Preachers: Do You Like Your People?

(Political) expectations are the enemy of love.

“Expectations,” Paul Zahl writes in Grace and Practice, “are the enemy of love.” When others do not measure up to the expectations we have (sometimes subconsciously) set for them, our hearts harden and our love curdles into its opposite. Luther expressed this same insight in relationship to the commandments, lex semper accusat.

The law always accuses.

While I’ve often quoted Zahl in wedding homilies, of late I have pondered the danger of expectations with respect to public proclaimers of the gospel. What happens, I wonder, when preachers step into the pulpit with expectations for who their hearers are, for what they are capable of doing, and— especially these days— for which politics espouse.

Simply—

I wonder if preachers’ (political) expectations frustrate their ability to love their listeners.

While white evangelicals bear nearly the entirety of the media’s scorn for their unflagging support of the once and again president, it is nonetheless true that 61% of a mainline tradition like my own United Methodist Church likewise voted for him. In fact, the percentages are so consistent across denominations, professor of political science Ryan Burge contends that, statistically speaking, there is no viable demographic for progressive Christianity in the United States.

A cursory glance at social media, however, illustrates how thoroughly Mainline clergy belong to the college-educated elite that now comprise the Democratic Party’s primary constituency. In other words, mainline preachers proclaim Luke 4 from within the party of wealth and advanced degrees.

This disparity often leads clergy to communicate in public in a manner that suggests no one in their audience or congregation disagrees with them when, in fact, the numbers make it a certainty that over half do.

It is frustrating enough that our hearers come to church with bound wills and simply cannot be relied upon to change much less build the kingdom. It must be even more frustrating that over half do not find preachers’ political entreaties persuasive.

Again, I wonder: are preachers’ expectations for their people the enemy of love?

Because a hot minute spent on Twitter or Facebook suggests that are a good many preachers who do not even like their people.

And liking them is the threshold for gospel proclamation.

(To be clear: chief among sinners, here).

This is the counsel given by Karl Barth during the theologian’s only visit to America at the end of his career. As noted by his longtime assistant, Eberhard Busch, during his Warfield Lectures at Princeton a student asked Barth:

“What one thing, sir, would you tell a young pastor today, if you were asked, is necessary in this day and age to pastor a Church?”

And Barth replied in his typically exhaustive fashion:

“Ah, so big a question! That is the whole question of theology, you see! I should say, I hope that during your studies you have visited yourself earnestly with the message of the Old Testament and of the New Testament. And not only of this message but also of the Object and the Subject of this message. And I would ask you, are you trained to visit not only yourself now, but a congregation with what you have learned out of the Bible and of church history and dogmatics and so on? Having to say something, having to say that thing.

And then the other question:

Are you willing now to deal with humanity as it is? Humanity in this twentieth century with all its passions, sufferings, errors, and so on?

Do you like them, these people?

Not only the good Christians, but do you like people as they are?

People in their weaknesses?

Do you like them, do you love them?

And are you willing to tell them the message that God is not against them, but for them?

That’s the one real thing in pastoral service and that is the question for you. If you go into ministry to do that work, pray earnestly.

You’ll do difficult work but beautiful work.

But if I had to begin again anew for myself as a young pastor, I would tell myself every morning, well, here I am: a very poor creature, but by God’s grace I have heard something. I will need forgiveness of my sins everyday. And I will pray, God, that you will give me the light, this light shining in the Bible and this light shining into the world in which humanity is living today. And then do my duty.”