I have spoken about this a number of times before, but it rarely stops needing a new airing. Preaching can be a difficult business. It can be hard work reading, preparing, trying to understand the passage on its terms and trying to wrap our head around the commentaries we have that are at least supposed to shed some light on the passage at hand.
Hard as that is, that is not where the work stops. Once we have some understanding of the passage, we have to think about how we are going to present what it says. What are the big things, the central things, the key idea(s) the author is clearly driving home? How do we centre our message on these things? How do the different bits of the passage speak into the main concern of the author? We have to think about these things.
Once we’ve figured out how we might present it in structural terms, we need to think about how we will present the details. What language will best communicate these things to the people in front of us? What illustrations will land best? How we present the sermon is more than a matter of getting three connected points together. The language and the illustrations we use all communicate helpfully or unhelpfully. We need to think about pacing, style of speech and listenability.
We also have to think about the implications and applications of this pasage for the people in front of us. Implications are easier because they are things that flow naturally out of the passage for everybody; but we do have to figure out what these things are. Applications are a bit harder because we have to think about how what this says – along with its evident implications – apply to the specific situations of the people in front of us: the asylum seeker who has to think how this stuff applies to him when his case just failed, the single mum wondering what this means for her having been told she is desperately ill, the guy who has to think he’s meant to do with this as he heads into his office on Monday. On and on we have to think how this applies specifically to these people.
As we know, not every sermon will be a perfect 10. Some of them will be clearer than others. Some will be better constructed. Some will be more helpfully applied. Some will be more interesting. We may occasionally smash all these things at the same time; more likely (and more often) we won’t. Most our sermons are likely to be reasonably average, not too bad, 6 on 10s. Credible enough, but hardly earth-shattering.
Which brings me to the question I am reeling around to: what do you want from a sermon? What is the baseline expectation from a sermon? What ground do we have for determining that what we heard was alright? Let me give two baselines and then a brief comment for what to do when we’re struggling to achieve it as preachers.
Do I understand this?
The most basic question to ascertain whether a sermon has accomplished what it needs to is this: do I understand what this passage means? If you come away from a sermon and are absolutely none the wiser as to what this passage means on any level, the preacher really has not done the most basic part of the job.
That doesn’t mean you will understand every detail. It doesn’t mean all your questions will necessarily be answered. But if you come away and can say ‘the main point of that passage is X’ then the preacher has hit this baseline. If you come away and cannot tell what this passage is mainly about or the main concern of the author, the preacher has not.
Do I know what to do with this?
The second baseline of a decent sermon is good application. It is not good explaining in great detail what this particular passage says if, by the end of the sermon, everyone is still wondering what this has to do with anything. What good is it telling everyone about the resurrection of Jesus, the New Heavens and New Earth, the qualifications for eldership or the arguments about circumcision and the New Covenant if nobody has any clue what these things mean for them and their lives? If, at the end of the sermon, everybody is still asking ‘so what?’ then the preacher hasn’t realy done his job.
That doesn’t mean every issue will be addressed. Nor does it mean that every individual will have a personal application in every sermon that is specifically tailored to them. But it does mean every person in the congregation must understand, on some level, what this passage means for them and what they need to do with it in their own lives. Whether they can extrapolate from several examples to their own situation or whether the applications are pointed enough to be directly applicable but broad enough to cover a range of potential circumstances, some effort must be made to address the ‘so what?’ question. If you come away from the sermon and can say you understand what it is calling you, personally, to do then this baseline has been hit. If you can’t, the preacher might have not quite done what he ought.
What if the preacher is struggling?
Sometimes, we have to accept the preacher might struggle with these things. They look at the passage and just aren’t entirely sure. They come up with their understanding as best they are able but they can’t think what on earth it has to say to those in front of them. It happens to the best of us. What can we do when it happens? I think a few things.
Where we are caught up in details and aren’t sure what they mean, it is usually a good idea to zoom out and focus on the clearer broad lines. We may not understand what this particular bit means, but we might have a clearer idea about the broad general thrust. It pays to centre on the clearer elements because this is more likely to be the key point.
Where we only have the broad brush thrust – we can just about see the main point but not much more – it can be helpful to state the point up front and then build your sermon around different applications of the clear point. Rather than trying to force points or structures that we just aren’t clear about ourselves, it is better to stick with the clear and then seek to apply it. Our sermon will be more helpful that way.
It is never a good idea to pad a sermon and waffle on about things we aren’t clear about. If we aren’t clear, we aren’t clear. Nobody is going to want to listen to our unclear, unstructured, disconnected waffle on something that we all are clear you do not understand very well. Best not to do this and, if we are stuck, focus back on the things that are clear.
Whilst I would not advocate doing this regularly, if you really are struggling, it is not altogether wrong to use a commentary and stick relatively closely to what they say because you are not able to work it out yourself. I would be worried if somebody did this every time they preached. After all, we can all read that commentary ourselves if we want. Moreover, constantly doing this suggest you constantly cannot figure these things out and might suggest an inability and unfitness to preach altogether. But where we are out of our depth, it is not a regular practice and we need some clarity, I would rather listen to somebody who is relaying (in effect) what has come from th most compelling commentary than they just waffled on without structure or credibility in such a way as it was evident they just do not know what they’re talking about.