For various reasons which I cannot explain here, I no longer preach in church. Like the other members of the congregation in my local parish, I sit in the pew and seek edification from the sermons that are presented. I make here no generalised comment about the sermons I hear, but I do confess to having one frequent distracting thought. This is perhaps to be expected in a retired preacher. The question I often have in my mind is this: If I had the responsibility for preaching today, which aspects of the readings would I wish to explore in a sermon?
These musings normally have a congregation of just one, so I thought it would be interesting to see whether my thoughts of today (November 7th) could be turned into a blog post. In other words, I offer today notes on a sermon that was in my mind, but which was not in fact preached.
In our church we used the three readings for the third Sunday before Advent. The first was the account of Jonah preaching to the enormous city of Nineveh, where, much to his chagrin, the people repented, making God’s destruction of the city unnecessary. The second was a passage from Hebrews 9 and the third was the account of Mark describing the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Here Jesus announces the nearness of the kingdom of God and the need for repentance.
I have always found the Epistle to the Hebrews a work full of fascinating insights. I once had to read and study it thoroughly as it was a set text at university. At the very beginning of these studies, I was greatly relieved to be released by all the commentaries from having to suppose that the epistle was written by Paul. My NEB version simply refers to it as ‘a letter to Hebrews’. The consensus is that the author is an anonymous writer, possibly from Alexandria, working in a distinctive Hellenised Jewish culture. Nothing in the actual text requires us to ascribe it to Paul himself.
Although a very early date is sometimes suggested for the epistle to Hebrews, theologically speaking the gospels always take precedence over the epistles. In Mark’s reading we have those intriguing words of Jesus: ‘the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe the good news’. Members of a congregation will have heard these words many times before, but the preacher needs to suggest that it is very easy for us to misinterpret or read our own meanings into these words. It is important to ponder what the kingship or rule of God might involve. The effort to interpret these words will necessitate some exercise of the imagination. As a place to start, I would suggest that the kingdom of God is quite simply that place where God’s rule or will is in operation. The important thing is that we think of the kingdom as an active reality, a power, a dynamic moving towards us in the words and actions of Jesus, seeking to claim our allegiance and attention. The act of receiving this movement of God towards us requires that we turn to face him. The 180 degree turn is what is implied in this much misunderstood word translated ‘repent’. The word is a translation of the Greek word ‘metanoeite’. This word implies much more than the English word repent suggests. There is this further meaning of openness and receptivity. In other words, Jesus is telling us to be open and alert to a new movement of God which his ministry is inaugurating. It is not only a movement located to a particular moment in time. God’s kingdom is to be a constant reality in our lives. This reality has come near and every time we close our eyes in prayer or worship we may encounter it. We should also increasingly learn to be sensitised to kingdom reality in our relationships, especially in those who need our help. The saying of Jesus which begins ‘Inasmuch as you did it to the least …..’ comes to mind, One visual illustration of this process would be to liken receiving the kingdom as being like getting into a river and allowing the water to rush right over our heads, so that we are thoroughly drenched with it.
The second part of the address would be an attempt to link the Hebrews passage to Mark’s account of the Kingdom. Probably, for time reasons, I could not do this in the course of a single sermon. But there is one central point in the Hebrews epistle which I believe needs to be grasped by members of a congregation. Most people trying to read this epistle are thoroughly defeated by the extensive typology of Jewish sacrifice with which the book is loaded. But there is one simple reality which the book is trying to share with us, even though the language it uses is often highly complex and convoluted. ‘ Jesus entered heaven’, Hebrews tells us, ‘now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf’. This one sentence sums the whole argument of the book in the space of a few words. What is it saying? It is saying that Jesus in his death and resurrection comes with us into God’s presence. The words ‘with us’ are key. Humanity, that of Jesus and of ourselves, is caught up in this movement towards God. Somehow God accepts us because we are in him. As the old communion hymn puts it, ‘look on us as found in him’.
To put this Hebrews message even more simply, I would remind my audience of an experience of going to see someone important when a child. The child is in awe of the powerful person, the new headmaster or some other exalted being whom they have not yet met. The situation is, however, rectified because someone elects to accompany the child as he/she enters the august presence. Metaphorically we hold the hands of our protector so that we can meet the important person with our head held high. Our weakness and nervousness caused by our extreme youth is counteracted by having the hand of our protector to hold. Something like this is being described in Hebrews. Jesus is the one who opens the door, holds our hand and stands alongside us as we come into the presence of God himself. In a small way this happens every time we pray or receive the sacrament. The promise of Hebrews is that this support or solidarity with us is a permanent reality so that we, with all who identify with Christ, can ultimately hope to be united with God in a dimension of light and glory beyond time and space.
The message of the sermon that was not preached last Sunday is that there are two distinct modes of encounter with God in Christ on the Christian journey. One is as we encounter him moving towards us in the divine mystery we describe as the Kingdom. The other is in and through the act of our identification with Christ in his ascent to heaven. Because we belong to him, identify with him, we can share his access to the Father. Both movements towards Christ by a Christian pilgrim are outside time. Because we think in literal terms, we might want to describe these encounters with God using the language of space – up and down. Such spatial ideas must never be taken too literally but the language of symbol can often help us to grasp divine realities.
This blog post is probably aimed more at the audience with which I started eight years ago in 2013 than the more recent readers. These early followers were the Christian survivors for whom faith had been made hard by authoritarian dogmatism or those who had been treated appallingly by their leaders in acts of abuse. Those who find my reflections helpful on this blog may value these attempts explain my way through the numerous stumbling blocks that Christianity is so good at erecting to confuse and discourage us. This would-be sermon is offered to any who need encouragement to see things a little more clearly along their Christian pilgrimage.
Some scholars believe that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by Priscilla, or perhaps by Priscilla and Aquila together. The argument is set out here (among other places): https://www.cbeinternational.org/resource/article/priscilla-papers-academic-journal/priscilla-author-epistle-hebrews
This version of the argument for Priscilla is both scholarly and readable. I have to say that I for one find it convincing, although of course we will never know for sure.
We may one day! That’s a nice thought.
It’s good to read Stephen’s regular articles here, and if these are not good “sermons” I don’t know what are!
Is the old fashioned preach an anachronism? I’d been asking myself this for years. In my youth we’d hear sermons from “great preachers” (we were told) and many of these I couldn’t understand or lost concentration for. In later years I found myself scanning what was being said for anything new; anything at all.
Covid 19 taught us that churches could be completely closed down and fire wouldn’t fall down from heaven at the lack of sermons or our attempts to worship God.
Of course information and ideas are almost completely freely available now, as is education, in our society at least. But at one time, the priest might have been the only educated man in the village. In those days the need for a sermon was far more obvious.
One thing I do miss, is a leader who engages with the needs and issues of their people. I don’t mean a sermon where the speaker highlights a known individual and targets this person’s shortcomings from the pulpit. Clumsy and weak that. I mean a savvy grasp of the issues facing this particular community in the context of the rest of God’s kingdom and connecting with society as as a whole. Not so much a talk as a pastoring of a flock. Less of an essay, and more of a letter from a friend.
An acquaintance of mine freely admitted he used the sermon time to catch up on sleep after a busy week, and relaxing with the children in crèche. I confess myself to using the time to plan my next diy project. Sorry Lord.
Something tells me the sermon is here to stay, until the very last person has left the room. And many are still very good.
Seeing a good speaker live still has the edge, but the internet gives choice and specificity.
Joel Edwards of the Evangelical Alliance used to say, ‘Preach about what everyone is talking about.’ That’s a pretty good motto.
When preaching I generally followed the lectionary, but did try to relate the readings to what was on people’s minds, or to real life experience of my parishioners. The occasions when I felt the need to respond to a public event, like the tragic death of Princess Diana, or the attack on the World Trade Centre, were both challenging and rewarding. It was always the difficult subjects that got the creative juices flowing.
Oddly, I don’t miss preaching. I’m not sure why I don’t.
Listening or delivering?
Neither. I don’t miss hearing sermons, and I don’t miss preaching them. However, I do join an online interactive Bible study 4 days a week, and I’m both reading and writing a fair bit, so maybe that’s filling the need.
I missed both dreadfully. Funny isn’t it?
Stephen, I’m sorry that you don’t preach any more; you write so well.
I’m enjoying preaching more than ever in retirement, and people seem to be appreciating my sermons more too .. I imagine that the two facts are linked.
I hope, and like sometimes to think, that I’m freer than I used to be from any wish to be thought ‘correct’ or indeed ‘clever’. It’s a potentially very fruitful stage of life that we’re at .. though of course you’ve found an especially valuable role in retirement, and work hard enough (I’m quite sure) without adding preaching to your load.
May I say Stephen that as one of your new readers I find your proposed sermon reminding me of what I already know very helpful. A vicar once apologised to me for repeating his Sunday sermon on a Wednesday for the good reason that most of his Wednesday congregation had stopped driving due to increasing age and as there was no convenient bus service on a Sunday, the Wednesday service was essentially the Sunday service for them. I explained that I found the repetition most helpful as on Sundays I took it to heart and tried to embed it into my life and also on Mondays. When I heard it again on Wednesday I realised I had already forgotten to apply it to my life and so found the repetition extremely helpful. Needless to say his sermons were excellent as an aid to living out my faith as is Stephen’s sermon above. I seem to always remain a beginner in living out my faith and need endless repetition. Previously I had been in an evangelical church where the sermons were more of an update of football results rather then any commentary or exposition of the Bible readings. Sadly I tried two churches in the same town each of which treated the communion service as mere entertainment before finding the one above.
My impulse was to say that if the sermons were more about football than the Bible readings, the church wasn’t evangelical. The evangelicalism I was brought up in was always about the Bible (though I might now disagree with some of the interpretations). But a lot of churches that now call themselves evangelical are more about style and culture than substance. The same applies to ‘charismatic’ churches, which often seem nowadays to be more about a worship style (and for that read musical style) than about actual of what used to be understood as the charismatic gifts (e.g. tongues, healing, prophecy).
Oh yes. We joke about being able to tell from the hymn book at the back! Mary, we now publish our sermons on line, and I get a huge amount from reading them over.
Clearly the preaching of a sermon is more than the simple imparting of information, not that this is always easy.
Some sermons seem to have a ritual repetitive element in certain churches. For example, you get the impression that if the guy hasn’t mentioned the gospel mantra, it’s not considered a proper sermon, notwithstanding everyone present has already heard it many many times. In part this seems to be a delusion that we’re really reaching out to the un-saved, in part an ongoing validation of the speaker’s “soundness” and in part some sense of assuring ourselves that we’re still ok.
Often, I’m sure, there’s a great deal of work done in sermon preparation, and I don’t envy those who do it. I’ve done a bit of speaking, but I’m glad these talks have never been pre-vetted as some have to endure.
Did you know that Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation had ‘do penance’ instead of ‘repent.’ (Latin paenitemini, Mark 1:15). This was discovered when Erasmus and co looked at the Greek again, after the fall of Constantinople and the scholars there fled to the west, from which so much would follow. Shows the importance of a good translation from Scripture. And the seeming catastrophe of the destruction of those city walls was not so dire as it first appeared. Sermons there, I think.
Maybe it suited Jerome to translate it that way? HIs behaviour with young women gave rise to gossip at the time, and his epistles indicate there was reason for the gossip. It might be convenient to do penance and keep on sinning, rather than have to change his (and our!) ways altogether as ‘metanoia’ would indicate.
An interesting thread as I have spent today struggling with the lectionary for next Sunday to write a sermon relevant to my liberal catholic congregation. I think I’ve got it sorted but it took more hours than usual or is that just because I’m getting old!
Interesting point, Janet. Thanks. If I may, I will quote you in my forthcoming book, Can I Trust the Bible.
Yes, David, fine with me. I read many of Jerome’s epistles (in translation) for an essay on church history, and I’ve been reluctant to call him a saint ever since!
Possibly Asberger’s syndrome? Not a very nice man!
There are some lovely people with Asperger’s. I don’t think Jerome’s behaviour had anything to do with possible autism spectrum.
He cultivated relationships with young high-born women, who he encouraged to follow him and ‘devote themselves to virginity’. But some of the letters to these young women which I read had highly sexualised language. It’s no wonder that at the time there were rumours about the nature of his relationships with these young women.
No, no! My son has Asberger’s. The two sentences are separate thoughts! He doesn’t seem very nice, when you read about him. We had a piece of paper with a list of famous people with Asberger’s on our notice board, so he didn’t feel like a freak, and Jerome was on it. That’s the problem with trying to be brief!
‘Paenitere’ is a good Latin translation of the Greek ‘metanoein’; the problem is/was deficient pre-Reformation English translations of Jerome.
I remember still the thrill, a few years ago when researching for a little book that I was writing, of looking at a prayer book that Katherine Parr gave Henry VIII and finding in his handwriting in the margin the words “repentance is the true penance”.
Oops, I didn’t mean to be ‘Anonymous’ above.
Splendid. Thanks John. Appreciated.
Thanks for the gloss on Jerome.
The Henry VIII quote is ironic!
In the light of his previous behaviour, yes. But it was written right towards the end of his life, and shows (I think) the influence that Katherine was starting to have on his theological opinions.
Interesting. You think Henry VIII may have repented his earlier misdeeds?
No, I doubt he got that far. But I do think that Katherine, who had real Reformation zeal, had a great (and increasing) influence on his theological opinions in his last years. She’s been largely overlooked since, but as Cranmer’s protector and (above all) as the teenage Elizabeth’s mentor, I think she had an unparalleled influence on English religious history.
John, the Vulgate of Acts 2:38 reads “Paenitentiam, inquit, agite, et baptizetur…” NIV has “Peter replied, ‘Repent, and be baptised…'” Perhaps I should quote that rather than Mark 1:15.
Marcella assisted Jerome on the Vulgate translation – she was an able scholar. He used to consult her when he wasn’t sure of a translation.
She was often asked for advice by men in Rome, seeking to know what Jerome would advise, and she gave her own opinion saying it was Jerome’s. In 2nd -4th Century Rome even high class women like Marcella were viewed as inferior to men, and couldn’t be credited (an argument for why Hebrews was probably written by a woman). This has skewed the Church and it s traditions ever since.
Judging by the above comments, the written word seems rather enduring, and certainly a lot more so than the spoken.