July 4 - Part 2

People sometimes ask me what I like best about being a pastor. I usually tell them that I love my job and enjoy almost all that it entails, but the thing I love the most is preaching. For me, preaching is like working through a puzzle. What does this text mean? What did it mean to those who first experienced it? What does it mean for those who will gather for worship next Sunday? How can I announce this good news?

Usually I think I’m an above average preacher; but Bishop Burk recently told me that every pastor thinks he or she is an above average preacher, so who knows. For good and obvious reasons, pastors usually don’t like critiquing each other’s sermons. For one thing, we know how hard preaching can be and how personal it is. For another thing, we’ve all given bad sermons before and we would each hate to be judged on just 1 or 2 sermons.

With that said, I am going to critique the sermon I heard on July 4. This critique and my experience with their praise service is why I have not mentioned the name of the congregation or the city in which it is located. I have no interest in hurting anyone’s feelings. Instead, I want to be candid with you so that we can both learn from the experience.

The sermon I heard on July 4 was just so-so. It had a few really good qualities and in my opinion one glaring failure. First let’s talk about the good qualities. The pastor preached in the middle of the room with his notes or manuscript on a music stand. I think preaching from a pulpit is sometimes very helpful, but in this setting his decision to be among us felt like a good one.

His preaching style was very nice: relaxed and conversational. His voice was like butter: smooth and rich. From a style perspective it could hardly have been better, because he was easy to listen to. Some might prefer a little more energy and perhaps with other sermons on different Sundays he has a more energetic style.

The sermon was what I would call a “teaching sermon.” In a regular sermon, the preacher’s task is to proclaim the good news. In a teaching sermon, by contrast, the main task is to educate. Now I’ll grant you that the line between the two is sometimes fuzzy and unclear. I have heard very good “teaching sermons” which also effectively proclaim the gospel. And I have heard very good “gospel sermons” which effectively teach. But fuzziness notwithstanding, the two are really very different. Think about it this way; in a teaching sermon, I might teach you how to make a pot of coffee. In a gospel sermon, I’m going to serve you a cup of coffee.

In a world where people are increasingly unclear about the tenets of their faith and increasingly unfamiliar with the Bible, teaching sermons are no doubt important. I should do more of them. But, and for me this is a big but, the central mission of the church and its pastors is to proclaim the gospel! Teaching is an important part of that mission, but finally with or without understanding we must serve the coffee. God loves you! Your sins are forgiven! I want you to understand it, but with or without understanding, I want you to experience it.

As teaching sermons go, this one wasn’t bad. His topic was one of the prophets and if you didn’t know anything about this prophet beforehand, you would probably have a much better understanding afterwards.

And then there was the ending where so many sermons including many of my own and this one fell apart, a stream of words dribbling down his shirt and ending up a giant soupy mess on the floor! It went like this: 10 minutes of pretty good teaching, 10 more minutes effectively telling me how dead I am in my sin and the human condition, followed by 5 minutes of ‘but the Holy Spirit can transform you.’ In other words, he educated me, he killed me, and then he didn’t quite resuscitate me, leaving me dead in the back pew more than 100 miles from home!

Luther once said that the only way he could muster the nerve necessary to preach was by taking comfort in the fact that after the sermon people would be receiving Holy Communion. For him this meant even if the sermon failed, people would be eating and drinking forgiveness that day. But this was a praise service with no communion, so when the sermon failed (as they sometimes do) I had no grace to fall back on.

It’s hard to proclaim the gospel effectively because it’s a mystery and hard to understand and contradicts so much of our world and experience. But the job of the church and its preachers is to proclaim the gospel. That’s why we get paid the big bucks. I don’t condemn this particular pastor for failing on this particular Sunday, but it was a disappointment.

So if you ever want to pray for me on a Sunday morning, the prayer I most desire is that God would help the preacher proclaim the good news. And if that fails, that God would call people to the table for Holy Communion. Grace, Grace, Grace!

Peace,

Pastor