Review: J. Brandon Meeks 'The Foolishness of God: Reclaiming preaching in the Anglican tradition'

In the Foreword to The Foolishness of God: Reclaiming preaching in the Anglican tradition (2020) by Brandon Meeks, Fr. Wesley Walker grounds the book in words traditionally addressed to newly ordained presbyters in the Anglican tradition:

In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer’s Ordination rite, the priest is commissioned to “be thou a faithful dispenser of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments.” A failure to preach well is not like a failure to meet productivity quotas at an office job; it is a failure to be who one is. Collectively, we need to rekindle the gift of God that is within us through the laying on of apostolic hands (2 Tim 1:6) when it comes to the sacred task of preaching (p.iv/v).

Meeks offers a robust, challenging, deep account of why and how Anglicanism can reclaim preaching.  But is it the case that such reclamation is necessary?  After all, as Meeks notes, "Ours is a wonderful heritage of excellent preachers".  The problem, however, is that "they have all been dead for a really long time" (p.21).  Admittedly this is something of an exaggeration: many of us could probably produce a list (albeit a short list) of good contemporary Anglican preachers and sermons.  That said, the point stands because we know that the cliches and the stereotypes regarding many contemporary Anglican sermons over the past generation fit.  As Rowan Williams stated in 2002, "Preaching has become an anodyne word, often sadly reflecting an anodyne reality".  

The reasons for such anodyne reality within the Anglican tradition are explored by Meeks.  Of particular significance - and what should lead to some interesting (and overdue) debate - is his reflection on the consequences of a renewed emphasis within Anglicanism on Font and Holy Table:

Forgetting that every virtue carries with it its own attendant vice, many Anglican ministers have marginalized the pulpit in an attempt to safeguard those other pieces of sacred furniture. This is as unwise as it is unnecessary. It is precisely because of our sacramental emphasis that we should regard the pulpit, as well as font and table, as a place where Christ comes to His people with a real and palpable presence. Instead of thinking of the relationship between the pulpit and the altar as complementary (like the relationship between bacon and eggs), we should conceive of them as necessarily of a piece (like the relationship between cooking and eating) (p.12f).

The most popular and influential form that this renewed emphasis on the Table took within late 20th century Anglicanism was the Parish Communion movement.  Leaving aside its consequences for sacramental piety (and one would be hard-pushed indeed to suggest that it has resulted in an enriched sacramental piety), it also had profoundly negative consequences for the sermon.  We might recall Michael Ramsey's warning regarding the "weaknesses which haunt the wide and rapid growth of the 'Parish Communion' in our parishes":

there is still much to be learnt from the Matins and Sermon whereby congregations were nurtured in the Scriptures.

On this theme, Meeks offers a wonderful observation on the significance of the prayer desk used at Mattins and Evensong in the parish church:

Anglicans need to be reminded that the sacred desk, too, is a trysting place between man and His Maker. That desk is still a tree; the throne where Omnipotence sits enshrined, making the ground holy, and proclaiming His name in the midst of His people. It is an icon of Calvary, whereby the Crucified God is lifted up so that all men may be drawn into His redemptive embrace. It is the echo of Eden and the foreshadowing of the Tree of Life planted beside the crystal stream (p.13).

This is also a reminder of the crucial point Meeks emphasises at the outset, that preaching is entirely dependent on and secondary to the reading of the Word:

It is this “bare” Word that is celebrated in the Prayer Book tradition; that Word that is effectual in itself being the very Living Breath of the EverSpeaking God. It is for this reason that Richard Hooker viewed the public readings from the unclad text to be true kerygma. Other sermons may be preached but if the Scriptures have been read and sung and prayed then God has indeed spoken ...

When we gather around the Book our hearts are laid bare. Through the Law and the Testimony we are stripped down by Verbum Dei; searched out by Vox Dei. We are placed upon the high altar to present our bodies as living sacrifices- our God is a consuming fire. Through Holy Scripture we are brought into the august presence of that Holy Fire (p.7).

This sacramental quality to the reading of the Word is reflected in "the sacramental act of the preaching of the Word" (p.91).  The book is shot through with this recognition.  Take, for example, this excellent description:

Promises declared, promises received. In this atmosphere of worship, God shares his life with his people; listening, speaking, breaking bread. Given such a description, few would bother asking at which point communion takes place. Whether God is speaking to his people or feeding them, it is all koinonia. Holding this festal image in our minds will save us from the dualistic tendency that attends so many discussions concerning the relationship between preaching and the sacraments ...

God is active in both the ministry of the Word and the ministry of the Sacraments. Likewise, God is present in both the ministry of the Word and the ministry of the Sacraments. His “mouth” that speaks to us in theproclamation of the Word, and his “hand” that feeds us from his own table are both vital aspects of the same mystical reality (p.55f).

This is also seen in the account of preaching's apocalyptic quality, the sense of 'Let all mortal flesh keep silence' which should accompany preaching no less than Holy Communion:

the apocalyptic nature of preaching means more than that Christ is the climax of the story that God has been telling. It also carries certain cosmic dimensions. The “Preached Christ” is always an apocalypse, a parousia, a cosmic interruption. It is a declaration that goes beyond the people in the pews. This “interruption” affects the very powers that hold the world in thrall, though we seldom realize it because we rarely consider the vast realm of invisible things (p.150f).

Why does preaching matter?  Why must the Anglican tradition reclaim preaching?  Central to the answer to these questions is the sacramental nature of the preaching of the Word:

Sermons aren’t commentaries; sermons are events. Every time a minister stands to preach, robed with the garments of the gospel, an incarnation takes place. The Word once again takes on flesh and dwells among us (p.14).

Meeks here stands in good company.  To again quote Rowan Williams:

if we want to rescue preaching from the anodyne meaning with which so often we find ourselves endowing the word, we need to focus, first and foremost, on preaching as the annunciation of a change ... This is why the act of preaching has a sacramental quality.

Similarly, the Introduction to Preaching Radical & Orthodox (2017), edited by Alison Milbank, John Hughes, and Arabella Milbank, states:

preaching is a sacramental act that makes something happen: it is performative.  To preach is never to be illustrative but to enable a sacramental encounter with Christ himself.

In other words, there are grounds for hoping that the very thing urged by Meeks - an Anglican reclamation of preaching - may be beginning, rooted in the theological affirmation of the sacramental nature of the preaching of the Word.

That said, some caution does need to be exercised at this point.  There is a prosaic reality to preaching that is grounded in the Incarnation and the Sacraments.  "After all, the kingdom of God is like baked goods and a pile of dead fish" (p.96).  Water, bread and wine are the stuff of the Sacraments: ordinary stuff, nothing dramatic or weird.  So it is with preaching.  Thus, when Meeks states, "To hear a sermon should be to feel the wind of heaven in your face" (p.15), we need to remind ourselves that feeling the wind on our faces is usually a rather ordinary experience, not dramatic or weird.  Like the parables of a Galilean rabbi, or His sweat and blood, or the water, bread, and wine of the Sacraments, there is a prosaic quality to preaching: words spoken by a parson in a pulpit, in an ordinary parish church, week after week, year after year.  Their sacramental quality is attested not through dramatic experience, but through the slow growth of the Kingdom of God in daily living, amidst relationships and duties, routine and responsibilities:

We shouldn’t be afraid if the text is essentially only telling us how we ought to balance our check books. There actually is a Christian way to do that. This is true because Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, and everything in between. Such a text should confront us with the fact that we do not yet see Christ in the most mundane of our duties. But Jesus is Lord, and He is Lord of all. Christ often presents himself to us as the miracle behind the monotonous, as the One who illuminates the extraordinary glories of ordinary life (p.69).

This being so, I do have some misgivings about the list of great Anglican preachers listed by Meeks, "What better preaching could one hope to find than that of Simeon, Ryle, Wesley, or Whitefield?" (p.21).  Their preaching cannot, I think, be set before us as a pattern for the renewal of Anglican preaching.  We need something less dramatic, more routine. One of the most regular refrains in the diaries of Parson Woodforde is "I read Prayers and Preached this morning".  The phrase came to mind when reading words from Episcopalian priest-theologian Katherine Sonderegger, quoted by Meeks:

Eat, friends - all theology should ring out with this invitation - drink and be drunk with Love (p.118).

When friends eat and drink together, there is nothing dramatic, nothing weird, nothing ostentatious.  It is routine, domestic, regular, hearty, like the parson reading prayers and preaching on a Sunday morning. It is here, in the ordinary and routine preaching of the Word, with seriousness but without glamour, handing on the deposit of Faith from the pulpit, Sunday by Sunday, year by year, that the sacramental quality of preaching nourishes us and draws us into the vision glorious:

It is fair, then, to speak about preaching as witness to the end since it bears witness to Christ who is the telos of all things. And because it carries with it a particular eschatological reality - that is, it testifies to the relationship between all created things (visible and invisible) and the end (p.151).

Brandon Meeks has given us a theologically convincing and encouraging account of how preaching can be renewed in the Anglican tradition.  It is this theological account which is particularly significant because at the heart of the contemporary Anglican failure in preaching has been a weak and desiccated theology of Scripture as the Word of God read and proclaimed.  Meeks offers a richer, nourishing alternative, allowing us to see the depth of meaning in the bishop handing the newly-ordained presbyter the Bible, charging him or her* "to preach the Word of God".

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*I write this as one who supports the ordination of women to all three orders, ministering in a Church in which this a canonical reality which I joyfully accept.  The language used throughout the book - for example, "Men ordained to preach the Bible" (p.26) - obviously suggests that Meeks has a different view.  Charity and mutual flourishing requires that Anglicans who differ on this matter bear with each other in the use of different language surrounding gender and holy orders.  My disagreement on this issue did not stop me from being both challenged and encouraged by the book.