part of that their relationship and comedy with offensiveness and it's

00:44:20.390 - 00:44:35.550

certainly as Gatsby noted, is now all caught up in these sort of particularly white male comics who are using it as a behind the shield of free speech . Um, so we're constantly policing what, what

00:44:35.550 - 00:44:47.530

is appropriate, what is an appropriate thing for comic for comics to say or for comic not to say . And I think what's at stake there is precisely the the relationship of trust that I was trying to

00:44:47.530 - 00:45:05.040

articulate yesterday is the reason that we care so much about whether about whether a comic can offend us, whether a comic is allowed to offend us is that because negotiating that line of appropriate speech and appropriate behavior

00:45:05.040 - 00:45:16.840

is part of what generates an atmosphere that so that we know that things that are being said are appropriate to be said and so that we know that the comic has sees what we see and has our best

00:45:16.840 - 00:45:32.540

interests at heart. I think that's part of what makes this a fruitful archive for preachers to look at because because that's the same negotiation is happening in congregations , it looks like we have a question that's been

00:45:32.540 - 00:45:55.900

submitted online. Okay, here we are. Could you elaborate more on what you mean by jesus being the opening act? Uh that last line of my talk is it was a turn of phrase that as

00:45:55.900 - 00:46:12.950

a preacher, I could not ah and resist. Clearly we are opening acts for jesus is what I really mean to say, jesus being an opening act is my little hint at resurrection that I just threw

00:46:12.950 - 00:46:32.720

in because as a preacher, it made me happy to do Yes, I don't know, I suppose I should give a more systematic answer to that, but there's not, I like that, it would

00:46:32.720 - 00:46:46.970

not be true. Um another question that just got submitted, is there any correlation between the preacher's creation of liminal space in the comedian's timing, or am I pushing here? So, any correlation between creation

00:46:46.970 - 00:47:12.460

of liminal space for the preacher and the timing of the comedian? I think that in the sense that both are engaged with navigating the active response of a room live in the moment, and I think you

00:47:12.460 - 00:47:25.320

can hear it in the toro's bit yesterday and she's doing material that she has never done before, that is sort of scripted that she, but she doesn't entirely know where it's going to go and then she's

00:47:25.330 - 00:47:44.220

just watching and waiting and responding and bouncing off the room and I think it does create this, this limb analogy, that is certainly potent in preaching. You also see comics like chris rock who famously like

00:47:44.230 - 00:47:58.940

rehearse is their pieces to a T and and it's it's it's just on um it's it's it's it's, you know, it's not a rail when he does it and I um and certainly we see that with

00:47:58.940 - 00:48:27.580

preaching to, but I think there's, I think you could play through that a little bit if you wanted to push it a couple of questions from the audience, you are speaking reality, right? Three

00:48:30.570 - 00:49:20.520

, three, thanks. Hmm. Problem. Mhm . This is for you. Yeah. How there is a church with Yeah, and that's a really good question. I wouldn't say that I have there

00:49:20.520 - 00:49:32.790

are certainly preachers that have formed me, but I don't know that I have a preacher that I go to to say that that person is modeling comedy in a way that is meaningful to me that there are

00:49:34.370 - 00:49:49.980

comedians who I look up to as storytellers that I think help me understand what composition looks like, that I that are sort of peripheral to this conversation today . So the most important one for me has been

00:49:49.980 - 00:50:00.300

a guy named Mike Birbiglia, who I think is about as good a storyteller as there is out there and I'm I'm track his stuff pretty closely because I think it helps me think about composition and how a

00:50:00.300 - 00:50:12.310

thread line works through a, through a piece, but it's that's not, that's that's a craft thing and not um, an emotionality. I mean, in terms of standing in the tradition of prophetic anger

00:50:12.310 - 00:50:32.360

, it's, that's um, that easily goes back to biblical profits and I think it does for most of my colleagues. Was there one more question from back? My question for you was you mentioned Gardner

00:50:32.360 - 00:50:49.960

C taylor and how it should have at least one point. Could you speak to how comedy and finding that one central theme in the text, like Gardner C taylor mentioned and what you're bringing out today is

00:50:49.960 - 00:51:07.480

central to the overall message of any particular sermon or prophetic words. Yeah, I should apologize to Reverend Taylor because I was taking him, I was taking that quote a little bit off kilter. He's responding

00:51:07.480 - 00:51:17.090

to conversations, political conversations about the proper structure and form of a sermon, whether it ought to have three points or five points or 36 points. And someone asks him, how many should there be?

00:51:17.090 - 00:51:30.080

And he says at least one, which I think is incredibly wise and incisive thing, which is different than what is the point of preaching as a whole and the way that I was trying to get to

00:51:30.080 - 00:51:45.790

today. Um, so I was taking him in a slightly different direction that being said. I mean , comedy in general, stand up comedy is a form is probably not super helpful in thinking through how

00:51:45.790 - 00:51:59.110

to find one point in a specific sermon because stand up comics are notoriously going from bit to bit to bit. Um but I would actually just repeat the recommendation I made, which is micro Biglia stuff,

00:51:59.120 - 00:52:12.430

which figures out how to have, how to sustain , I thought about life through the universe and everything over the course of an hour and then plug all of these pieces into it and keep coming back to

00:52:12.430 - 00:52:30.610

it. Um and the repetition and cadence of it is is above reproach and I think that I think he's an example of how to thread one thing even with lots of sub pieces. Um but I wholly

00:52:30.610 - 00:52:45.860

endorse Gardner taylor's thing. Hear preachers a sermon should have at least one point and I would argue very rarely more than that. Do we have time for one more question Are we at the Okay. Um

00:52:45.870 - 00:53:12.660

Thank you matt for a delightful way to begin a Wednesday morning. So we've had a bingo contest and I'm happy to announce the grand prize winner Which includes lodging and meals for the 2023 Midwinter lectures and that

00:53:12.660 - 00:53:27.930

winter is patty schaller of horseshoe bend Arkansas, congratulations Patti. We'll see you next year. Okay, alright, it's time for another quick break but don't go far in about five minutes. We will hear

00:53:27.930 - 00:53:30.960

again from Anthony pin as he brings us his third