Fred Craddock: He Wrote the Book on Preaching

They say celebrities die in "threes".  A short time ago we lost one of the most prominent figures of my young adult years, Leonard Nimoy.  The second we lost this past weekend, though celebrity might be a stretch.  Fred Craddock was an unassuming and gracious man who would likely resist the label celebrity himself.  Additionally most of my readers will probably not know him by name.  Despite the fact that he literally wrote the book on preaching (Preaching by Fred B. Craddock) and was recognized as one of the ten best living preachers, those who are outside the confines of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and a few other traditions or those outside the ministry will probably not recognize the name.  Dr. Craddock was not a televangelist and did not seek to be in the spotlight.  He was a quiet man who simply wanted to minister to others and proclaim the good news.  But he was also more than that.

The Rev. Dr. Fred Craddock was a pioneer and an innovator in preaching, developing a narrative style that he used to showcase what he called the inductive method of preaching.   He built on extensive study of the biblical text (in order to preach one must have something to say and that requires study - study is not getting away from one's daily work, but getting into it - paraphrased from As One Without Authority by Fred B. Craddock) as well as his love of writing and storytelling to build this style of homiletic.  It was a purposeful design that was intended to guide the hearer to the point of the sermon even as the preacher was arriving there in his words.  It worked.  At least it seemed to work as attested to by the fact that this small, quiet, humble man could draw listeners into the largest venues so that there was standing room only when he preached.

But he was more than a preacher - he was a minister, a teacher, a guide and a mentor to many, many prospective ministers and preachers.  And whether you embrace his style of preaching or not, he undeniably influenced generations of preachers in this country, changing the landscape of sermon delivery - in some cases without the preacher himself even being aware of Craddock's influence.

I was never privileged to study with Dr. Craddock.  But I did have the privilege of serving Central Avenue Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Humboldt, TN, which was his home church. I was humbled to share some time and some one on one conversations with him about preaching and ministry - to sit at the feet of the master, so to speak, even if only briefly.  I was a first hand witness to the power of his preaching style and to the way he drew people to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He was a tremendous influence whether you knew him or not, and whether or not you recognize his name or his celebrity, if such it can be called.

I celebrate the life of Dr. Craddock today as they eulogize him at Cherry Log Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Georgia - the church where he was pastor emeritus.  I laud his influence on myself and so many other pastors and preachers.  And I encourage all of us to recognize that it is not necessarily in fame and fortune that we influence people - sometimes it is simply in engaging in the call and vocation to which we have been called.  Sometimes the influence we have on people is simply in living our lives -  "preaching is to some extent self-disclosure by the preacher" (Preaching) and it involves not just sharing what we know but who we are. It is often not the flash of lightening or the roar of thunder but the quiet influence of sharing who we are with someone else.

Today I celebrate the life of a man who simply lived his call and vocation and in so doing touched the lives of many -  many of whom may not even realize that he has touched them.  Dr. Craddock taught me that it is not the magnificent victories or the grand actions that most deeply influence people - it is the simple act of living life with honesty and integrity - of living out who we are as people of God in Christ.  We are ripples on the pond, multiplying and creating additional ripples, and the full extent of our impact on the distant shore may not ever be apparent to us.  He will be missed.

Where does God go when we turn out the lights?

"We seldom, if ever, allow the Holy Spirit to interrupt our plans and lead us to worship so that we might see Jesus." Max Lucado in When Christ Comes

A friend shared a thought with me the other day. He suggested that the mark of a deepening spirituality was allowing things to happen instead of making them happen. I think this is an excellent understanding for us to embrace as the people of Christ. Too often we are intent on a purpose defined and goal driven life. Even in our faith, we live with a goal: get to heaven. Now I am not saying that it is wrong to desire a place in heaven. I am not suggesting that it is somehow inappropriate to set goals or to work with purpose. It is not. But if we truly embrace the grace filled love of God that we claim as followers of Jesus, then do we need to pursue heaven? Is it not freely given as part of the grace we receive upon our confession of faith in Jesus?

Goal oriented, purpose driven faith is counter productive to a deeper spirituality. "Wait a minute, Pastor Al, what about books like Purpose Driven Ministry and Purpose Driven Life?" I believe these have value to us as we shape the way we live, and I am not suggesting that either goals or purpose are bad. Rather, I suggest that there must also be a time and place when those are set aside to further our spiritual growth - a place and time where we allow things to happen instead of striving to be in charge and to create events. If we go full throttle all the time, with our eyes fixed on the goal, then what do we do when the Spirit interrupts our plans and our purposeful path? Do we allow the Spirit to distract us so that we might encounter God in a real way, or do we begrudge the distraction from our own goals.

Do we stop and interact with the God who has overtaken us, or do we relegate his Spirit to some attic corner of our spiritual house in order to stay focused on our own goals, desires, and purposes?

As you read the gospel writers' accounts of Jesus it is difficult not to notice that Jesus goes away by himself from time to time. He goes to the quiet places to pray, we are told. And while none of these writers actually say it, it is not difficult to infer that the quiet places are where God overtakes him, where God speaks into the depths of his Spirit.

We have all heard the old saying, "Stop and smell the roses" or Lennon's admonition that "Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." We learn from a very young age to set goals and fix priorities and to focus on achieving our goals. This is defined as success. But do we understand that faith suggests that we must also take time to stop and to find the secret, quiet place so that we allow God to overtake us?

Our modern fast paced world makes it easy to put on spiritual blinders so that we can stay focused on our own goals, objectives, and plans. Lucado's statement should haunt us. Do we allow the Holy Spirit to interrupt our plans and lead us to worship, at home, at school, at work, at the stop light on Main Street or waiting in the checkout lane at the big box store, so that we might see Jesus? Do we find a quiet place where God can overtake us and the Spirit can speak to us?

One of my daughters once asked, as I was turning out the lights to the sanctuary after the Sunday service, "Where does God go when we turn out the lights?" I think the question is a good one for us to reflect on. Does God go to sleep in the darkened sanctuary until the next worship session, or does God go with us into our lives? Do we relegate him to the dark corners until next week, or do we allow him to tap us on the shoulder from time to time so that we might truly worship God with our hearts and our lives?

I pray that we will allow God to overtake us and the Spirit to distract us as we strive to live our lives each day. I pray that when we turn out the lights in the sanctuary on Sunday morning that the Lord will accompany us into the world so that we let Jesus lead us to worship in a variety of ways, every day.

The Beat of Hope

The death of Davy Jones of the Monkees had a much greater impact on me than Whitney Houston's death, or some of the other losses to the music industry in the last year or two. Perhaps, as I told one friend on Facebook, that is because my age is showing. Certainly that 60's pop sound is what I grew up with, and it has helped shape who I am. The Monkees, the Beatles, the Stones, the Animals, and many others. They sang love songs, yes, but they also sang of social ills and addressed issues that needed to be changed. It could be very dark music, but it also could be light-hearted and even when offering a social critique, it could be upbeat.

Since Jones' death, I have found myself revisiting much of this music that speaks nostalgically of my youth and my formative years. I have dusted off old CD's, LP's (vinyl records for those who do not know the term) and found myself hitting old presets on my radio to visit stations I haven't been to in a while (yes, they call them 'oldies' stations).

And while we were very aware of racism, the Red Scare, nuclear threats, Viet Nam, drugs, and other issues, there is still something to this music that is uplifting. I believe it is hopeful. It speaks of the fact that we can overcome our problems, we can learn to love one another, we can build a better world. It encourages us to dream of what is possible, even when it seems to be patently impossible. It was the rhythm of change and it was set to the beat of hope. It challenged us to dream about possibilities and called on us to envision a better world and a new tomorrow that we could create if we could only all get together. It didn't deny the problems, but in naming the issues, it often suggested that there was hope. I admit that I don't listen to a lot of contemporary music and perhaps it does this as well. But as I look at the landscape of contemporary culture and modern politics, I am not so certain that the message of hope is still present. In fact one political person asked the President in a speech some time ago about how the hopey changey thing was working out.

I was disturbed by that remark. It almost suggested that hope is somehow not part of the process. Unfortunately, in the modern political process that might be true. I listen to the political hopefuls and the incumbents suggest all the things that are wrong and then add all the things that the other party is not doing to fix them. We get a laundry list of the problems and the ills, we get a recounting of the broken promises and broken issues, but I am not hearing positive solutions - I am not hearing hope.

There is a growing presence on the internet that promotes fear - fear of the President, of his politics, his ideology, and of his faith beliefs, and fear of the liberals who align themselves with him. There is fear of the conservatives, of their ideologies, policies and faith beliefs. But where is the hope?

As Christians we are called to be a people of hope. Does that mean we bury our heads in the sand and ignore what's wrong? No, but it does mean we are called to work for hope in a world lost in hopelessness, to work for peace in a world filled with war and violence, and to work for wholeness in a world that is broken by racism, poverty, ignorance, and oppression. We cannot do this by spreading fear and hopelessness. We must recognize that these things are the antithesis of God (reference 1 John 4:18ff). We are called to be agents of love and hope in the name of Jesus Christ.

I continue to be drawn to the music of my youth, not because it avoided the difficult challenges and problems (and today's music may confront them as well), but because even as it identified the issues, it sought to be hopeful. I would welcome a political process that avoided fear and hopelessness and offered ways to embrace positive and hopeful change. I would welcome a political process that stopped drawing lines and picking sides and sought compromises that would promote social change and economic growth and unity. I would welcome a politician who stood up and said, "I don't agree with _________'s agenda, but I see promises of hope in it" instead of one who denigrated the very idea that we can hope, or who opted for repressive social policies that solve economic problems but belittle people.

And I would welcome my brothers and sisters in Christ who would put aside their party loyalties and ideologies long enough to quit spreading fear and embrace our calling to be a people of "faith, hope, and love." No, we don't need to ignore our problems, racism, economic struggles, pollution, greed, violence, and war, and on and on, but we need to work together, as followers of the Way of Jesus, to build compromise, love, and above all, hope. I believe it was Tony Campolo who said, "It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!" As we approach Easter it is time for those of the Way to reclaim it's promise to build hope. Sunday's coming - let's march toward it to the beat of hope.

Super Tuesday and Ash Wednesday

As I listen to media reports and political analysts hype the importance of Super Tuesday amid growing commentary around issues of faith, I am alarmed not only by some of the comments made by candidates, but also by comments made by their constituents and supporters. As a historian and a history instructor, I believe the founding fathers were determined that in this country the state should not be the church and vice-versa. So I am wary when a candidate begins to suggest that there should be no separation between church and state. I think that at best there should be an uneasy alliance of church and state with a constant tension between the two. The notion that any government not headed by Jesus himself can be a government that represents Jesus or his Kingdom (the church) is a misguided notion at best.

Walter Brueggeman writes that the resurrection of Jesus "is the ultimate act of prophetic energizing in which a new history is initiated. It is a new history open to all but peculiarly received by the marginal victims of the old older" (The Prophetic Imagination).

I am forced to reflect: what if the repetitive nature of history isn't so much our failure to learn from it as Santayana suggests, but our unwillingness to embrace a new history initiated in Jesus? What if the repetitive nature of history is really an ongoing struggle between the politics of power and the way of love, between a world driven by force and might and that of the cross that calls us to honor the other? In other words, the history initiated by in Jesus is the history of a new nation that has no boundaries and is a globally spanning, barrier destroying Kingdom of God. It is this clash of the kingdoms of the world who rule by power and the Kingdom of God founded in sacrificial love that is the historic narrative of good vs. evil.

If we embrace this thought and ponder it to its ultimate conclusion we should find ourselves rethinking the idea that we can institute some kind of faith narrative or religious subtext via politics. Inevitably the politicians that claim we can legislate Christian faith in some way are substituting the kingdom of the world for the very Kingdom of God that they are claiming to represent. There is only one way to embrace the Kingdom of our Lord - by a voluntary confession of faith and a baptism into a changed life that lives the Jesus truth, in the Jesus way, following the Jesus life (Eugene Peterson).

Beware those who suggest that the power of Caesar or the politics of Constantine are the path to instituting the Kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. In reality they are both the same path and neither of them leads to the cross or the Christ it represents. They are the wrong path. The Kingdom of God in this world can only be instituted through Jesus acting in each of us to transform us both individually and collectively.

Should we have no concern then for the faith values or morality of those we elect? On the contrary, especially for President, our leaders should reflect the values we want as a nation, but when we insist that a particular viewpoint or theology or faith tradition is necessary or that the government can become the church, we are on dangerous ground, both from the standpoint of civil liberty as well as freedom of religious expression.

In her recent blog post, Rachel Held Evans, writing regarding the outrage and support of Rush Limbaugh, writes "No longer defined by its original ethos—spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ—evangelicalism has been reduced to little more than a voting block, and I get the idea from many of my evangelical friends that so long as a person shares their political convictions, it matters not how they live their life or speak about other people; a person is on the Christian “team” as long as he votes for conservative candidates come election day."

The Kingdom of God that has come in Jesus Christ is a border-less kingdom that welcomes all people. It can never be a voting block, or a political party. There is no government that can represent Jesus, or by extension the church which is his body, that He himself does not head. So if you are voting on Super Tuesday, remember your convictions and your politics. Reflect on who you think the best candidate is, but I encourage us to remember that there must always be tension between church and state. The journey that begins on Ash Wednesday does not lead us to Super Tuesday but to a cross and an empty tomb - the Kingdom of God in Jesus.