Whole Lotta Love

This essay appears in Issue 27 of The Mockingbird magazine.

The first time I climbed into a pulpit to deliver a sermon, George W. Bush was President, Netflix mailed DVDs to people’s houses, and the Backstreet Boys were on tour. I was twenty-five and had just started seminary. The Episcopal congregation that sponsored me for ordination had graciously invited me to preach. What I lacked in experience, I made up in confidence. I had the pure Word of God — what could go wrong? I had researched the text, read the correct commentaries, and come up with a well-crafted, biblically faithful forty-five-minute sermon, complete with applications (the To-Do List for Jesus) at the end.

After church, greeting people as they filed out, I heard many a “Good sermon.” Later I would learn that meant “I don’t remember anything you said.” The parish’s rector, my mentor, would gently debrief with me a few days later. I could sum up his comments as “Don’t be so Presbyterian.”

My sermons these days last about 17 minutes. And though I still sometimes get the dreaded “Good sermon,” I usually hear something like, “Pastor, did you install a hidden listening device in our kitchen?”

These parishioners are implying the sermon resonated so strongly that it was spooky — in a good way. They felt seen, heard, and personally addressed. Something in the sermon helped them — in their lived reality — to feel less alone, to feel lovingly addressed by God. Their experience is like the Samaritan woman at the well, who described her encounter with Jesus: “He told me everything I ever did” (Jn 4:5–29).

This is not some preacher’s trick. Nor have I installed sophisticated surveillance devices in the homes of church members. It’s because of the theological understanding — the Law/Gospel distinction — that I bring to the task of preaching, and how it forms my sermons.

This article explores what I’ve learned over the last twenty years about how the Law/Gospel distinction works in preaching. If you are a preacher, it will help you see the message of grace in scripture and to proclaim that message to your congregation in such a way that sticks the landing. If you are a lay person, it will give you “ears to hear”: you will know, when listening to a sermon or a religious talk, or even when thinking about your own close relationships, whether you are in the territory of Law or Gospel, whether you are dealing with a world of control or one of grace.

Nam Kyungmin, A Great King’s Desk, 2018. Oil on linen, 38 1/5 × 51 2/5 in.

For starters, let’s get the lay of the land. The Law/Gospel distinction is a biblically grounded way of seeing the world that makes sense of reality. It says that when a person, text, or institution is communicating to you, it is either speaking to you as “the Law,” a demand to perform to gain a reward or avoid punishment, or as “the Gospel,” a message that one is already approved and accepted before one has merited such approval. The Law says, “Do this, and be loved.” The Gospel says, “You are loved.”

The Law/Gospel distinction is at work in the Bible in a literal way. There is an actual Law from God, carved on stone tablets, that demands certain actions and prohibits other. “Do this and you will live” (Lk 10:28). Similarly, there is a literal “gospel” (good news or euangelion in the original Greek of the New Testament): the message that Jesus’ atoning death and glorious resurrection has fulfilled the demands of that Law (Mt 5:17, Gal 3) and now releases you from having to actively perform its demands. One can now relate to God from a place of freedom and acceptance, rather than a place of fear and anxiety. Jesus doesn’t demand repentance so that he can then forgive. Instead, he forgives first (see Zacchaeus in Luke 19 and Levi in Matthew 9, Mark 2, and Luke 5). Having been forgiven, the person can then come clean and begin a new life. Whereas the Law provokes resistance in the hearer, the gospel begets a loving response.

The emotional and relational dynamics of the Law and the Gospel are true not just in the Bible, but in everyday life. For example, when a child has a parent who is critical, that child is living in the territory of the Law. When the parent’s standard is not met, affection is withdrawn. The child perceives this as failure and unworthiness. On the other hand, when a child has a parent who, upon the child making a mistake, lightly says, “That’s OK, we all make mistakes; let me know if you need help cleaning that up,” that child is living in the territory of the Gospel. It feels like safety and grace. Affection is never withdrawn, because it was never based on performance or standards. Love just is. That prior love allows the child to admit mistakes and to come to the parent with problems. This is how the Law/Gospel distinction works. Importantly, these dynamics hold true whether the people are religious or not. Law feels like demand and judgment, and Gospel feels like love.

There are six Big Ideas related to the Law/Gospel distinction that I want to address, one by one, and their implication for preaching.

First Big Idea: The Law is good. The Law of God dictates that people should love God (who is himself Love) and love their neighbor (who is a fellow creature of God, made in God’s image, just like you). In a world where the Law of God was followed, there would be no pride, arrogance, exploitation, greed, gluttony, anxiety, oppression, or war. There would be peace, reconciliation, concern for the poor, and food for the hungry. People would work hard, not obsessively; love deeply, not transactionally; build creatively, not competitively; give generously, not manipulatively; worship faithfully, not self-consciously. Lawyers, ambulance drivers, defense contractors, and prison wardens would be out of work. Preachers who know the Law is good want to see this kind of human flourishing in the world, in their congregations, and in themselves. It is important to state this to avoid the accusation, received by many Law/Gospel preachers, that we are antinomians — that is, that we are down on the Law, that we don’t care about sin, and our message is that of Outback Steakhouse: “No Rules, Just Right.” We do care about sin. We see the goodness of the Law. It’s just that we don’t think telling people to “just do it” works.

Which brings me to my second Big Idea: The Law/Gospel preacher, as a student of the Bible and an observer of life, knows that even though the Law is good and true, it cannot produce what it demands. I can climb into the pulpit and implore you to read your Bible, but if it feels like a chore, the Good Book will collect dust on your shelf. I can tell you to quit your compulsive viewing of social media, but if your brain cries out for the dopamine hit, you will keep scrolling. Through guilt and fear, a preacher might be able to get some people in their congregation to outwardly obey a command or two, but that fades quickly.

The Law/Gospel preacher knows that the result of preaching the Law produces not obedience, but resistance. This is what St. Paul said in Romans 5:20 when he wrote, “The Law increases the trespass.” Deadlines create procrastination. Speed limits don’t slow drivers but cause them to wonder, “How fast can I go without getting pulled over?” Without a curfew, a teenager might come home at 10 PM. But if the curfew is midnight, the teen will be determined to stay out till 11:59 and thirty seconds. The good and perfect Law of God does not produce what it demands. The preacher of the Law will see, at best, surface-level compliance. Underneath there will be a seething, subterranean, compartmentalized messy life (“whited sepulchers,” as Jesus called them — tombs painted a pretty color on the outside, but full of death inside). The Law is good, but it doesn’t work.

The next Big Idea is this: The Law/Gospel preacher has the situational awareness to realize that most people perceive the Church as the local HQ of the Law. Religion in general, and Christianity in particular, are seen as one big Law Machine. Survey after survey shows that when asked about Christianity, people describe it as “hypocritical” and “judgmental.” People think church is about rules, that behavioral modification is our stock in trade. I know this because when I run into parishioners at the grocery store, they immediately start apologizing for missing church. They think my job, as a Church Professional, is to monitor their attendance. Church is a place where one must be on one’s best behavior, and I am the enforcer.

If the preacher realizes that the baseline for everyone walking into church on Sunday morning is believing (consciously or not) that they are entering into Law HQ, the preacher will approach her or his task differently. The preacher will realize that people are starting out, a priori, with their defenses up, from the second their butt hits the pew (or stackable chair). People entering church are not little birds in the nest, with mouths wide open, desperately chirping to be fed the pure Word of God. Rather they are like little mollusks in a tide pool after the tide has receded: clammed shut, anxious, resistant, maybe even fearful. Remember what God’s people did when Moses descended from Sinai with the tablets of the Law, his face glowing from being in the presence of God? The Israelites demanded that Moses veil his face, because they couldn’t stand to look at it. The Law makes us stick our fingers in our ears.

Big Idea number four: To break through, one must bring grace immediately. As I said earlier, forgiveness precedes repentance, not the other way around. The preacher’s task, from the first word, is to make people feel that they are not in trouble. I remember an early Mockingbird Conference in New York where Dr. Steven Paulson, at the very beginning of his talk, the first one of the conference, proclaimed in his Minnesota-accented way, “Your sins are forgiven. Now we can all go home.” Paulson’s was a direct and literal pronouncement of forgiveness; it jolted me out of my seat and it stays with me even today. But one can communicate forgiveness in other ways. One is, well, vibes. Begin with a surprising opening story or image. I once began a Christmas Eve sermon by talking about Mick Jagger’s leather pants. An Ash Wednesday sermon opened with a reference to Cal Smith’s 1972 “The Lord Knows I’m Drinking.” Another sermon about groupthink began with an observation about the ever-changing trends around insulated water bottles (Hydro Flask, Stanley, Owala, oh my!).

You can use a song, a movie, a story. Be a little funny, a little irreverent (not crass or vulgar), a little playful. Or be emotionally resonant and describe an aspect of the human condition, showing that you realize life is difficult and full of suffering. This disarms people, knocks them a little off-balance. After all, they were expecting a Bible verse, some exegesis, and some Law. But instead, you have violated that unwritten contract that preachers must be dry-as-a-bone lawgivers. By introducing whimsy, humor, humanity, you’ve woken them up and lowered their defenses. (And for the love, “talk like a normal person” (Severance, Season 2), not in some weird, affected preacher voice with ridiculous dramatic pauses.)

Big Idea five: Preach the (surprises in the) text. When preparing your sermon, look for the surprise of grace in the biblical passage. Some examples: at the Last Supper, Jesus knows the disciples are about to betray him, but he still gives all of them the bread and the wine. He’s like a waiter bringing the food even though he’s overheard the diners say they’re not going to pay the check. What a surprise! When Jesus sees the rich man’s face fall when he realizes his possessions have a chokehold on his heart, Jesus doesn’t say, “You greedy jerk!” Rather, he “look[s] at him and love[s] him” (Mk 10:21). Surprise! Sometimes the grace is in what is not said, as much as what is said. When Egyptian bureaucrat Joseph reveals his hidden identity to his betraying brothers in Genesis 45, we expect him to exact revenge: “I am Joseph … now you’re going to pay!” Instead, he says, “I am Joseph … how’s dad? Come give me a hug.” Surprise! A good practice is to ask yourself, “If God (or Jesus) was all about enforcing the Law in this text, what would he do or say?” Then ask yourself, “What does God do instead?” There’s your surprise of grace.

The final Big Idea is this: Illustrations are where the grace gets real. The preacher’s work is to get their main preached message (the grace of God in Jesus Christ) to the heart of the hearer. To do so, you have to get past the defenses, the anxiety, the resistance we all have. Hopefully the congregation will have lowered their shields early on thanks to your opening. Then they will have gotten interested in the text in which God was refreshingly gracious, despite having a reputation as a Cosmic Wet Blanket. But to bring it home, you’ll need good illustrations. What does grace look like? How does it feel? How does it smell? “How do you know when it’s love?” (Van Halen).

Preachers often say how hard it is to come up with good illustrations. I hear you. That’s why I keep a running note on my phone called “Good Stuff.” When I hear a song, see a scene in a show, or read an article that captures the look, the feel, the taste of grace (or the way the Law works), I write it down. This is a deep well and I return to it often. Be a reader of the world, an observer and student of human experience, one who exegetes culture. The use of these authentic, real illustrations is why folks are convinced I have listening devices installed in their homes. Illustrations connect.

Allow me to close with a word on landing the plane — how to end your sermon. Don’t add an application. Don’t tell people what to do. That is, after all, the Law. Unfortunately, preachers are sneaky. They use phrases like “Let us be people who …” or “May we all leave this place with a renewed desire to …” Sometimes, horrifyingly, preachers slip these into a closing prayer, recruiting God into their little lectures (like the pious college kid who tells someone “God told me to break up with you”). These are all passive-aggressive ways to tell people what to do. Everyone can smell the manipulation a mile off. Even though you have couched the Law in gentle language, this will do what the Law always does: engender resistance.

People will say, “Yes, but we have to preach the whole counsel of God!” Or “Aren’t you forgetting all the parts of scripture that tell us to do stuff?” I would say three things to that. First, when was the last time a lecture changed your behavior? (And if you’re preaching this way, how much change are you seeing in your congregation?) Second, everyone in the pews already knows they are not supposed to be cruel, impatient, worrisome, self-absorbed, miserly, hard-hearted people. Everyone already knows they are not supposed to be an a-hole. And they already know all the ways they are falling short. You telling them “Be good, not bad” means you’re just another person reminding them of what they already know. If information were all we needed to improve, we’d all be better by now.

I’m letting you off the hook, preachers. You are not there to cajole your people into obedience. You’re not there to sneak the Law into your sermon like medicine in peanut butter given to a dog. You are there to proclaim the radical fact that whatever surprising grace showed up in the scriptural text is also for the people in the church that morning (and it’s for you, too). Riffing off something Robert Capon once said, God became man, died, and rose again so that he could hang a “closed for business” sign on the religion store. It’s all grace as far as the eye can see. As your people are leaving church you want them saying, “That sounds too good to be true.” If you hear that, you’ve done your job. Sit down and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit.

For more, subscribe to The Mockingbird. Illustrations by Aubrey Dockery.