High Churh--Low Church (part 19) The Sermon

 Fifth Wednesday after the Epiphany

 Lectionary Texts for Today: 

OT--2 Kings 5:20-27

NT--1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Thanks to Pat for her comment.

 

High Church worship tends to have a lot of liturgy; consequently, sermons tend to be short. Episcopal and Catholic priests tend toward 10 minutes, 15 at most. The traditional worship Protestant sermon is about 20 minutes, although the tendency is toward shorter.  Baptist sermons more often go 45. So the general rule is high church--shorter sermons; low church--longer sermons. 

 

Length of sermon tends to match the importance of the sermon in the worship. The longer the sermon; the more important is the sermon in the overall structure of the worship service. I can also say that short sermon preachers, primarily Catholic and Episcopal, tend not to be very good preachers. They take fewer seminary courses on preaching. There is so much about the liturgy to be learned that preaching takes a back seat in their divinity education. 

One thing seemingly sacred for Protestants is that the entire service be no longer than one hour. Methodists tend to take wrongful pride in beating the Baptists to the K &W for lunch. I had one church where a large clock hung from the center of the balcony. It's apparent purpose was to keep the pastor on time. 

In Divinity Schools and Seminaries, preaching courses and departments are called Homiletics. It's a bit higher sounding than Preaching. The old joke is something like: "What do you do for a living?" "I'm a Homiletician." "Oh, that's ok. I avoid desserts and eat my vegetables every day."

In Catholic and many Episcopal churches the sermon is called the homily. Some contend that a homily is a short sermon. The words are actually interchangeable. It's just that the denominations with short sermons call them homilies. 

The literature on Preaching is enormous. I own or have owned well over a hundred books on the subject and read many more than that.  Bishop Will Willimon has himself written over 50. Many more come out every year. Like clothing and hairstyles, preaching styles change over the years. Preaching today tends toward greater informality. There is less manuscript preaching, less standing behind the pulpit, more looking at notes on an i-pad, or having no notes at all. I have a deeply resonant speaking voice. I have been told that my voice is out of style these days. 

I've preached with full manuscript, notes, and no notes. My best sermons were those with full manuscript. My best received sermons were those with no notes. The sermon may not be as good; but the congregation will listen better to the no notes, no manuscript sermon. I tend to go with the congregation. Over my eleven years in parish ministry, I would say that I preached 80-90% of my sermons without manuscript or notes. In my early years in the parish it was 100% without manuscript or notes. 

Billy Graham, incidentally, always preached from a full manuscript, always behind a pulpit or lectern, always with his manuscript in front of him. You would never notice it, unless you w4er4 looking for it.

 

In my retirement I rarely preach. It's been mostly at a Sunday afternoon service at Carolina Meadows retirement village. In my 10 years at UUMC I've never been asked to preach. I do miss it. Perhaps for some future blog I will write a sermon.

God of the Word, God of the Church,

We pray for all those who preach. May the words of their mouths and the meditations of their hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

Faithfully,

Christian