Proclaimer Blog
A preaching allegory from JMW Turner
I had a day off last week and the ever-effervescent Mrs R took me for my post Christmas treat to the JMW Turner exhibition at the National Maritime Museum. As well as having one of the best views of London (from the observatory, see here), this was a really good morning out. Turner fascinates me, and all the more so since attending the exhibition. His earlier works are fairly well known, but I hadn't realised quite how commercial he was. As he gained in success everyone started producing paintings like his, and his own paintings became less of a commodity as a result. So, he constantly tinkered with style: some of his later paintings are quite different (see left). One critic famously said that if the painting had been hung upside down, no one would have noticed. Harsh, but fair.
Thinking about preaching, as I always am, I began to see an allegory. The preacher has always to fight against the temptation to be novel. Rather, he is called to be faithful. This can sometimes be a stretch. Perhaps he sees other preachers doing just what he is doing (only slightly better?) and he craves the need to be different? He wants to remain (in business terms) a commercial success, so he rejects the old way and embraces new ways. Put like this, it sounds an extremely unlikely scenario. But seen in the context of a long term preaching ministry, I don't think (sadly) it's uncommon. I've certainly seen ministries like this.
The funny thing is, most people like Turner before – as my dad puts it – the mist descends. By moving away from faithful exposition we end up giving our people neither what they need, nor even what they want. Faithfulness as a measure sometimes seems a little unexciting to the world. But to the evangelical preacher, it is everything.