Preaching in Challenging Times
Or, How not to let Trump live in our heads and sermons
I will always remember what happened to me on December 23, 2014. Two days before Christmas, I was working at a big steeple church in Minneapolis, handling their electronic communications. I was shocked and angry when I found out that I had been laid off. I now had to find another job, which wasn’t going to happen for a while since it was two days before Christmas.
Did I mention that it was two days before Christmas?
I was working part-time at the church where I still serve, and I had to lead the Christmas Eve worship service. I ended up doing that, including preaching, but my soul was messed up. I felt lost and wondered if I would find another job anytime soon.
I share all of this because I’ve been thinking about how to be a preacher in this second Trump era. Back in 2017, I wrote about how the church should respond as he enacted things like the “Muslim ban.” It feels like we are back where we were eight years ago. But while the times seem similar, I’ve changed in how to respond to the Orange One. I’m not so willing to react to everything that he does, though I will admit that is hard as he releases surprising executive orders like a king issuing edicts from the throne.
But how should a pastor act over the next four years? That was the question I asked my congregation last Sunday as I began my sermon. I ended the sermon that preached on the story in Luke 4, where Jesus was in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth:
So what are we going to do over the next few years? I think as a congregation, we can speak out when the times call for it, though I hope we can do that no matter who is in the White House. But more than this I want us to remember the good news of Jesus is for you. You are the ones who are poor, lost, locked out, and forgotten. Know that Jesus has come for you and comes to give you abundant life. Know that you are loved by Jesus who comes to give you the gospel and hope. And then share that good news with those around you who need and long to hear a message of freedom. Remember that today, this day Jesus fulfills what was promised in Isaiah to you and to me.
As a pastor, I have concluded that when preaching in a challenging time, we must remember what people are dealing with in the pews and even in the pulpit. Their struggles can be rather profound.
Last week I was in California as part of the Iowa Preachers Project. The project director, Ken Jones, preached the final sermon and it was a barnburner. This was probably one of the most intimate sermons, I’ve ever heard. Ken talked about the grace of God, from the context of the deep pain he felt during his last parish call. He pastored a two-point parish (two yoked congregations) that paid him so poorly that he and his wife went into debt to make ends meet. Church leaders met behind his back. All of this led him down the road towards depression and thinking about ending it all. It was only because a colleague could see he was flailing that he was prevented from going further down that dark road. He said the following during the sermon (ht: Jason Micheli):
“If a friend and fellow pastor, Steve Jacobson, had not recognized the death spiral in me and changed its course by proclaiming the gospel of grace to me, then I have no doubt that today I would be planted in a cemetery, lying horizontal beside a church with which I had nothing but disgust, having forsaken my own life.”
Jason Micheli, who is the preacher-in-residence with the Iowa Preachers Project, asked this pointed question in his own take on Ken’s poignant sermon:
Imagine if Steve Jacobson had elected that Sunday morning not to point to our bipartisan need— the love and mercy of God on account of the shed blood of Jesus Christ— but instead had elected to preach a prophetic sermon about the new administration’s policies?
Finally at the end of his rope, maybe Ken would’ve left church that morning and put himself at the end of one.
Donald Trump has stormed back into office, and some of the early administration's results have been shocking. The immediate ending of federal support for refugee resettlement, the harsh tactics used to deport immigrants, the pausing of foreign aid, and the suspension of grants and loans to local programs are all shocking and merit a response. The next four years will challenge American democracy in ways we can’t imagine. Pastors will be tempted to be prophetic and speak out constantly.
But at the same time all of this is happening, sitting in our church pews, preaching in our pulpits, sipping coffee in coffee shops, or working out at gyms are people who are in pain. Maybe they are in the grip of a deep depression like Jen. Maybe they lost a job like me. Maybe they are facing a divorce or grieving a loved one. And maybe all of that is causing them to look at knives and test the rafters.
Which is something that was brought up at the event in California. One of the speakers shared the spate of funerals of men in their 30s who took their own lives. Their friends and loved ones never knew something was wrong. And yet on the inside a storm was raging.
I will be honest I have mixed feelings about the end of Bishop Marriane Budde’s sermon at the inaugural prayer service. Growing up in the black church, I don’t see a problem with injecting politics into a sermon when the times warrant. There will be many things that Donald Trump will do in the next few years that will frustrate and anger us. This administration is going to do a lot of things that will force our hand to speak. Pastors will want to rush to their pulpits to talk about the latest sin of the Orange One.
But there will still be people whose lives are a mess not because of the “little man in Washington",” but because of the hurts of being human. We need to be aware that during the second Trump era.
We need to remember that our main task is not to just be another member of the resistance but to preach Christ and him crucified. We have to preach it because people need to hear it and want to hear it.