RECIPROCITY

If one spends any time around live stage actors, one is likely to hear them talking about their interaction with the audience. They will talk about how the energy or response of the audience feeds them as actors. The same can be heard from musicians and comics.

If the ones on stage “phone in” their performance (lacking energy or authenticity) the audience will be flat, and likely to thin out at the intermission. Any performance which is monotonous, delivered as if the audience were a blank wall, will leave the audience wondering why they bothered to show up.

On the other hand, if the audience is tired, troubled, distracted, or disinterested there will be little, if any, response no matter how hard the performers are working. The performers call it a “dead house.” When this is the case it can drag down the performance.

It used to be the advice to preachers, “do not put any emphasis into the reading of the Scriptures, nor into the sermon. Let the naked words speak for themselves.” The congregation sat blankly, sang a hymn of two and went home. Ironically, during this model of worship, attendance was at its highest in the last seventy-five years. But that was before television and the proliferation of action films.

It is hard work being a preacher. In general, people no longer will sit still of a thirty-minute expository sermon, no matter how eloquently it is delivered. It seems the preference is for short, pithy, humorous sermons which leave the congregation feeling good. Above all, the preacher must not overtly offend anyone. It is hard work crafting a sermon which will speak very subtly to the social issues of the day. Maybe, preachers need to telegraph their punch before the sermon by saying, “Let those with ears to hear, hear.” (Mark 4:9, Revelation 2:7)

I was once doing a presentation, after a trip to Rwanda following the genocide. I compared the radio spokespeople who, over time, stirred up the divisions between the Hutu and Tutsi populations to Rush Limbaugh stirring up divisions in our own populations. One couple immediately got up and walked out. Later, the husband angrily told me I was out of line, and that such political comments were inappropriate in church.

I am convinced preachers must follow one of the ordination vows when preparing and delivering a sermon: Will you pray for and seek to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love? (Book of Order W-4.4003 h) All four elements of this vow are critical to preaching, today. Energy is required if we are to move the congregation from where they are to where God is calling them. Intelligence is required if we are faithfully to interpret and proclaim the whole of Scripture. Imagination is required if we are to see beyond the thick veil of our context, and if we are to help the congregation to see beyond it also. Love is required because if we did not love God and the congregation we are called to serve there would be no reason to engage in the foolishness of preaching.

https://www.wayostccs.com/