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| The Political Preacher Look at your feet. Are they beautiful feet, or ugly feet? Let me explain. I’ve been an observer of the political scene for a long time, but I can’t remember an election year in which politicians and their constituents and preachers and their congregations could be found so often in the same news story. It is not just Obama’s problem. Sen. McCain likewise has repudiated the support of an Ohio preacher and a Texas preacher, both with huge television audiences. Then there’s a monsignor from Boston, who hosts a show called Personally Speaking on Boston Catholic Television who offers a prayer at a New York State Republican fundraiser and uses the prayer to attack Barack. You can catch it on YouTube. It’s not only awful, it’s embarrassing to faithful, working preachers everywhere. Preaching has always been controversial and the church has always had problems with preachers. It’s a crying shame. The apostle Paul was always dealing with idiot preachers. In Philippians he writes: “Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill … the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely … What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice” (1:15-18). In this election year, however, I don’t see how “Christ is proclaimed in every way.” These media-hound, “selfish-ambition” preachers make it difficult for the 99 percent of the preachers in America who “proclaim Christ” to do their jobs. They trivialize the preaching event and the kingdom of God. Rather than drawing people to the good news, their words and deeds that flow into our households via television, print and YouTube discredit the gospel they were once called to preach. Some supporters say these fellows have a “prophetic ministry.” Well, perhaps. But there’s never been a prophet who’s been much of a pastor. The prophetic and pastoral roles should be complementary. The problem is not that these buffoons are prophets; the problem is that they’re pretenders, not contenders. If they’re prophets at all, they’re bad prophets. They’re the Mentos in a can of Coke. All fizz and no soda. When the excitement’s over, it’s one big mess. We need prophets. We need pastors. But their roles are different. The prophet believes that the rule of God may come through a political process; the pastor believes that the rule of God comes through word and sacrament. The prophet says, “You are a sinner”; the pastor says, “You are forgiven.” The prophet is a gardener pulling weeds; the pastor is a farmer sowing seed. The prophet preaches judgment; the pastor preaches salvation. A prophet wants to affect the process; a pastor wants to affect the person. The prophet is in the town square hollering; the pastor is in a worship space, or a home, or at a hospital bedside whispering. The prophet knows only one thing; the pastor must know many things. The prophet goes up to Jerusalem and Samaria; the pastor stays home in the fields with the sheep. The prophet will give you a slap upside the head; the pastor will give you a hug. The prophet afflicts; the pastor comforts. The prophet is a voice in the wilderness; the pastor is a voice in green pastures. The prophet speaks the truth; the pastor speaks the truth in love. The prophet’s task is eschatological; the pastor’s task is incarnational, re-presenting Christ to the congregation. The prophet’s task is theological; the pastor’s task is christological. The prophet’s communication is unilateral and uni-vocal, a verbal one-way street. A monologue. The pastor’s communication is multilateral, multi-vocal, a four-lane, two-way street, a conversation, a dialogue. A prophet opens wounds and lets them fester; a pastor closes them and helps them heal. We need both prophets and pastors. But prophets don’t make good preachers, and pastors just don’t have the stomach to be prophetic. But these people are not prophets. They’re media-hungry banshees screeching in the town square, unaware that most people are walking by them with their hands over their ears, and some are laughing, to boot. We need prophets. I’m serious. We’ve had them in the past, and we have them now. People like Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Jim Wallis, Bono, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, William Sloane Coffin, et al., who know how to do the prophetic work that needs to be done. Yet, even the prophetic ministry is fraught with doom and gloom. Even a gadfly like Dorothy Day understood the challenge. Wesley Taylor, who writes some of the worship resources in Homiletics, in a sermon at Marylhurst University cites her as saying, “The problem [evil] is gigantic. Throughout the world there is homelessness, famine and war and the threat of war. We live in a time of gigantic evil. It is hopeless to think of combating it by any other means than that of sanctity. To think of overcoming such evil by material means, by military actions and armaments, by changes in the societal order only — all this is utterly hopeless.” Robert McAfee Brown, Stanford scholar, theologian and strong advocate for peace and justice issues, a strong critic of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War, once offered this advice to preachers: “My own penchant in this regard has been to tilt toward social-justice issues. … By looking into people’s faces, I discovered that I’m not faithful to the gospel if I preach only judgment and social concern week after week .… Most of them [the congregation] are hurting and need support and comfort, not an unwavering diet of chastisement .… A rousing denunciation of the Gulf War isn’t necessarily what a couple needs when they’ve just learned that their daughter has cancer. Every week some worshipers are hurting and some are exultant; some have just lost their jobs and some are aflame with the need for justice in the workplace.” This is a call for preachers, whether prophetic preachers or pastoral ones, to consider the value of sanctity. It’s a call for preachers to look at their feet. We’ve got too many “ugly feet” preachers these days. Paul says, quoting the Old Testament, that those who preach the good news have beautiful feet. Until our feet get beautiful, it’s best just to keep them out of public. ’Cause they really stink.
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