Preaching In The Public Square...Continued from page 4

 [On days like these] God is right there doing what God always does in the presence of evil that is willed by humans ? fighting it, resisting it, battling it, trying God's best to keep it from happening. This time evil won. God, we hope, will one day emerge triumphant over evil ? though on the way to that glad day, God sometimes takes a beating (My God and I: A Spiritual Memoir, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002, p. 125).

In the face of evil and tragedy, it is best to lift up the questions and let them float before the hearers. I did this using David's words in Psalm 13:  "How long O Lord? " Those words speak to the sad and angry wondering.

A police officer is killed too early in his life, and it just doesn't make sense.  I said: "We gather here to say goodbye.  And we wish we didn't have to be here. We shouldn't be here today. Parents are not supposed to bury their son.  Police officers are not supposed to die protecting and serving.  Criminals are not supposed to win a round."  This is just the plain simple truth. We should not have been there at Forest Lawn that day, but we were.  I did not try to defend God. I did not lay out lofty ideals about the big picture. I simply wrapped up the pain of family and friends, fellow police officers and a community. I wanted to give people the chance, even permission to cry out:  How long O Lord?

Third, I wanted to speak a word of hope into the tension of this tragedy. I could not bring resolution to the tragedy because there are no answers. What happened to Matt was evil ? "evil was given a name and a face."  This was a tragedy, and yet God does enter into  our tragedies, including this tragedy. So,  I could give a word of hope.  I did this through a juxtaposition of psalms. Psalm 13 is a psalm of lament, written  by David in a time of despair: How long O Lord? Psalm 23, this much-loved psalm, is a confession of David's ultimate trust in the Lord:  The Lord is my shepherd.

Framed in the words of Psalm 23 I could speak about Matt's faith in Jesus that gave his life a different perspective, that gave Matt and those who knew him and loved him, a sense of hope.  This is a hope that proclaims God ultimately as the victor. I used g language from Revelation 21 confessing God as the  one who makes all things new.

Still the poet, I wanted those who heard these words, saddened and angered and wondering, people who were crying out: How long, to also find a place to would ground their lives and allow them to move forward: The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need.

This was a sermon preached in the public square at a civic funeral.  This was not an occasion for an evangelistic message, but it was an occasion to speak about Matt's life, his tragic death, and his faith, and the hope he had and other can have in Jesus. So without being preachy, I proclaimed gospel. And without any altar calls, or evangelistic prayers, I gave people a chance to reflect on Matt's faith perspectives, and on their own faith perspective.  I left people with the tensions ? of sadness and hope, of crying out in despair and affirming a deep trust in the Lord. 

Matt's faith speaks loudly in life and in death.  There is a hope that is greater than all the routines, bumps and storms of life.  We confess that this hope is found in Jesus Christ. This is the hope I pointed people towards. This is the hope to which we must cling. I preached gospel in the midst of tragedy in the public square.   And hopefully people were helped, moved further along in their faith journey, and God received glory.