Is preaching really dead?

Depending upon who it is who is speaking, preaching is either dying or already dead.  In other words, if you are a preacher, you either have your work cut out for you or you might not bother at all.  When I was in Seminary, back in the log cabin days, we were often told to spend an hour in study for every minute in the pulpit.  Perhaps this has contributed to the decline in preaching -- not enough time to justify a longer sermon???  In any case, the point was well made that preaching is a privileged time, that people are giving you their attention and you owe them your best, and that preaching is an art and a craft, so work on it.

 

Perhaps preaching is not so near death as some might think.  In fact, it appears to the people in the pews that preaching is very important.  According to a 2017 Gallup study, churchgoers cited sermons as the primary reason they attended  church.  They come to church at least as much for the sermon as they do anything else.  Though it would be hard to unpack these numbers by denomination from what I have read, it suggests that Lutherans are not unusual in their desire for and expectation of good preaching.

 

I preach at least weekly (even with an associate we still have two different sermons for the several liturgies each week).  I like preaching.  In fact, I truly enjoy listening to good sermons.  I read books of sermons as devotional material and, through the benefit of the interweb, I listen to many preachers through out each week.  Undoubtedly they have influenced my own sermons and some of you may be able to recognize which preachers speak from my computer speakers.  If you do find that I have stolen an idea or two from you, take that as a compliment.  I steal from the best!  Though, I read and listen to so many sermons each week that it might be hard for me to know where I have borrowed from or whose voice is echoing in my mind as I prepare to meet God's people from the pulpit.

 

I do not know about you but I am not surprised that preaching occupies such a big place in the reasons for people choosing and attending a church.  Even Roman Catholics.  I have heard more than a few priests and there are some who are mighty fine craftsmen of God's Word in constructing a sermon which is not only faithful to the text but erudite and compelling.  I must admit that it is harder for me to listen to non-liturgical preachers if only because the sacraments play such a big part in my preaching and in the whole art of a Lutheran.  I look for sacramental preaching and rejoice to find the seamless fabric of text, application, and practice (worship) in a sermon.

 

I read hymns as sermons as well.  Who could not be satisfied with O Dearest Jesus as a sermon for one of the services of Holy Week?  We sang all fifteen stanzas in our hymnal on Palm/Passion Sunday and it was not too much.  Perhaps we should have foregone my sermon and simply sung the hymn again!  Preaching is generally done from the pulpit but not always.  We can sing sermons created by poet and pen, text and tune, just as well as we can hear them in prose.

 

So do not despair, my fellow preachers.  All is not lost.  The preaching art still survives.  The preaching task still lives and is highly valued by those in the pews.  And the preaching craft is worthy of all the time and attention we can give it (in conjunction with every other busy thing that fills the week).  The reports of preaching's death are greatly exaggerated.  And why not?  We preach not because people want to hear us but because God has given us something to say -- His Word on our lips and by the Holy Spirit through the ears of the hearer and right into the heart.  

 

Preach Thou the Word by Martin Franzmann

 

1 Preach thou the Word and plant it home
    To men who like or like it not,
The Word that shall endure and stand
    When flow’rs and men shall be forgot.

 

2 We know how hard, O Lord, the task
    Your servant bade us undertake:
To preach Your Word and never ask
    What prideful profit it may make.

 

3 The sower sows; his reckless love
    Scatters abroad the goodly seed,
Intent alone that all may have
    The wholesome loaves that all men need.

 

4 Though some be snatched and some be scorched
    And some be choked and matted flat,
The sower sows; his heart cries out,
    “Oh, what of that, and what of that?”

 

5 Of all his scattered plenteousness
    One-fourth waves ripe on hill and flat,
And bears a harvest hundredfold:
    “Ah, what of that, Lord, what of that!”

 

6 Preach thou the Word and plant it home
    And never faint; the Harvest Lord
Who gave the sower seed to sow
    Will watch and tend His planted Word.