What Is A Sermon

John 1:1-5, 14

Buddy Summers, Christ Church Uniting, Kailua, HI

Introduction

Preacher put his hand down on a wasp in the pulpit and let out a yell that could be heard all over the churchyard. One listener in the
congregation nudged his companion and said, "I am going to like this preacher!

Anonymous. What’s that all about? Probably came from another time and place, possibly not even from either the Presbyterian or Disciples tradition.

Some of you know Fred Craddock. Can’t you just hear that beloved Disciples minister and preacher’s preacher, telling this story in that deliberate way of his, straight faced, as he moves his listeners toward the spiritual equivalent of multiple wasp stings, for which, when he is done, they can’t seem to be thankful enough. At least, that’s the way it always seemed to me.

My sermon last week, stirring in its own right, raises again the sermon question: What is it? Given a surfeit of news, entertainment and analysis (blogs, i-pods, clear channel screaming heads, Borders and the World Wide Web)---a 21^st century sermon in the Protestant-Reformed tradition, what can it be? Understand the question?

If I can and with your help, I want to think about the puzzle of preaching in light of the image found in John’s prologue: In the beginning was the Word…and the Word became flesh.

Preaching in the Bible

It’s consistent with our Disciples tradition, especially, to ask what preaching was like in Biblical times. Short answer: we don’t know. There are no sermon transcripts in either the Old or New Testaments.

What we call “The Sermon on the Mount” is part of Matthew’s work of carefully organizing separately preserved Jesus saying into five groups and presenting them as teaching occasions somewhat analogous to Moses delivering the five books of Torah.

Through fictional dialogues and speeches, however, the Biblical authors have given us clues, even models perhaps, of what they understood, maybe even experienced, as likely preaching situations.

Here are some of my favorites---

• (Josh. 24:15) A time of relative peace is Israel. Joshua, aging spiritual and military leader of the tribes of Israel, is fading fast. On the dusty plains of Shechem, he gathers the elders and tribal leaders. Beginning with the promises God made to Abraham and Sarah, continuing with the rescue of their ancestors from Egypt and God’s having led them through the wilderness to the eventual occupation and settlement in the Land of Promise, Joshua rehearses communal and covenantal history Then he calls for a solemn renewal of the Covenant, saying, “[C]hoose this day whom you will serve...as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Remember. Choose.

• (2 Samuel 11:27bff ) Jerusalem. The King had raped and impregnated his chief lieutenant’s wife. Unable to cover up the abuse of power, King David ordered the murder of Bathsheba’s husband. God sends the prophet Nathan who tells the King a fictional story about a rich man and a poor one. The poor man’s only treasure was a single ewe lamb which was treated like a family member. The rich man appropriated the lamb to feed a visiting dignitary. David was enraged. He decreed that the unscrupulous man be punished. Nathan said, “King David Sir: You are the man!” Could have heard a pin drop.

• (Luke 4:21) Hometown synagogue, carpenter’s son, itinerant healer-preacher Jesus, after reading aloud Isaiah prophesies of God’s promise of good times to come (Jubilee, debt forgiveness, justice, peace), put down the scroll, looks into the faces of his mother’s neighbors and says,: “Today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” According to Luke, this little homily of seditious Good News got Jesus run out of town, nearly killed, then and there.

• Two more. One: My favorite first line. (Acts 2:15) To the confused Pentecost pilgrims Peter says: “Men of Judea, we are not drunk!” The enthusiastic writer of The Book of Acts reports that 3,000 (who weren’t even Seekers at breakfast) had, by day’s end, become Believers. Some sermon!

• Finally, a promising strategy with an inconclusive ending. (Acts 17:22f) The Apostle Paul, preaching to the cultured men of first century Athens, says “I perceive that you are a very religious people. You have altars to gods up and down the street. I want to tell you about the god you worship, whom, until now, you have called The Unknown One.” In a kind of prefiguring of the dark side of postmodernism, the leading lights of Athens said, “Interesting. Well, maybe…who knows?”

Some say preaching’s not what it used to be. True, in many ways---

1920s, New York City. People lined up two hours early to hear Harry Emerson Fosdick (of “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” fame) preach. Church members were issued vouchers for guaranteed seating. 1924, headline: "Crowds Smash Door: Near Riot to Hear Fosdick.”

Not here, never happened, not even once. Although they did damage the doors one morning bursting out to join people of good will shoulder to shoulder in renewing the earth. Well, OK. In my dreams.

What Is Preaching Then?

If it is characteristic of the Disciples tradition to ask how they did it [i.e. preaching] in Biblical times, it’s characteristic of both our traditions, Presbyterian and Disciples, to go a step further to ask, “What was really going on, how is God involved, where do we come in?” That is an approach that leads to what is called “biblically based preaching.”

In Joshua’s speech to the elders of Israel, we see story telling used as a way of countering forgetfulness. What, we didn’t irrigate these fields and secure the territory all by ourselves?

Storytelling led to invitation. Remember. Choose. His listeners were at ease and had forgotten that their story was made possible by God’s grace. Makes me wonder what have I (what have we) already forgotten concerning God’s mercy and grace, and at what cost? Preaching on that model was, and continues to be, an invitation to remember and renew the Covenant, to live in humility and faithfulness.

From the story of Nathan and King David, we see preaching as speaking “truth (however uncomfortable) to power”, of revealing God’s displeasure with and case against arrogance and the abuse of power, even at the personal risk of the messenger.

The occasion for this model of preaching today is frequent (and frequently uncomfortable) since we, upper middle class North Americans, find ourselves closer to the rich man than to the poor one, and the arrogance of people in our high places is insufferable. I wonder, “Whose lamb have we appropriated today?”

In Luke’s version of Jesus’ inaugural sermon, we see a duty to acknowledge that the time for God’s Jubilee (the time for the forgiveness of debts, provision of shelter, work and health care) is Today, not some ever receding horizon of privatized tomorrows.

Jesus announces (and calls us to act in light of) God’s generous presence here and now. Jesus invites us to forgo and withdraw support from whatever members-only arrangements we may have made for our own security and self-preservation.

As Jesus learned in his mother’s synagogue, people who have already made arrangements, don’t like changes, Jubilee or otherwise.

In seminary, we learned something about this when we read works by twentieth century theologian Reinhold Neibuhr (who by the way is the author of the Serenity Prayer.) He took a saying written for journalists and applied it to preachers. It’s a favorite of young preachers. “The preacher’s job,” Neibuhr wrote, “is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.”

When I became a Candidate for the Ministry, my great aunt, Auntie Mac (alive today at ninety something), gave me a pocket sized Youth Worker’s New Testament in the “original” King James Version. Even though I’ve lost the volume itself, I’ve never forgotten the words of 2 Timothy (4:2) which she copied inside the front cover ---

[P]roclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.

“Until God is finished with us, there is a message to proclaim,” Auntie Mac reminds me. “It is always timely although not always welcome.”

The Word Made Flesh

Now I want to take you and this reflection upon preaching to a slightly deeper level---the place of mystical vision. The theo-poetic imagery at the beginning of John’s Gospel helps me do this.

“In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was made flesh.”

The “Word” which was “in the beginning” is shorthand for “Word of God”. It is about more than God’s self expression. It is about God’s communication---to humankind.

One of the cruelest punishments is the “silent treatment.” Loving God has not been cruel. Words, as language, establish relationship, create meaning. Without language, we cannot even imagine. Without Word from God, we would be bereft.

“The Word made flesh” is a poetic image in the service of theology. This image makes us think of Jesus of Nazareth, of Jesus as the Messiah, and of Jesus Christ as the embodied communication of God to humankind. This rich multiplicity of meaning is precisely what the writer of John’s Gospel intended. God’s communicating Word is all this and more.

It is not too much of a stretch then to think of the preaching occasion, here, now, as also an instance in which “[The] Word [of God is being] made flesh.”

Here, in this setting of preacher and listeners, there is the possibility, there is reason to hope that---the Word of God is being made flesh among us again, still---here before our eyes, the Body of Christ is taking form.

You’ve heard of the old communion debates about the “real presence” of Jesus in the consecrated Lord’s Supper elements”? To me, here in honesty of preaching, in the hearing and putting into play of God’s Word may be found “The Real Presence.”

But it neither starts nor ends in the preaching-listening occasion. It begins in the mind and intention of God to---have a Word with us. It continues until that Word has achieved God’s purpose in us, having been made flesh in the Body---The Body of Christ.

In between there is what the preacher does and what you, the listeners, do. The Sunday morning sermon continues a conversation begu in the faith community days, likely weeks, before. The preacher has prayed, done research and reflection, he or she has kicked around ideas with others.

As hearers, you may even have suggested the “topic”, you have prayed and you anticipate the time we will spend together in worship, you have come rested and alert, you sing and stand and sit, you take it in, sift and sort, you engage in dialogue with others, and, later---what is the James scripture? (1:22) “Be doer of the Word and not merely hearers.

Later you experiment, trying out that new perspective, that new behavior, that something which is gaining strength within you---the Word becoming flesh.

“For those who have eyes to see,” says Jesus something happening here, what it is will in time be clear.

Post Script

Our tradition puts great stress upon the Reformed preacher’s training and preparation, continuing study and reflection, freedom, responsibility and integrity to seek and speak God’s truth.

Nevertheless, it is not now, nor was it ever, just about the preacher. There are enormous expectations of listeners as well.

Together, in the preaching event, we may be participating the very ongoing incarnation of God’s life in the Body as Word is made flesh.

New minister’s first Sunday. The Clerk of the Session stood ceremoniously and walked forward solemnly to convey gifts symbolizing the Pastor’s Office: a Bible, a copy of the church by-laws, and the church keys.

As the gifts were being given, a ferocious bolt of lightening struck the bell tower. A fine blanket of plaster dust descended upon the worshippers. A sea of ghostly and, truth be told, ghastly faces looked upon each other.

After a few stunned moments, everyone burst into raucous laughter. The new minister leaned over to the Clerk and whispered, “O yes, I’m going to like this congregation.”

The Body of Christ, we are becoming,

as the Word of God,

in this time and place,

is made flesh.

Aloha nui loa.

Blessings beloved,

and more later.

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