It echoed the thoughts of Billy Coffee's one-time lecturer on the subject of writing, who said of writers:
“Don’t simply tell me that faith saves you, tell me how it almost failed you, too. Don’t tell me about love, speak of your passion. Don’t tell me you’re hurt, let me see your heart breaking. I don’t want to see your talent on the page, I want to see your blood. Dare to be naked before your readers. Because that is writing, and everything else is worthless crap.”And for writing, I agree. Writers who genuinely say something say what they mean. Which is what they deeply and utterly believe. And so are naked before those who would laugh, mock and critique that.
Thus, genuine writers:
“People write because they must. Because there is a story inside them that is meant to be shared with the world. But having that story inside you doesn’t make you a writer. How you tell that story does. And you tell it through honesty.”A question for me, then, is to what extent preaching is 'writing' in this sense? For we do not tell our own story, though that story is equally "inside us and meant to be shared with the world".
On the side of the naked preacher, I would say that if the person doesn't preach, but only the text is preached, then the duty of plunging the sword of the spirit into oneself before plunging it, with your own blood still afresh on it, into your hearers has been neglected.
On the other hand, when does the preacher's nudity become a distraction from the preacher's work of exposing the naked word of God, in all its glory and implications, to the congregation? For even if we have a story to tell in Christ, a sermon is not a testimony. It is the story of Another,
Of course, the answer is not a blank yes or no. (sorry if that's what you were going to say. Let me introduce you to Graeme Goldsworthy if you were.) But I suspect the answer lies somewhere in the field of "in what sense ought the preacher be naked, and in what sense ought no-one be looking at the preacher to have noticed?"
Your thoughts? I'd value them dearly.