Dr. King said that “any preacher who allows his members to tell him what to preach isn’t much of a preacher.”
He was, of course, along with his father, long time pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. It was his home pulpit, preaching there whenever he wasn’t out either marching or in jail during those fiery years of the civil rights movement. The cause for civil rights was certainly his vocation, and everyone knew that, especially his congregation; but from time to time he would receive a complaint here and there that he was perhaps preaching too much about race and justice. His fellow preachers, also involved in the movement, heard similar complaints on occasion from their parishioners. King’s answer to these complaints, however, was clear. This is what he said to his people:
You called me to Ebenezer, and you may turn me out of here, but you can’t turn me out of the ministry, because I got…my anointment from God Almighty. And anything I want to say, I’m going to say it from this pulpit. It may hurt somebody, I don’t know about that; somebody may not agree with it. But when God speaks, who can but prophesy? The word of God is upon me like fire shut up in my bones, and when God’s word gets upon me, I’ve got to say it, I’ve got to tell it all over everywhere. And God has called me to deliver those in captivity.[1]
The creed of a preacher—that his power and authority come from God himself—so clearly spoken by this prophet of the latter day: I am reminded of these words, both burdened and inspired by them, whenever I am confronted by the word of God, whenever I am bound to preach, especially the “inconvenient” word as Paul called it.[2]
It is difficult to preach today, not because people have shorter attention spans or are not used to the ancient medium of the human voice, but because of a hardness and hostility in the hearts of men and women—even in the hearts of the faithful. Several years ago we were invited to an Easter lunch at the home of a mixed family of Catholics and Episcopalians. One man—a Catholic—in the corner watching golf hadn’t gone to church that morning (the tournament must’ve been riveting); yet he wasn’t shy about sharing his opinions on all sorts of things, even religious matters. At one point he broke into our conversation telling us about one of the last times he went to Mass during, I think, Desert Storm. The priest, he said, had preached against the war, and this was—according to this gentleman—a topic out of bounds for a priest. “Father should just say the Mass and shut up! Keep his opinions to himself,” he said. Now I certainly don’t know what that priest said to make him so mad. It may have been anything from prophetic to foolish, but I couldn’t help but think of what Paul said, that “the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine.”[3] It is possible that this may be just what he meant—hardness and hostility, criticizing the Church of God all while watching golf on television.
The gospel today is taken from the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, a portion of scripture so sublime and exalted that Augustine called it the “perfect standard of the Christian life.”[4] But I’m not so sure how many of us really believe that. No matter the eulogies we offer on behalf of the beautiful words of Jesus, they are, for some of us, words spoken at the funeral of faith. That is, here more than anywhere else are we likely to praise Jesus but not heed him. When I hear these words, this teaching of the Master, I am confronted not only by my repeated and ridiculous moral failure; I also discover the great distance between my heart and his, the yawning chasm that separates my life from the Kingdom of Jesus. I don’t know if you, when hearing the Sermon on the Mount, find it to be a mirror of your moral life; I don’t. Rather, I am convicted. And I think, if we’re honest, the most devastating thing we can say about ourselves today is that we are no longer a people for whom the Sermon on the Mount means very much. We don’t understand it. We don’t get it. And we certainly don’t live it.
But how was Jesus asking us to live? Speaking to his disciples, Jesus described a form of life radically holy and in perfect harmony with the pure Law of God. This form of life, meant for his disciples, was to be distinct from the way of the world. It was supposed to be visible, like a light on a lamp stand in a dark room. That is, Jesus wanted us to stand out, and he was clear that this would invite suffering and persecution. Jesus told them clearly, “because you do not belong to the world…the world hates you.”[5] And that was supposed to be a good thing, something we should rejoice in, Jesus said.[6] “Do not be amazed,” John said, “if the world hates you.”[7] Though we weren’t ever supposed to play the victim; we were supposed to trust in the Victim—believing him more than the world.
And we were supposed to be different because we lived differently. Jacques Ellul, the great post-War thinker from the twentieth century, said Christians today “have no style of life…they have exactly that which has been imposed upon them by their sociological conditions—by their social class, their nation, their environment and so on.”[8] We were supposed to live differently according to a particular account of the virtues found in the teachings of Jesus. We weren’t supposed to kill or even ever live in anger. We were supposed to seek reconciliation with our brother or sister, quickly, and not hold any grudges. We weren’t supposed to commit adultery or even lust after anyone. We weren’t supposed to get divorced very easily at all, and we were always supposed to tell the truth. This was supposed to be the Christian form of life. But it isn’t. It all seems quaint now, doesn’t it, like a relic or an antique? What are we to do? What are we to make of it? Want me to interpret this teaching into submission for you? There are schools of interpretation, both Catholic and Protestant, that have done just that over the centuries—interpretations persuasive, beautiful, and comfortable. We could very easily go down that path. But how could we continue and still, with a straight face, call ourselves Christians? I don’t know.
There is a way forward, I think, but it demands that we commit ourselves to a deeper view of things—a more mature and less superficial view of the teachings of Jesus and also of the Church. I remember a man, not hostile but not all together kind either, ask me once, “Do you think I’m going to hell because I’m not going to church?” I was taken aback by the question. I didn’t really know what to say, but finally I told him, “No, probably not for that. I’m sure there are other things you’re going down for.” It was a silly question based upon a superficial and immature view of what Jesus was trying to teach and of what the Church tries to teach. If we listen to this gospel today and hear only a bunch of difficult rules, then we’ve got some maturing to do. The same goes for our reaction to the teachings of the Church: if we react to them simply as a bunch of rules we don’t like, then we’re missing the point. Children often do not understand the rules their parents give them. To the child they seem arbitrary and hard. Only when they grow up can they see the wisdom of their parents’ rules—rules designed to form them as mature and responsible adults. This is what Paul meant when he said we should strive to eat the solid food of mature faith, weaned off the milk of spiritual infancy.[9] “[S]top being childish in your thinking,” he said, “but in your thinking be mature.”[10]
So, the first line of questioning should not be about the merits or implausibility of any one of the commandments you heard today. The first question should be whether or not you want to be a disciple of Jesus. What this gospel should bring us to reconsider is our conversion. What is given in the Sermon on the Mount is the form of Christian life, and so the first question is this: Is it a form of life you want? If it is what you want, then beg for the grace to live it. Find mercy for every fall, every time you fall. Holiness is very possible. But first you must embrace the struggle, the battle, for the complete conversion of your heart. And a battle it is. Augustine said it’s like the soul being torn apart.[11] We mustn’t look at the law of God or at the teaching of the Church with hardness and hostility but with desire, the desire to be made holy, to be a saint. After Peter’s first homily at Pentecost in Jerusalem, his congregation asked themselves, “What are we to do?”[12] May we be as brave as they were, not wriggling ourselves out of the challenge Jesus gives us today. Let us pray and struggle, to be holy just as our Father is holy, just as Jesus said we could be.[13]
[1] Martin Luther King, Jr., A Knock at Midnight, 309-311
[2] 2 Timothy 4:2
[3] 2 Timothy 4:3
[4] Augustine, Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount 1.1
[5] John 15:19
[6] Matthew 5:11-12
[7] 1 John 3:13
[8] Jacques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom, 121
[9] Hebrews 5:11:14; 1 Corinthians 3:1-2
[10] 1 Corinthians 14:20
[11] Augustine, Confessions 8.10.24
[12] Acts 2:37
[13] Matthew 5:48
© 2023 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
