Undone by Easter: Keeping Preaching Fresh, by William H. Willimon

Abingdon Press, 2009
ISBN 9781426700132
$14.00… 30% discount until Nov. 1, 2009… $9.80

There are good books and there are important books. Good books are well written, thoroughly researched, nicely designed, and they present helpful and useful information. Important books raise critical questions, call for change and action, provoke discussion, and challenge conventional wisdom. Bishop Willimon’s book, Undone by Easter, is both. It is a good book for preachers and theologians for its insight into practical theology and the purpose of preaching in the modern Christian faith. It is an important book because it frames the preaching act in a grand historical tradition and challenges homiletic practitioners to critically examine what it is they attempt to do each time they step into the pulpit. It reminds the reader that worship isn’t what we do for God, but it is what God does through and with us, and it is by God’s own Holy Spirit that relevancy and meaning emerge.

Too many preachers in contemporary culture feel the need to make the gospel “new.” Employing techniques, tricks, and technology, worship leaders seek alternative, hidden, and often obscure messages to keep the Word fresh and interesting. All too often, originality with integrity gives way to novelty and, as Willimon says, “What passes for ‘new’ tends to be an uncritical capitulation to the culture, subservience to a ‘tradition’ of the past three decades under the guise of innovation.” A large number of today’s preachers operate with a belief that they can somehow improve upon the gospel message – making it more meaningful, more relevant, and more transformative than it already is.

Part of the problem is that many pastors encounter the same scriptures dozens, even hundreds, of times. Familiarity, indeed, does breed contempt – or at the very least boredom. A bored preacher is a boring preacher, and many believe that there is no greater sin (or threat to growing attendance at worship) than to deliver a boring message. Content gives way to style, proclamation becomes imbedded in Power Point slides, and skits and sketch comedy displace the sermon. What we do and why we do it become less important to how we do it. Preachers become “spin-doctors,” attempting to rewrite the old, old story to speak to a new, and often attention-deficit, audience. We throw out both wine and wineskins in favor of the pull-top-tab can. Many preachers have forgotten “that the Christian faith is a self-renewing resource,” and really doesn’t need our help to be powerful and pertinent.

Bishop Willimon offers a profound insight when he reflects on the ways our understanding and beliefs about time shape and influence our faith. Western, modern views of time are linear, progressive, and deterministic. We are heading toward the future, toward a destination, constantly moving from the present moment toward tomorrow. “Now” is over as soon as we experience it. We hold a very different view of time in our culture from people of different ages, nations, and places. We “fill” time differently. Modern day Christians don’t fully grasp the concept of “God’s time.” There is little or no attempt to shape our living to God’s time; instead we work diligently to fit the gospel and all of the Christian faith into the world’s time. All the truth, meaning, purpose, and potential of the faith is relegated to perhaps an hour on a Sunday morning or Saturday night, and the prophetic word must be proclaimed in fifteen minute, weekly increments.

Another crucial consideration Bishop Willimon brings to the discussion is that of the place of the Holy Spirit in contemporary preaching and worship. Willimon writes that, “The Holy Spirit may be the most neglected aspect of homiletics today,” and this simple fact may do more to explain why modern preachers seem to distrust the power of the gospel to stay relevant and fresh on its own merits. Without the Spirit present in our proclamation and praise, the message and meaning will be deficient. Worship ceases to be about entering God’s presence, and merely becomes our effort to “be present.” Preachers feel a great burden to “give them something to eat,” when the multitudes show up in the sanctuary. But God provides. We don’t have to do God’s work for God. We merely need to open ourselves to be conduits through which God can do what needs to be done.

Worship and the Word do not stand in need of revision, reimaging, reframing, or renewal. It is the worshipers and the preachers of the Word who are standing in the need of transformation. Bishop Willimon’s short treatise on “keeping preaching fresh” is a welcome and needed word. Each of us who feel called to share the gospel with the world can benefit from a reminder that the message here isn’t deeply dependent on the messenger – we share the greatest story ever told, and we need to learn to trust that God indeed makes all things new, over and over again.