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by Walter J. Burghardt, S.J.
Father Burghardt is founder and coordinator of Preaching the Just
Word.
[Woodstock Report, October 1991, no. 26, pp. 3-10]
Copyright © 1991 Woodstock Theological Center
All rights reserved
Recently, a remarkably creative Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann, addressed the problem of "scandal" in the preaching of social, political, and economic issues.
In Luke 7, after John the Baptist raises his christological question through his disciples whether Jesus is the Christ, and after Jesus answers with specificity that "the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, and the poor rejoice," Jesus adds, "blessed is the one who is not scandalized by me" (v. 23). Or as I have rendered it, "Lucky are you, if you are not upset." The theological scandal of biblical faith, especially when rendered into political, economic issues, is indeed upsetting.
How is a pastor to give voice to this scandal in a society that is hostile to it, in a church that is often unwilling to host the scandal, and when we ourselves as teachers and pastors of the church are somewhat queasy about the scandal as it touches our own lives? How can the radical dimension of the Bible as it touches public reality be heard in the church?1
Brueggemann contends that in biblical scholarship "there are important resources for taking the scandalous texts seriously without pastors necessarily committing professional or personal suicide."2 Valuable as his "three strategic clues" are, my present article does not move in that direction. My remarks move on a broader, though related level. His question is indeed my question: How can the social dimension of Scripture, so scandalous to pious ears, be given a persuasive voice within the church? But I am not yet ready to tackle the texts. Rather, I am concerned with the "scandal" in the context of a project I have recently initiated. Three swift points: (1) the problem, (2) the preacher, (3) the project.
First, the problem. It stems from the pews and from the pulpit. Basically, it is Brueggemann's scandal. On the one hand, all too many Christians, Roman Catholics included, do not believe that justice issues, the "social gospel," belong in the pulpit, are even a legitimate concern of the church. On the other hand, all too few ministers of the gospel seem gifted with the power to preach social issues effectively, persuasively, and convincingly.
The first obstacle is not easily overcome. Many a Catholic, like myself, grew up with the catechism imperative that "God made us to praise, reverence, and serve Him in this life and to be happy with Him forever in the next." The church is a spiritual institution, and its mission is sheerly spiritual. Christ did not relieve suffering; he forgave sins. Similarly, the church should not be concerned about violations of justice, only with the relationship of the soul to eternity. Little wonder that the educated laity tune a priest out when he deserts the Christian gospel of divine love to propound an episcopal pastoral on the economy, to proclaim an unrealistic antinuclear ethic of no first-strike.
Nor is this attitude limited to knee-jerk reactions. A recent book by a professor of political philosophy argues that "social justice" is an attempt to wrest control of the economy from the citizen and thereby strengthen the state. The author insists that the poor are poor not because the rich are rich but in spite of the fact, and strenuously opposes the church's persistent opposition to democratic capitalism,"the last great hope for the poor."
The second obstacle compounds the first. How is it possible to handle with competence from the pulpit issues as complex as insider trading, the rape of the earth, unequal opportunities for education, 37 million Americans without access to health care, a billion of God's human images falling asleep hungry, coke and crack king of our streets, black and white in a tenuous truce? When you reflect on the massive ignorance of our young, their abysmal unconcern about the rich Catholic tradition, about original and actual sin, three persons in one God and two natures in Christ, one true church and seven real sacraments, ten commandments of God and six precepts of the church, the Mass as sacrifice and the pope as Christ's vicar,isn't it rather this that calls aloud to the homilist, this that cries to heaven for a fiery homily? Isn't it this that the Catholic homilist is trained and prepared to address?
A short article is not the place to handle such obstacles at length. Still, I suggest that certain affirmations are in order.
A privatized, me-and-Jesus Catholicism runs counter to an incredibly rich tradition: papal pronouncements from Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum to John Paul II's Sollicitudo rei socialis; Vatican II, from The Church in the Modern World to The Apostolate of the Laity; the 1971 and 1974 Synods of Bishops, with their strong declarations that the vindication of justice is "a constitutive element in the preaching of gospel" and that "the promotion of human rights is ... central to [the church's] ministry"; the affirmation of the International Theological Commission in 1976 that "a new [Christian] consciousness" recognizes that "even situations and structures that are unjust have to be reformed."3
The liturgy itself becomes a social force, facilitates public responsibility, not by providing specific solutions to complex controversies, but through its own inner dynamism. I mean its incomparable power to turn the human heart inside out, make it aware of its addictions and its illusions, free it from its inherited damnable focus on self, fling it out unfettered to the service of sisters and brothers suffering all sorts of enslavements. In that sense liturgy is not so much didactic as evocative. Let God transpire; let God speak.
The specific function of the homily, Yves Congar has noted, is not only to explain the liturgical mystery but to bring the faithful into the mystery "by throwing light on their life so that they can unite it to this mystery. When this happens, the sermon is a word which prompts a response."4 The liturgy's insights are rarely obvious; liturgical texts and forms tend to get fixed and rigid, are not much different in Buenos Aires than in Boise, Idaho. What the homily does is extend the immemorial symbols to a particular time and place, a particular people, a people's needs and hungers. If they need to act justly, or if they hunger for justice, a liturgy that should express and mold their faith forbids me to keep silent. To say nothing is to say something. Homilies that avoid concrete applications risk saying nothing. To limit myself to abstract principle is to risk what Karl Rahner called "a terrifying sterility."5
But how concrete dare I get? At times the issue is so clear that trenchant language is a must. Not to have endorsed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would have implied subscribing to the enslavement of a race. But few political, economic or social issues are that clear-cut. And where experts, men and women of good will, disagree, I must exercise prudence, i.e. put reason into virtue.
Still, disagreement need not strike me dumb. A preacher's delicate, indispensable task is to help form a Christian conscience. Not force; form. This does not mean barring the controversial from the pulpit. It does mean that "the pulpit, as a general rule, is not the proper forum in which to pontificate on complicated and highly controversial political and socio-economic issues."6 Here the crucial word is "pontificate." On such issues, in a short span of time, I dare not speak in dogmatic fashion, as if I alone am that trumpet of the Lord. But if I dare not dogmatize, I may still raise the issues, lay them out, even say where I stand and why. Not to impose my convictions as gospel, but as a spur to personal and communal reflection.
Inasmuch as the suffering faithful are expected by immemorial custom to hold their tongues as I empty my homiletic quiver, I should provide another forum, such as discussion groups, where controversial issues may be properly debated. For I must guard against a persistent priestly peril, where I see the ordained minister as alone bearing the burden of Christian guidance, of pastoral counseling. Here Vatican II was clear, concise, compelling: "Let the laity not imagine that their pastors are always such experts that to every problem which arises, however complicated, they can readily give a concrete solution, or even that such is their mission."7 We are in this together; all of us, pope included, belong to a church that is learning.
It is in this context that I have designed a long-range project. After almost 45 years as managing editor/editor-in-chief of the scholarly journal Theological Studies, I have resigned that position and been elected a senior fellow of the WoodstockTheological Center, a research institute established in 1974 by the Maryland and New York Provinces of the Society of Jesus, to put theology to work on contemporary social issues. The center's purpose fits admirably the mandate given Jesuits by their general congregation in 1974: "The mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement."
My project complements the theological activity of the center. It is an effort to move the preaching of social issues more effectively into the Catholic pulpits of the country. What social issues? Abortion, business ethics, children, ecology, education, health care, human rights in the church, poverty, prisons, racism, substance abuse, war and peace, women's concerns, and a good deal more. With the cooperation of laity and clergy, I am currently identifying those individuals who (1) are competent preachers, (2) are concerned over social issues, (3) have "fire in the belly." From this pool of preachers perhaps 40-50 will be invited to a week-long retreat in June, 1991, along the lines of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, in the context of contemporary social issues. Why a retreat? Because, as New York's Father Philip Murnion pointed out, if the project is to be successful, it cannot be merely a communication of ideas, principles, and skills. It calls for a spirituality, a process of conversion. That is why Preaching the Just Word is centered at a Jesuit retreat house, Manresa-on-Severn, outside of Annapolis, Maryland. With the experience gained from the "national" effort, we shall "go local," duplicate the process for areas such as Metropolitan New York, Southern California, New England, etc.,to some extent, put the "show on the road," offer the project to other retreat houses.
Preaching the Just Word is not limited to the clergy. We begin with them because it is the parish priests who week after week have the majority of the Catholic population as a "captive audience." But it is imperative for the success of this ambitious venture that laity as well as clergy, women as well as men, be involved in the program. And since not all who preach effectively are effective facilitators, the preachers will have to be supplemented by the organizers, men and women with executive gifts, skilled in administration, good at getting things done. The project is vast indeed; I am not aware of anything similar in scope in our country's Catholic story. But the situation, social and homiletic, is little short of desperate, and desperate situations call for imaginative measures. Dare I ask for your recommendations of personnel, your suggestions on matters of substance, your prayerful encouragement?
*Reprinted with permission of Resource Publications, Inc. from Modern Liturgy, vol. 18, no. 2 (March 1991), pp. 8-10 [160 E. Virginia St. #290, San Jose, CA 95112; sample copy $4.50, subscription $45.00].