November 9, 2005
Pretend
Four or so decades ago, John A T Robinson wrote “Honest to God” I understand while in traction for a back problem. Whether it was in that book or somewhere else, he gave that sound counsel for all of us preachers that the pulpit is too often six feet above contradiction. It is a good thing to keep in mind.
For that matter, so is the title of his book a good claim and prayer and the kind of wishful thinking to make before preaching. How refreshing and altogether less intimidating it might be for a preacher to stand up there looming over everybody and just say, “Honest to God,” and then start.
I never have cared much for the habit some parsons have of claiming that what they are about to say is in the name of the Trinity or, if they’re having momentary trouble with that onerous doctrine, just in the name of God . Even if it’s more of a hope than of a certainty, how do they know? It just seems, might we say, too pretentious for words?
Preaching is not a time for pretending. It’s a time for the rarest kind of honesty. And it is good time for remembering that when Jesus gave it all up to God, the Good Book says that in the midst of all the earthquaking and thunder and storming around, the veil of the Temple was ripped down the middle for all to see what they’d been told all along was the downright holiest of the holies, that is, the very thing they’d never been allowed to see before.
What had been hanging there, which is to say, pre-tending, was now out of business and hardly needed any more. Jesus would just have to do.