Stewardship?

So this stewardship guy gets up and chides the seminaries for not teaching stewardship, suggesting that this is the reason our offerings are low. I'm sitting in the back of the room thinking, Nope.

I don't preach stewardship sermons. Ever. You know, the standard "Look at all Jesus has done for you, now what are you going to give Him in return?" I've always had a sense that your basic stewardship sermon is really a neatly disguised (or not-so-neatly, if you've heard it all before) plea for cash. The old "time, talents, and treasures" outline was really nothing but a ruse. You knew you were really only shooting for that last one about the treasures. The time and talents part was a way of trying to convince people that the whole stewardship gig was really oh, so much more than money. Bah. It's all about money, and who is being fooled?

Anyhow, I don't preach them. Once long ago, a fellow pastor, on hearing me say this, complained, "Well, what are you going to replace them with?!" To which I, having just seen the old black-and-white Luther film with a similar scene, replied, "Christ!"

But to return to the point, there was a false premise in this guy's question. I don't know about you, but our offerings are not low. I mean, overall they're not anything great, because our parish is rather small, but when that factor is taken into account, our people do quite well, I'd say. And why? Because they love their parish. They rejoice over the preaching of Christ in their church. They want to see their church thrive and the Gospel to be given free course, to the joy and edifying of Christ's holy people.

Eat your heart out, stewardship guy. I don't preach stewardship sermons. And my people are really exemplary in their offerings. Can you explain that? I can.

The Preacher, IV: Nothing Personal. Please.

Today I was led to Fr. Greg Alms' marvelous little post on preaching, whose title says it all: "A Continuing Guide to the Self Delusion of Preachers."

I'd like to highlight these two points he makes:

3.A.
Preachers know that 90 percent of personal stories in sermons overpower and obscure the theological point being made.

3.B.
90 percent of preachers believe their personal stories are effective homiletical tools.

My guess, preacher, is that if you're one who likes to tell personal anecdotes as a staple of your sermons, you will likely never admit, even to yourelf, that your personal stories obscure the Gospel. And that, dear preacher, is because of your sin.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as much of a sinner as you are, but by the grace of God I am what I am: a preacher of the Gospel. Have you not read St. Paul? We preach not ourselves, he says most clearly. So why do you think it's ok to go preach yourself? We don't want to hear about you. And frankly, we don't want to hear your little make-believe anecdotes about somebody else, either. Is it too much to ask you you preach Christ?

Sometimes I have heard preachers do nothing but string stories end to end and call it a sermon, and I'm not exaggerating.

Preacher, consider the sermons in the book of Acts. You don't see St. Peter telling personal stories.

For that matter, consider Jesus' own preaching. Now his device is the parable, which, to be sure, is a kind of story. But these stories arise out of the rabbinic mold, and as such are themselves rich in content; and they're certainly not personal ones.

The typical American sermon has become the heart of all banality. I'm amazed that people can sit through such insults to their intelligence, and then tell the preacher what a great sermon he had today, when all they heard was trite little ditties like Little Johnny was lost in the wood for hours one night; his father went out searching for hours; and when he finally found his son sleeping under a thin blanket of snow, he awoke, stretched, and exclaimed, "Oh Daddy, I found you at last!" Who found whom?

Oh, gag me! Preacher, stop reading Herman Gockel, will you? Or whatever books you're looking at to get your little extended metaphors.

When you tell them, you'll surely impress some of your hearers, but alas, you've just wasted valuable preaching time in which you could have been delving into the mysteries of the Sacred Page.

So some will tell you how wonderful your stories are. Preacher, listen, they're probably just being nice. Either that, or they really need some serious catechesis in the Gospel, which is infinately richer than tripe about little Johnny!

You want to use some stories to illustrate your point? Fine. How about using a great book I've found that's chock full of them. It's called the Old Testament. You want to illustrate divine grace? How about using Gideon's army, or David the shepherd-boy. The point there is that the victories were not gained by the strength of man. See? There are the stories you may use to your heart's content. And you'll be teaching them Bible stories to boot!

Stop preaching yourself, or your own little time-wasting anecdotes. Preach Christ instead.

The Preacher, III

I don't write sermons, I preach them.

This is related to my previous Preacher post, a corollary, really. For, as I believe to be well established, the Gospel is primarily meant to be proclaimed aloud before it is understood as something written down. This I have claimed and demonstrated in the previous post (Faith cometh by hearing, etc.), and Blessed Martin Luther has also shown. In his postil for the First Sunday in Advent, he explains that the meaning of Bethphage is "mouth-house," and goes on to explain that the Church is the mouth-house of God. The Gospel is meant to be proclaimed aloud.

So, although the Gospel certainly can be written down, and is written down, yet this is not the mode that is to be preferred for it.

Agreed, everyone?

If so, then perhaps we could also begin to suggest--in spite my awareness of the opposition of a long list of preachers whom I admire and respect--that the preferred mode for the entire process of the making and delivery of a sermon might also be oral and not written.

I do not preach from a manuscript, as many who know me are aware. And I rarely carry any notes into the pulpit.

I admit that I did so for a dozen years or so before I began preaching, as it were, without a net. But since then I have adopted the method of preparation that I understand to have been the method of St. Augustine. He did not write his sermons either. He mused, he meditated, perhaps several times, on the pericope appointed, and then he preached it.

There's a story of how once Augustine was supposed to preach on a certain psalm, but by some mistake the psalm read prior to his preaching turned out to be a different one than he expected. But after making a brief reference to this error, he simply went on to preach the psalm for which he was unprepared.

There's a saying that you can't understand what someone is saying until you know what he's talking about. This is most especially true of the Sacred Scriptures. And conversely, if you know what the Scriptures are talking about, you will have an easier time knowing what they are saying, and you will be the more capable of owning it, and preaching it.

I have heard the arguments in favor of a written sermon manuscript, and I often have found myself halfheartedly agreeing that there are many benefits. Indeed a preacher who is unprepared, or who, shall we say, has "an impediment in his speech" (St. Mark 7), might well be advised not to do what I am proposing here. After all, this is why Luther wrote his postils: not for himself (for he also preached without a manuscript), but for others to preach, who did not have the requisite capability.

But Preacher, I bid you to strive for excellence.

A friend of mine once commented that in order to preach without a manuscript, one must get into a zone. This is true. You must become united with the words on which you are preaching. If you don't understand them all (which is sometimes to be expected), don't preach on the parts you don't understand. On the rest, get into your zone.

Learn to own the Gospel on which you preach. Make it your own. Let it edify you in mind and soul as you meditate on it. Find yourself encouraged by it. Then find a way to put this into words. And then, learn to master the words you speak. Learn the art not of producing a sermon manuscript, but of preaching. Invest your energy in the latter rather than the former.

To be sure, sometimes my sermons are less than I'd like them to be. But the same can be said of manuscripts, as far as that goes. And, on the other hand, if I am not bound to a manuscript, I sometimes pick up things I had missed in my preparation, right during Mass, and have the freedom to incorporate them into the sermon. As I read the Gospel aloud for the people, I might notice something else, especially now that it is found in the midst of the live setting of its hearers, and within the context of the liturgy.

All of this takes work, of course. It is a developed skill, and it presupposes many learned techniques about public speaking.

Preacher, strive for excellence. Make it your aim to learn how to preach.

The Preacher, II

Don't say "our text."

As in, "Our text for today . . ." Or in, "this is what our text is saying . . ."

In the first place, it is a bad idea to refer to the Gospel as a "text." A text is something written down, but, as Blessed Martin Luther said, the Gospel is primarily an oral thing, something proclaimed and not written. Jesus never wrote anything down. So therefore, although there are written Gospels, and certainly the Gospel in written form is valid and powerful, yet this is not the primary form in which it is to be used. Faith comes by hearing, says the Apostle. Therefore especially when preaching, we are in the business of proclaiming out loud the good news of salvation. This is not the time to be calling attention to a text.

Although we are certainly bound to the truth of the Biblical text as we proclaim the Gospel--it is our norm--still the power of the Gospel we preach is not dependent upon our making known that we have derived the message therefrom. The power is in the message itself, as it springs out of the mouth of the preacher and into the hearing of the people. This power is no text, and we belie this truth when we refer to the Gospel as a text.

Secondly, when the preacher says "our text," he is really meaning by the word "our" to be saying that it is under "our" consideration. Yet it is really the preacher alone who is considering this Gospel, and explicating it for the people. When he says "our" he really means "my." But that would sound too jarring, somehow too pompous. "Our" softens the blow. Yet the fact is that the preacher is here still meaning to say, "the text on which I am preaching." If he wishes to avoid inserting himself here, it would be better to say, simply, "This Gospel," as Luther does, or something similar.

"Our text" is a cliche. It's just another throwaway line. It's pedantic and dull. And so it turns off the ears. And "text" sends altogether the wrong message. Don't say it, preacher.

The Preacher, I

Here begins what I expect to be a series of snippets and notes regarding preaching. Not snippets of sermons, so much as of technique and sermon construction and delivery.

There is no particular rhyme or reason to the order of the snippets, much as is the case with life itself, I guess.

The first such snippet is simply this:

Never say "you see." This applies not only to preaching, but to writing and instruction in general, I'd say.

"You see" is condescending, if only as an implication. It says, sit here and pay heed to me you impoverished little underlings. You uneducated infants, you poor souls who require my personal wisdom if you are to get anywhere.

For instance, never do this:

"Martha was troubled about many things, unlike her sister Mary. You see, there's a kind of anxiety that sets in when we get too . . ."

I'd suggest that "you see" is really not meant to be "you see" when it's used like this. It's a throw-away, almost rather like "you know." But while "you know" is only annoying as a repetitive substitution for "um," "you see" is more than that, I think. It's the verbal equivalent of stroking the beard, or making a tent with the fingers. It's condescending. Don't say it, preacher. Just preach.