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Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Best Sermon You’ve Ever Heard
By Rev. Jerry Herships
Scripture: Acts 20:7-11
7On the first /day of the week, when we met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. 8There were many lamps in the room upstairs where we were meeting. 9A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the ground three floors below and was picked up dead. 10But Paul went down, and bending over him took him in his arms, and said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” 11Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse with them until dawn; then he left.
I NEVER want to hear that my sermons are too long or boring. Essentially what this passage tells us is that Paul preached till someone fell asleep, fell to their death, Paul revived him and said, “OK, where was I…”
Today’s sermon topic started when I decided to take a friend out for a celebratory beverage after the birth of his daughter. He is in the ordination process and we discussed the future of the church. We have both read a lot of books about church but what we discovered as we talked was that those books aren’t addressing what we really want to address. Then he said something that hit me right between the eyes. He said, “I don’t want to know how to market church different. I want to know how to DO church different.”
Now there might be a lot of you thinking, “Why do we have to do anything different? Church is just fine the way it is.” That’s true for a lot of people. It isn’t true for the majority of people. We often forget that the majority of the people in this country are sitting home relaxing on Sunday morning. There have to be things that we are willing to do different if we want to see new people come through our doors.
And by new people, I don’t mean people that were worshipping somewhere else. That isn’t introducing new people to this Good News we say we have. That is just people of the faith worshipping under a new roof. This is why bodies can be deceiving.
I think if we are going to attract new people, we have to do new things and I am willing to start.
What is the primary function of the preacher on Sunday morning? To preach. I think this is a fine place to start. There is something about the way pastors do sermons that is not engaging for most people out in the world. Preaching has even taken to mean something derogatory: “Don’t preach to me.” Here is something I’ve learned; when your profession becomes an insult, it is time to rethink that profession.
We have to get at the core of what a sermon is, what the purpose is and what do people hope to get out of it. I try to make all my sermons have at least four things: something for the thinker, something for the feeler, something for the realist, and something for the innovator. I also try to toss some hope in there because I think that is good news.
The question is: Does all that need to be done the way we’ve been doing it? I did a little research.
Did you know that the word "sermon" comes from a Middle English word which was derived from an Old French term, which in turn came from the Latin word sermō; which means "discourse." The word can also mean "conversation," which could mean that early sermons were delivered in the form of questions and answers and only later did it come to mean a monologue.
Now the Oxford dictionary defines discourse as coming from the Latin discursus, meaning "running to and from." It means either "written or spoken communication or debate" or "a formal discussion or debate."
The scripture we are talking about today looks different in a King James Bible. The King James Bible says Paul preached to them. When we look at the Greek text, the word used in that passage for preaching is dialegomai, from which we get our English word dialogue. Paul wasn’t preaching at them, he was in dialogue with them about the gospel, and even then managed to put at least one guy to sleep! This makes me wonder how many other places in the Bible the word “preach” is used when it is actually the word “dialegomai.”
This is fascinating to me because discourse and conversation and question & answer and dialogue are pretty far from what I see in sermons today, mine included.
As a lot of you know, we have tried various models of discussion at AfterHours. We have given a topic to discuss, we have had table discussions and discussions while making sandwiches. No one is currently reading the scripture to the congregation, they are, instead, reading it themselves and TO EACH OTHER and then discussing it. Imagine that! People reading the Bible IN CHURCH! OUT LOUD! We are a wacky, cutting edge bunch!
The hardest part is getting people to have a back and forth conversation with me. This is so not in line with our tradition. Our tradition says, “Sit down, shut up and you might learn something.” O.K. maybe not that harsh but there is that feel sometimes. And please understand, I am not against learning and teaching. It is one of the main reasons people come to hear a sermon. But I believe there is lots of knowledge in the room and that too often we are afraid to share it. I want to give you a different way to do that here today. Let’s see what happens. On the screen is my cell phone number. It is a phone that will take text messages. I want to ask a question and give you a chance to answer without having to deal with talking in front of others. Here’s the question: What do you hope to get out of a sermon? What do you hope to change after you hear a preacher speak? If you have a thought, even if it’s one word, text it to me now.
Now just a quick thought. If you heard me talking earlier when I said I try to have something for Thinkers/Feelers/Realists/Innovators and you don’t know which one you are; if you think this is the coolest thing you ever saw, you’re an innovator. If you are thinking, “this is the dumbest darn thing I’ve ever seen, you are probably a realist. If you are still thinking “So it’s a Middle English word that came from a French term that came from Latin?” you are probably a thinker. If you like what I’m wearing, you’re a feeler.
The bottom line is: how can our communication together bring all of us closer to God? Preaching has become not only an insult, as I said earlier, but it is also a punch line. There’s a joke about a priest whose sermons were very long and boring, he announced in the church on a Sunday that he had been transferred to another church and that it was Jesus' wish that he leave that week. The congregation in the church got up and sang "What a Friend we have in Jesus!"
So what is preaching? What did Jesus do? How did he preach or teach? John Dominic Crossan, the professor emeritus at DePaul University did an interview on PBS. He said, The primary teaching of Jesus is not taking texts out of the Hebrew scriptures and explaining them, blasting them, commenting on them. What he is doing is telling a perfectly ordinary story and using that as the major teaching. The Kingdom of God is like this. Now you have to think, well, I hear the story, but how on earth is the Kingdom of God like that? That's your job as the hearer. So it's open to anyone. And that's, I think, the point of the parable. The interviewer said that it sounds like Jesus’ teaching depends on interpretation. Crossan said, If you teach in parables, you give yourself to interpretation. If you really want to tell people what to think, you preach them a sermon. If you tell them a parable then you're leaving yourself open, inevitably, to interpretation.
Jesus didn’t try to shove a message down anyone’s throat as so many preachers are accused of doing these days. Jesus told stories that created discussion. Haven’t you always found that conversations are always more interesting and educational than having someone talk at you? This is especially true of people in their 20’s and 30’s. They have, for much of their lives, interacted to learn. Question and dialogue is the way they have always obtained knowledge. I think it is harder for them to listen to a monologue without having the chance to question, comment or state their points of view.
I’m curious about how many people, by a show of hands, we have that are 60 plus. In their 50’s? Their 40’s? Their 30’s? Their 20’s? Under 20 you might still be coming because someone else wants you here. I think if we are going to further the message of Jesus Christ we have to be in dialogue about what we read in the Bible and not just have a message delivered at us. And I think when we do we might see an explosion in young people.
I know some of this comes from my background. It was always more engaging when there was exchange with the audience when I did comedy and corporate training than when it was just me doing my monologue or lecture. It was also more dangerous. You never knew what was going to happen next, what was going to be said next and what kind of insights would be made.
Shouldn’t the gospel be dangerous? Shouldn’t we be willing to dialogue and discuss and debate and when it is over we shake hands and go to IHOP? Those are the conversations that you will remember. If you have been going to church regularly for the past, say twenty years, that would come out to being about 1,040 sermons. How many do you remember? A hundred? Fifty? Twenty-five? Let’s say it’s 25. That’s two and a half percent. There must be a better way to engage with scripture.
Turn to the people around you right now and ask them how long they have been going to church and how many sermons they remember? Do you remember the best sermon you ever heard? Tell the person next to you about it. I’ll wait.
Let’s get in there and rough it up a bit. Let’s chew on the gospel of Jesus Christ and digest it and really lift each other up and teach and learn and remember. I think we are going into an amazing time in the future of the church. Get excited. It is going to be an awesome ride.
Any questions? I hope next time I ask…there are. Amen.