Minister & President’s Corner
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Minister and President Jim Antal (middle) is flanked by UCC clergy Kathryn Stevens of Ashfield (on his right) and Andrea Ayvazian of Haydenville (on his left) during day eight of the Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue. |
The answer is both
by Minister & President Rev. Dr. Jim Antal
June/July 2007
The answer is both.
The question takes many forms. And my guess is that at some point, everyone reading this has either heard it or said it or thought it. Here’s how it played out recently when I was with a gathering of pastors.
Our conversation had circled around to the need for pastors to live out their call to prophetic witness. Whether it’s in the pulpit or at the water cooler, you can’t be a
disciple of the Risen Lord withouthaving a conscience, and in a fallen world, any person of conscience will feel bombarded with opportunities to witness.
The reality is that while there are countless opportunities for prophetic witness, we Christians engage few of them. Many of you have asked me: How many pastors who oppose war preached against this war either when it began or since? Since the Virginia Tech killings, how many of us who oppose violence have taken some form of action to witness against the rampant violence throughout our society? While we had 900 worshipers in Old South Church at the interfaith service for climate healing in March, the ranks who support this issue are 1,000 times that.
Every minister who has ever served a congregation has had the experience of contemplating the Sunday sermon, and realizing that she could preach either sermon A or sermon B. (For some of us, this is a weekly experience!)
Sermon A would lift up the issue in a way that encouraged the congregation to take on the mind of Jesus. It would help people recognize the importance of not ignoring such challenging realities and perhaps invite them to take some kind of action to make a difference: participate in the walk for hunger; volunteer at the local shelter; spend a week on a mission trip rebuilding a home in New Orleans. While some members of the congregation will indicate their discomfort that such issues were even mentioned, most will go through the line and say something like, “Thanks, pastor; we need to hear a sermon like that every so often.”
But after such a sermon – even when we receive the gratitude of a majority in our congregation – many preachers return home with heavy hearts. “Why was I unable to preach sermon B?
Preachers come to Sermon B in different ways. I always try to be confessional. Before I look through the lens of the Gospel to assess our culture – on issues like racism, the gap between the rich and the poor, the theft from future generations by ecological exploitation, the pervasiveness of violence – I point the finger at myself. Moving from personal confession to societal analysis inevitably implicates members of the congregation. Examples abound from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Isaiah and the other biblical prophets, not to mention Martin Luther King, Jr., Sojourner Truth, Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, and of course, Jesus. In another column, perhaps we’ll explore the various results that come from preaching sermon B.
At this point in the conversation one of the ministers spoke on behalf of the need for pastors to become more engaged in prayerful, contemplative spiritual practices, and to invite their congregations to do likewise. Thomas Merton was fond of saying that the reason the world had not been set afire by nuclear conflagration was because there were handfuls of people of every faith throughout the world who were constantly praying that God save us from such a trial. And in some mystical way, I agree, and believe that this is true.
Every minister – and probably every church member as well – has at some time or another been part of such a conversation. Whether subtle or direct, frequently the implication is that prophetic witness and contemplative practice are alternative paths for different
people. One person may be inclined toward prophetic action while another finds contemplative practice more suitable.
I would offer a different point of view. The two people who most influenced my ministry are William Sloan Coffin, Jr. and Henri J. M. Nouwen. Both were spiritually deep. (Spend an hour with half a dozen of Bill’s sermons and this is obvious.) And both bore prophetic witness. (Among many other things, Henri accompanied various groups of students engaging in protest at the Trident nuclear sub base in Connecticut. He went on a nation-wide speaking tour to address the war in Nicaragua. And he was the featured speaker at a rally marking the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)
My life has taught me that the deeper I go into spiritual practice, the louder I hear the call to prophetic witness. And the more I give myself to telling the truth (which is one way of describing prophetic witness) the more important it is to be constantly grounded in spiritual practice.
I urge all of you to continue this important discussion in your churches. For me, the answer is both.
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