The Need to Rediscover the Pulpit and Preaching: What then Shall we Preach?

 

Of all my blogs, this series on preaching has generated the most thoughtful responses and observations. This confirms my sense that most clergy care about our preaching. So, I want to conclude this series with some help for you in this and the next and last blog on this topic.

Exegesis: But first a word about exegesis. Several of you noted the issue of Exegetical Preaching and felt that I should say more on this topic. I would start with this. I make a distinction between exegetical work and Exegetical preaching. There is no doubt that if you are going to be good at this craft of preparing and delivering sermons, you MUST do your exegetical work. If not, you will yield to what one of my teachers at Yale called eisegesis, the word out of context. The world of biblical studies has been through a tremendous time of scholarship and understanding of our texts since 1870.

Therefore, the preacher today has more resources available via our library and the internet than any other age of the Church. Not to avail ourselves of this information is nothing short of a dereliction of our duty. I have always started my sermons with a study of the texts produced by outstand scholars. Notice that I said outstanding and not necessarily contemporary.

However, I learned from some great preachers that once having done this work, I must remember that my task is not to regurgitate what I learned to the congregation. To help me with this, I did my study on Mondays and my writing or structuring my sermons on Thursday or Friday. As I decided on my theme or what Fred Craddock called “the sermonic sentence, a single declarative sentence that was my subject for the sermon, I eliminated as best I could any story, illustration, or research that did not serve this theme. On Saturdays I would focus on delivery often revising my outline.

Some texts of scripture, the Prodigal Son, and other stories, lend themselves naturally to Exegetical Preaching. When that is the case, I use this method, if it serves the proclamation of the Word, why not?  The only standing ovation that I received was in 2003 preaching in the largest attended Episcopal Church on the prodigal son. It was an Exegetical Sermon. But not all Exegetical Preaching serves proclamation, and it becomes more teaching.  A good sermon has teaching in it, but a sermon is not only teaching.

Bruce Thielemann, the great preacher from First Presbyterian in Pittsburgh also observed that preaching verse by verse, a favorite of more fundamentalist and evangelical preachers, often produces better Pharisees than big hearted Christians. Thielemann also said, “Aim at the big idea, because life is too short to focus on bible trivia.”  This leads me to my next point.

Proclamation: The Gospel is literally “God’s news, the good news” and this is our primary reason for preaching.  When I would struggle with a text or message, I would prayerfully sit back and ask God and myself this question: What is the good news that I should proclaim today?

There are times when the imperative is necessary, but as I said in my last blog, it is much overused in TEC. Speaking of the good news, faith, hope, and love (agape) are the theological virtues produced in us by the action of the Holy Spirit. The Good News, of course, according to Paul, the Apostolic tradition, Augustine, Francis, Luther, the English Reformer Bishops, John Donne, Barth, Bonhoeffer to mention only, a few, is “We are saved by Grace through faith in the Son of God.”

Doctrine: Speaking of teaching; the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost (including the person of the Holy Spirit,) the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins for examples, are all part of this comprehensive God News. They also give us the chance to expand our congregation’s understanding of the Faith. I once preached as a visitor when the lesson came from the fifth chapter of Romans. I preached on being saved by faith and not works. At the coffee hour many long-term Episcopalians told me that they had never heard that preached before by which they meant both the text and the message. No wonder our people are so easily swayed by moralism! 

Life in the Spirit, or Sanctification:  One of the reasons that Charismatic Renewal of the 70’s and 80’ spoke to so many people was its emphasis on the experiential reality of the power of the Holy Spirit in a believer’s life.  This is, of course, dependent on God’s grace given to us in the gift of the Holy Spirit and not by any methods or techniques humans come up with on our own, even if the human in question is a priest or bishop. The first step of life in Christ, or Spiritual Life, is surrender, so too is the last step at our passing, and all that happens in between.

Sam Keyes an excellent writer and a former Episcopal priest, now a Roman Catholic, recently made this observation about our contemporary church life. “We often hear from secular people that they are “spiritual but not religious.” He observes that the Church should be the first to speak about the reality of human spiritual life, but then he asks, “Why then has the Church decided to offer religion without the spirituality as an alternative to secularism?” If you do not get his meaning, may I recommend that you find a good spiritual director!

In my next blog, I will conclude this series with some practical suggestions on how we are to preach.

The Need to Restore the Pulpit and Preaching: Imperative or Indicative

Having come to a norm of reading four scriptures and focusing especially on the gospel reading for the day, TEC preachers are mainly led to explore the gospel reading, explain what this means, and apply it for today.  As I observed in my last blog, I notice that even when the gospel does not contain a parable or teaching the form of explore, explain, and apply still dominates. What is wrong with this?

First, overuse of one form of oral communication becomes predictable and redundant. Engaging our listening members becomes harder. That is what happened in the 19^th century with the very predictable use of the three-point sermon. This form had an introduction, three points, and a conclusion. The rationale was that people could not remember more than three points. The mistake was that not every reading from scripture, be it narrative, teaching, parable, or other can be reduced or expanded to three points. Notice that this form like the Explore, Explain, and Apply form stretches or shrinks a passage to fit the form.

In his excellent book “Preaching” by Fred Craddock, he explores the forms of oral communication that have been effective throughout history. He lists eight not using rhetorical terms, but with helpful descriptive ones. They are:

What it is? What is it worth? How does one get it?

Explore, Explain, and apply

The problem, the solution

Either / or

Both / and

Promise, fulfillment

Ambiguity, clarity

Major premise, minor premise, conclusion

Not this, nor this, nor this, nor this, but this

The flashback (from present to past to present)

From the lesser, to the greater

Craddock than observes that “No small amount of biblical, theological, and pastoral instruction, encouragement, and urging can be framed on these forms with a minimum of distortion, reduction, or dullness.” Then he points out that a feature of using these different forms is “the guarantee of variety.” Then he adds “No form is so good that it does not eventually become wearisome to both listener and speaker, hence the problem of the overuse of the Explore, Explain, and Apply method.

I recommend that preachers write down these forms and keeping the list with your preaching resources. When we finish studying a passage, we can ask ourselves which of these forms would best serve our preaching? With great insight, Craddock suggests that a key would be to use a form that is closest to the form of the original text!  Explore, Explain, and Apply is one of these forms. Craddock also notes that it is often the most overused.

But what about the themes and topics of today’s preaching. Why have we abandoned both Biblical Theology and Doctrinal Theology? Why have we so narrowed our approach and focused so closely on gospel texts to the exclusion of all the other texts which are also the Word of God?

To answer this question, I turn to an important moment in TEC’s history. And I turn to a remarkable leader and teacher. This was Theodore Wedel, most known as the Warden of the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral. The College became under his direction a significant force in the improving of Episcopal preaching. For almost 30 years, Episcopal clergy would receive and invitation to the College three to five years after graduation from seminary. Then every five to ten years after.  For one week, attendees would be exposed to the best preachers in the Episcopal Church and often beyond. Mornings were lectures and afternoons were used for small groups where the students would share and critique sermons on both their content and delivery. Wedel wrote the book that guided most of my critique of preaching today. “The Pulpit Rediscovers Theology” was published in 1956. I bought and re-read a copy of it for these blogs. What is amazing is how contemporary it remains.

Writing in a period caught up in the third Quest for the Historical Jesus, Waddell described the results of such theology and its affect upon the preaching of his day.

“If we should be forced to find a theological category for many, if not most of our sermon – those at least, that preach the perfectionist moralism of our “historic Jesus” Christianity – we should have to confess that the category would be law, not grace. We have been placing burdens upon our people. We have preached to them in the imperative, not the indicative mood. Our sermons are ought sermons, discipleship presented as unadorned demand for performance, is an ought, not an is. It is law, not grace. It is command, not gospel.” (Theodore Wedel, The Pulpit Rediscovers Theology)

Let me bluntly elaborate on our situation as his words apply today especially as they apply to moralism and works. Of course, we are talking about the Episcopal Church, not the moralism of the right be they fundamentalist or American Evangelicals. It is the moralism of the left. We are to love everyone. We are to be accepting of everyone and inclusive of all people. We are to fight for justice and against oppression. We are to set right the sins of racism, sexism or any other ism that divides humans and to make restoration to those who have be afflicted in the past and in the present by these.

An ought is an ought by any color, or we could say by any political spectrum. The theological virtues are faith, hope, and love. These are not behaviors, but virtues instilled in us by the sanctifying power of God’s spirit, not by human intentions no matter how noble they may appear.

We have gone from proclamation (the indicative mood) to the imperative. We have moved from salvation by grace through faith in the Son of God to bringing in the Kingdom by our own works. We have moved from the risen Christ of God’s Word to an imagined Jesus concerned with social justice and whose own point of view was cynicism about religion and truth according to the fourth quest of the historical Jesus.

In my next blog, I will point to a way of proclamation that would transform our repeating of cliches as a substitute for God’s Word as found in scripture and in the risen Christ.

The Need to Restore the Pulpit and Preaching: What Changed?

What changed the historic classical approach to preaching to the lectionary centered one, and what has made the “Explore, Explain, and Apply form the standard of preaching today? And how has this led to a general decline in the quality of preaching?

The first answer is, of course, the Prayer Book of 1979. Most Episcopalians including many of our clergy do not remember or know that the standard worship of most Episcopal Churches in the 50s was Morning Prayer two to three Sundays of the month.  There were High Church exceptions of course.  I became a church member in 1958 in the Diocese of Dallas. I had to go to seminary to discover that I was consider “a spike from Dallas.”

The outstanding scholarship found in the 21 “Prayer Book Studies” and the “Trial Use Books” all culminated in an agreement about the re-establishment of the Holy Eucharist as the principal service of the Church on the Lord’s Day (79 PB page 13.)  While seldom mentioned, the “New Prayer Book” approved in 76 and 79 marked a Prayer Book that was more Liberal and Catholic in its theological underpinning than its predecessor.   The Baptismal Covenant demonstrates this most clearly.

My blog isn’t about all the changes brought by the “New” Prayer Book, but on how these changes affected preaching. Remember that the 28 Prayer Book Holy Communion had one collect, one lesson, and one gospel reading for each Sunday of the Christian year.  The classical view of preaching fits this well and Morning Prayer usage reinforced it.  The limited use of scripture called for the more comprehensive classical view with its emphasis on communicating the Church’s Doctrine. In six years, all these reinforcements shifted and began to work their way into our standard of today’s worship.

For the first decade or so, little changed in preaching because of two things. First, the clergy had been trained in the classical mode and kept going. John Claypool would be a prime example, but there were many more. Second, Prayer Book studies and the division of the Eucharist with “Liturgy of the Word” and “Holy Communion” reinforce the Word and Sacrament theology.

The second major reason for change and decline in preaching was the adoption of the three-year lectionary with two lessons, a psalm, and wider reading from the four Gospels. The merit of the three-year lectionary was its ecumenical nature, and we now have in the Revised Common Lectionary the reading of greater portions of the Scriptures. While the Episcopal Church is not thought of as a “bible church,” visit one of these on the internet and you will see that we hear much more scripture every Sunday than almost any American Evangelical or Bible Church.

Note: one of the most common mistakes of our clergy is attempting to explain to a congregation why how these three lessons are connected. It was not the intention of the editors of the lectionary that they be directly connected. For example, First, we seasonally have sequential lessons from the epistles, especially Paul’s letters. These seldom relate to the gospel of the day.  Second, the newest revision to the lectionary has given us preachers rich readings from the narratives of the Old Testament. This was done to give preachers resources for preaching in the Pentecost Season. Of course, the connection of the lessons is most found in the high holy days of the year.

What followed from these two major changes was not more variety in preaching, the lectionary intention, but rather a greater focus on the variant gospel readings for each of the three-year cycle. This is especially true if you have a gospel procession. Few churches did this liturgical action in 1960, almost all do today. Focusing on the gospel readings, many of which are Jesus’ teachings and parables, fits the form of Explore, Explain, and apply. And once this becomes the most used form, it becomes habitual to many clergy even if the gospel reading of the day does not contain a parable or teaching. I will explore what is wrong with this overuse of a particular form of preaching in my next blog.

Lastly, these major changes in our worship in TEC led to believing the sermon was a subset or servant of the Eucharistic liturgy for that Sunday of the Church Year. The practicality of reading three scriptures and the psalm added to a tendency to shorten the sermon. Leaders developed a rationale that “people today cannot pay attention” to the more typical 20-minute sermon of classical preaching.

I noticed by the mid-80s; the term “sermon” was being replaced in bulletins with the word “homily.” Since homily is Latin for sermon what was the point?  Because for many clergy, homily became a 10-to-12-minute explanation of the gospel reading for the day.  Homily came to mean a short sermon based on the gospel that fit the theme for that Sunday.

I end this blog with an experience I had on a website with a clergy person from the Midwest who was explaining his use of a homily of exactly 10 minutes each Sunday. When I challenged him over what could possibly be communicated of substance in 10 minutes, he said that no one will listen longer than 10 minutes and whatever needed to be said that day could be said in 10 minutes. His caveat “and that keeps the service short!”

I responded with a comment from one of my homiletics teachers of the classical method. “Sermonettes produce Christianettes!” In other words, how can we possibly form our people through the preaching of the Word in 10 minutes? While I have heard several colleagues who are talented at such short reflections, I would point out that these are almost always thematic talks based on the priest’s reflection on the passage with no reference to any substantive biblical or doctrinal theology. What happens to Word and Sacrament when this becomes the Sunday-by-Sunday practice?

These trends are why I am arguing for the need to restore both the pulpit and preaching. In my next blog, I will present the movement from indicative preaching to imperative preaching and the serious theological crisis this has created.   

The Need to Restore the Pulpit and Preaching

Let me begin this blog with two disclaimers. First, there are many Episcopal Clergy that give their congregations good sermons that build up the faithful. I will be speaking frankly in this blog series about the state of preaching in TEC. Thank God there are notable exceptions to my general observations.

Second, there are great resources like “Backstory Preaching” that give any preacher excellent tools to shape and deliver good preaching. Speaking of resources, think on this, the average preacher today has more resources at our disposal via the internet than preachers prior to World War II could even imagine.

Having said this, I want to take on the practice of preaching, especially as it has changed over the past thirty years and the trends that have led to what I see as a general decline. Many of these trends that I will be exploring have had a negative effect on both the place of preaching in TEC and the quality. What I want to call for is nothing short of the restoration of the pulpit in the Episcopal /Anglican Church of North America.  This will be the subject of my next few blogs, and I invite you into a dialog about how we can reinvigorate preaching.

As I listen to preaching in TEC, and I listen to lots of it, I want to make a distinction between what I think our clergy are doing today and what classic Anglicanism thought was the purpose of preaching. I think about 70% of the preachers that I hear understand the task of preaching to be explaining to the gathered Eucharistic community one of the lessons in the 3-year lectionary. This is almost always the gospel for the day. At conferences when I have asked, most clergy are emphatic that they are “lectionary preachers” I will be coming back to several issues related to the lectionary in a future blog but let me present the common form of this preaching.

First, there is an introduction to the passage. Next the preacher explains the passage. Then the preacher explores further the meaning or possible optional meanings of the passage indicating which of these they prefer. Finally, the preacher concludes with some thoughts and if appropriate adds application for our members. A summary conclusion at the end of such preaching seems to be either an implied “think about it” or “so, we should… with an application.” Since, most clergy in TEC are highly educated, as are many of our congregations, the sermons reflect sophisticated analytic information and insight. Often the preacher adds cultural or political points of reference. Sadly, Episcopal sermons are consistently short on stories or illustrations. At this point, several of my readers will be thinking “yes, okay what is wrong with this?”

Put alongside this the view of classical preaching. Remember that the classical view is in the context of the task of clergy to nurture congregations on “Word and Sacrament.” This view is ancient and was strongly reinforced by the Reformation. It was held in common by Anglicans, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and denominations that came from these like Methodists. In this view, the task of the pulpit and preaching was to nurture and build up the faith of God’s people. Notice that I continue to use the doublet “pulpit and preaching” because in the classical view, the pulpit was symbol or place where preaching illuminated the “Word of God!” This profound phrase meant the “Word or Logos” of God that is found in the words of Holy Scripture and illuminates the Word of God, Jesus. The phrase in Eucharistic Prayer A “Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again” reflects this classical view as expressed in the sacrament, but it also applies to the work of the pulpit. Theologically we can say that this demonstrates the unity of the work of “Word and Sacrament.” In other words, preaching was not a subset or servant of the sacrament but an equal. The division in the 79 Prayer Book between liturgy of the Word of God and the Holy Communion expressed the dual emphasis on both.

This is the viewpoint and tradition I was trained in 50 years ago. Feedback that I get from lay people is that my preaching is different, and they are right. My intention and methods serve the classical view. This does not mean that I do not understand the development of the current view or think that it is all wrong. I just think that it is inadequate for the task of preaching and the intentions of the expected results.

Now I am going to tell you something that few Episcopal clergy would ever admit, and quite frankly most of our newer ordained clergy do not even know. It is that we used to have outstanding preachers. These preachers were known not only in the Episcopal Church, but in the wider Christian community of North America.

Here are some examples and names worth remembering: John Claypool, Urban Holmes, John Coburn, John Hines, and, of course, their model, Philip Brooks. What did these episcopal clergy have in common? I would list:

All made their pulpit ministry the center of their work.

All served Churches known to call outstanding preachers that expected excellent preaching each Sunday.

 All thought theologically and used preaching to engage both the Church and the culture.

 All were known as outstanding preachers beyond TEC!

All followed the classical view of primarily doctrinal preaching.

None used the explain, explore, apply form for sermons.

All preached for at least 20 minutes.

The last Episcopal clergy person who fit these criteria was Barbara Brown Taylor. She was recognized by Baylor University (along with fellow Anglican John Stott) in their tribute to the Ten Best Preachers series twenty years ago.

Today, there are none! I contend that this is the consequence of factors that have led to Episcopal Preaching being what I identified at the beginning. In future blogs, I will be exploring these factors further. My aim is to inspire at least a handful of women and men to rediscover the Pulpit and Preaching from the classical view. I want to end this first evocative blog with an experience that I had more than 50 years ago.

I was a senior at Berkeley Divinity school the year it merged with Yale Divinity School. As a senior, I was eligible to take a fall course taught by our retired Dean. His name was Percy Urban. Dean Urban was in his 80s and taught this course every other year in retirement. Six of us would proceed once a week to his home where we would sit at his dining room table. There he would teach “Doctrinal Preaching.” It was an incredible experience. Each week two of us would bring a sermon on a Christian Doctrine. Dean Urban assigned the doctrine we were to preach on. We all preached twice during the term.

The method was simple. The first to preach would pass out copies of the sermon. As one student preached, the rest of us including Dean Urban would make notes on the manuscript before us. Then we would question the preacher and critique the sermon. We repeated this with the second sermon. After all the students had critiqued the two sermons, we would take a break. We headed to the parlor where Mrs. Urban would serve us tea and sherry. It felt very much like being in a Victorian home.

Following some social time, we would return to the dining room. There Dean Urban would make a few observations about the sermons we had heard. Then he would pass out his sermon on the topic. I keep dearly his sermon on “The Christian Doctrine of Human Nature.” Few today probably even know that there is a doctrine about human nature. We would sit in astonishment at his understanding and depth of knowledge of the Church’s historical teachings. For this blog, I want you to note that his expectation was that we would “go and preach likewise.” I have tried, often failed, but always remembered his example.

On the last day and in the last session, he concluded with these words. “Gentlemen, thank you for coming here this past semester. It means a great deal to me at my age. You bring me life. I thank you for it and wish all of you well.” We were speechless. He had brought us the riches of our faith.

Now that I have held up what we once had, I will share where we strayed from the task of preaching in my next blog.