Friday 5 November 2010

Anglicans, do they know how to preach?

Can Anglicans Preach?
Whereas Lutherans many times, and that also has a lot to do with which tradition they come from, could almost totally disregard the liturgy in the worship, allowing everything to circle around the preaching of the Word, Anglicans do have a tendency of the opposite kind: to take the preaching very lightly and relying on being embedded in liturgy. I know this is a gross simplification but it may still be useful to say this as an illustration of the role our various traditions still have after all. Luther’s heavy emphasis on, not only the Word, but on the necessity to preach the Gospel at all times cannot easily be overlooked in a Lutheran church. But much rather I like to see this emphasis of Luther to be and to become a lasting legacy of the whole ecumenical church. Certainly this is also the case many times, also in the Roman Catholic Church, especially since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, while I can see clear signs in my own Church of Sweden, certainly Evangelical Lutheran in its confession, of taking this preaching of the Gospel less seriously these days.
I feel however compelled to mention about an Anglican sermon I heard recently that puzzled me quite a bit. It dealt with several texts, also one from the gospels, but the focus was on Psalm 119, in the Old Testament which is so wonderful and also so challenging as it deals just with how the law or the precepts of God are so dear to the faithful. This law is everything to her and to him. I have personally taken a particular liking to this psalm and am pondering on how it could play a role in re-emphasizing the importance of the law and of divine principles in our theological reflections, without in any way diminishing Luther’s demand for putting out the gospel to all. On the contrary; it seems to me that the more one emphasizes the gospel the more necessary it becomes to hold up the law as a counterpart.
This was not done in this Anglican sermon, but to my amazement the preacher said that this psalm more or less gave us what we needed and one should not take seriously what some of the Reformers had said about belittling the law in favour of the Gospel. I am even prepared to admit that Paul, in his espistles, creates problems when dealing with the law. It becomes a negative, which it isn’t. God’s law will not go away and Jesus has said that not even an iota will be changed in it. He did not come to destroy but to fulfil. There we are. The law could never replace the Gospel. Without the Gospel we are lost. The law has this chastising role: accusing us for what we are not doing or for what we are doing wrong, but that if anything is a blessing. One should however give Paul the benefit of the doubt as he in fact, seemingly without any qualms whatsoever, returns to the law or precepts or principles of God when describing the blessings of the converted and how he or she, thanks to the Gospel and to grace, suddenly is able to fulfil that which never was fulfilled before: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law” (Galatians 6.22-23).

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