A few months ago, only moments after I finished co-officiating my aunt’s memorial service, the other minister told me that he found the words of my eulogy to be “brave.” I kindly thanked him for what I understood to be a compliment, but the description of my words as “brave” stuck with me.
I have received words like that before about my proclamation from the pulpit. However, the words I shared about my beloved aunt did not feel courageous at all. They felt like the truth.
My understanding of the truth, much like yours, is incomplete and tenuous. Still, I sought to tell the truth as I best understood it. I said that while my aunt had seen Christ repeatedly during her life, caring for and walking alongside those who may be considered the least of these who are members of God’s family, as in Matthew 25, she tragically encountered antichrists, in the sense of 1 John, in her life, too.
I defined antichrists as those “who so obscure the message of Jesus that they are acting in contradiction to the way of Jesus.” Particularly, “all of the people anywhere who ever suggested that [a person] should be anyone or anything other than the wonderful, beautiful, gifted, loving person God created [them] to be.”
That, to me, was the truth—a truth that needed to be proclaimed for everyone, especially for the people gathered within that church who have been belittled for their very identity by people claiming to follow Jesus.
The notion that all people are beloved children of God created in the divine image is foundational to my understanding of how we follow Jesus. Failing to speak and act on behalf of anyone who is dehumanized and denied the full dignity befitting a beloved child of God demonstrates my unfaithfulness, not my lack of boldness.
Like many ministers, I have been scolded for assigning full belovedness to BIPOC and other oppressed racialized groups of people, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and immigrants. I am aware of the potential costs of preaching in a manner that honors those who have been marginalized and persecuted, and calls Christians to the actions of repentance and repair. Even still, a faithfulness to follow the liberating Jesus that demands truthful proclamation supersedes concerns about possible resistance and pushback.
I think something else is at work in naming truthful preaching as “brave.” My friend often says that what Peter tells you about Paul tells you more about Peter than it does about Paul.
In other words, the person who is talking tells you far more about themselves in what they say than they do about the person whom they are ostensibly describing. So perhaps assigning my words the distinction of courage has less to do with what I said than with what we have allowed to be acceptable proclamation from the pulpit.
In the case of the aforementioned pastor, he may have been saying that he would not feel safe delivering the same message from that pulpit that I did. Others offering similar comments may be expressing their fear that a pastor’s brave words will cause conflict or some unfavorable outcome in their church, like the forced departure of clergy. The church members who complain about this kind of proclamation demonstrate their unwillingness to change or even be challenged.
I believe we should focus less on the bravery of any one preacher, and instead care more about the churches filled with people who resist the call to truth and transformation. The goal, then, is not to laud pastors for prophetic speech, but for churches to foster an openness to self-examination and a willingness to be more faithful to who God created us to be.
Lay leaders must support and defend their pastor’s faithful preaching and nurture an environment that promotes reformation and transformation. And pastors must continue to preach the gospel faithfully, even when they know the good news challenges the powerful and may be costly.
The degree of a pastor’s bravery is not at stake. Rather, the future of the church depends on it.
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Brian Harrington is founder of Faithful Justice, an organization that encourages people of faith through educational programs to strive for racial justice. He previously served as solo pastor and co-pastor of churches in North Carolina and Virginia, during which time he completed his doctor of ministry degree at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary with an emphasis on exploring the efficacy of White pastors in their ministry of antiracism. He has also taught courses at Louisville Seminary and Georgetown College.
