Just Tell the Truth (Richard Lischer) - A Review

 

JUST TELL THE TRUTH: A Call to Faith, Hope, and Courage. By Richard Lischer. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2021. Xiii + 210 pages.

What a title for the 21st Century—Just Tell the Truth. Living as we do in what some call a “post-truth world,” the question Pilate posed to Jesus — "What is truth?" —is dripping with irony. Truth is in the eye of the beholder, and yet here we have a book that asks us to just tell the truth. This particular word, however, is not issued to the general public but to preachers who are called to speak of the word of truth about the Christian faith and what it means to walk with Jesus. In his introduction to JustTell the Truth, author Richard Lischer, writes: "I can't think of a more modest proposal than the one I am making: that Christians of all parties and in all walks of life simply tell the truth about what it really means to be a follower of the Way" (p. xi). That is something we should all get behind if we're Christians.

                Our author, Richard Lischer, is a professor emeritus of preaching at Duke Divinity School, the author of fourteen books, and an ordained Lutheran minister. The chapters in this book emerge out of his many years of preaching, and he writes with two contexts in mind. The first context is sociopolitical, by which he means to address "the growing disregard for any standard of truth that permeates our social discourse" (p. xi). In other words, he addresses the lack of conviction present in our increasingly post-truth culture. The second context is the COVID-19 pandemic, which framed the final stages of his preparation of the manuscript. Several sermons, some more explicitly than others, reflect this context. These include a meditation for Holy Saturday and a sermon preached to an empty church, both of which address directly the pandemic. I write this review while the pandemic still reigns, though it appears to be moving to a more manageable place—at least here in the United States where vaccines are widely available. One context that isn’t reflected here is the recent elections and their aftermath, likely because the book manuscript would have been sent to the publisher before those events transpired.

                Just Tell the Truth is made up of thirty-seven chapters/sermons divided into six sections. Lischer begins his book with a series of sermons that reflect "A Season of Suffering." These include several Holy Week sermons, including the aforementioned "Holy Saturday in a Time of Plague." We begin with the ashes and end in the tomb. He asks us to consider the question: "In a time of pandemic, conspiracy theories go viral and new ethical issues arise unbidden. How can we know the truth? What authority shall we trust?" (p. 35). While the pandemic may fade from our focus with time, the questions raised during this season will need to be reengaged regularly, and thus the sermon will continue to speak. "A Season of Suffering" is followed by four sermons that speak to "Waiting in Hope," which looks to Pentecost. From there we go to "Triumph." This section includes a Good Friday sermon -- "It Is Finished" and an Eastertide "Sermon Preached in an Empty Church" that takes up the story of Jesus' appearance to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus.

                The largest section of the book—eleven sermons—addresses "The Life of Faith." It's in this section that we find the sermon that gives the book its title" "Just Tell the Truth." This sermon is an Epiphany text that draws its message from the reading from John 1:29-34. Lischer notes that the sermon was preached on the eighty-eighth birthday of Martin Luther King, who "like John the Baptist, he too testified to something greater than himself, and like John, paid the price for it" (p. 95). "The Life of Faith is followed by five sermons that speak of "For All the Saints." The first sermon in this section is titled "God's Faculty" and draws from Revelation 21. It's a sermon for All Saints' Day that speaks to the question of how the church struggles with faith when the world in which we live is anything but peaceful and free from suffering. There is another one that explores the parable of the Good Samaritan from the perspective of the person in the ditch. Then the book concludes with four sermons under the section title "Public Callings." These include a sermon preached at the installation of a pastor that carries the title of "The Know-Nothing Preacher," which draws on Paul's declaration that he came preaching knowing nothing by the cross, as well as an ordination sermon that brings the collection to a close.

                Sermon collections come in many forms. Some are just that, collections. They offer us a peek at how preachers preach without any organizing principle. Other collections are like this one. It is organized in such a way that it leads the reader on a path of discovery concerning how one lives the Christian faith. The subtitle of the book is A Call to Faith, Hope, and Courage. These qualities are lifted up throughout the book, inviting us to inhabit them. What sermon collections can't do, since they're printed, is reproduce the original context. We're not there to hear the voice of the preacher or to feel the congregation's presence.  It’s a bit like preaching to an empty sanctuary. There is often more happening on the ground than what can be caught in a printed text. That being said, this is a book that can easily be used for devotional purposes, in that one can easily read the biblical text and the sermon as a morning or evening devotion. Because they are rooted in congregational life, even if that congregation is a seminary chapel, they have a feeling of reality to them. They can also stimulate the thinking of a preacher as they contemplate the messages found in the book. Most of all, the issue of the day, truth, is central here. Thus, Just Tell the Truth is a book for our times.