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Reviewed by F. Cole Fowler, senior pastor at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Omaha, Nebraska Preaching the Gospel Without Easy Answers by Robert Cummings Neville Robert Cummings Neville, Dean of Marsh Chapel and Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology at Boston University School of Theology, presents an anthology of sermons preached in the university setting. He makes clear that the setting of Marsh Chapel and those who gather there, brings an expectation “…that the hardest problems will be addressed with the most sophisticated kind of inquiry available and with the most imaginative apparatus for translating the gospel from the Bible into life.” And goes on to ask, “What congregation would want less demanding preaching? What congregation would want deliberately oversimplified interpretations of the Word of God or evasions of the religious issues that fill the news?” Many who would be artificers of words in the manner of homiletics, have bee challenged to ask first, “To whom will I be preaching?” and then to prepare for that congregation with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Neville models that approach in this book. The twenty seven sermons presented are aligned into six sections: Foundations, Conversion, Growth, Call, Discipleship, and Sacrament. The section titles and their sequence serve as a guide to our development as disciples as we move towards Wesley’s idea of perfection. Each sermon contained in this book is worthy of your reading. No doubt each of you will, as have I, find several that speak particularly to where you and your spirit are in life’s journey. Admittedly, some of the offerings challenged my thinking as well as my affect. The Advent sermon, To Turn things Upside Down, takes us from how we have moved from seeing Christmas as an expression of God as the gracious Giver of good gifts, to a crises of expectations turned upside down as seen in the political/militaristic unrest around the globe to which we America has contributed by invading Iraq “for no apparent legitimate reason. . .”. Neville speaks to the heart of the Christian gospel in his sermon What to Trust. Here he writes, “Trust is about whether we are sustained so as to be fulfilled in relation to the immense God.” He goes on to ask and answer “What does it mean to trust God?” “God. . .gives us the power to live rightly and in fulfillment before God.” If we trust that gift and use that power, nothing can keep us from that relationship. Living rightly before God is to be in pious deference to every other creature. The world can never destroy our piety, but we might lose it or deny it through our thoughtlessness. Living rightly before God sees us living courageously with our faith, regardless of the pain. It also means organizing our life with the hope of contributing something of value to the divine life. Deeds of Power, based on Lections for Proper 21, Sunday between September 25 and October 1, Year B, makes it so clear that Grace is the power of God to make good things. If you read only one sermon from this book, I recommend this one. The author writes, “Despite the cosmos filled with grace, we have not consistently responded with gratitude, the natural response to grace, Instead we have complained because the grace was not where we wanted it to be. We complain there is no peace when we will to hold onto control. We complain that our loved ones die when there are others to love. We complain that others have the luck when we don’t take responsibility. And deep down we feel guilty fro the price that our own civilized existence exacts from the environment, from others, and from our own freedom. With guilts and complaints, we turn from the Creator, ashamed, gratitude curdles to bitterness, and we forget the cosmos of grace. Dr. Neville points out in his preface that he makes no attempt to diminish the fact that these sermons were created for and preached to a university congregation. Nor does he need so to do. Given that we are all enrolled in an institution for “higher” learning, the Word of God is always enlightening.
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