What opens up the text. . .

I was listening to something on my computer and the pastor (Lutheran but not Missouri Synod though that hardly matters) was talking about fresh ideas for sermons.  I was not paying all that much attention but I heard the pastor say that to start the sermon this person reads the text from The Message, "a version for our time—designed to be read by contemporary people in the same way as the original koine Greek and Hebrew manuscripts were savored by people thousands of years ago."  Translated by Eugene Peterson, The Message strives for the spirit of the original manuscripts—to express the rhythm of the voices, the flavor of the idiomatic expressions, the subtle connotations of meaning that are often lost in English translations.

Okay.  I am not all that familiar with The Message.  It might be fine.  But the idea that sermon prep begins with a read of the pericopes from The Message -- itself a read from the original languages -- only makes this odder than odd.  It may not be The Living Bible but it is still a very personal perspective designed to bring the spirit of the words into a contemporary idiom.  It could be one of the things you read but is it the first place where you begin?  I find this ever so curious and concerning.  If we Lutheran preachers need help from a readers version of the Scriptures to get a fresh look into the text, something has gone wrong.  I am not even aware of a Lutheran review of The Message but any cursory look will tell you that word substitutions used in that version are concerning.  Imagine any version of the Bible that has largely eliminated the word Lord and replaced it with Master or some other substitute?  Perhaps our problem is that we are no longer comfortable with the vocabulary God uses and so we have as many problems with its message as we do with its syntax and language.

Lutheran preachers ought to be equipped to bypass the middle man and go directly to the Greek and Hebrew.  Even then, Lutheran preachers ought to know which commentaries are not simply digging into the text but useful for the preacher.  Even more, Lutheran preachers ought to be hearing and reading sermons on those texts (from the fathers to those exemplary preachers of today).  There was a time in which Lutherans were generally viewed as more than competent preachers.  I fear that this is a reputation which is no longer reflective of who we are today.  Part of that concern is built upon what I hear from my people when they travel, from some of those tasked with pastoral formation, and from pastors who visit other congregations.  Now I know that pastors are harder critics then they probably should be but the criticism is telling.

In order to pick hymns for a Sunday, you should not rely on the hymn guides available from a variety of sources.  As helpful as they might be, there is no substitute for knowing the hymns in the hymnal, reading them, and praying them until they become a part of you.  If that is true of hymnody, it is no less true of the Scriptures.  We need to rely less on mediated commentary and know the Word directly to aid us in our preaching task.  We need to know how the faithful preachers who have gone before us handled these texts when applying them to the lives of their people.  Even if The Message were the best translation out there and one we always consult, part of the preacher's task and growth is building the knowledge of the text within himself, through his own study, and by his familiarity with the preachers who handled those texts before him.  Fresh ideas are not in and of themselves bad but they are not a substitute for faithfulness.  I suspect the real reason we look for short cuts is that we think we either do not have the time or we do not have the desire to put that work in for ourselves.  This may be what is really wrong with Lutheran preaching today.