January 27, 2008
The Rev. James Richardson

Isaiah 9:1-4
1 Corinthians 1: 10-18
Matthew 4: 12-23

This morning, I am not giving a sermon. Instead, I want to explain what I believe makes a sermon a sermon, and a little about how I go about preparing a sermon.

First, I have to mention that letter by Paul to the Corinthians we just heard where he says “I only baptized two people,” but “there was one more, and maybe some others I don’t remember.” Paul reminds me of first editor in the newspaper world – Norman – who would say things like “I only want you to do two things – except for two other things I want you to do, and I want you to do some other things that I’ve forgotten about.” Norman and Paul were exactly alike.

To return to my subject, by definition, every preacher does this differently, so I am offering you a personal reflection of my view of preaching. In my opinion, at its most basic level, good preaching should do two things (besides entertain you): Good preaching should, first, make the ancient story come alive as our story, and, second, good preaching should declare how we share in God’s blessing found in that story. Please remember these two concepts – remembering and blessing because we will revisit these two concepts when we get to the Eucharistic prayer later in the liturgy.

First, the remembering: As I mentioned earlier, we have sat around the campfire – the candlesticks – and we’ve heard the ancient story from the Bible about how God saved God’s people. Good preaching finds a way to make that story our story, in our own time and place. Otherwise, in all candor, these ancient stories would be of interest primarily only to historians and bibliophiles. Making the story our story is a very Jewish way of hearing the ancient words, by remembering the story as if it were happening to us, right now.

There are a variety of ways to connect to the ancient story, for example by telling a contemporary story that echoes the ancient story. Or sometimes by telling a joke or an anecdote. Notice that when I told you about my first editor, Norman, I was doing that – I was connecting myself to the story.

The second thing good preaching should do is covey God’s blessing. How are we blessed? What is it in the gospel that blesses us? The word gospel, as Mary Louise said earlier, means “good news.” So where is the good news – the blessing – in the gospel story today?

Have a look at today’s gospel lesson, and perhaps try to write the sermon for yourself. Ask yourself: How is the story my story? How do all of us become a part of the story by remembering it as our own? Today’s gospel is about Jesus gathering the disciples from an ordinary, work-a-day group of people. How do you connect to that story? Second, where is the blessing, the good news in this story? How have you been gathered as a group, as a disciple in a work-a-day world? Is there a blessing in that?

And there is one more thing: The blessing may come with a challenge. What challenge does this blessing of the gathering of disciples present to us in the gospel story today? As I write my sermons for you, those are the kinds of questions I ask myself. Often I look at lexicons and biblical commentaries to see the meaning of particular words and phrases as they are translated from the original Hebrew or Greek into English. But I don’t do that to give you an academic lecture. Rather, there are layers of meaning in the text that are lost in the translation, and that may jog me a certain direction as I write a sermon.

A sermon should have good scholarship underneath it that will help me as a preacher find an entry point for you the listener. If I am really good, you might not even notice that I did that work. Before I prepare a sermon, I look at the biblical lessons and I ask myself if they remind me of an experience, or a topical issue. I try to let the biblical text push me into places I might not have thought would have theological meaning.

I find it immensely helpful to read the story with someone else – my wife, Lori almost always comes up with an insight that leads me into the biblical story in a new way. Truthfully, the best way to read the Bible is sharing it with others or in a group. Finally, every preacher who stands before you brings his or her own story into the larger story of the people of God. Sometimes I am very explicit in telling you my own story. At other times, my story is implicit within the sermon. It may not be obvious, but my story is there simply in the way I preach, and that is true for every preacher.

In my own preaching, usually I try to start light and bring you gradually into the sermon, moving you a little deeper, one step at a time. The spoken word is truly different than the written word, and that is where preaching becomes an art form, and where the Holy Spirit comes to speak to all of us. Preaching, ultimately, is story telling, and preaching that works is preaching where your story and my story find common ground in the words that I speak and the words that you hear.

I end every sermon with “Amen,” because, ultimately, I view every sermon as a prayer. The word Amen means “truly,” and so I must acknowledge to you that I find it a little presumptuous to declare that I have, in fact, spoken truly. So it is with thanks to you for your patience in listening, and thanks to the Holy Spirit for pushing me along, that I can even presume to say: Amen.

Truly.