Why do we have sermons?

10^th October 2010, The Anvil

This is the last in a sermon series that we have been having about various aspects of church and why we do them. In the series we have considered why we gather as church, why we sing songs, why we do Communion; and now, having sat through all those sermons, we will be looking at why do we have sermons.

Our reading this evening is a sermon in the Bible. (Acts 2:14-41)

What surprises me about this sermon is that it worked.  Sermons in general don’t seem to work that well. That sounds like a scary admission to make, and if I think that is true why do I bother preaching sermons? Good question. The fact is that in a week, especially when you consider Root Group, Youth Alpha, my Co-Motion, reading commentaries so I can send a Bible text-out most days, and other things I may have been invited to, I spend the majority of my time writing sermons. And I think that is right, I believe it is important. But I am all too aware of the reality – that when I look out on a Sunday evening some people don’t hold the sermon in as high regard as I do, mobile phones and what their neighbour has to say is more important.

Sermons are also almost instantly forgettable. If I asked you what the sermon was about at Food Church you might remember: Justice. Some of you might even remember some of the content – the fact that I wondered if there was difference between fairness and justice, and then spoke about how the people of Israel were oppressed and then became oppressors. But if I asked you what I preached on the week before you might struggle – it was Communion. You might remember because most of us were sat at the front of church nibbling bread whilst I preached. And the sermon looked at confession, the Eucharistic prayer, and then the bread and wine. But you may not remember sermons that stretch further back than that.

Of course there are exceptions. Some of us will have heard a sermon that we will never forget. Mine was on a youth residential a bit like Houseparty. The sermon was not particularly brilliant, it was about how God knew us before we were born. I think that for the first time I kind of knew that God loved me and that I wanted to live for him.

And so, in an analogy that you will have heard me use before, sermons are a little but like meals. Some of them we never forget. I remember a meal that Zoey and I had whilst on honeymoon with some friends in Rome. But most meals we forget about; I can’t remember what I had for dinner 3 nights ago, but I am glad that I ate it otherwise I would be hungry. So sermons might not always be memorable, but somehow they shape us.

Peter has a tough task for his sermon. He has to persuade a lot of people who think that he is very weird, because he has just been speaking in tongues, and who are Jewish and therefore believe that there is just one God in heaven, that a human being who was crucified by the Romans a few weeks ago was in fact God. And that Jesus is now alive again and with God in heaven. Not an easy task.  Peter does well, he speaks a language the Jews understand, using their own scriptures to make the point he is trying to make. However, so many people respond, that there must have been more than that…it is like there is more power in the words that Peter says than the words themselves and more presence in what is being said than could happen by the skilful crafting of the sermon by Peter…and that leads me to my first point:

1.    News from beyond us needs delivering aloud and face to face.

Not the snappiest point I have ever come up with, but here’s the vibez: Romans 10:14-17 says,

‘But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ But not all have obeyed the good news; for Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our message?’ So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.’

For some reason spoken word is important, hearing things prompts faith. Peter had a word from outside – this was not something that he had made up, it was Good News form God, And that Good News is so important it needs to be spoken out., and it needs to be done face-to-face, because the Holy Spirit in Peter was part of the message. I think there were a number of things which made Peter’s sermon work, and a number of reasons why sermons are important, but a key one is the fact that the Holy Spirit inspired Peter.  A sermon is more than words, it is the Word of God which inspires faith.

Why is that? I am not really sure, it is just the way that God works. In fact it is the way that God has always worked. If you read Genesis 1 verse 3 God speaks and the world literally comes about from the word that he speaks.

Knowing that should make the next bit obvious, but I guess it isn’t. There is a Hebrew word, it is dabar, it means word. But it also means events or deeds. Dabar means word-event, or event-words.

What is the significance of this? It means that when we speak the word of God it opens up new possibilities. It speaks of potential; it speaks of the way that God wants things to be. The description and speaking out of the way that God wants things to be creates opportunities. I am not meaning in the individualistic sense like we say something and God has to give us something or do something for us. That is not what God is about. I mean in the sense of changing the world.

Perhaps we have never thought of a sermon like that before, but if we believe, if we have faith, if we act, it can bring about God’s kingdom.

A good recent example of this is the trip I went on to India. I stood up in front of a room of Indian pastors – about 120 – and spoke a couple of times. No one fell over, there were not tongues of fire, nothing dramatic happened.

But in the past few years hundreds and hundreds of people in that area have been baptised. Not like baptised so they can go to the local church school, baptised as in renouncing their past, turning to God, running the risk of being persecuted by extremist Hindu’s and being disowned by their families because they have turned to Christ. Someone turns up, speaks the world of God in the power of the Spirit and deeds and events take place – that’s dabar.

You can see that in Jesus’ sermon in Luke’s Gospel when he preaches in Luke 4. And anyone who thinks going to church and hearing sermons is not important: pay attention to what Jesus does. He goes to the synagogue as was his custom. In other words every week he went to join a community of people in their worship of God. It mattered to Jesus.

Then, and as part of the worship that was going on, not just randomly, he preaches a sermon. This sermon has authority. Jesus knew his Scripture, he knows what they mean and how to handle them – he doesn’t just make this up on the spot.

And thirdly, he, like Peter, is empowered by the Holy Spirit to preach.  That is why he says, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in our hearing.’ Jesus is saying that the kingdom of God is here now, these aren’t just words, they are God’s words, full of the Spirit of God, they are deeds, they shape and change the world.

And the thing that happens here is my final point.

2.    Prophetic preaching

Jesus is preaching prophetically.

Amos 3:8 says,

‘The lion has roared—
       who will not fear?
       The Sovereign LORD has spoken—
       who can but prophesy?”

God has spoken to Jesus just like God spoke to the other prophets, and Jesus is compelled to preach. Prophetic sermons should be about understanding what is going on in the world and then interpreting and critiquing that according to God’s will.

Because of this preaching speaks to situations and powers which set themselves up against the Kingdom of God, and this is important. God’s word is action, and so when we preach and respond things happen.

In Ephesians we are told,

For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

When a sermon is preached in the power of the Spirit – and that by the way does not mean that it has to be interesting, it doesn’t mean that it has to be funny, it is not the same as a sermon being entertaining. When the prophets spoke to the nation of Israel and pronounced judgement on them because of their sin, they didn’t think, ‘That was a great sermon, I loved that personal anecdote you used – very funny. You should make some DVDs and see if you can sell them in Christian Bookshops.”

When a sermon is preached in the power of the Spirit, and when people listen – which is not the same as sitting in a room and hearing someone at the front say some stuff, it means actually listening, thinking about what it might mean for us, getting ready with a notepad because we are pretty sure that God is going to speak to us. Going home and writing a poem about it, praying a prayer, whatever.

When a sermon is preached in the power of the Spirit, and when people listen then their faith grows and a community of God grows. And that community speaks out and lives out against the rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world. And yes I do mean the devil, and as the kingdom of God grows, Satan retreats and gets mad, and the world becomes that which God wants it to be. But I also mean that media retreats, that drug use retreats, that injustice retreats, that bullying retreats, I mean that alcohol abuse retreats.

And that is prophetic preaching. I don’t have a beard because it is fun. I have a beard because I believe in prophetic preaching and so I have vowed to not drink alcohol for a year. Now in moderation there is nothing wrong with a nice glass of wine or a cool beer. But we live in a country where alcohol costs the NHS alone £2.7 billion in costs, alcohol related deaths have increased by 20% since 2001 and doubled since 1991, where 24% of adults, that is almost one in four, are classed as hazardous drinkers,.

We need prophetic preaching that declares an alternative reality to what is, after all, drug dependency albeit a legal drug. Yet in the church there are people who drink too much. More worryingly there are people, maybe some here, who go out in order to get drunk, that is there prime focus. We call is things like ‘letting our hair down’ and it has become so familiar a sin – because in the Bible we are expressly told not to get drunk – that we aren’t in much of a position to declare an alternate reality.

So prophetic preaching declares a counter-future, it says this is not the way that things should be. And so our sermons need to not be too influenced by culture, they need to proclaim that counter-culture as God’s reality.

Just as when we pray we need to be ready to become the answer to that prayer, so do when the dabar of God is declared that we need to be ready to live out that counter reality, for our lives to reflect the sermon.

Now if a sermon was my clever words that would be an outrageous thing to say – you should live as I say. But if a sermon is prophetic, if it is dabar, if it is the word of God, then sermons become important. Much more important than whether they are entertaining or not, more important than hearing this funny thing that happened to me the other day, more important than my personality and charisma shining thorough, more important than not offending anyone who might be gathered to hear.

It gives life and creates.

So what are the issues we should be speaking out on? What are the sermons that we should be living?

I hope our words will be deeds, and that we will be counter-cultural, set apart, living prophetic lives. Amen.

To respond, think of the sermons we need to be and write them down on a piece of paper. These are not sermons I should preach, these are sermons we should live.