Reflections on Worship, May 11

Preachers, especially young preachers, have a bad habit of trying to cover too much in their sermons. In approaching a specific passage, they often throw every strong theological concept in their makeup at the problem -- an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach. Usually, this impulse is caused by not preaching often enough, so that when a young preacher finally gets a chance to preach, they try to make the most of the opportunity, knowing that they won't get to preach again for several weeks. (I should add that there are other causes of this problem that are less kind to my colleagues, so I'll refrain from listing them here.)

I mention this not because I think I succumb to this problem (I have certain other problems when I preach), but because an interesting thing happened on the way to the pulpit on Sunday -- I wanted to cover way too much ground in approaching Acts 2. Given my general brainstorm approach to preaching (trust me, they'll never teach it as a practicable alternative in seminary), this can be a problem. Usually I piece together my sermons (which are rooted in prayer, study, imagination, etc.) on Friday and Saturday, deciding which components from my reflections to include -- obviously, the final decision is made in the sermon itself, which frequently bears only partial resemblance to my thinking on Saturday.

Last weekend, however, I was in real trouble. My thinking was deeply rooted in several related theological streams -- and I like to be open about that sort of thing when I preach. But if I had really delved into all of the significant contributing components to Sunday's sermon, it would have taken at least 40 minutes. Now I grew up in a church where the sermons were that long, and I've attended others where the sermons are longer, but people don't respond well to a 40 minute sermon when their expectations are that sermons last 20 minutes. So I found myself trying desperately to shed huge pieces of the sermon Saturday night and Sunday morning.

In the end, I don't think it turned out too bad. No, that's being a little false: when I listened to it this morning, I was surprised by how well it seemed to hang together. This is due partially to 1) the grace of God, and 2) to my skills in preaching. However, if the sermon seemed a little empty to you -- i.e. that it was missing something in the logical progression -- you're right. I wanted to delve more deeply into the several meanings of visions and dreams, in our culture, in our history, and in the Bible. That did not happen because the thrust of my reflections was rooted in a certain appreciation of prophecy; so I emphasized that. (Though frankly, even that was condensed: I had hoped to dig more deeply into how we cultivate the past for valuable examples of prophecy, including how we should approach the Scriptures. That was scrapped too, in the interest of time.)

By now, you've figured out that I won't preach short sermons very often. I don't like short sermons. I have dear friends who insist that anything worth saying can be said in a well-conceived 10-minute sermon; everything else is repetition. I respectfully disagree, strongly, for two key reasons: 1) repetition is essential in a sermon so that the lessons are understood -- few people understand any teaching with only one pass at it, no matter how thoughtfully prepared, and 2) the problems we face in our lives demand more than 10 minutes of reflection. It takes time to explore the Scriptures; it takes time to illuminate them and contextualize them; it takes time to make them relevant to our experiences; it takes time to suggest how we should think (differently/more fully) or live (differently/more fully) or relate to God (differently/more fully). I try to incorporate these things into my sermons; I think I do so (though you would be a better judge of that as listeners).

I'm not sure what the point of this reflection is -- well, I'm not sure what the point of sharing this reflection on Sunday's sermon is. I take preaching seriously; I enjoy it and I strive to do it well and ever-better (is that a word?). When I feel like I've fallen short, and Sunday I felt a little like that because I felt I was leaving vast parts of my important thinking out of the sermon -- including a fun jaunt through various dream stories in the Bible, I don't like the sermon, regardless of how well I've preached or not. I feel a little disingenuous because I try very hard to model my thinking and reflections within my sermons. On the other hand, it is almost always more important to gauge how well others appreciated and understood the sermon, regardless of my feelings about it.

As a dear friend and teacher once told me, after I felt I butchered a sermon on Ecclesiastes (your pastor has never been unconfident in selecting his sermon Scriptures, even in school; he dives into passages where angels (i.e. other preachers) fear to tread): 'The Gospel was preached.' By which he meant, I preached on the Bible; I took it seriously; and I tried to relate it to people's lives. He's right (as Bill often is), but I still aim higher for that, I guess, taking my preaching strategies from a combination of the Latin teacher/rhetor Quintilian (1st Century), who thought that the highest form of rhetoric was "the good man (the moral man) speaking well," and Augustine, who added "about things of ultimate importance" to that statement, based on his appreciation of the great 3rd Century preacher Ambrose.