Almost a year ago, Public Radio International’s Studio 360 featured a discussion of contemporary plays based on the Greek myths and other classics in which the host, Kurt Anderson, observed that, for the playwright, such writing must be like driving a Rolls Royce or a Ferrari.1 That is, the contemporary author is blessed with material so substantial, so deep, so rich, and with so much enduring value, that the experience of writing must be altogether exhilarating and breathtaking. “Right,” I said to myself at once, “just like preaching biblical texts!” In fact, in response to the occasional thankful word for a sermon or lecture, I have frequently responded, “It’s hard to go wrong with good material.” One can, of course, go wrong—as we can all attest from personal experience of hearing and, alas, doing—but when we do, it is scarcely the fault of the text. I am reminded of the remark by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (eighteenth-century German physicist, astronomer, mathematician, and satirist): “If a book bumps against a head and the sound is hollow, is that always the book’s fault?”2 So, just a simple word to the readers of this our annual issue devoted to a biblical book or theme: “Drive the Rolls!” In other words, forego the temptation to take something seemingly easier, more controllable, and less dangerous out of your preacher’s garage, and drive the text. It will be worth your while—and certainly worth the while of your hearers. Sometimes preachers succumb, preaching not on a biblical text, but on something that seems for the moment a good idea, like the latest self-help book or spirituality volume, or the ever popular how-to series on good parenting, healthy living, or hints for a successful prayer life. While these are not necessarily without merit, they remain, at best, Chevys, Fords, and Hyundais, while the gleaming Ferrari sits in the garage untouched. (Moreover, a “sermon” that is driven by an agenda or source other than Scripture—even one that pretends to have a text but does not actually expound it—has no basis to be called “word of God,” no matter how valid a religious exercise it might be.) So, again, drive the Rolls—or should we say, be driven by it? Others can offer religious self-help or spiritual guidelines; only the biblical preacher has the opportunity to open to people the rich and surprising resource of the Scriptures. We should not let that opportunity pass. To be sure, driving a powerful and temperamental automobile is sometimes difficult, often risky, and requires much more practice and skill than taking out the comfortable family car, but the family car will never turn heads and produce the sheer delight of discovery that comes with the racy sports car or elegant custom sedan. So it is with preaching the Bible. It’s hard work, it will take all our skill, and it will never be fully mastered—but it alone carries the promise that comes to us with the office of preacher. F.J.G. 1The
program aired on Minnesota Public Radio on March 13, 2005. Luther on Vocation, Revisited In response to my last editorial, “What Luther Didn’t Say about Vocation” (Fall 2005), two readers responded with legitimate Luther quotes that make reference to the famous “maid who sweeps” who showed up in the quotation whose veracity I questioned last time—though both agree that the tone of the valid Luther is different than that in the manufactured quotation. Harris Lee referred to Donald Heiges’s discussion of Luther,1 which points to Luther’s assurance that all valid human efforts “are truly divine works, whether you are a pupil and learn letters, a maid and sweep the house with brooms, or a servant and tend horses.” Luther goes on to assert here that one truly serves God by serving “the household, the state, or the church.”2 Rhoda Schuler also called attention to the Genesis lectures, where Luther argues that “all our actions in domestic life are pleasing to God and that they are necessary for this life in which it becomes each one to serve the one God and Lord of all according to ones ability and vocation....Let them know that a woman suckling an infant or a maid sweeping a threshing floor with a broom is just as pleasing to God as an idle nun or a lazy Carthusian.”3 My point in the previous issue remains (and is not disputed by these two careful readers)—that, for Luther, the Christian serves God by serving the neighbor in deeds “necessary for this life,” not through pious religious exercises or through work as an end in itself or as meritorious unto salvation. For Luther, there is no value in the claim, “We are spiritual”; rather, Christians need simply know that “they are pleasing to God” as “they attend to [their everyday] duties” and “abstain from sins.”4 Lord, give us the strength! F.J.G. 1Donald
Heiges, The Christian’s Calling (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1958) 48-51.
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