Thirsty for a Word

The world is thirsty for a Word. It seems to me that in their hearts people want an earthy, guileless, unaffected word. We are thoroughly disillusioned with pretentious words, whether they be commercial, political, scholarly, or religious. Increasingly, people are seeing through communicators who use words largely calculated to create an impression, cover a weakness, or manipulate in order to gain some edge. The truth is that in many cultures people have developed a cynical, distrustful streak because of an overabundance of real or perceived verbal exploitation.

We also find ourselves searching more and more urgently for a genuinely authoritative word. We are listening for those people who speak with that rare engaging power that seems to carry its own sway. More and more of us are turned off by words spoken with the demanding, authoritarian insistence too common in contemporary religious teachers. We are seeing all that for what it seems it so often is: a vain and offensive attempt to marshal the dynamics of religion to bolster a tenuous control over the lives of people.

In the church we have wondered about the causes for the declining authority in so much Christian preaching. We tend to point fingers of condemnation at the evil of the world, damning it for its dullness and unrepentant opposition to the message of Christ, when in fact that dullness may be as much due to the hollowness of our proclamation as it is to anything in the hard hearts of the worldly. We have been challenged again and again by the haunting thought that our words, doctrinally and theologically correct as they may be, nevertheless do not carry the influence that the word of truth has borne when spoken by other hearts and mouths. It seems to me that the truth is that words are only allowed to come fully to life when they are used for their originally designed purpose and when they are spoken by a heart that knows and lives by the quality of their earliest meaning and intent. This founding design and purpose for words is well-embraced by John when he says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth" (John 1:1,14, RSV). Increasingly, the world and the church thirst for transforming words, forged on God's primeval linguistic anvil.

We might also ponder which is more responsible for the loss of credibility and respect for the Bible and the church: the onslaughts of higher criticism or the emptiness of our religious traditionalism and speech. Either one has the power to devalue the Word and shunt it off onto the side tracks of meaninglessness and disillusionment.

"One of the most frightening aspects [of this question] is that no one seems capable of finding the living word that is needed." 1 That is the word that needs to be found that it may be spoken to bring healing to the people. Nobody would dare to claim that no word at all has been spoken in the face of the great needs of humanity. Yet look at the daunting task of finding a definitive, healing word for what faces us here and now. Let us say it forthrightly: It is the calling of the Christian minister to find and effectively proclaim that word, or better, to find the Word and proclaim Him wherever God has set us down to work.

But do we not already have a word ...the Word? Of course we do. But what is so challenging is that the genuinely effective word, the one that actually introduces healing truth to the thirsty lips of the human soul, is much more than a theological discovery, a doctrinal formulation, or a verbal expression of some kind. Although we have heard this again and again, I am not sure we are really convinced of it.

We know the effective word is even more than the words published on the pages of a book we call the Bible. But if it is more, what is it, and why is it so elusive? Here is some carefully conceived light on these questions: "Leaders and people are deprived of the word because they no longer speak with meaning but use words as counterfeit to impress people, to prove a point, to ... extract an advantage. And that is not what the living word is for.... What is so terrible is that the words that should be said are so simple, and [we] cannot say them, because the words know they will not live, not be made flesh. For the word breathes and lives only by honest and truthful intent."²

Here indeed is the essence of the challenge for the Christian minister. In the latter part of this statement, "words" are seen to have a certain, almost conscious, perception of their own. They are viewed as possessing the ability to refuse to yield their deeper meaning and practical impact as long as the one speaking them is employing them to impress, prove a point, or extract through them some personal advantage. In effect, this leaves them unspoken. Perhaps there is more than a mythical element in the concept that words have this consciousness, especially if we remember the Word we are called to proclaim. It is a marriage of our "words" to the "Word" that we are after.

We have tried the professional systems, the sermonic planning, and the leadership strategies, along with the glory of gilded oratory. We have done these things and expected too much from them. They are alluring. First, because they have a highly legitimate part to play in our ministry; but second, if they are well-performed, they have a way of influencing and impressing people, lending what may well be a certain power to the minister. However, in themselves they do not have the capacity to authentically transform and convince the deep elements of the human soul where it really counts.

So it seems to me that our backs are to the wall. Nothing but the real thing will do anymore. God has brought us to the place where any sort of pretense simply will not cut it and where a Spiritless life, ministry, and proclamation is increasingly being exposed as inadequate to face the eschatological day to which the church has come. I think this place against the wall is close to the place God brought Paul as he called him out of his aging religious system. It is this drawing out of Paul that gave him the courage to leave the hollowness of the old and embrace the living reality of the new. He expressed it this way: "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3:7, 8, RSV).

The theme of this issue is the pastor and the Bible. It is spreading the Word. And the words are waiting. We will find and know them if we seek them out as the practical, everyday passion of our life and ministry. They have the seeds of new being in them. In the final analysis, it is of course the definitive Word of the Cross we are called to spread, first through our life and then in our proclamation. Let us uncompromisingly dedicate an unequivocal and significant part of our every day to excavating the Bible. Let's embrace it with a new passion and prowess both on a personal and professional level—the fabulous essence of the Book and its revelation. Let's love the Bible and purpose to give it, and above all, the Word Himself, the worthy place of primacy in our life and preaching.