Why do we have a sermon during worship? I have long wondered this question, for several reasons, and I want to take some time to explore it, to at least gets some thoughts down somewhere more permanent than the inside of my brain. I think that there are a number of reasons that might be espoused for having a sermon as part of a worship, and a number of reasons that might be suggested against it. I am going to try to have several posts on this issue in the next couple of weeks, exploring several of the pros and cons. I don’t think that the conclusion will be to remove the sermon from worship, but it will help to frame why we do it, and give direction to what is done.
I want to start with what I believe to be the primary purpose and highest expectation of the sermon as it currently stands, or, at least as I see it. To teach, exhort, inspire and bestow upon the worshipers right thinking, orthodoxy, or right action, orthopraxy. A sermon is primarily either to help the hearers better understand some aspect of God or scriptures, or to move the hearers to some form of action. In this case the expectation for a sermon would be for a clear thought or thoughts which are understandable, well thought out and pointing in a specific direction by the end of the sermon. In this case, the preacher needs a high level of self assurance in what he or she is talking about, and a basic assumption that they are correct.
So what does it mean to speak rightly about God and what God want us to do, if that is what sermons are really all about. We recently had a Bible Study on the book of Job, and at the end God tells Job that his friends had not spoken rightly of God, as Job had. The primary difference in what Job had to say from what his friends had to say, when it came to God, was that Job said he didn’t understand and his friends said that they did. To me, it seems like God says, to speak rightly about God, one must admit that they don’t understand. This seems to strike a blow to a self assured style of speaking about God. This may also be one of the biggest holes in much preaching, not leaving room for the mystery and transcendence of God. I don’t think this means that this purpose for preaching must be entirely abandoned, but it might mean that we need to take away some of its primacy and make it only one part of the sermon, not the whole sermon or whole purpose of the sermon.
