Practically Preaching: Who Do You Say I Am?
 Sermons for Year B – Mark
Review by The Rev. Stephen Springer, Pastor
Dove of Peace Lutheran Church,
Tucson, Arizona

I have waited a long time for this collection of sermons to be published. The key challenge new preachers like myself face is reconciling modern biblical scholarship with the task of preaching Sunday after Sunday, using the tight program structure of the lectionary. Ed Peterman’s new book is full of insights that can help preachers with this difficult task.

In our universities and seminaries, Bible scholars teach us that Mark’s Gospel is probably older and therefore more factual than John’s. We learn that the Old Testament prophets were speaking to concrete social situations in the Jewish world, and not merely foretelling New Testament events. We find that "Son of Man" is an eschatological designation, not a reference to the dual nature of Christ. We discover that the canon of scripture evolved over centuries, and is still disputed. We wrestle with the "delay of the parousia," and the fact that none of the New Testament writers ever imagined that our world would last as long as it has, or that Christ’s return would not take place even after two thousand years.

So how can the New Testament be preached, in light of modern scholarship? How can the fruits of modern scholarship actually strengthen preaching, rather than undermining it? Pastor Peterman’s sermons reflect something that I have seldom found elsewhere: the intellectual honesty of critical scholarship combined with a passion for the Church, with love of the lay people and their complex lives, and with respect for the intelligence of the listener.

Certainly, the sermons in this collection are not intellectually pretentious. These are not the learned lectures one might hear in a university chapel. These sermons sparkle and snap and sizzle and twist. Peterman preaches with earthiness, lucidity, irony, pungency. All preachers aspire to "preach Christ," but Peterman manages to preach like Jesus of Nazareth. It is appropriate that this first book in a proposed series is focused upon the second gospel. Mark is by far the most direct and concise of the evangelists, and Peterman’s style well suits the leonine Mark.

A few examples will make this clear. The first sermon in the collection is based upon the eschatological speech that Jesus gives shortly before his arrest. The speech is part of what scholars sometimes call the "little apocalypse" of the synoptic gospels. The speech is ominous, and the way that the text is edited and read aloud in worship is particularly dramatic. It ends with, "And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake." The reading is intended by the lectionary to launch the Advent season with a mood of spiritual vigilance and repentance. It is accompanied by a quite sobering text from the later Isaiah.

I find the first Sunday of Advent difficult to preach for two reasons. First, eschatology is always tough. Ordinary lay people are so saturated with popular apocalyptic notions–like those found in the best-selling Tim LeHaye books–that they misunderstand these texts. The gap between biblical scholarship and lay people is at its greatest in eschatology. Second, the message almost always comes on Thanksgiving weekend. Worshipers are sated with food and football, the Christmas shopping season has begun, relatives are in town, and everyone is expecting an upbeat "holiday" sermon from the preacher. The grimness of the Advent season is not what our people want to hear, much less do our people want to face the confusing and discomfiting apocalyptic messages of Jesus.

It is in these circumstances that Peterman is at his absolute best. Within the first ten sentences, he has turned the popular understanding of the "end times" on its head–we are being challenged to live more fully in the present, not to sacrifice the present because of future prophecies. And he does this with enviable aplomb and succinctness, and even with a tidy pun. "In fact it can be argued," Peterman says a few sentences after his pun, "that Jesus is not referring to one time only at the end, but to all the times before then when kairos rolls into your life like a great tidal wave." In my estimation, that is the key insight of Rudolf Bultmann, stated much more simply than the Marburg professor ever stated it himself. Peterman manages to "demythologize" without actually using that unfortunate word. He manages to be "existential" without actually using that unfortunate word.

I find Ascension difficult to preach on, though I no longer have the opportunity, since most Lutheran churches these days fail to observe this key festival of the church year. Of all the Bible miracles, I personally find this one most difficult to believe, therefore difficult to preach. To understand Peterman’s genius, we need to look at a lengthy quotation from his sermon for Ascension Day:

If we can put aside our space-age cynicism for a little while we will discover that there is a very deep meaning behind the sign of lifting up. Gravity is one of the most basic certainties in life. All things are drawn toward the center of the earth. Pencils fall off tables. Water runs downhill. Bombs drop. People stumble and fall. One of the earliest fears of a newborn is the fear of falling off the edge of something, a fear that continues to haunt us in our starkest nightmares. Nobody defies gravity for very long. Earth is the center that pulls things downward. Earth’s gravity is the final authority, the one power that nothing can overcome. The story of the ascension challenges that ancient assumption. Jesus is lifted up, drawn upward toward the Father. Gravity is now overcome by the power of God. Earth is not ultimate; God is.

The sophistication of this passage can only be appreciated by a preacher. It is deceptively simple. Without questioning the literal historicity of the Ascension, Peterman is inviting us to consider its significance apart from its historicity. Rhetorically, the sentences which follow are masterful. Gravity–a force of nature–is rhetorically transformed into what St. Paul called a "power," one of the earthly evils which only God can overcome. The images of frustration (a fallen pencil), death (floods and bombs), injury, vulnerable children, and nightmares flow one after another. In just a few words, Peterman interprets the Ascension as a sign of God’s victory over some of our deepest fears and anxieties.

There are other intriguing gems–for example, an Ash Wednesday sermon that starts with "Ring around the Rosies," and a Maundy Thursday meditation on that troublesome verse that says "all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves." I’ll use that latter sermon in my confirmation classes from now on. And my favorite sentence from the All Saints sermon: "Maybe if the Baptists and other left-wing Protestants hadn’t thrown out All Saints Day when they rejected the traditional liturgical calendar, they wouldn’t have had to invent Worldwide Communion Sunday to take its place. Peterman knows just how much acerbic lemon is needed to make the broth tasty without making it sour.

Pastor Peterman is known among my colleagues for his faithfulness to the Lutheran Confessions, and it is a compliment from him when he points out that a minister is teaching or preaching solid Lutheran doctrine. I think, however, that there is a pointed difference between being a rigid adherent to Lutheran doctrine and being a real teacher of it. I for one doe not desire another Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, but rather a community where the spirit of Luther is alive. These sermons show the meister, the rabbi in Pastor Peterman. These sermons doe not reach inward to Lutheranism, striving for an ever more pure form of Lutheranism. Rather, these sermons reach outward with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a decidedly Lutheran way. I’m hoping for more sermons to be published by Edwin D. Peterman. Even more, I’m hoping that I’ll find more preaching like this occurring throughout the Church catholic and evangelical. This is the real Catholicism. This is the real evangelism.