Trinity 11
Paul writes, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”
These are questions we must ponder every day, for every day we must see whether we call on him in whom we believe. Every day we must confirm that we believe in him of whom we have heard. Every day we must give thanks that at some time the preacher has come to speak to us about Jesus the Christ, the saviour of the world.
Another way of putting all this for ourselves is this, are we that “they” of whom Paul speaks? Do we believe and so call upon Jesus Christ with confidence in the time of our troubles? Is our belief a hope on which all is founded? Did we actually hear that gospel preached to us in the depth of our lives?
Who is that preacher from whom we heard that saving word? I know that for all of you here that I am not that preacher. I am almost happy to be a second-rate preacher for all of you, but I hope that I am able to share my thoughts and rekindle those first bold feelings about the faith you had when you heard the word. Unfortunately, I cannot name the preacher in my past whose rhetoric impelled me into faith-fullness, into the hope I have of an ultimate salvation. It is a combination of voices which blended together and sent me to you here in this church – a rich chorus of rhetoric and faithful utterances which impelled me to don this extraordinary garb and so week by week hope that one day someone might hear the good things which I proclaim.
I would like to consider this fact today in a more theological vein. When I was at university there was a hot debate about preaching and the thinking behind it. The catchphrase was “kerygmatic theology.” The “kerygma” was “the preaching”, “the message” – the content which compelled listening and attending to itself. That “word–event” was the point of all our deliberations.
I caught the bug then, that I still have as I stand here in the pulpit. I want to be able to share the good news of these most excellent things. We hear it in our reading today as “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
But who here has ever praised anyone’s feet, let alone a stranger who has told extraordinary tales that purport to speak to one’s very self? I know of no-one who can possibly praise my feet.
Who here understands this verse literally? “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
We today cannot really understand these words until we know that the messenger was not the newscaster on the television, but the runner whose job it was to memorise a message and run to the person to whom the message was addressed, recite the message and then take his reward. Thus we have the saying, “Don’t blame the messenger!” when we hear bad news – but don’t we often blame the person who told us the bad news? Pity the poor messenger when the king with his absolute power was grieved with a message and provided the reward for the messenger with a sword, a sword thrust which took that messenger’s life away as his terrible news took away some hoped-for plan from the king. That is the society in which that phrase rang so true.
We know nothing of that knife-edge of tension which greeted the messenger when he brought a message to a ruler. Think of that next time you sit in front of the television and you hear of bombs, murder, hatred and so many other sins of mankind on “the news.” Naturally, you won’t be praising Michael Burke, Peter Sissons, Trevor MacDonald or Moira Stewart for their feet when you listen to them drone on about the day’s events. Too often we are depressed when we have listened to these messengers from the television after their allotted time before the country.
Surely there must be someone whose feet you want to praise! Think of the messengers in your lives who have brought you tidings of good things. When you remember them, then you will be able to understand some of this verse.
Probably not mine, for my feet have borne me too late in your lives to be of great effect, but I have come a long way to share the news which was shared with me and has sustained me through many years of such varied fortune. ‘But what of this “kerygmatic theology”?’ I hear you ask.
Inextricably twined around the feet of the messenger is the gospel. As Paul says earlier in this letter to the Romans, to some it is foolishness, to others the word of life. We each catch the gospel in our own different ways. No one can prescribe how that word comes to us for the sake of our salvation, which is the reason we can praise that preacher’s feet, for his news broadcast revealed life in its fullness to us.
It could be that those feet were tripped up for some of us, while others could only praise them as the most beautiful because they had seen the light of Jesus Christ in the forceful rhetoric, the fancy sermon, the plain talking, the profound utterance, or perhaps even a joke about God. Those feet glided into the world in which you lived and brought with them the messenger who shared what good things he could as your messenger, perhaps even a messenger of good news for someone at some time. That is that moment I work for.
In that moment of comprehension of the profundity of the message of the gospel, in that moment when we understand with our lives the fundamental reality of the gospel, then we have had the experience which the kerygmatic theologians longed for, the experience of making the decision for Christ on the basis of hearing the Word through the preaching of the Gospel.
I aspire to be a kerygmatic preacher, I want to be able to share the good news I have heard with you so that one day my feet like Angela Ripon’s legs might be remembered as the bearers of life-saving news.