On Preaching the Historical Jesus

Further OCE thoughts. I wrote this reflection on preaching and history for a pastoral theology class in 2007:

Last summer (2006) I faced the task of preaching at a Bible camp having just read N. T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, a book that offers an interpretation of Jesus in relation to his historical context. Though Wright’s reading of the “historical Jesus” was illuminating, even edifying in its explanatory force, it left me floundering as I turned to preach a “historically grounded” gospel in a context where the timeless, faceless, “ask-Jesus-into-your-heart” fare was the order of the day. The throes of this experience still lingering in my memory, I was intrigued by Barth’s general skepticism towards “history” in preaching. In response to Barth’s advice that preachers must practice a restraint that respects the intellectual limits of historical criticism, I wonder if the “historical Jesus” has any place behind the pulpit. To what extent should our preaching attempt to situate the Word within a historically tenable narrative about the actual life, teaching and mission of Jesus of Nazareth? If for instance, historical inquiry suggests that Jesus’ parable about the “house built on sand” was actually a cryptic reference to the Temple and a prediction that Rome would bring it crashing down if Israel didn’t turn from the "wide gate” of revolutionary zeal, should this at all influence our preaching of Matthew 7:24-29? For the sake of the wounds I’m still nursing from this summer, I’d like to agree whole-heartedly with Barth, that Christianity must be a “present eschatological experience,” and that historical methods cannot uncover its claims because they “transcend history.” And indeed, if preachers of “the historical Jesus” must content themselves with painting drab portraits of a generic “holy man” behind the pulpit (a lá Marcus Borg’s “man of Spirit”), then let those with ears heed Barth’s claim: The Cross and Resurrection have irrevocably “shattered history,” dooming the quest for the “historical Jesus” to failure. Perhaps. But Jesus did come into Galilee proclaiming that “The Kingdom of God has drawn near”; and, unless we are prepared to settle for a docetic, less-than-fully-human Christ, that message surely meant something specific in its original context. Perhaps historical inquiry into this “something specific” can make our preaching less a matter of fitting a generic “god” into our own individualistic, self-centered stories, and more about being taken outside ourselves and fit into the story that God is telling through his act in and as Jesus of Nazareth.