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Lent 2013 Foreword

  In his important and award-winning new book, Age of Fracture, Princeton historian Daniel Rodgers describes the ways the old language of dedication, courage, responsibility, self-scrutiny, and sacrifice have largely faded from the public discourse of our nation’s life. In particular, the language of sacrifice--except for the sacrifice of a volunteer military which sacrifices for us--has disappeared as the world and values of a consumer driven economy have swept over us. Among the most important places this shift can be seen is in presidential inaugural addresses and speech making. Rodgers points to the ways earlier presidential speeches “capitalized on the forms of Protestant preaching.” Beginning with Ronald Reagan, however, with his rhetoric of psychic optimism, older rhetorical formulas with their calls for sacrifice and responsibility were overwhelmed by new, softer, less demanding ones. The president as Protestant preacher was replaced by the President as TV program host. Surely the election of 2012 has been a vivid reminder of how alien the language of sacrifice and responsibility is to contemporary American culture. So if you dare to claim the old rhetoric and traditions of the church, if you dare to model your preaching on something other than entertainment, if you dare for your Lenten preaching to plunge into Lenten texts—with their calls for personal and social self-scrutiny, repentance, and sacrifice—you will be participating in an un-American activity. And you will also be inviting your congregation to enter deeply and experience the story of Jesus on the road to the cross and be stunned by the good news of Easter morning.
  In her essay “Introduction to Lenten Texts,” Heather Shortlidge offers meditations for five Sundays of Lent. Her meditations carry the preacher into an imaginative exploration of the texts and of their strange stories and language. Sam Wells, former Dean of Duke University Chapel, reflects on “Lenten Preaching in the United States.” Drawing on his experience in North Carolina, the perspective gained from his present ministry at St. Martin in the Fields, London, and his deep engagement with the texts of Lent and the traditions of the church, Wells takes us into the heart of Lent with its discipline and promises.
  As usual, Tom Long does not disappoint us. In his essay “For Such a Time as This,” Long acknowledges our desire for some heroic moment, for the excitement of being swept up out of the ordinary humdrum of our lives and thrust into the midst of some great conflict where genuine courage and sustaining faith can bear witness to God’s justice and grace. But Long wonders about ordinary times, times when the future is not clear. Long believes that the church is in such a time as this. While avoiding any hint of quietism, he believes that the church is “in a season when we are called to say with the psalmist, ‘I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.’” Such hopeful waiting for God is hard for once confident American Protestants, but perhaps that is precisely what we are being called to do for such a time as this. And Lent, with its disciplines and its hope, may be the gift of a starting point.
  Samuel Balentine and Mark Ramsey offer resources for Lenten preaching. Balentine’s essay on “Preaching Job’s God” suggests that even in ordinary times, we must figure out how to preach about Job’s God. Ramsey describes the decision to preach a Lenten series on the Parable of the Prodigal Son and provides one of the sermons. Four sermons by other preachers then follow for Lenten preaching—Charlie Summers, “Blessed are the Grown Ups”; Elna Solvag, “I Will Not Forget You”; Ingrid Rasmussen, “Miscarriage”; and Anne Apple, “The Rape of Tamar.” All of these sermons remind us that even ordinary times are often filled with deep pain and profound challenges to faith and Christian life. Emily Rose Proctor’s poem “Elijah, After Mt. Carmel” prompts us to wonder about life and ministry after we come down from the mountain of heroic deeds.
  Agnes Norfleet’s review of Neil White’s In the Sanctuary of Outcasts will make many of us want to read this remarkable memoir. Catherine Gonzalez, in the “Protagonist Corner,” asks us the important question—”To Whom Are We Speaking When We Preach?”—and she reminds us that the preacher is not simply speaking to individuals, but to congregations as a whole.
  So during these times when there is so much to discourage us in the life of the church, when the fragmentation of American society is reflected in the fragmentation of the churches, when the banalities of a consumer culture offer only a deadening entertainment, Lent arrives, and the preacher is called to preach the old Lenten themes and to point to the one who graciously calls even us to follow him throughout these forty days.

Erskine Clarke