Response to W.'s question...

I teach a Bible lesson most Tuesday mornings.  It is typically about the text for the sermon the coming week.

This week I am looking Jeremiah 1, which begins in part like this:  "Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah..."  And so we began our discussion of the text with a conversatino about what it meant when the "word of the Lord" comes to a person.   Who could we remember, biblically speaking, some of the people to whom the "word of the Lord" came?

Abraham.

Sarah.

Mary.

Joseph.

And the other Joseph.

And Jonah.

And Miriam.

I asked a good question:  is it an easy thing when the "word of the Lord" comes to a person? 

Why did I ask this?  Because typically, though with exception, once the "word of the Lord" comes to a person that person's life becomes much more complicated.  There is nothing easy about the "word of the Lord" - just read Jeremiah's 52 chapters, or his book of Lamentations, or follow the trajectory of Abraham from chapter 12 of Genesis until chapter 22.  The "word of the Lord" while a blessing and a gift is also a gift and a call that comes with a huge obligation and a lot of risk.  The prophetic life is not an easy life.  My colleague in Charlotte, Pen Peery, preached from Jeremiah last week and said, "no one really wants to be a prophet."  And he was right.  It is hard.  It is tough.  It is a one-way ticket, the prophetic call, to unpopularity and discomfort.  The "word of the Lord" might be good news, but it is rarely easy news.

Tuesday morning was a good and rich theological conversation.

Then W, a good friend and faithful attedee at the breakfast study raised his hand:  "That is like you pastor's, you get the word of the Lord. Right?"

"Not exactly," I said.  And then I told him, "W, I am going to dodge your question today.  But I will answer it sometime."

Like a lot of questions I get asked, it has stayed with me all week.

So W, here is what I think I would like to say:

Most pastor's do not get the "word of the Lord" in the way Jeremiah or one of the other prophets did.  What I think we possess is the ability to interpret the poetry of theology (a phrase I first heard from my ethics professor, Doug Ottati).  What I think we have is a heart for deep study.  What I think we possess is a great trust in God and a heart for scripture which causes in us a childlike-wonder and deep devotion to the Bible and its wisdom and revelation.  What I think we do is listen to the "word of the Lord" as it comes in scripture and then we listen for echoes, or variations on its themes, in the church and world around us.  And then I think a passion to share what we have discovered possesses us, and we share it in sermons and Bible studies and in conversations we have throughout the week.  I think our calling is to study, and interpret, and preach about the "word of the Lord" as we best can articulate it and share it.

Craig Barnes wrote a book a little while back where he describes the pastor as a minor poet.  On page 75 Barnes writes, "As a minor poet, the pastor first has the calling to honor the major poets of the Bible.  Only then can the Word of God be found for the unique people the pastor serves.  This is what we mean when we say that the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible.  It is the Word of God because it draws us to Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.  Any text can do that, revealing the Word to people as diverse as an Indonesian farmer and a New York attorney -- if it is being rightly handled by a skilled minor poet who knows how to find a particular congregation just beneath the surface of the ancient text.  What pastors are always searching for is kerygma.  That means we are looking for the point of contact between the text and the congregation."

I think this is how I would have answered:  I don't possess the "word of the Lord" so much so as it possesses me. 

Then, Holy Spirit driven and Lord willing, I share my understanding of kerygma  for that given week at that given moment.  I am an interpreter of the "word of the Lord" and my interpretation, I pray, directs people back into the source of grace and life.  Back to God as we best understand God through what we see and know in the Christ.  It is not that we pastors and preachers don't have anything to say.  We do.  It is that whatever we do say is colored, tempered, and framed by what Jeremiah, or Jesus, or Isaiah, or Mary said -- it is always in relation to and in reference of what they said or what they did.

So, W., I am only a little sorry I dodged the question.  But I needed to study your question.  I needed to listen to it a few days.  I needed to listen for echoes, look at some books on the shelf and find the poetry of the Spirit in both your question and in my answer.