I've fielded this question often enough over the past few days, that I should go on record here with my response.
And in order to give my response, let me begin with a story.
On Sunday April 21, 1912, Karl Barth preached a sermon entitled "On the Sinking of the Titanic". The "official" text of the sermon is Psalm 103.15-17, but the actual text of the sermon -- in terms of its homiletical focus -- is something else entirely.
Those who know me, understand why I'm tempted to lambast Barth's text. And why I would be uncomfortable with this sermon in toto. But before I go ripping his sermon to shreds, some historical context.
In the spring of 1912, Barth had been out of seminary for about a year and was about a year from getting married. This is clearly not the Barth of his 1919 Romans commentary and he's decades away from his mature, voluminous, magisterial theological Church Dogmatics which remained unfinished when he died in 1968. So, 1912 is well before he makes his decisive turn against his own weak-kneed liberal education, which he later rejected it in virtually every way.
The Barth of this sermon is the Protestant Liberal Barth. He's swallowed the Liberalism of Schleiermacher and Harnack. And the sermon shows it. There are comments interspersed throughout the sermon that the later Barth would have re-read in horror just a decade later. I say all of this to clarify that the purpose of this post is not to indict Barth, or his preaching, generally, but rather a critique of this sermon specifically.
And I do so in order to offer some wisdom about preaching events in Ferguson.
Admitting to being preoccupied with the news in the days leading up to the sermon, he confidently asserted that this event "should speak to us" since "God speaks in this way even through a tragedy ... and we cannot fail to hear" (p. 210). He then proceeds to highlight the details of the sinking of the Titanic.
Given the title of his sermon, all that is transparent. At least he's revealing the content of his preaching from the very title.
But, there's a dark side here. And it's the dark temptation of preachers who want to preach specific messages this Sunday about Ferguson.
That dark side: Comments on the Titanic or Ferguson should never be the homiletical focus in any service, in any Church. Ever.
Admittedly, there are some times in certain places where the pastoral care exercised in preaching means we talk about life-altering events. But even then those moments aren't the content of preaching.
Because the content of preaching is always God, in Jesus Christ, reconciling the world to God's very Self.
I suppose there's a bit of pastoral calculus going on in my brain, where I take relevance multiplied by distance, curved for percentage of the congregation affected, and added to the relationship to the edification of the saints which equals the answer that never, Never, NEVER (!) would I preach a sermon on the sinking of the largest ship in the world. Never. And neither should you.
Because replacing the Good News with a contemporary event will always (Always, ALWAYS!) flatten the story of Emmanuel.
We have countless news outlets and a multitude of bloggers in pajamas to write, speak, and comment on current events. The time we preachers get to preach should be used wisely.
The mature Barth knew this. The sermon, he said, was the contemporary breathe of the Living Word of God in Jesus Christ. Sermons reveal.
This 1912 sermon simply revealed Barth's Liberal Protestantism. And it deserved the grenade he launched into that theological Liberal landscape with his Romans commentary just a few years later.
Barth was drawn to the Titanic story because of its ability to "speak" to his congregation. I wonder if Barth was merely admitting that in 1912 he didn't really have much to say, so he relied on a current event to fill in the gap.
Because that's what so much preaching on Ferguson would be this Sunday.
Americans need to reflect theologically on Ferguson. But only after we've sat in silence, mourned, lamented, prayed, sang, and worked for justice with peace. Most preaching this Sunday, in most places, is simply filling air without revealed much.
There is nothing as life-altering for your congregation than the testimony that God has acted in history to reconcile the world in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of the Messiah of Israel, Jesus Christ.
Preach that.
And mention Ferguson in Prayers and Lamentations and Confessions. But not in the sermon.
Unless you're in Ferguson. Then if you're not connecting the message of Advent to your community, you're not preaching Good News.
This is what I always remind preaching students: Commit 2 Timothy 4.1-4 to memory. It's the best preaching advice one seasoned pastor might give a younger pastor about preaching. Ever.