Abstract
Just Tell the Truth, which collects 37 sermons from more than 20 years of Richard Lischer’s preaching, comes with the kind of glowing endorsements from the likes of Samuel Wells, Barbara Brown Taylor and Stanley Hauerwas that will cause other preachers either to run a mile or to rush to the till. Those who do put themselves in the hands of Duke Divinity School’s ‘distinguished professor emeritus of preaching’ will find his reflections rich and rewarding.
The book is divided into several sections each held together either by the liturgical calendar or by theme — some loosely, some tightly. The text on which Lischer is preaching is printed at the head of each chapter but there is no Scripture index, which would have been a useful addition and taken little space.
As the title implies, Lischer’s homiletical voice is clear, honest and challenging. With creativity and power, he addresses difficult issues in life and interpretation. His chapter on Jesus’ cry of dereliction, for instance, is precisely the sort of sermon that people who have suffered a sudden and tragic loss ache to hear but are too often left longing for. He can be moving on puzzling texts such as ‘I saw Satan fall from heaven’ and cause us to look afresh at overfamiliar ones (John 3, for instance). Exegesis and application are deftly woven together in ways that keep the sermons relevant and engaging throughout. And he simply has a very good ear: there are some incredibly well-crafted sermons in this volume and the book is full of lines that preachers will be sorely tempted to steal.
Bonhoeffer, Luther and Martin Luther King are frequently invoked. For a Lutheran speaking out of and into racially divided, post-truth USA, this is an unsurprising list. However, that in itself is surprising for an academic and preacher as passionate about social justice and inclusion as Lischer evidently is. The novelist Flannery O’Connor is the only woman referenced with the same kind of frequency. As Lischer himself reminds us in his reflections on the book of Ruth, ‘the church is not a gated community.’ One wishes, therefore, for a more obvious engagement with a wider range of theology and writing.
Despite that weakness, I recommend and will return to this book for its compelling contemporary articulation of the gospel — ‘not a problem solver but a promise’ — for its eloquence and for its intelligence. In the darkness that surrounds us right now, it is good to be reminded of the power and witness of our hope, for ‘the best dancing is done on the devil’s dance floor.’