Author: Chris Erdman
Paperback: 206 pages
Publisher: Brazos Press - 2007
Language: English

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Introduction

Reading Countdown to Sunday by Chris Erdman felt like a blessed ambush. It's difficult to express just how timely this book is for me. I stumbled upon Countdown, seemingly by chance, from a recom-mendation on a pastor's blog. Little did I know that it would reinforce much of what God has been teaching me for nearly the last 6 years, and reinvigorate my passion for ministry.

I'm reading this book just before beginning the awe-inspiring task of church-planting. On the one hand, the confluence of all my experiences and passions in church-planting gives me confidence that it is precisely what God has been preparing both myself and Osheta for. On the other hand, it is also a terribly intimidating feat that no sane person embarks upon with immodest self-confidence. Therefore, this word of encouragement is no small blessing.

Preaching has been one of my life’s passions since I was seventeen and felt the call to serve as a leader in God's church. My pastor discipled me as a preacher, and preaching has characterized my life ever since. But since moving to Boston, preaching opportunities have not been as plentiful as they were in New Orleans. I have felt stifled, bottled up. Perhaps that is biggest reason I have taken to blogging. Communication is like air for me, and writing has replaced preaching as my primary means of expression. I'm not complaining; I've grown to love writing. Nevertheless, Erdman's book cut me to the heart in a most fantastic way. It brought me right back to my love for preaching, and energized that love. Erdman reframes preaching as the adventure, the risk, the challenge, and the joy that it once was for me. Erdman also reminds me that preaching is God's chosen method of remaking the world. And before anyone misunderstand what he means by that, I’d recommend you read the chapter in which Erdman writes about social justice as street preaching (chapter 24).

I'm not entirely sure I will be able to capture just how inspiring I've found this book in such a brief review, but it's my hope that I can highlight at least a few aspects of this book I found brilliantly compelling. And if you find yourself in need of energizing, I hope this review compels you to pick it up and read it—whether you're a preacher or not!

A Brief Preliminary Note on Note-making

There comes a point when underlining passages in a book becomes nearly pointless. I'm not entirely sure I didn't underline more lines than I left unmarked. Every sentence of this short book is carefully crafted to provide maximal impact—and it delivers! It's quite possible that I've added as much ink to my copy of Countdown as did the printer. Each time I'd underlined a thought worth returning to, I'd end up continuing to underline the next two or three or four lines. Before long, I'd underlined half the page, and it would have been easier to just draw a big bracket next to the whole section. If you do end up buying Countdown, just go ahead and buy yourself a couple highlighters too.

A Practical Guide to Preaching

Countdown is very practical. The book is organized into sections that correspond to the days of a preacher's week leading up to Sunday, when he or she will preach at the worship gathering. In each day's section, Erdman relates his own philosophy of sermon preparation and approach to exegesis. One of the things I found most refreshing was his take on the use of the biblical languages. He writes,

"Don't ever feel like a second-class citizen for not knowing the [biblical] languages. […] you're a pastor, not an academic. And you are a theologian. But most of your theological work will be done on the run." (p. 47)

Immersed as I've been now in evangelical academia for many years, this word comes like a breath of fresh air. In evangelical circles, parsing Greek and Hebrew verbs is treated like unlocking the Bible Code. Many of the students with whom I study act as if they are a cult of biblical secret-keepers. They act as if these languages are magical. Apparently, knowing these languages has replaced Jesus as the source of these folks' sense of self-worth. The reality is, of course, that we have an overabundance of very good English translations, along with a plethora of biblical study tools. And there isn't a single doctrine that is unlocked by hidden meanings in Greek or Hebrew grammar. It's just another form of Gnosticism that makes people feel like they have special access to truth.

Erdman gets the phrase "exegesis on the run" from Walter Bruggermann, a renowned Hebrew Bible scholar who was one of his his seminary mentors. Bruggermann's phrase reveals the reality that faces ministers: Are we going to spend precious time parsing verbs, or praying for our parishioners? The academics reading this will cry foul. I don't care. As for me and my sermon prep, I will serve the people—not verbs.

Speaking Truth to Power: The Prophetic Task of Preaching

Erdman pulls no punches with his pithy, power-packed prose. He does not leave you guessing about his convictions regarding violence and war; he is thoroughly Anabaptist, even while preaching in the mainline Presbyterian tradition. To be honest, that combination worried me some going in, but less than half way through the book I could tell he wasn't going to let any Calvinistic theology deter him from preaching the unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, Erdman makes several profound points about the relationship between preaching and violence; preaching and war; and preaching and partisan politics. Just War theorists be warned: you will have your assumptions fundamentally challenged!

Perhaps the passage that most clearly encapsulates Erdman's view of preaching as it relates to violence comes surprisingly early in the book. Seemingly before he has time to "warm up," he is already boldly proclaiming the prophetic nature of preaching.

"Given the fact that Jesus came into a violent world preaching, rejecting the military option, and armed only with the Word, and whose witness in the face of violence actually breaks the back of violence, it's strange to me how our preaching has too often formed congregations that are essentially acolytes to state-sanctioned violence rather than an alternative and a challenge to it." (p. 55)

Yeah, that just happened.

He goes on:

"Many today condemn nonviolence as a non-strategy, as a utopian ideal. Nonviolence will mean certain death in the face of violent powers. But what do we trust more to protect us and make this world safe? Our bombs or the word of Jesus Christ? There is no evidence at all that violence, even just violence, makes us safer. But there is ample evidence that it only keeps us captive to the long and sordid history of violence that is ours in this world.

Christian preaching was meant to be an alternative to violence. Jesus is God's alternative to violence . . . and the church is to be his disciple. Some will say that all this isn't what preaching is for. We say this only because real preaching hasn't been dared. We say this only because our reliance on violence and our practice of offering our preaching in service to the state is a witness to our evangelical loss of nerve, that we really don't believe in the power of the Word of God." (p. 57-58)

Yes, you read that right; he said you’re scurd.

Erdman not only advances preaching as the word that "topples empires" and "[births] God's new world," he also condemns the co-opting of preaching by partisan politics.

"To identify Christian faithfulness with the Republican or Democratic or Green parties is, well, preposterous . . . worse, it's dangerous. Not long after the presidential inauguration [in 2004], the Republicans were breathing easier; they felt saved and hopeful. The Democrats were licking their wounds, shaking their heads, and wringing their hands. But for the church, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and Lent were coming, and the preaching texts would be up to their usual mischief among us—dragging us away from our petty loyalties and allegiances and into the life of God in Christ. Plunged deep into God's way of saving and ruling the world, we Christians would no time for political smugness or despair.

It was the Temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11) that called us to discipleship that first Sunday of Lent—a strong text that preaches Jesus's courage in the face of alluring economic and political temptations. It is also strong in its intent to reorient the disciple-church away from trust in worldly power and toward the cruciform way of Jesus in the world." (p. 152-153)

All throughout Countdown, Erdman drags us back to the reality of Gospel preaching as powerfully subversive political speech. Under the shadow of empire, the Jesus movement threatens the principalities and powers. Let us never forget what Jesus said to Pilate: "You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth." (John 18.37)

Hosting the Mischievous Word

Two concepts Erdman repeatedly invokes in Countdown intrigued and excited me. Over and over, Erdman refers to preaching as "hosting the Word". Not being from a mainline tradition, this expression is foreign to me—but I loved it! It struck me as a particularly vivid way of describing the preaching task. Rather than seeing oneself as the active agent setting the agenda, "hosting" the Word instead pictures the preacher as a facilitator for what God has in mind. Which is particularly important when one considers the Text as mischievous as does Erdman. Throughout Countdown, Erdman is building the case that preacher are but midwives, allowing God to birth something new in the midst of our congregations. Furthermore, Erdman wants preachers to remember that the Word must be allowed to do His work in us long before He can do His work through our preaching. That work may not fit our preconceived plans. That work might surprise us. Hence, he calls it "mischief."

"There is a real sense that these texts have a life of their own, a mischief they want to perform and that may differ from what you want done. They are not easily controlled. They want, as I said in an earlier chapter, to 'crawl out all by themselves.' Your job as a preacher is to allow for that—even more, to give the message permission, to stand back and watch it emerge. You are midwife, not mother; the form of what's coming into the world is not entirely yours to shape, though you play a very important role…" (p. 86)

I find this approach quite refreshing against the backdrop of my seminary education, which has tended to view the Scriptures as a tool preachers wield (often violently) rather than the living Word at work in our world.

Death, Disease, and Marriage

In chapters on preaching funerals, weddings, and dealing with chronic disease, Erdman manages to communicate many profound truths in the span of a only a few pages. His instructions keep the preacher focused on Christ when circumstances tempt the preacher to stray. In preaching funerals, he encourages preachers not to mix the eulogy with the sermon. His justification for this leads to some deep theologizing.

"Some preachers may be alarmed by my insistence on keeping these two messages separate. Did not God in Christ join the divine and the human? Might we, by separating the sermon from the eulogy, rend asunder what God has joined? It's true that God has marvelously and mysteriously joined our humanity and made it holy. And we must not dabble in Gnosticism by the way we handle the funeral. Bodies count. Humanness matters. The Word was and is made flesh.

That said, I still insist that if we confuse the sermon and the eulogy, a sentimentalizing of the deceased can too easily take over and eclipse Jesus Christ who is the humanity of God. […] Through the new humanity, the new creation most gloriously and mysteriously and subversively revealed in Jesus Christ, God assumed our humanness in order to free us from the dehumanizing power of death." (p. 142-143)

On preaching weddings, Erdman again points preachers back to Christ. Many a preacher has been tempted to 'dumb down' the wedding sermon. Erdman is adamant that such a decision is error. Instead, he argues that the wedding sermon is perhaps one of the most opportune times to evangelize:

"…when I play host to the Bible's own voice at the wedding, there are few who are braced against it. If there are any walls erected against the Word of God, at the wedding they are thin, gloriously thin. Because of that I have the chance, with just a handful of words, to sneak up on nearly everyone with words that might just rouse even the dullest attender toward faith in Jesus Christ." (p. 160)

Furthermore, Erdman argues that Christ is actually the only way marriages have any sure chance of thriving. The current abysmal statistics regarding marriage in the church attest to our lack of centering marriage on Christ.

"If I can help them love Jesus Christ and not their marriage; if I can invite them into the broader companionship of the church, then I know they've got a chance at learning to live Christ's way. Wild. Free. Extravagant. Cruciform. Easter-shaped. The kind of marriage we need. The kind of marriage the Word wants to make." (p. 162)

When Erdman turns to chronic disease, he reveals that he lives with Crohn's, and that he has learned to embrace the disease as a teacher. In this in-between time, since Christ inaugurated God's reign on earth, but before it has fully arrived, we often suffer ailments, "thorns in the flesh." We should not be discouraged from praying for healing. But we should also not be discouraged if we are not healed. Either way, God will redeem our suffering. Our frailty, our brokenness, far from disqualifying us as preachers, is actually our very qualification. As we suffer, we join the One who suffered for us all. "I can't shake the impression that bearing such thorns befits those who know and preach the way of Christ." (p. 166)

The Lectionary and Extemporaneous Preaching

Two final aspects of this wonderfully book I found incredibly encouraging were Erdman's proud insistence on following the lectionary readings as sermon texts, and preaching extemporaneously. First, as I mentioned, I don't have a mainline Protestant background. Perhaps that is why the suggestion of following the lectionary readings actually fascinates me. I'm quite curious to attempt it. I'm also equally sure that I will want to mix it up a bit every now and again with a topical series. But I loved the suggestion that the lectionary readings orient a congregation away from the secular calendar and toward sacred time. Almost as an act of prophetic defiance, the church says, "Regardless of what schedule you intend we keep, God has a different idea." Moreover, I definitely believe the seasons of the Christian year contain a critically formative component lacking in many evangelical churches that I don't want to ignore.

Second, Erdman rekindled my conviction about extemporaneous preaching. For years now, I have felt something missing in my preaching, even though I had gone to much more complete notes—even using full manuscripts. What Erdman reminded me was that the missing component was a conscious dependence upon the Holy Spirit in the preaching moment. When I recall the preaching moments in which I know I preached the Word, all of them were marked by this trait. He describes my experience perfectly:

"There is a zone, a spiritual state that can occur in preaching that is similar to the experience testified to by warriors, who in the midst of battle are caught up in the battle spirit, and time stands still and they enter into a new state of being entirely. […]
In preaching moments like these I am uncharacteristically calm, fully present to the moment, reverent to something greater than myself, astonishingly open, free." (p. 196)

That is what I've been missing! That is what the world needs to hear: Preachers preaching the Word in the power of the Holy Spirit!

Some Final Praise in the Form of Criticism

This may be petty, but I find the book's title a bit unfortunate. It's far too dull for the amount of punch it actually packs. Several times, when trying to tell others about the book, I forgot the book's name for its lack of memorableness. A more fitting, and potentially more memorable, title would have been "Hosting the Word in the Shadow of Empire: A Practical Guide for Preachers."

Related to this is the fact that the book includes robust theological reflection on such important subjects that few would expect it to also contain a practical guide to sermon preparation. It’s almost two books in one. The practical nature of the sermon-prep aspect is much appreciated. But, in all honesty, I was much more captivated by Erdman's theological commentary on the role of the public preacher, his pointed critique of politically co-opted churches, and his theology of the Word. I would not have begrudged Erdman if he had made the two separate books.

Conclusion

Countdown is the single best book on preaching I've ever read and I would recommend it not only to preachers, but to everyone! This book is a must read.