Sermon thoughts. . .

I read a piece a while ago complaining about sermons.  Lord knows I have done some of the same kind of  complaining.  It did not focus on the delivery aspect, though I have complained about this also.  It drew attention to the way we have allowed ourselves to preach according to the dictates of the experts.  You know the experts.  They are the ones who have put together the ideas about one clear message in the sermon or a three part sermon.  I am beginning to think that we are preaching baby food to adults who have not learned to listen.  Sermons should not be minimalistic.  They should encourage and whet the appetite for more but they should also help people hear and digest that more right now.

Jesus, thankfully, never went to seminary and was never taught by experts.  His words are often complicated -- too complicated for a quick 12-15 minute sermon.  Except He preached them to a people who were far less educated than the populace today.  Granted, they were more Biblically literate than folks are today.  They were not glued to screens that encourage boredom and insist upon entertainment.  Are people stupider than then or incapable of eating solid food?  Did not Sts. Paul and Peter and the author to the Hebrews all warn about a Christian people who needed to grow up and chew on some things? 

We tell stories today but not the Biblical stories.  Instead, our people are lulled into hearing with the promise of some humor or a quick look into our own personal past as preachers or some bit of homespun wisdom for them to take home.  Is that what the sermon is to be about?  Or is that what we think the people should hear?  Or is that what we think we ought to be saying?  Preachers, wake up and smell the roses.  The time in the pulpit is not yours to do with as you please.  Speak the Word, preach it home, compel us to listen not with your stories but with the story of the Bible.

Stop preaching about justification as the main point in your sermon.  We get it.  Justification by grace through faith.  Yup, it is right there in the Bible.  But it is not the only thing.  Why are we preached to about justification over and over again but yet fail to hear a compelling call to live holy, upright, and godly lives?  Preach the cross by all means but do not neglect preaching the need for a living faith to bear the good fruit of good works.  Preach Christ and Him crucified but do not forget to preach love for neighbor and forgiveness for the one you despise or compassion for those you do not know.  Cajole us and shame us and lift us back up so that we might walk in the way of life.  

As one person put it, Scripture is God's everything to us.  Don't preach on the same thing over and over and over again.  Preach the whole of God's everything and make that story the sermon.  You can wander in the weeds every now and then as long as it is faithful to that Word.  You can lead us here, there, and everywhere as long as you lead us to Jesus.  Preacher, weave more than one point into your sermon and do not be bound by a three point outline or one style of sermon. Don't make big people's sermons out of children's sermons (and, for that matter, don't preach children's sermons at all).

Preach it not like a professor who has read the words of his lecture until he is blue in the face but as one of those whom Christ has rescued and redeemed and set to walk on the way of new and eternal life.  Preach it with conviction as a true blue believer and not one reporting on the faith of somebody else.  Raise you voice every now and then.  Whisper the tender words.  Look into our eyes.  Have a script but know its words well enough to not be bound by the paper in front of you.  Craft the sermon.  Be a writer as well as preacher.  Do not ad lib.  Give us enough dignity to put in the time and work into the sermon.  Don't forget eloquence in your preaching and turn a phrase that will be said over and over again.  You can do this.