The Who and Hearing God’s Voice

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hearing God's voice

I’ve been following the Who on and off from my childhood until now. I’m not a big fan, but I find their music interesting. I love some but not others. I ran across an interesting recent memoir written by their ingenious guitar smashing Pete Townsend. You can read about his interview here.  One thing struck me more than a few other things is that Pete Townsend said that he had always heard music in his head and just couldn’t keep from writing them down.

Over human existence, geniuses have always claimed that they hear this and that voice in their heads in their creative process. Trouble is, mental wards are also full of people claiming to have heard voices. Some have to take medication to keep such voices away. What separates the genius from the mental patient? This question has its relevance for preachers.

Preaching is subjective. My friend Prof. Thomas Long had said once that if you preach to 1000 people, you may get 1000 different interpretations of your sermon. You simply can’t control how they receive the message. To make matters worse, most of us claim that we heard it from the Lord. Many of us have written up sermons based on some wild voices we heard in our heads at one time or another, probably with much regret upon later reflection.

I do not suggest suppressing those moments of ingenuity. I think creativity needs to be part of preaching. I would suggest however that we need to control such voices instead of letting them run wild in our ministry and baptizing such voices with words like “unction.” Those of us who make it a regular practice to keep updated on the research of others on biblical studies and theology are probably at less risk of completely going off the deep end because “God’s voice,” as it were, needs verification. In all honesty, most of us are not bold enough to claim in public that we have heard God’s voice “for sure.” We can get close, if we pay close attention all the time as to what the learned community is saying about the biblical text we’re preaching. Combine that with our parish experience, we’ll have a harnessed ingenuity worthy of moving away from madness and a little closer to the divine. That’s about all I can suggest for now, but hopefully this will help us to study a little harder not just rely on some quick-fix church growth book or some “ten easy keys to preach better” but really go into the depth of all divine truths.

When Women Are Also Human Beings: Preaching the Inclusive Sermon

I was in conversation with one of my female colleagues and as usual, I, as a man, always learn something. This time we discussed the gender sensitive sermon. This colleague recounts how one very famous biblical scholar came to her seminary and addressed the students on sexual ethics. In his presentation, he talked about how men could be tempted in the ministry and the best way to prevent falling into temptation. Certainly, there was some good advice along the way FOR THE MEN. But what about for women?

The way many of us men in ministry often deal with the topics has two hidden assumptions. These assumptions need to be exposed not because we’re trying to be PC. That’s really besides the point. The reason why we expose the assumptions is simple. There’re also women sitting in our congregation when they had to bear with our MANLY sermons.

First, by talking about temptation this way, we can sometimes make the woman the temptress. While sexual misconduct receives much attention among clergies, the woman should not bear the blame. Her role in the body of Christ is not the temptress. Sure, there are women like that but by and large, we simply can’t assume that. Even if we don’t assume that, we must be careful in our articulation because as the Chinese often say, it takes two coins to make noise. We simply can’t put the blame square on the woman as if every woman congregation member is trying to sleep with us. We aren’t that sexy.

Second, by talking exclusively about the male minister, we can assume that no woman is qualified to minister. This is simply not true. In this day and age, if you want to be inclusive of ALL believers of the Body of Christ, female ministers are a fact and not some kind of politically correct fiction. If we want to address ministry as a whole, we must assume that female ministers also have to deal with the problem of sexual ethics. I wonder if the said speaker had ever researched the female side of the equation and see things from a woman’s point of view. It is a necessary step because we have female listeners.

I’m sure you can tell me more about other gender-biased assumptions. I’m pretty sure I have my own blind spots and biases. The most important thing is not that we go with a PC language. The most important issue pastorally is to find out how the women in our faith community think and receive our messages. We must listen more with our two ears and speak less with our one mouth. The art of listening is the way to broader influence.

One Word Study Per Sermon

It is ironic that in an age where electronic tools are so readily available that word study occupies such a small place on the pulpit. Instead, we have sermon after sermon of storytelling from beginning to end. Some sermons are so full of stories that we can hardly figure out what their main point is.

I have made it my discipline to share at least one word study per sermon so that I can educate the audience. This is a great discipline to keep me in the word and keep me disciplined in the original languages. Furthermore, the pastor should never neglect his duty to educate. When it comes to storytelling, I’m a bit of a contrarian to the current trend. I much prefer to find one word study that needs an illustration and illustrate the heck out of it so that people can get the right impression about the message.

What should I do to look for such words to illustrate? I would look for any theologically significant word that contributes to the overall sermon text. If I were to preach on the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6, I would illustrate what it means to have a “hallowed name”. The name of YHWH means is related to the Hebrew “He will be”. I would talk about how a great person is so far removed from us that when his name is mentioned, people would just go “wow.” So, I’ll have to look for a story that conveys that idea.

Let me qualify by saying what I’m not proposing. I’m not proposing that we share the word study straight from our study to the pulpit by pronouncing the Greek and Hebrew word, followed by a quick and dirty translation exercise right at the sermon with a discussion of what scholars think about the translation possibilities. Of course, you can do that if you want to use the pulpit to perform insomnia therapy.

What I’m saying is that we can very well work on some stories that illustrate. The stories are the means to helping people grasp the concept of such words. We shouldn’t tell stories just to tell stories. We should see stories are vehicle for rhetorical effect and education.

Try finding one word to illustrate and see how it works out. Let me know if you have any question about how to do this via my Facebook page.  I’m sure the audience will appreciate the effort. Remember, word studies are not merely for passing your Greek and Hebrew classes. They’re part of “God’s word”.

“Why don’t YOU say something?” — a Question for the Perpetual Foreigner

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Christian-Muslim relationship, ISIS in Iraq, perpetual foreigner

When ISIS started killing all the religious group, one of the favorite questions people ask is, “Why don’t the Muslims here and abroad say something?” I can’t answer for all of them, but I’ve seen some Muslims answering here and abroad. For me, most people who ask that question are Christians. So, I wish to devote this blog to such a question because after all, people of the Christian faith needs to understand exactly what they’re asking when they say stuff like this and the implications of such a question in broader global politics and Christian faith.

To start with, the deeper part of that question is that somehow someone is obligated to speak up. Says who? I’m going to discuss in this blog that silence does not necessarily equal to complicity. In fact, sometimes, there’re many legitimate reasons for silence. We do need to examine this question, “Why don’t YOU speak up?” and we need to put the questioner to critical inquisition because the issues run very deep within such a question that many of my fellow Americans are simply not aware of.

When asking such questions, questioners do not realize that many immigrants have their own unimaginably and unspeakable tragic narratives. Many are victims of political circumstances. After all, we can’t choose where we’re born. For some reason, people don’t tell a rape victim that it is an obligation to say something about rape, but they force political victims to do what rape victims aren’t obligated to do. So, why do people somehow expect Middle Eastern immigrants to the West to say something? I think I know the reason. Most Americans have no idea what it means to escape to another country only with their lives and not much else. Most Americans have never experienced having their families raped and slaughtered and their properties razed. And most of all, America has never been occupied by a hostile force. Sure, some of us who are more progressive have READ, watched the nightly news or a movie about it, but reading or the big screen doesn’t make it part of our realistic experience. Our lack of experience allows us to sit on our high horses and our soapboxes to address the rest who have the misfortunate of having the above experiences. As one of my buddies observed, most Arab-American just want to carry on with their lives without having to think about what happened to their homeland or their families. They don’t want to see the rerun of their trauma, whether on big screen or in public announcement. Perhaps, that’s why they don’t want to say anything. Perhaps, we can learn empathy to overcome our warped judgment.

This brings us to a deeper problem. Who says the time for “YOU” to speak is NOW? Who gets to dictate to the “YOU” when the right time is? Let’s face it, bad timing has plagued not just recent political history, but also a lot of missionary history. When one group decides that it’s the RIGHT TIME, it does not automatically mean that it is the right time. Even if the group is the majority, historical timing is not democratic. I wonder if it ever occurred to those questioners that being so ignorant of the culture they’re criticizing (for the most part) that somehow they think that they’ve got the timing down, thus giving them the right to tell American Muslims WHEN to say something. The very same can apply to any activism. Silence is not necessarily non-participation. Sometimes, people just need to take the time to think. In most cases I’ve seen, those who are most ignorant of the things they criticize tend to speak the quickest and loudest. Ignorance creates simplistic interpretation. Reality is NEVER simple.

This brings us to a deeper problem. Who says “YOU” represents the entire group? I will talk more about the “YOU” as a group later, but I’m speaking of the individual “YOU” here. People often assume that an individual within a group has this obligation to speak just because that individual is part of the group. This is funny because as a society of rugged individualism, we often push that aside in favor of group think when we think about OTHERS who are different from us. “Oh the Chinese all think like … You know them Japanese, they think like … Oh, the darn Muslims, they are all like … Why don’t YOU speak up?” Who says an individual represents a whole group? This is the burden of every foreigner who immigrated here. S/he is somehow obligated to speak for the whole group for some strange reason. This obligation never lands on REAL Americans because you know, we REAL Americans are so ruggedly individualistic. This is stupid! When someone says to me, “YOU are Asian (or Muslim or Hindu or Martian). Say something.” Says who? My opinion does NOT represent all Asians or Asian Americans, even though I might occupy a certain position in the public sphere. No Asian American would automatically assume that my opinion is representative of the group, no matter how many books I write. It is precisely at this stage when things go badly wrong. Due to our silence on whatever issue at the moment, the questioner would choose to speak for us by saying with authoritative pronouncement, “Oh, the X group is silent.” Sorry, no one gets to speak for me or for us or for another group. This god-like complex has to go.

This brings us to another deeper problem. Who says “YOU” aren’t speaking? A lot of times, many such questioners are not in on the right conversations. The assumption that no one is speaking just because mainstream media selectively report opinions and voices is completely misinformed. The real issue is, why are people who dominate the voices not hearing the conversation? The reason is simple. Many such people don’t bother to understand the group they’re questioning. I often ask people this same question, “How many Muslims do you know?” A lot of times, I get blank stares. So, how many? Let me get this straight then. We can draw conclusion from never having to make personal contact with a group we’re criticizing. If I criticize any group like that without even making contact with numerous members, I’d be called a bigot. The questioner is often a bigot.

This brings us to another deeper problem. The “YOU” in such a question often means “YOU the foreigner” versus “we the TRUE Americans.” The very fact “YOU” have to speak up says that YOU really are part of THEM (i.e. the Muslims or Chinese or Koreans or whatever group) and not part of “US”. This line of logic is very deeply ingrained in both our society and our faith communities. In a more subtle Christian form, it goes something like this, “Hey, look! There’re some Chinese visiting our (primarily white) church. Why don’t YOU talk to them?” The YOU can take on so many different meanings with so much rhetorical force. Most of us who immigrated would certainly wish to be JUST American. We’re also reminded by our well-meaning (but much misguided friends) that we should not be the “hyphenated American,” but how can we not be when the collective YOU (or the racist “YOU PEOPLE”) is so often used to put us together as a group? YOUR PEOPLE should sort this out! So, we’re only allowed to be the hyphenated American not of our choice but out of the prejudicial convenience of our racist inquisitors? Where’s the freedom that people speak so fondly of? Next time someone put that guilty “Look, there’re some Chinese visiting our church. Why don’t you talk to them?” question to me again, I’m going to ask a different (but probably MORE Christian and definitely MORE missional) question, “Why don’t YOU talk to them? You don’t care about visitors to our church?” I would say more times than not, generally Americans and specifically Christians should make friends with someone who speaks a different language and come from a different culture instead of hanging about our uniform holy huddle. It’d be a growing experience.

So, before you ask that question, “Why didn’t YOU say something?” next time, think of the reason and impact of that question. Most of us are unaware of the harmful impact from our silly and careless questions. In the complex world of questions, there’re many answers. The above is just a list for some of those answers. Freedom of choice also includes silence.