Keeping the pulpit clear
Years ago, when my children were small and Postman Pat was a familiar friend, I used to love the story entitled ‘Postman Pat’s rainy day. It was fairly typical for the eponymous delivery man – navigating the small hazards caused by the rain in his Yorkshire village. However, when he came to deliver letters to the Rev Timms in the village church with its leaky roof, he was told by the vicar to “put the letters in the pulpit – there are no drips there“. It would appear this week that the Archbishop of Canterbury agrees with him. Addressing evensong at Trinity Wall Street, New York City last week at the opening of a conference on ‘creating the common good’ he said the following:
The old sermons that we have heard so often in England, which I grew up with, which if you boiled them down all they effectively said was: “Wouldn’t the world be a nicer place if we were all a bit nicer?” We are, by contrast, as Christians to be caught up in a revolution of expectation and of implementation. That is the kind of moral claptrap that Jesus does not permit us to accept. You can read the full text here.
The word claptrap originates from the 18th century theatre, and described speeches inserted into the script of the play with the sole intention of eliciting (trap) applause (clap). This was an abuse of the relationship between playwright and audience, and frowned upon by many. It turned theater into a shallow, manipulative and unfulfilling experience, and was to be avoided. I suspect that Justin Welby would want to avoid preaching being all those things too.
Sadly, so much of the debate on the Archbishop’s comments has focused on the length and style of preaching, rather than its content. Preaching should be an act of smelting – exposing character and experience to the white heat of God’s word and the blast of his spirit that kingdom steel might be forged. It should be an anvil on which ancient word and contemporary doubt meet with such force that sparks fly and the darkness is illuminated. It should be an act of composition, where human words and divine melody combine in a new song for all the world to hear.
That is what it should be – don’t you think Rev Timms?
