Reflecting Together on Preaching

with the CPGI Director, Dr. Matt Aragon Bruce

While recruiting for the CGPI program, one of the comments I often hear from those who have been recommended to the program is that they can’t imagine themselves as a preacher. I don’t know how many times I have heard some version of, “I don’t know enough,” “I’m not a good speaker,” or “I’m not holy enough” – i.e., some form of the excuse that I am not in the same category as a pastor and thus am not qualified to preach. Yet, at the same time many of the people I talk to have an itch to serve the church by preaching (and I often have to tell them that that itch is the Holy Spirit!).

The Book of Order, one of our great Presbyterian treasures (!), has several wonderful things to say about the sermon and preaching, but the following always gives me pause: “A sermon, based on the Scripture(s) read in worship, proclaims the good news of the risen Lord and presents the gift and calling of the Gospel. Through the sermon, we encounter Jesus Christ in God’s Word, are equipped to follow him more faithfully, and are inspired to proclaim the gospel to others through our words and deeds” (W-3.0305, emphasis mine). This notion, that we encounter Jesus Christ himself in the sermon, is a central tenet of the Reformed Tradition going back to John Calvin and even beforehand to some of the earlier Reformed Confessions. From the start, the Reformers wrote about the proclamation of Scripture in the sermon in a manner quite similar, purposively so, to how the Catholic tradition understands the Lord’s Supper! Namely, that a realencounter with Jesus himself occurs when the Word of God is faithfully proclaimed. Such a notion should give us comfort: we really do encounter Jesus, God is with us, when the Word is preached!

But this notion is intimidating too. At least for the preacher! Whenever I walk up into the pulpit, the idea that I am to be the instrument through which the congregation is to encounter Jesus Christ himself (!) makes me wonder what business I have to take the next step. And I know I am not the only one who so pauses – nearly ever preacher mentor and role model (in the flesh or in an old book) that I have had in my life has said something about being intimidated by the awesomeness of the task that is preaching. We thus do well to take the time to not only prepare our sermons carefully and studiously, but we ought to invest time in training to become faithful preachers, including not only how to interpret the Bible and to read it with the Reformed Tradition, but also to practice reading Scripture publicly, to master the basics of public speaking, to learn to tell stories well, and more (hint, hint)!

But we also do well to remember that God is with us, i.e. with we preachers, too! Jesus promises that he will always be with us and moreover that he sends the Holy Spirit to us as our advocate (John 14.16). Recall that the very disciples to whom Jesus made this promise were later so scared that they were hiding behind locked doors until the Holy Spirit drove them out. This was after Jesus promised them that the Holy Spirit would even give them words to say (Matt. 10.19-20)!

So, we are in good company if we pause before the enormity of the task before us when we step into the pulpit. But preachers too encounter Jesus in the sermon. Those of us so blessed to preach encounter Jesus in the congregation to whom we are tasked to preach (Matt 25.), moreover we encounter him with us in the pulpit, and also before it as we study and prepare the Word we are tasked to proclaim. Often, the sermons we are called to give end up being the word that we too need to hear in the moment. As Karoline Lewis writes, in one of the books our CGPI participants read: “The preaching life embodies a way of being in the world that, at every turn, anticipates God will show up. When preachers take the incarnation seriously, in many respects our calling becomes rather simple: we move about in the world, in our lives, pointing to God’s activity, witnessing to what God is up to in the world” (A Lay Preacher’s Guide, p. 125). So, whenever that pause comes and the question, “What am I doing getting into this pulpit,” echoes in our minds, remember that we are called to preach only as disciples of Jesus, pointing the congregation away from ourselves and to Jesus alone. Amen.