Quick! How many sermons have you heard in your lifetime? If you have been a Christian for any length of time it has probably been A LOT! Even if you have been a follower of Christ for just a short time, you have undoubtedly sat through numerous sermons.
Some of you can point to sermons which have had a profound impact on your life.
Frankly, though, some of the sermons you have heard probably seemed boring or apparently pointless. That's unfortunate -- but we want to be gracious and give the preachers credit for trying to do a good job. It's not easy. But many sermons are... well let's just say... mundane. In spite of the preacher's best efforts and in spite of our own best efforts to listen, the sermon does not seem very noteworthy.
The miracle of it all is that even when the sermons are not all that memorable they still feed us and form us.
Can you remember all the meals that your mother prepared for you as a child? I can't! I can remember a few. But I can't remember every single meal -- what was served and how wonderful it was to eat. Yet, I know that they were effective because I continued to grow and develop. I can't remember every single meal but I know that every single meal was important.
For many of us the primary means of grace which forms us spiritually is the proclamation of God's Word. Week in and week out we hear sermon after sermon proclaiming the good news of new life in Christ and how we go about living out that life.
This kind of proclamation usually takes place in the context of a worship service. In some ways it is silly to try and discuss preaching apart from a discussion of worship. For preaching is not just an ordinary speech with the extraordinary topic of God's message. It is an unusual type of message -- something very different from what happens throughout the rest of the week.
Donald Bloesch explains,
Preaching plays a pivotal role in the service of worship, but it does not exhaust worship. It should take place in the context of worship, but worship entails much more than preaching. Worship is the corporate response -- in prayer, singing, and reflection -- to God's self-revelation and reconciling work in Jesus Christ. Worship is not a performance designed to induce faith but a celebration of God's mighty deeds, including the gift of faith by the power of his Spirit. Worship, like preaching itself, is centered in the audible, not the visual. We respond to what we hear from the reading of Scripture and from the mouth of the preacher. The visual is not excluded, for we worship God through the celebration of the sacraments as well as through prayer and hearing. Yet the visual is subordinated to the audible, for the sacrament gains its power only in its unity with the proclaimed and written Word of God.(1)The sermon is an event triggered by the public reading of God's Word. The reader stands up in the service and reads from the Bible. Then the preacher stands and begins to talk. In a sense the preacher is not only speaking to us but also for us. We've received God's Word and something needs to be said! But time does not allow everyone to speak. And not everyone has the gift of speaking. So, the preacher is our spokesperson -- speaking for us and to us.
Now, there is not really a single correct way to construct or preach a sermon. As a preacher myself, I am definitely opinionated as to the best way to preach a sermon. It should be rooted in the biblical text, should feel more like a story than an academic exercise, should be relevant to the context -- the present and future needs of the congregation, should make an identifiable point that is consistent with the biblical text, and shouldn't go on so long that it seems like the preacher is continuing just because he likes to hear himself talk!
That's my opinion. However, preachers will not be standing before me on the day of judgment. They will stand before God -- and perhaps those entrusted to their care.
There is an old tradition that says Christians should be buried with their feet to the east and their heads to the west. That way on the day of resurrection as they rise to their feet, they will be facing east to see the coming of Christ.(2) An exception to this rule is made for pastors. They are buried with their feet to the west and their heads to the east. That way, when they rise to their feet at the resurrection, they will be facing their congregations as the people see Christ. And they will see the angry faces of those who did not hear the Gospel properly or thoroughly proclaimed during their lives.
It is an interesting tradition -- one which can become too preacher focused. As it is, some preachers already take on too much responsibility for how people respond and don't give enough recognition to the fact that it is the Holy Spirit who takes the words of those sermons and drives them into the hearts of the hearers.
Still, James 3:1 says, "...not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly." (NLT) The point is that we who preach and teach(3) need to take that assignment very very seriously. For the proclamation of God's message is very very important. It helps form us as mature, convinced, and convincing followers of Christ Jesus.
What can we do to take better advantage of the gift of the Word proclaimed? Here's my list of pastoral suggestions:
1. Do what you can physically to be prepared for the sermon. It helps if you are well rested and awake when you arrive at the gathering of the church. You don't want to become a Eutychus! (Acts 20:7-12) Do you need to eat a little something first so you are not distracted by hunger.
2. Find out ahead of time what the biblical text will be so you can read it for yourself and know what the preacher is talking about before the sermon begins.
3. Pray and ask God to speak to you.
4. Learn to preach! I tell the students in my preaching class that even if they haven't been called to preach it is helpful to learn how to preach. You become a lot more sympathetic toward the men and women who preach week in and week out. If you learn to preach you also acquire a better sense for the flow of sermons -- and sometimes that helps you track with where things are going.
5. Try to listen to what God might be saying without being a critic. If you are trained in Bible, theology, and/or preaching the temptation is to listen as a critic. That is, it is tempting to mentally give the preacher a grade every week. It has taken me awhile but I have learned to turn that off (at least most of the time -- although I admit that I drift back into it if the sermon is really bad or if it is really good).
It is possible for the Holy Spirit to speak through even a really bad sermon. Sometimes he even encourages people through things that the preacher wasn't being intentional about saying.
I've had people come to me and thank me for a sermon that I preached a couple of months earlier. And when they tell me about what was so striking in the sermon, I cannot remember what they are saying being in the sermon! That happens occasionally.
Whether the sermon is done well or not so well -- whether it is totally engaging or totally boring -- there is still something about the proclamation of God's Word that lifts people up.
The following article was written by Craig Brian Larson, who works in the Christian publishing industry. He also pastors a church in Chicago, Illinois (USA). The article is called "A Weekly Dose of Compressed Dignity."
I went to the home of a woman who attended the church I pastored. When I walked into the flat, her husband was asleep on a cot in the living room, a gaunt shell of a man, his substance sucked out by whiskey. His skin was yellow. When he awoke and we met, his voice was rumbly and harsh from smoking, and frighteningly loud. His eyes had something hateful about them that made my blood run cold.
This was the demanding, abusive man whom the woman in our church tried to placate day by day. She had told me chilling stories about him.
They lived on welfare, and their house had poverty written all over it. In the dirt "yard" sat an abandoned tire. The kitchen floor sloped steeply, and the gloomy walls needed paint. In the living room, the fabric on the arms of the chairs was worn through, a chair or two tilted due to a missing leg, the cushions gave no support. Mousetraps were everywhere. Dimly lighting the place were bulbs that could not have added more than 40 watts apiece.
But each week something happened in the life of this woman that elevated her to a higher, brighter plane. She would come to church and hear a sermon. That sermon was nothing less than a condensed dose of dignity that saved and ennobled her battered spirit. Regularly I saw the tears of gratitude as she grabbed my hand before she left for home.
No matter what our station, daily life in a fallen world is a walk through a gauntlet of belittlement. Those who attend our churches are daily bombarded by false values and beliefs that cheapen God's creation, by personal slights and insults, by Satan's accusations. Their minds are assaulted by scabrous images in the media and by profanity that is objectionable to God precisely because it debases the creation. They are subject to sins that mar God's image within them. They suffer distorted images of themselves that contradict God's truth.
After such a week, it's a wonder that a person can walk into church with any sense of worth (and the faces of many confirm that).
But then they hear anointed preaching, and gravity reverses as people sense the upward pull of heaven. The sermon reveals the character of God, who infuses all life with meaning and majesty. The sermon tells who we are in God's sight: created in the divine image, beloved beyond description, destined for glory. The sermon uncovers sins—then announces how to be redeemed. The sermon honors the morality that exalts humankind. The sermon assumes that people can think and discern about life and the Book of Life. The sermon appeals to the will, treating people as responsible agents whose choices matter forever. The sermon preaches Christ Immanuel, forever hallowing human flesh, second Adam who will one day resurrect believers in his likeness. A sermon is the most intense dose of dignity any person can receive.
To sit through a quality sermon is something like ascending the Mount of Transfiguration. Prior to that moment, Jesus resembled any other man. He looked and dressed and groomed himself like a common man. But on the Mount of Transfiguration, his appearance changed to display his full divine nature. The glory of God radiated forth, his face blazing like the sun and his clothes becoming heavenly white. The curtain was pulled back, revealing reality.
During a sermon, we are in a sense transfigured. Our true dignity from God shines forth. Nothing else in life treats a man or woman in a way that assumes greater worth or higher powers.
There is no more costly gift I could have given that downtrodden woman than my best and God's best in a sermon. It is a weekly dose of compressed dignity.(4)
SECTION #19 NOTES
(1) Donald G. Bloesch, The Church: Sacraments, Worship, Ministry, Mission (Downers Grove, IL, InterVarsity Press, 2002) pp. 184-185.
(2) The tradition is perhaps based on an overly literal interpretation of Matthew 24:27, "For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes." (NLT)
(3) Some scholars draw a distinction between preaching and teaching. That may nor not be an important biblical distinction. All preaching involves some teaching. Not all teaching necessarily involves preaching.
(4) www.preachingtoday.com/skills/artcraft/3--larson.html
SECTION #19 ASSIGNMENT
1. Take notes on a sermon that you hear in your local church (not a school chapel service). Tell me who the preacher was, the biblical text, and the name of the church. Try to create an outline of the flow of the sermon. Identify the main point(s) and the applications. Is there anything specific in the sermon that God seems to be saying to you?
Some students taking this class don't get to hear sermons very often because they are the preachers delivering the sermons. If that is the case please create the outline and answer the questions using a sermon that you delivered. (25 points possible)
2. Explain in a few paragraphs why the poor and abused woman in the story above was so happy with the weekly sermon. What did it do for her and her spiritual formation? (10 points possible)
Again, email your assignment to me at bboydston@piu.edu. Write your the assignment in the email itself -- or if you use a word processor, copy and paste the answers into the email. Make sure that your name, the name which you used to register for this class, appears at the top of the work.
I will respond to you as soon as possible. Do not wait for a response from me before you start working on your next assignment.
