Let’s start with an excerpt from Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley:

Sunday morning, in a Vermont town, my last day in New England, I shaved, dressed in a suit, polished my shoes, whited my sepulcher, and looked for a church to attend. Several I eliminated for reasons I do not now remember, but on seeing a John Knox church I drove into a side street and parked Rocinanate out of sight, gave Charley his instructions about watching the truck, and took my way with dignity to a church of blindingly white ship lap. I took my seat in the rear of the spotless, polished place of worship. The prayers were to the point, directing the attention of the Almighty to certain weaknesses and undivine tendencies I know to be mine and could only suppose were shared by others gathered there.

The service did my heart and I hope my soul some good. It had been a long time since I had heard such an approach. It is our practice now, at least in the large cities, to find from our psychiatric priesthood that our sins aren’t really sins at all but accidents that are set in motion by forces beyond our control. There was no such nonsense in this church. The minister, a man of iron with tool steel eyes and a delivery like a pneumatic drill, opened up with prayer and reassured us that we were a pretty sorry lot. And he was right. We didn’t amount to much to start with, and due to our own tawdry efforts we had been slipping ever since.

Then, having softened us up, he went into a glorious sermon, a fire-and- brimestone sermon. Having proved that we, or perhaps only I, were no damn good, he painted with cool certainty what was likely to happen to us if we didn’t make some basic reorganizations for which he didn’t hold out much hope. He spoke of hell as an expert, not that mush-mush hell of these soft days, but a well stoked-white-hot hell served by technicians of the first order.

This reverend brought it to a point where we could understand it, a good hard coal fire, plenty of draft, and a squad of open hearth devils who put their hearts into their work, and their work was me. I began to feel good all over. For some years now God has been a pal to us, practicing togetherness, and that causes the same emptiness a father does playing softball with his son. But this Vermont God cared enough about me to go to a lot of trouble kicking the hell out of me. He put my sins in a new perspective. Whereas they had been small and mean and nasty and best forgotten, this minister gave them some size and bloom and dignity. I hadn’t been thinking very well of myself for some years, but if my sins had this dimension there was some pride left. I wasn’t a naughty child but a first rate sinner, and I was going to catch it.

I felt so revived in spirit that I put five dollars in the plate, and afterward, in front of the church, shook hands warmly with the minister and as many of the congregation as I could.

All across the country I went to church on Sundays, a different denomination every week, but nowhere did I find the quality of that Vermont preacher. He forged a religion designed to last, not predigested obsolescence.

Every time I read this passage from John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, a smile comes across my face. As an active member of the clergy I am always glad to encounter a somewhat positive portrayal of someone in the pulpit. Normally, in popular culture, clergy are portrayed as pious, judgmental cads, out-of-touch individuals, or less than scrupulous miscreants. It was refreshing to encounter Steinbeck’s telling of a good, Protestant/Calvinist/Revival sermon.

I don’t preach the kind of sermon that Steinbeck describes, I am not a hellfire and brimstone kind of preacher or theologian, but I think I get Steinbeck’s pull towards the tenor and tone of the sermon. I think it is safe to say that there is more going on than simply a sweet telling of a rousing and atypical sermon. An overall theme to Travels with Charley is that Steinbeck is looking for the voice of America. It is the late 1960s, it is the eve of the election between Nixon and Kennedy. There is a great deal of civil and racial unrest and Steinbeck is looking to escape from the isolated echo-chamber of New York City and Long Island. He wants to hear and listen to the voice of America. Steinbeck wants to know what America is saying about life, about the civil rights movement, about the election, and about what it means to be an American. I want to be careful to not offer much more into the analysis of Steinbeck’s book because there are scholars of Steinbeck who have done this, who have a much deeper and better credibility than I do, and who can say much more than I dare. Travels with Charley is a good and important book that I encourage all to read.

Instead of offering a full analysis of the book, I want to stay with this sermon. I want to stay with the message that seems to have impacted Steinbeck enough that he wrote about it in his book. As a practitioner of the craft, I am pulled again and again back to this particular moment of preaching. Granted, I am not reacting to the sermon, but to Steinbeck’s reaction to the sermon. You are getting a reaction to a reaction. I think it is still something that we can work with. The question that I want to grapple with is:

Is this sermon the voice of America or the voice to America?

I think this question is an essential and important place to start. In a much less grandiose kind of way, it is a question I often start with when working on a sermon – am I speaking for the people or to the people? Am I giving voice to the joys and concerns of the people or speaking in a prophetic or pastoral way to the joys and concerns of the people. Am I giving voice to the people in the pews or am I giving voice to God so that the people can hear? Usually it is a little of both, but one will be favored over the other in some way. In the case of Steinbeck’s experience, I think this sermon (and perhaps the entire book) leans much more to one side than the other. It was a time of unrest in American society (the 1960s); this sermon is something preached to the people. The anger, the vitriol, the call for repentance and warning of doom that we find in Steinbeck’s telling, is for and to the people. Steinbeck even says that he is tired of the psychological preaching; the preaching that says, “I’m ok, you’re ok, we’re all ok.” This feel-good approach is the preaching that looks to paper over the divisions and the pains of the world with a trite saying, a pat on the head, and a deliberate disavowal of all that is wrong in the country. This is the preaching that looks to sit with someone in their neurotic place of distress, say, “it is going to be ok,” but not call for any kind of change. In such an approach to preaching we are told that everyone and everything is ok. We are told that you are good enough and you need not push yourself any more. It is a message that says that everything is fine. Such is a pastoral bunt not prophetic sermon. There is a place for such a kind of preaching, but not in the sermon the Steinbeck hears and is offering to the nation.

The pastoral sermon is indeed a tempting sermon to preach. I want people to leave a service feeling like they have been comforted, like they are good enough. I want people to leave a service feeling good about who they are. And, people seem to like you more when you preach a positive, affirming sermon. People will tend to shake your hand with gratitude because you have just complemented them. You look great. You are doing great. You are great. And if you are feeling bad about yourself, then just listen to me tell you that you need not feel bad because you are just great. I admit, I confess that this is a sermon that I am often tempted to preach, and I often give into the temptation, because I feel better preaching it and people seem to feel better hearing it. There are times when such a message is appropriate. Many have lived through trauma and hurt so deep and painful that it is vital and valuable to tell them that all will be well and ok. But it is easy to fall into the trap of preaching the pastoral sermon all of the time. It is easy to get into that relational status quo of telling your partner what he or she wants to hear, always and only complementing the other. This is not a true relationship. This is not a deep relationship, but one of co-dependency and false affirmation. There is a danger to preaching only the affirming, feel-good sermons.

Instead, from the clap board church comes the prophet decrying the sin and destress of the world. This is a judgmental, critical sermon that speaks to the faults and errors of the congregation. When I hear such a sermon in the context of Steinbeck’s searching for America’s voice, I hear in this judgment, in the warning of the fires of Hell, a sermon to America. I hear a prophetic and not pastoral sermon to America. From the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, from messages of John the Baptists, and from Jesus we can find this prophetic voice and the content of the sermon that Steinbeck heard in Vermont. This is a voice, a sermon, that calls someone to accountability. This is a sermon that does not hold back, that does speak a truth even if it is not one that someone wants to hear. This is not an easy sermon to offer and preach, and yet it is a sermon that needs to be preached.

I have heard again and again from the grumpy cultural complainer that today’s kids all get medals no matter how well they do, and everyone is ok, and that such an approach is hurting our country. As much as I try to avoid the bandwagon of the cultural grumps, there are times when it is good and right to say that someone is just not doing as well as perhaps they could. There are times when it is right to say that someone is just not going to win just because they showed up. And there are times when it is right to say that what they are doing is just wrong, and needs to be corrected. Such could be a hellfire sermon, a prophetic sermon, but this is not the sermon that Steinbeck’s preacher is offering.

The grumbling that everyone gets a medal is not the deep, painful sermon that Steinbeck is sharing. The sermon that Steinbeck is recounting doesn’t just say that you tried and fell short, it is a sermon saying that you failed, that you are lost, that you are quickly on your way to hell and short of God’s grace, and that there is no hope for you at all. It is the sermon that Jonathan Edwards has been tied to, one of sinners being dangled overs the flames of hell by the angry and wrathful God. I believe that part of the voice of America that Steinbeck is hearing is one of feeling good, one of hope and optimism that ignores the wounds and pain of society. This sermon looks straight into the eyes of racism, the eyes of a country at war, the eyes of poverty and pain, and calls the nation to realize that things are not going well at all and it may be worth wondering if all is lost. It is a sermon that calls people to look to God for help and direction rather than any individual or political party. It is a sermon that is also for today, a sermon that speaks to the wounds and the failures of our nation today, deeper than the grumbling of cultural trends and into the reality of people forgotten and neglected and cast aside today. It is a prophetic sermon that points to the spiral of the nation and calls all those who hear to embrace the reality of the despair in that spiral.

But I find a deep hope in this a sermon. “…this Vermont God cared enough about me to go to a lot of trouble kicking the hell out of me.” This is not just a ranting and raving at someone because you are angry and then walking away. This is not yelling at someone because they backed their car into yours, this is a sermon that comes out of love. This is a scolding that comes from a deep place of concern and even compassion. It is the cry of a parent correcting a child, a sibling demanding more of a sibling. This the call of teacher scolding a student because the teacher knows that the student can do better. I do not hear this sermon as the voice of American that Steinbeck was searching to hear, but rather a voice to America that needed to be heard. I hear this as a sermon that is looking at the woes and the sins and the failings of not only individuals, but of a nation and is calling that nation to be better because it can better. It is a sermon that is not saying to America that you are fine and you just need to try harder, but instead that you have so much to offer, you have so much blessed potential, and you are letting it go. You must name where you have failed and change and do better. It is a sermon that is for the individual and for the collective. I can understand why Steinbeck found so much enjoyment in this sermon, because it speaks an honesty that can hurt, that can be painful, but can be cleansing and hopeful. It is hopeful because it says that God, who may be furious with us, has not neglected or left us. It is a sermon that speaks to a relationship of love that cares enough to get angry and to ask and demand more. It is a sermon that we all need to hear.

And yet I wonder. In the current political climate, the rhetoric that I often notice and hear is how the nation is spiraling out of control, how the nation is overrun with drugs and criminals and how we are in the depth of a nation crisis. I hear about people who are corrupt, about systems that have failed, about deep states and thin states and how all of that is to blame. On either side of the political spectrum I hear anger and vitriol about institutions and individuals that on the surface seem to match the anger and vitriol of the sermon. How is such political rhetoric different from the sermon that Steinbeck hears in Vermont? What makes Steinbeck’s sermon different from the diatribes that many leaders offer?

Look for a sense of responsibility. Look for love.

The diatribe of the politicians places the blame on others. It is the immigrants’ fault. It is the corporations’ fault. It is the Democrats’ fault. It is the Republicans’’ fault. It is the liberals’ fault. It is the conservatives’ fault. It is the fault of people who look different than we do, who talk differently, who live differently. It is the fault of other nations for taking advantage of us. It is the fault of past presidents who were weak and did not stand up for themselves. It is everyone else’s fault but our own.

Steinbeck’s pastor does not look to blame others, but instead to call the people to realize where it is that they have gone wrong. Yes, there is sin. There is sin, and at one level or another we are all complicit. Yes, there is a deep failing in our nation and we all participate in our own ways. And the truth of the sin hurts that much more because we can be and do so much more. As a nation, as a society, as a people we can and should be better. It falls on the shoulders of everyone hearing the sermon, it falls on the shoulders of everyone who is a part of the nation to do better. This is a sermon that is harsh, and full of love. This is a sermon that calls all to do better.

Can we preach this sermon today? Is anyone preaching this sermon today? It is much easier to create the villain, to blame others, to say that it is the fault of other people and that the wounds and challenges of our nation our out of our hands. But that is a sermon of scapegoats and a shirking of responsibility. It is easier to preach a sermon that claims that we are ok, that we are loved. But that is a sermon of softness and sensitivity and will wear us to a death of atrophy and inwardness. I hear/read this sermon and I smile, and then I wince. I smile because it is good to have a Protestant portrayed in such a powerful way and for such a sermon to be taken seriously. I smile because I can hear the sermon in the back of my mind, wondering if it is one that I would ever preach. I smile because it is a sermon that needs to be proclaimed.

I wince because it is a sermon that I fear I would never have or find the courage to openly preach. I wince because I wonder if I have let my people down because I have not preached in such an honest and prophetic way. I wince because I wonder if I have held back from speaking a word of truth to power in such a way that does not project the blame but rather encourages us all to embrace it? I wince because I have avoided kicking the hell out of my people and out of myself, and I wonder if I have avoided showing the love for them in the way that I should. I wince because I have not preached this sermon, and I should.

It is a good sermon. It is a damn good sermon. It is one that we all need to hear.