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I’m yet again frustrated? Befuddled? By the conviction that a sermon is the only or best response to upsetting public events.
Especially among Episcopalians! Somewhat more understandable among Christians for whom The sermon is the heart of warship.
Maybe my congregation doesn’t need to hear from me what to think about big events. Maybe what we need is to pray together. Just a thought.
Also if I’ve been doing my job as a preacher at all over the past however many years, my congregation already has a pretty good idea what I think God thinks about all this
I take preaching very, very seriously as a vocation and responsibility. I've also heard enough sermons that, for example, tell a room full of people who know that racism is bad, that racism is bad.
There are 100% preachers who can take what everyone already knows about the situation, the struggle, the odds, and hold it up in their words in a way that transforms and motivates. (King comes to mind.) But I suspect that's a rare gift.
So I guess I worry that the pressure to PREACH THE NEWS leads to a lot of mediocre, half-baked sermons, at the cost of other responses that might be just as helpful. Shared prayer is at the top of my list but there are others too.
