Yesterday I sat down to have lunch all by myself. This is a rare occurrence and being an extrovert it is not something I prefer to do. Instead I like to get a good dose of energy from the people around me while ingesting the nutrients of my food. But there were fewer people in the office yesterday and others had gone off to do lunch on their own. So I was eating solo.

Sitting down in our church library with my bowl of soup I picked up a copy of the magazine Christian Century. I must admit,unlike many of my colleagues, it is a periodical I rarely read. But one of the titles on the cover caught my attention: The Power of Poetic Preaching. It was written by a husband and wife, Elizabeth Myer Boulton and Matthew Myer Boulton. Since it is not often you see the words ‘poetic’ and ‘preaching’ in the same sentence,I was intrigued. I was not disappointed by what I read.

” When it comes to Christian preaching,then, sermons should protect people with words. In intimate, visceral, vivid ways, preachers should name and contradict the disarming lies and then replace them with equally intimate, wondrous and wearable forms of truth. Sermons should stir us to stand firm against death-dealing forces wherever we find them………..Sometimes poetry is the best defense we have.”

These words cut through me like a knife. I suppose this is the time for confession. I am not a big lover of listening to preaching. How I found myself in this faith tradition that holds it in such high regard, I do not know. I much prefer silence or making music or seeing something visual to unpack the scripture in worship. Preaching most often feels one sided to me and I long for dialogue. And yet I realize that the majority of people who come to church look toward this central part of the liturgy. Look forward to it. Count on it. Hope for it.

Over the years I have found myself hanging around in churches, I have heard some mighty sermons. I have also heard some that have left me scratching my head. Still others have broken my heart. And though I have never thought of myself as a ‘preacher’, I do take on that role at times. While I may long for conversation I know there are people who equally long for someone to unpack the scripture, tell the story, connect it to their life and bless them on their way. Someone to preach.

Yesterday as I read these words I became enthralled with the work of preaching in a new way. To protect people with words. To take the power out of lies and offer people wearable forms of truth. To invite people to put on the armor of poetry. This all seems like such holy work that I am knocked off my feet with the hopeful possibility of it.

It seems to me we are a weary people these days. We have crawled out of some terrible economic times. Some are still crawling. We have questioned some of the very core values we held dear, many which shaped our identity as a people, as a nation, as people of faith. As we are bombarded by messages of half-truths or out right lies, many of us are walking around in the fabric of our daily lives with glazed eyes and dulled minds. As we try to make sense of messages whose purpose is to instill fear and despair we feel manipulated by words that, if we took the time to analyze them, would make us question their power.

And so I look for the preachers, ordained or otherwise, who will make an effort to protect with words, those who will offer wearable forms of truth. I will look for the poets who can, in the turn of a small phrase, offer a defense. I am reminded that in one of the apostle Paul’s letters he uses the phrase ‘put on the clothes of Christ’.

May it be so. May it be so.