Across the Pastor’s Desk by Mark Boorsma

When my daughter Lydia visited the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis (incorporating the former Lorraine Motel where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated), she bought and gifted me with “A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.” This book underscores that this great American civil rights leader was first and foremost a preaching pastor.

The purpose of preaching (to borrow a phrase originally used to describe the function of journalism) is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”  Martin Luther, Dr. King’s four-centuries-earlier namesake, taught that preaching is how the Deus Loquens (the Speaking God) actually accomplishes this divine communication.  Preaching intends to do so much more than just express opinions about God. The bold audacity of preaching is that it intends to convey the living voice of God directly to hearers today.

King’s encyclopedic command of scripture gave him the words to relay the living voice of Jesus with grace and authority. King’s powerful sermon “A Knock at Midnight” brings Jesus’ words from Luke 11:5-13 leaping off the page and into the hearts and realities of people who right now stand against oppression, bigotry and hate. 

Think with me of an oboe. However wonderful its music, the oboe itself is merely a wooden pipe. To produce music that haunts, gladdens or otherwise moves us, there must be inspiration — it must be blown through with living breath. So it is with us preachers. 

As a working preacher, I experience liminal moments during a sermon when all other ambient sound ceases, and all who are listening seem especially intent on what comes next. Though ego could be tempted to interpret this as “wow, they’re really listening closely to ME,” I understand such moments as though we are — all of us together — leaning in to catch what God is saying.  This springs in part from my conviction in faith that God indeed speaks, not in disembodied voice but truly and actually through the preached word.

On Monday the nation will observe Martin Luther King Day, which some will understand appropriately as a tribute to an instrumental civil rights advocate.  Others may dismiss it as though it were a holiday “only for black folks.” But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and listen for the living voice of Jesus calling for truth and justice right here, right now.

Mark Boorsma is a pastor at Ascension Lutheran Church in Albert Lea.