SUNDAY BABBLING

I have been reading Soren Kierkegaard’s “Practice in Christianity” and commentaries about it. He wrote it in 1849 as a critique of how Christianity was presented in the Church of Denmark. In particular he criticized the preaching of his bishop who influenced a generation of the clergy. He felt that the sermons lacked Christian importance. It pained him indescribably to have to listen to what he called “everlasting Sunday babbling.” The problem was that preaching had turned into a “gentle voice.” Christ is presented as a gentle comforter and the preacher consistently seems to please himself and the congregation more than the gospel by offering human comfort as opposed to what is offered in the New Testament. The spectacle of the finely robed cleric proclaiming the sufferings of Christ was like someone competing in a race wearing a suit and a heavy coat carrying an umbrella.

The preacher may appear emotionally passionate but was merely blubbering and eliciting sympathy. Gospel comfort is meant to be the consequence of the forgiveness of sin which comes after being confronted with the dread of the consciousness of sin. The preacher, however, removed the power of Christianity by changing the gospel from divine comfort into human comfort. It is like using acorns for making coffee. The message is pretense rather than reality; a Sunday faith that doesn’t translate into Monday practice. The sermon does not lead Christians on a path to Christ but a sentimental sympathy that is invented so that Christianity, instead of drawing human beings to God, becomes the merely human. The gospel is reduced from forgiveness of sin to gentle comfort, Christ from redeemer to psychological counselor.

Worldly wisdom leads to flattery of the churchgoers because the preacher likes to be admired. Kierkegaard understands the gospel as a battle of life and death. It is an ongoing interaction with God in which the absolute difference between God and human beings is both unveiled and conquered in Christ. Sin and forgiveness requires the misery and glory of humanity being preached to the fullest. The Christian in the worst sort of misery acknowledges his own powerlessness and then the power of God can and is revealed. That is the glory of a Christian. The consciousness of sin is the only power that can make a person want to receive help from someone who was so unattractive as Christ was known to be in his suffering on the cross. Going through the horror of the consciousness of sin is the only way to experience the gentle comfort of the gospel. The consciousness of sin was absent from the sermons he heard in the church and was replaced by commentary on the world, gentle teachings and the sublime and profound.

Lack of seriousness about the human condition and the passion of Christ leads to the preacher distancing himself from the power of the gospel to transform lives. Preachers cannot observe Christ from a distance to offer panaceas from the pulpit. We preach as dying men to dying men and women. We don’t need bromides. The Spirit’s conviction of sin leads to a greater appreciation of the grace and the love of God, the joy of forgiveness and reconciliation. Kierkegaard followed Martin Luther in insisting on the preaching of the seriousness of God’s law as a necessary preliminary to the appreciation of the Gospel. Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer he decried cheap grace. Being and becoming a Christian required following Christ as Lord, imitating his life of a servant and sacrificial love.

“Teach me good Lord to serve you as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not ask for any reward, save that of knowing that I do your will.” (Ignatius Loyola)