Preaching - sermon or essay or attempt

By Donald Phillipps in All Sorts

reflections on what a great sermon is for

PREACHING - SERMON or ESSAY or ATTEMPT
Frederick Denison Maurice was a notable Victorian churchman - a philosopher and teacher - he was later in his career appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge. He was one of the promoters and founders of The Working Men's College and the Working Women's College in London. He threw himself with great energy into all that affected the social life of the people. Working men of all opinions seemed to trust him, and he had a 'power of attracting both the zealot and the outcast.' The movement known as Christian Socialism was an outcome of his teaching. He was a social reformer before his time - a man in touch with the world you might think.
A contemporary of his once recalled that he had gone 'to hear F.D.Maurice preach at Lincoln's Inn. I suppose I must have heard him, first and last, some thirty or forty times, and never carried away one clear idea, or even the impression that he had more than the faintest conception of what he himself meant.' Another said that listening to him was 'like eating pea-soup with a fork', and the great Oxford scholar, Benjamin Jowett, when asked what a sermon that Maurice has just preached before the University was about, replied, "Well! All that I
could make out was that today was yesterday, and this world the same as the next."'
What is a sermon? I'll begin by saying it is an essay. That's a word that was first used by a French author over 400 years ago. It meant, then, merely an "attempt." It pointed toward the experimental nature of the essay - a process of trying something out.
It still exercises a huge attraction for writers, to whom it brings 'miniature joys'. What about the readers? It's small enough to fit in their pocket. At its best it doesn't attempt to sew things up once and for all, and it can be an alternative to the dogmatism that dominates much of our social and political life. An essay 'accommodates our insecurities, our self-absorption, our simple pleasures, our unnerving questions and the need to compare and share our experiences with other humans.'
A writer has suggested that the weakest component in today's essay is its 'meditative deficiency'. Without that meditative aspect, an essay tends towards an unwillingness to commit, a 'timid deferral' of the moment of choice, an avoidance of interrogating things we've touched upon.
If those are, in fact, are true reflections on the literary essay, what about the sermon as an essay. The true sermon doesn't ever finally dismiss those hard things, those insecurities, those unnerving questions out of hand. The preacher may put them aside temporarily, and then, on another occasion, in another sermon/essay, summon up again the unanswered question, the puzzle, turning it this way and that in a different light, seeing what sense it now makes. Preaching isn't about profit or progress. It doesn't propose a solution to life but rather puts endless questions to it.
It can be a dangerous business - as when the questions the preacher poses become questions about political or theological orthodoxy. Richard Wurmbrand, the great Romanian Christian, in his Tortured for
Christ wrote - 'It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their [the communists' ] terms. It was a deal; we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching. They were happy beating us, so everyone was happy."
But is it true that the preacher, or the sermon, doesn't propose a 'solution to life'?
This Connections article, this 'essay', as I would dare call it, is by way of a reflection on the sermon delivered last Sunday at Knox Church by Lord Leslie Griffiths. I believe we heard preaching at its Methodist best. He told us in advance what it was going to be about - 'The World is our parish - faith in a global context.' The title comforted us because we heard in it an echo of John Wesley. The preacher was true to his word. From his wealth of experience - on a cricket field in South Wales, in Haiti, at City Road, in the House of Lords, he turned important ideas, human questions, world events, into recognizable people and places and truths. He did, in fact, what Jesus was remembered for - he told memorable stories. And all of these were about his chosen theme - that the faith to which we hold encompasses the world - no one in our world is beyond the reach of God, or beyond the peace of God.
Does preaching hold a solution to life? Paul claimed it did - "We preach Christ crucified....' I heard a strong echo of that last Sunday. At the very end of his preaching Leslie Griffiths presented Jesus of Nazareth to us - not as an unanswerable question - but as an answer, even the answer, to our questions. Any sermon is an essay, an attempt to present Jesus. It will never be the last word - it can never claim to be the ultimate answer. But sometimes, just sometimes, we catch a glimpse.
Donald Phillipps