I imagine one thing that would depend upon is the faith tradition. The way it seems to me is that in the United Church the ministers try not to be confrontational. Indeed, I have seen a case where one UCC minister was given the boot by the Presbytery for preaching in a confrontational way at someone's funeral service. In our Baptist denomination, the pastor is often confrontational, especially when he believes there is sin in the life of the congregational that needs to be repented of and forgiven. 

In our church everything is in-bounds. I've heard our pastor speak on sex, politics, drugs, dancing, tv, movies, etc. His views are uniformly conservative, evangelical Christian, and family-oriented.

He seems to preach to us all, encouraging us to follow the Bible.

Personally, I think a congregation should leave with hope and a renewed passion to live a godly life.

I don't think so. I think the pulpit should be a place for the minister to preach out of the word of God.

[/quote]

What would you have advised a Christian clergyman in Germany in 1936 to do? Avoid politics?  That's what most of ours do.

When we are sending soldiers and airman to kill people -  should we concentrate on singing choruses of Jesus wants me for a sunbeam?

Christians participate in this more or less democratic process of ours. How can faith not affect our judgement?

Since when has it been the policy of the churches to preach to the prejudices of the congregation?

Would Christ have nothing to say about killing? about exploiting the destitute of the world? about the suffering we allow to happen here and in the US?

If not, why do we even bother with religion? 

I quite agree with morning Calm, and especially her last point. though there is a difficulty. There are people who feel that criticizing Harper is riding a hobby horse- but there endorsement of him is impartial.

If you disagree, some people will always accuse you of riding a hobby horse.

Hi crazyheart,

From time to time, yes.  If confrontation is all you've got then you aren't doing ministry.

Nothing should be out of bounds, again, it is a matter of timing.  Talking about issue X when issue Y is more pressing is a mistake.  Taling about issue X when issue X is pressing is timely.

It isn't a matter of where the majority is it is a matter of where the majority need to be.  Plotting the path from here to there should be done well ahead of any confrontation.

Neither.  Both lead to apathy if that is all that can be triggered.  If the congregation doesn't leave desirous and willing of change all attempts at change will fail.

If that is all the minister uses the pulpit for then that is an abuse.  If the minister is not equally challenged by the presenting issue then the minister isn't in dialogue with the congregation the minister is monologuing at the congregation.

Grace and peace to you.

John

It is the preacher's job to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable.  Figuring out the balance of those two will vary wildly from one situation to another, but both need to be a part of the equation.

I think a minister should preach the spirituality that he or she feels, anything short of that would be a betrayal of her spirituality. Ministry is not a popularity contest and a minister is not a scheming politician who needs to or should curry favour with the congregation, the public or the political establishment.

"For he preached with authority, not like the scribes."

Yes Arm ... Jesus did confront the institution from outside the walls/Wahl didn't heh?

Those within the structure didn't like it ... where the power was and as usual the genteel thinking power was excluded ... in an extreme manna ...

Perhaps why it is difficult to find a balanced soul to this day ... if the mob rule finds a one legged man ... they kick it right out from under him rather than reinforcing that weak branch ...

Is this why they say the thoughts are one of the first things to go .. before the emotions take over completely and bring the storm to an end ... one last man standing ... one severely pained in what he has learned? The rites of heaven ... tough job learning to love people that bear the shadow .. without a spark, or small fire ...

I think the minister should follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who knows the hearts of the people better than the Spirit of God?. 

If A minister preaches what he feels, then the church has become his and Jesus is not at the helm .

Dang. Well said, Sir. Well said indeed.

It bothers me to hear the implication that the key to church life is the sermon. The church should be a place of discussion, of involvement. Synagogues still do it, and do it well. One finds Jesus in the synagogue - debating, discussing.

That doesn't happen much in churches. Instead, there's a smug sense that all one has to do is shoot twenty minutes of the word at them once a week, and it's mission accomplished.

Synagogues have discussions, visiting speakers, book clubs. There's an atmosphere of learning, of respect for learning, that I have found largely absent in Christian churches.

In Montreal I would be invited to speak at many synagogues some forty of fifty times a year. That was over a period that covered forty years. In that time, I spoke once at St. James United, once at Rosedale United, and at the closing of Erskine American United. We can also toss in a couple of Anglican churches and a Catholic one.

The only church in the city that encouraged me to spark involvement and debate was my home church of the time, Beaconsfield United.

The church experience has to be both intellectual and spiritual. One cannot separate those two. We don't need more uninformed Christians with their heads in the clouds.

The churches in Moncton appear to be intellectual graveyards. One cannot usefully be a Christian without seeing its relationship with the world. And you cannot get that intellectual part of it going with weekly readings that few pay much attention to.

I think you have nailed a lot of the problem with churches.  Well said.

I agree with blackbelt's post   

All sermons should come from The Holy Spirit not from our human nature . Who knows better than God who is sitting in His church to hear His word . There is too much human control in the churches today and that is why they are struggling to survive .  The Bible says --John 15:26 ---But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

So why do we rely on ourselves to preach to people who we don't know when we have The Holy Spirit who does know.

Blessings 

Is the holy spirit de rapture of emotions ... when one accepts they know little of the infinite rationale that surrounds us?

It's just word that floats unaccepted by authority ... that truly believe the pagans know nothing ... that's the common folk at the bottom of Jack's ladder ... where all intelligence falls those recovering from the ante state ... the lovin' beginning and immersion in emotional things. The'll get over it with a wii bit of learning ... that's the word!

But so many won't look into it as a vast pool to understand ... pomme my soul that appear to be a bit of fruit of truth ... a literary vs a literal person that sounds the depths ( that's T'me/tome in ole Hebrew) a fine interpretation f(Lute) from the wormhole ... a pipe in imaginary space? Would one have to read into it as a black mire ...

I think he has completely missed the point, as well as being insulting.

I think he has completely missed the point, as well as being insulting. The church isn't a debating society; it's a group of worshipping Christians. There is a role for excellent preaching (which we do not cultivate in the United Church; just attend the Festival of Homiletics in the US once to hear excellence in preaching). There is also a role for discussion, study and book clubs in the life of the faith community, but it's not necessarily worship. My suspicion is that Graeme is insulted than no one in his current community has recognized his gifts (as he sees them) and invited him to preach and that he has the sole key to bringing intellectual life to the church.

Many years ago I heard a minister speak about his early experiences in ministry.  He had been called to a church that had had the same minister for quite some time, a minister who preached judgment, with not a few warnings of punishment and hell.  Revelation was one of his favourite books. 

So early in his ministry he called a congregational meeting.  And of the questions he asked was:  "What do you want, what do you need, from me?"   All were silent, they had never been asked that question before, in fact they had never been asked anything.  Congregational meetings in the past had been to rubber-stamp the minister's opinions.   But finally an old woman stood up and said, "I can't speak for everybody, but I need to be told that God loves me, and I need to be told that over and over again."   The response that followed confirmed that many of the congregation needed that very thing.    He based his ministry on that.  And I have kept it in mind whenever I have been invited to lead a congregation in worship.

Graeme, you and I could agree on many things.  One being that we need more discussions in our churches.   We need to open up, to bring in speakers on various subjects - in the past my congregation has had several theologians, but we have also had speakers and workshops on global warming, on sexual exploitation, on poverty.   We have members of our congregation study and share what they learn about mining practices in the Philippines, and on access to clean water around the world.  

But the question at hand is on Confrontation from the Pulpit.  I presume Crazyheart is talking about the Sunday morning worship service.  That was what I was talking about in the other thread - not about important concerns that the church could and probably should be involved in.  

Should the minister be confrontational?   It seems to me that there is a time and a place for everything.  I hardly think this is the place for a visiting minister who has been asked, not because she is an expert on a particular subject, to lead the people in worship.   Also, it seems to me that a minister might be able to lead the people in the way they should go over a period of time, rather than being confrontational.  People tend to get their backs up when someone is being confrontational. 

Isolate people from the facts can't figure nothing out without de beit ... poe'L of the big fisherman in the networking of what comes out of that which we agree to disagree on with ... reverence! Such an odd thing in a world that is mostly filled with negative emotion ... hate of the gods for the non-rational creation. Some thing for a mMuse meant for god ... displaced in the gamos ... the dark power of work as en crypt dead as satyr accepted as truth ... missed conception?

It's a grand or gross way to teach the fallout of heaven that failed to grip the edge of the veil ... some opening of the secrets are required instead of hiding them in Bulls ... but that is what's expected after millenium of lies .. a lot of filtering to be done outside ... that's sans or without emotional baggage. Some find it difficult to let go ... for a cool thought and fresh wadis ... like a niche in the Llanos ... foal din space ... just Emma Jinn ... oris that  Paen?

[quote=crazyheart]

I How about content - politics, issues, etc. Is there anything off bounds?

I don't think anything is out of bounds.  I have often, especially before an election, spoken about political issues - but not taken sides.  I have called for justice, mercy and humility when the political concern is for 'law and order' and 'tougher sentences and more prisons'.   I have talked peace - and searching for understanding and peaceful solutions rather than war.   I have prayed for our soldiers and for all those involved in violent conflict, without giving my blessing on the conflict.  I have talked about our relationship to the earth our home and how our greed is destroying it.  I have challenged the secular world's pursuit of 'things' and 'economic stability and growth' rather than seeking to live humbly in the kingdom of God on earth.   Is anything out of bounds?   I think it depends upon how you do it.

If there is a congregation of 50 . Do you preach to the 45 or do you preach to the 5 who are left or right of centre?

I think you have to preach to the entire congregation.  It would be nice to think that the entire congregation 'gets it', but realistically, if you can reach one or two in twenty, or five in fifty you are doing good.  

Should the congregation leave with hope or should they leave disgruntled?

They should leave with hope.  I love that closing hymn "We shall go out with hope of resurrection."   They should leave filled with love, hope and reassurance and filled with the Spirit to do God's work and to be of service to others during the coming week.

Is the pulpit a place for the miinister to opine personal hobby horse issues?

No, usually a minister who is on a hobby horse, soon grows stale.  That is one of the reasons I like using the lectionary as a guideline:  it forces the minister to look at a variety of scriptures and not just choose those that support her stance on whatever issues are at the top of her agenda.   

 What do you think?

 Thanks for asking.   I think that I am surrounded by the love of God.

Amen sister, 

Because its our human nature  to take that which is of the Creator and constrain it into form (religion), then through form we boast & stroke our egos, worship & sermons become a feeling and the Spirit is removed.

Feelings many times are wrong, God calls us to a higher place, the spirit, not a facility of our soul, we are called to " worship in Spirit & in Truth " ministries included , yet truth is we do not like to expose our inner truth before God because we know many times our truth is ugly before a Divine God, I know mine is , so we rely on the works of Christ to wash our conscious clean,   so our human nature may approach a divine nature in pure spirit, which is the deepest part of man now in union with the deepest part of the Creator, that is true Love, a union of 2 beings deepest parts. 

So many churches have become mans church using Gods word, trust in self over trust in God, using feelings and not spirit, St Paul Trusted in the Holy Spirit to preach to Kings and People, even when his life was on the Line. 

Today it has become, I feel I feel I feel , what happened to 

I Trust you Lord to guide this YOUR CHURCH to a place where YOU want it 

If god is going to direct ... the isolated must get out moor and learn about what's all out there ... the walls must come down and expose our comfortable little closet of dreams for self ... and see what this is to do with the other in a mortal sense of limitation.

Harold Bloom once said that the human anima is the only one that doesn't know any limits for emotions ... suggesting not much room for thought (animus) ... blind faith in aggression builds room for a story (then a person would have to interpret) learn to read things outside the tome ... that's a book, or bo'quet of knowledge ... hated by brutal roman sorts ...

"Oh Brutus is that thou?" Ah the Light is drawn forth ... druID into a thought as line in san ...

 Seeley, I think we are broadly in agreement. To get on a hobbyhorse will, of course, drive people away. What the sermon can do, without getting on a hobbyhorse, is to ensure that we make it clear what meaning the scriptures have in our daily lives. The discussion if had in mind was to gather and consider further information about what is happening in the world, then to go into a well-guided discussion of it. That would not happen, of course, in the context of the service.

I do not consider it Christian  for us to simply kill and exploit and starve - and then to say what we want from the church is assurance of the love of God and a place i heaven. That's the "what's in it for me" school of Christianity.

We wear Levis jeans and fruit of the looms underwear courtesy of an empire that enforces a minimum wage of three dollars a day. For most in the factories and the farms that grow Chiquita bananas, t hat minimum wage is also the maximum wage. There ae virtually no social programmes, little, in any, education. All enforced by us Christians. When the president of Haiti tried to raise the minimum to five dollars, thugs invaded Haiti, the US intervened to protect the thugs and exille the president. Then Canada obediently sent troops and police to maintain the status quo.

The very Christian leaders of the world bank lend money to countries to build clean water systems. But only if they are to be privately owned. The result is water so expensive, it exceeds the costs of food. Many can't afford it, and have to drink from polluted streams.  Canada is a player in all of this.

Much of this is not suitable for the pulpit. But it is vital for the church. (I grew up in a United Chruch that was not just an hour just on Sunday.

For those who want assurance that Jesus loves them, try to guess the answer Jesus would give. Perhaps something like, "Show Me that you love Me."

I remember I once heard a sermon by a guest minister, and I thought it was wonderful analysis of the the church in general. However like after most services, I found people do not want to talk about the sermon, but they play catch up with their friends who they have not seen for a week or longer. However months later I was talking with one of the many retired ministers in our church and the sermon came up as. I Expressed how much I liked it and it was than I discovered that everyone else that everyone else just saw the sermon as an attack against the church, and that the minister who gave it would never be asked back.

Different things for different folks, so it might just be a preference I have and many with others with PDD NOS often have for talk that others find to blunt. but I wonder if we in the United Church are too diplomatic with our words and just feel uncomfortable with blunt and clear language.

One of the best consistent public speakers I have ever heard Many times and with in front of diverse audiences and who was blunt and clear, but who never turned off his audience was Graeme. He obviously has a great ability and uses many techniques but the one ability or technique that I think made him so good and helped people hear the hard stuff, was his witt and sense of humor. No matter what he talked about, he always seemed to make you smile or laugh. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

Thanks for that Alex and kudos to Graeme.

Graeme - I am well aware of many of those problems you speak about.  I have attended lectures and workshops where we considered them, and have occasionally worked as a facilitator or leader.  I have referred to them in my message on Sunday mornings.  I do my best to live simply and to value the things that many people take for granted.  When possible I shop at the local market, or the Coop store.  I read labels.  I ask questions.  I buy fair trade coffee at my church.  I don't cross-border shop.  I vote according to my values, and not according to who has the best record at protecting the economy - anyway I fall on the side of the poor getting poorer in the present economy.  

I would love to hear you as a lecturer.  Let us know if you are ever speaking in Fredericton.

But right now I am not planning to deliver a lecture; I am preparing to lead a worship service as a guest lay worship leader.

That's wonderful to hear because people need to know about that kind of stuff. It's very important in a Christian church. We need to know what we are being saved from if we are to be truly thankful to the Savior. Was this in a United Church?

The message that God loves us is an important one to hear. At the same time, God is not just a God of love. He is also a holy God of justice. That message should be preached as well. 

It's great that you wanted to learn about doing such things, but at the time you were doing so you were not acting as a church unless these talks inluded spiritual content.  

Agreed.

Fredericton? I don't get asked to speak even in Moncton. (Well, I did quite often lead the service at my church when I lived in the country.)

But I hear that Fredericton is something like a Lego Tiny town version of Boston, where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God.

sometimes the Truth hits us , right between the eyes 

I should add that I do thank so many people for writing in. I find that expressing my views either in speech or print forces me to think more deeply about them - and to refine them. There's in nothing that deadens the mind more than a lack of criticism.

I would say the focus should be kept on JESUS and only on worldly matters secondarily.

jon  - Jesus lived in the world.  His ministry was at odds with the Roman world.  His message was one of hope to a defeated people.  He was concerned with the hungry and the outcast.  He didn't see the religious leaders helping the people, and he spoke out against them.  

Of course there is a spiritual content to the lectures and discussions we hold in our church.  How can we follow the Way of Jesus, how can we live in God's world, if we are not aware of what is happening around us - if we allow ourselves to be unaware of our sins of greed in a hungry world - if we support foreign wars that result in God's children killing and being killed, rather than strive for peace?  

Jesus, by word and example, taught us to love God and love our neighbour.  How can we love our neighbour if we don't go to the trouble of seeing his suffering - and Jesus also taught us that our neighbour isn't just the person living next door. 

Yes, God judges us.  And I think God is judging us right now in our violence, our greed, and our indifference to the suffering of others.    And I'm not very optimistic about the future of our nearest neighbour, or of our country that is tied so closely to them.   So I feel the need to be reassured of God's love.   When ancient Israel forgot God, got involved in foreign wars, protected their trade routes, built cities for their kings and temples for their priests, neglected their poor and needy, and ignored the warnings of their prophets, God permitted their country to be overrun and their leaders killed or carried off into captivity.  Don't think it couldn't happen here.   But God also went with them in their captivity.  God never stopped loving them.  And that's what I find a lot of people need to hear.   God is always with them.  Nothing will separate them from the love of God.  

well, that certainly demonstrates more than the average share of oratorical skills.

Thank you, Graeme.  I find that sometimes the Cafe pushes me to think about what I want to say and to present it clearly.  

I learned that in teaching history - when I learned more from teaching history than from formal study of it. When you have to write or speak something, you become aware of how silly it sounds. - and then you clean it up.

It has been suggested that the key to living a faithful life is to be passionate about what God is passionate about.  It would then follow that preaching should encourage people in that direction.  This likely means that confrontation will happen at times.

That sums it up well.

O.K. there's a lot to that. You thought it through more deeply than I did. I guess the first image that came to mind was preachers getting political and forgetting about JESUS.

Or thinking about Jesus in superficial terms, and forgetting about His message.

Obama cut off national assistance to over a million and a half destitute Americans. But he has no problem maintaining  the military budget, and letting bankers who caused the recession take  home a hundred and thirty nine billion dollars in bonuses.

Anyone who confuses that with the teaching of Jesus has forgotten about t he real Jesus a long time ago.

Amen Graeme ...

Harold Bloom stated this with: "the only creature not to know when enough is enough is mankind!" The word tells us that the Pharoah demonstrated this by taking all that the Hebrews has to give and turning them captive ... like a smear in history about the way to do love to you near relations ... neigh bores? Share'n is beyond our childish thoughts ... a small flowering  ... in a species to be tested ... perhaps in the mode of testing. This would fit  that biblical effort about questioning all things. Omega'did you see that go by? That's sound mind ... like hearing in the dark imagination ... a vision of omi Nous nature ... the environment speaking to us ... as dumb creations ... not knowing enough for the excess 've willies ...

We appear to be a frightening and noxious factor in creation ... route to de athe for some ... as a' theistic without Care within ... Karen? One must know the dark poe'L ...

It is a mental device ... fue'd fore the brae'n ... man didn't wish to know ... so the soul was inserted where heh couldn't see it ... haunting man as a go_St. ova word ESS pore in the OI*stir as observed from the Wahl ruse outside ... in the san ... mire digging up something for consumption ...

Consumerism is something that mankind does not know how to control in a mortal state ... of excessive emotions where thinking is considered a sin in Roman pardigm. Once such seed is planted in a difficult dimension ... ID's hard to reject ...

For our clergy, here are some sermon topics, chosen from various periods. Which would you find acceptable for a sermon? Which ones are not acceptable? (In all cases, imagine yourself to be living and preaching in the time of the events.)

1. The 9/11 bombing.

2. The US massacre of 200,000 Guatemalans.

3. The theft of 2000 dollars of church money by a notorious thief.

4. The theft of several hundred thousand dollars by Brian Mulroney.

5. The killing of missionaries by Moslems.

6. The killing of missionaries in CIA operations.

7. The killing of innocent people by a thug.

8. The killing of innocent people by Canadian bomber pilots in Libya.

9. The Nazi invasion of Poland.

10. The British Opium Wars against China.

Hi Graeme,

Lived through this in NL.  Several community members had family in NY at the time.  A neighbour of ours had a daughter working at the WTC but was not at work that day.  Our congregation hosted a community memorial service.

I think it would be acceptable as a sermon subject.

I was minister to a congregation which had a treasurer abscond with twice that much.  Didn't preach on it in Sunday worship.  Was a rough three weeks just leading the official board through that.  I'm now one of the Presbytery's go to people for congregations who face the same sort of thing.

I've referenced it in a sermon. I suppose it could be a whole sermon.  Not exactly fresh though, a politician paid in cash to lobby for an industrialist and failing to be truthful about it.

I'd probably look at it from the faith of the missionaries rather than the actions of whomever it was that killed them.

See above.

If it had immediacy for our congregation sure.

Could be a topic for a sermon, definitely a topic for prayer.

Sure.  I've preached on the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sure.  I've preached on war several times.  Never in support of it.

Grace and peace to you.

John

All of those are things I would consider worthy of mentioning, although, as John points out, the Mulroney one is pretty yawn inspiring.  It might get a simple mention, at best.

I'm delighted - and heartened - to read your responses. They are very  much how I feel.

Living in New Brunswick, I see corruption and exploitation on a small stage with only a few players. What's happening is what it happening all over North America. Neo-Conservatism - or whatever people choose to call it is a variety of capitalism that is not only unChristian, but anti-Christian.

Big business is so powerful that it openly runs the government. And the sole purpose of government is make the rich richer.

I don't doubt the capacity of  people who call themselves conservative or capitalist to be thoroughly Christian in their behaviour. But what we are watching is an offshoot of capitalism whose philosophy is opposed to everything that just about any religion stands for.

In Canada, our own government has assisted in the torture of prisoners, has surrendered Canadian citizens - knowing they would be tortured - and is killing to make the very rich even richer.

I don't see how the churches can ignore that. We are descending into a very deep and dark pit, and the rate of descent is very rapid.

I recognize the difficulties of taking this to a general audience. But it has to be done if we are to be Christian. Otherwise, by ignoring it, we sanction the killing and impoverishment of millions for pure greed.

I don't know about the rest of Canada. but here in New Brunswick, the churches are dead in the water so far as anything but abstractions are concerned.

Graeme - even as pulpit supply I have referenced most of the above in my sermons at one time or another.  I was deeply shaken by 9/11 and the US response to it and it featured in my Sunday School lesson (youth) the following Sunday, and in some of my sermons over the next few years. 

I also included the Royal Family in my pastoral prayers one Sunday after hearing on the car radio on my way to the church that Princess Diana had been killed the night before. 

And often I pick up a news item from the previous week - or a letter to the editor - and use it as a starting point, or an illustration in my message.  

And, living in NB, I've heard sermons preached that were rather critical of the government practices, and of the ruling NB family (without naming names there have been messages against tax evasion, off shore accounts, union busting, etc.) and many, many sermons that upheld the rights and dignity of the people.

Rights of the population? Is that demos ridiculous thing when we look at what big business desires? Sort of separates that sign of sects in republican mode of governing for the people ... when the governor is suspected by his own vision to be broke. Then they must get it fixed ... by standing upon the people's faith ... what the other side sees as tramplein ... of course the word of connections must change as you are not allowed to tell truth about near-god status ...

In that pondering of the depth (tome, maybe even a story) is church big business to sects in the land. Come on people, we do turn a blind eye to injustice if we think ID'll work for the central issue thy's elphe! Anthropocentric Passion is like ... out of your mind destructive ... circumstantial evidence? Just look all around you ... fallout of heaven? How all the jerks got here ... in emotional seizure ... so that they could learn in souse ... that's a metaphor of immersion in sin! Dunkin of the daemon will cool eM when it comes back at him in redemption ... travel in the other dimension ... there's always that alternate dir*ection ... Eris in of word! Don't the present day gods hate dissonance ... anything that disturbed their way of current issues ...  stomp onite ...

What is the line between political activist and preaching? It seems simple enough to speak of these things for an hour and stir a congregations heart and "preach to the choir" Much harder when the audience doesn't agree.

"What is the line between political activist and preaching?"

I will suggest that integrity is the key, the preaching must be illustrated by the activism and the activism must be informed by the preaching.

 This is me in the streets of Fredericton with a group of activists. We were walking the streets, stopping at various places to pronounce a challenge to status quo. I reported this action to the Presbytery executive. One of the members objected because her son was an Irving employee and she did not want the United Church to be seen as critical of a corporation that was doing great good for her family.

The United Church is almost completely invisible in the Fredericton public space, as it is elsewhere. This reflects the failure of preaching to make its way to action. A casual survey of the three major congregations in that city will show a high level of affluence and commitment to keeping things as they are.

Referencing various examples of nonviolent direct action Ched Myers, in his article "This Is My Body" Our bodies on the LIne", writes:

"Common to each tradition is the conviction that where we place our political bodies in the body politic makes all the difference. Philip Berrigan, as is his way, expresses the thesis of body-politics somewhat more bluntly: "Hope", he is fond of saying, "is where your ass is." Civil disobedience attempts to unmask sociopolitical contradictions by representing them in public ritual, thus rendering the war of myths visible in real time and space. Such actions cannot be dismissed by the authorities as merely deranged opinion or antisocial behaviour, because actual bodies must be dragged away, arrested, and jailed. At each point in the process the possibility of genuine political debate is opened up."

Now as ever some followers of Jesus are ready to suffer the consequences of truthful speech and deed. This while believers in Christ live in the lap of luxury enjoying all the benefits of an exploitive and oppressive social order. To be sure these sing the hymns, pray the prayers, and hear the sermons. They just do not appear able to connect what happens in church with what happens in the streets of the city.

It seems to me that our passive and accommodating posture may be supported by compromised preaching which waters down the radical call of the gospel to placate and pacify anxious congregants more concerned with making the budget than making a difference. 

Isn't the whole point of a sermon to confront us with ourselves, while at the same time confronting us with Jesus, and empowering us to sort out the tension between the two and what that means for how we live?

It's all about confrontation, isn't it?  

GeoFee - I would be about 10,000 more likely to really hear a sermon you preached about justice because you have publicly and visibly walked the walk.

   One way to help preaching translate into action is for the preacher to be seen doing justice.