photo credit Sonja Clemente, 2006

Not for Itching Ears:

A Collection of Sermons

By the Rev. Ronald F. Marshall  

Introduction  

 I call this collection of sermons, “Not for Itching Ears.” This title comes from 2 Timothy 4:2-5 where the Apostle Paul tells the young preacher, Timothy, to “be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort.” This is because his listeners won’t want to “endure sound teaching, but having itching ears will… wander into myths…. to suit their own likings.” So the preacher has to push God’s holy Word – since it goes against human wishes and sinfulness.  

 Being Offensive

            Preachers of Christ therefore must never forget that Jesus came to his own and they “received him not” (John 1:11). That he offended those who first heard him (Matthew 11:6). That his words sounded too hard to bear (John 6:60). And that his way, from the beginning, has been hated by the worldly because it runs counter to their will and ways (John 15:19).

I have therefore tried in these sermons to smash the myths St. Paul condemned, present sound teaching with urgency, and box our itching ears which lead us so easily astray. In short, I’ve tried to tell the gospel truth rather than say what is most likely pleasing to people (Galatians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:4).

I have done this without any glee. I take no delight in being pugilistic – or preaching, as Stanley Hauerwas has said, “as though I had enemies” (in First Things, May 1995). I have tried nonetheless to follow St. Paul who says, “be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5).  

 Preaching for Conversion

An evangelist? Am I doing the work of an evangelist in these church sermons? Yes, indeed, for Christians also need to be converted over and over again. Christians need evangelizing just as unbelievers do! [see my “Deathly Evangelism,” (1995) at google]. We can’t rest back on our laurels – thinking once we’ve been saved, we will always be saved. We can and do “drift away” from so great a salvation (Hebrews 2:1-3). 

Lutherans therefore reject the popular view that the “godly cannot fall again” [The Book of Concord, ed. Tappert (1580; Fortress, 1959) p. 35]. So that drift has to be stopped. And it can only be done by the Word of God. So I preach that Word in these sermons in order to do just that – or so I have tried, asking God to help and guide me.  

 The Three Part Format

            The format of these sermons comes from the Lutheran Confessions. They say “the sum of the proclamation of the Gospel is to [a] denounce sin, to [b] offer… righteousness for Christ’s sake…, and to [c] lead us as regenerated men to do good” (BC, pp. 185-186]. So in my sermons I follow this three step format – and in that order. This classic format is nearly gone in American churches today. So hearing these sermons will be a strange, foreign experience to most.  

Quoting Martin Luther

I also quote Martin Luther (1483-1546) and his followers throughout these sermons. That is because in the Lutheran Confessions he is designated our “most eminent teacher” (BC, p. 576).

            And it was Luther, by the way, who said Christians must be converted into the Christian faith over and over again. Most famously he says that in his Large Catechism (1529) when he argues that baptism is a “daily” matter (BC, p. 445) (see also Luke 9:23).

But he also makes this point more fully and more exactly in his Isaiah commentary from the years 1527-1530. There he writes that as it is “Christ’s business always to forgive, so it is our business, as we are engulfed by daily cares, to be converted day by day [quottidie converti]” (Luther’s Works 17:117). Only those Christians who think we are rather floating into  heaven on velvet cushions (LW 23:362) and not so bitterly engulfed by traumas, will shamelessly deny this quottidie converti! I have explored such deluded Christianity more fully in my article, “Poisoning Baptism” (The Bride of Christ, Lent-Easter 1991).

 Further Reading on Lutheran Preaching

            Now if you were to want further information on why I preach the way I do, I would recommend my articles “Somber Lutherans,” Lutheran Forum, Spring 2004; “Preaching Against the Cross,” Lutheran Partners, September/October 2003; “Christ as a Sign of Contradiction,” Pro Ecclesia, Fall 1997; and my booklets The Fatal Vice: Standards for Judging Lutheran Pastors (2006), Kierkegaard on Preaching for Salvation (2004), Kierkegaard’s Year 2005 (2005) and Making a New World: How Lutherans Read the Bible (2003).  

My Map

        One may still wonder, however, why I post these sermons on our web page at all. There are so many other more famous collections available in English already. So why do I add my little collection to this long list? First I do this because they are my best written witness to Christ Jesus, and I simply want to get them out (Acts 1:8; 1 Peter 3:15). I therefore post them here for all who have "ears to hear" (Matthew 11:15, 13:15, 43). And I do this knowing full well that I may be like those famous donkeys on the Greek isle of Patmos , braying at the dark night sky with none interested in listening. But on the outside chance someone is actually interested, I post them here most gratefully (Ezekiel 2:3-7, 3:4-11, 16-22; Mathew 10:16-23).

         I do this also because I think these sermons are unique. I think they're some of the clearest, most pointed and accurate accounts of Christianity and the Christian life I've seen to date – largely because of what I quote in them. And I thank God for that, knowing he has helped me with this (Mark 13:10-11). Included in these quotations are passages from the Lutheran confessions – something rarely, if ever, seen in sermons today.

         Finally, the writings of Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) have also inspired them. In an 1848 entry from his journals (Hong edition, §6283) he writes:  

Through my writings I hope to... leave behind me so accurate a characterization of Christianity and its relationships in the world that an enthusiastic, noble-minded young person will be able to find in it a map of relationships as accurate as any topographical map from the most famous institute.

         I think Kierkegaard pulled this off quite well. I therefore have taken his map, of many thousands of pages, digested it and then condensed it in these sermons – all in the name of making his insights more accessible – and doing so without quoting him at every turn. This makes these sermons, in some sense, Kierkegaardian – which is another of their unique features.

         May this reason then, along with the other two, peak your interest in Not for Itching Ears. May you read these sermons – perhaps even out loud to yourself or in the company of other wayfarers – and then take them to heart.  Soli deo gloria.

That Invisible Listener

"It is a risk to preach, for as I go up into that holy place – whether the church is packed or as good as empty, whether I myself am aware of it or not, I have one listener more than can be seen, an invisible listener, God in heaven, whom I certainly cannot see but who truly can see me. This listener, he pays close attention to whether what I am saying is true, whether it is true in me, that is, he looks to see – and he can do that, because he is invisible, in a way that makes it impossible to be on one’s guard against him – he looks to see whether my life expresses what I am saying. And although I do not have authority to commit anyone else, I have committed myself to every word I have said from the pulpit in the sermon – and God has heard it. Truly it is a risk to preach!…. The proclaimer of the Christian truth…. should be… true, that is, he himself should be what he proclaims, or at least strive to be that, or at least be honest enough to confess about himself that he is not that."  

Søren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity (1850),

KW XX.234-235.