preaching in Chapter 1, in this chapter we will outline four contemporary contexts which condition the event of preaching and within which it fulfils a distinct function today.
First, we will consider shared worship, which has been the dominant context for preaching over two millennia. Next we turn to contemporary culture. The Church is placed in the world as a missionary body,[1] and that means that preaching, while inevitably influenced by intellectual and social currents, can also exercise influence on the cultures in which it is set, and the individuals and groupings which inhabit them. The third context is that of theology. Preaching has sometimes been the spearhead of the Church’s continuing theological conversations and debates about the meaning of God’s revelation in Christ for our lives and the world. Although the study of theology now extends more widely than the Church and is carried forward in a variety of arenas of discourse, it undoubtedly remains true that for many Christians, the theology they have learned has come mainly or solely through preaching. There is an obvious link here to the fourth context, that of pastoral care. The Church and its pastors exercise such care for a wide range of people who may or may not be identified as Christian. An aspect of this care is the Christian education involved in both evangelism and Christian nurture: education understood in the fullest sense as not just an intellectual process but a transformational one, enabling people to be renewed not only in their thinking but in their living, according to Christ’s pattern (cf. Rom. 12.1–2). And in this process preaching continues to play a pivotal, yet again contested, role.
Shared worship
The context of worship exercises a considerable influence upon the preaching that takes place within it, and preaching, conversely, fulfils a distinct function when it is part of a service of worship. We will discuss this mutual influence first in general terms, and then with reference to the diversity of kinds of worship practised in today’s Church.[2]
The effect of worship on preaching is profound, though often unnoticed. The worshipping context reminds speaker and hearers that preaching is meant to glorify God before it is meant to edify people – and that its purpose is certainly not to boost the ego of the preacher. Prayer, song, Bible reading, sacrament and silence all have a part to play in the Godward focus of the gathering, and together contribute to an atmosphere which becomes ‘second nature’ to the regular worshipper, including the preacher. Thus all are reminded that the sermon, like the rest of the service, is not a time for mere information, entertainment or displays of skill, but for drawing near to God.
Conversely, preaching can effectively function as an enabler of worship. This is because it can bring the recollection of God’s past revelation in the biblical story together with the reality of the present, in which God is still to be discerned. It can do so in a focused way which claims the attention of the minds, hearts and consciences of the worshippers. Putting it simply, it can take the praises that we have sung and the Scriptures we have heard, and connect them with the world for which we intercede and the longings we express in the silence. Praise of God and reading of Scripture, if left on their own, may risk leaving us in ‘the language of Zion’, the great formulations of theology and the story of the past. Intercession for the world and silence before God bring us very much into the present, yet if left on their own may cut us loose from the depth of our tradition and the anchor of God’s own promises. Preaching negotiates a way between past and present, between the sure foundation of Christ and the uncertain waters of the contemporary world, between the safety of an eternal, faithful God and the disturbing dynamism of a living, speaking God.
It does this by announcing a gospel that concerns both past and future, and interprets the present as a time of grace in the midst of judgement.[3] It may thus fundamentally shape the consciousness of the worshipper, who needs constant reminders of the ‘grace in which we stand’ (Rom. 5.2),[4] and for whom that grace is the only basis for self-offering to God (Rom. 12.1–2). Many churches believe that it does this in a creative partnership with the sacrament of Holy Communion. The word of grace, spoken and heard in the sermon, is enacted and received at the Lord’s Table.
These mutual connections between preaching and worship are made in a multitude of ways, of which those gathered – both preacher and congregation – probably remain largely unconscious most of the time. A service is a network of signs which interact with each other and with the participants in dynamic complexity. Words of songs may echo, or sometimes question, words of sermons. Bible readings stand alongside sermons not simply as their jumping-off point, but as the sounding-board against which the preacher’s words vibrate. Preaching may shed new light on the meaning of the sacraments and enable worshippers to participate at greater depth. The compassion evoked by a preacher may find expression in the outpouring of prayer led by an intercessor. Thus we might continue.
The existence of different traditions of worship lends yet more complexity to the picture, for sermon will relate to service differently depending on whether one is in a Methodist, Catholic, Pentecostal church or any other. The sacramental ethos of churches in the Catholic tradition yields a different atmosphere for preaching from the strongly word-centred approach of traditional Protestantism and the strongly experience-centred approach of the Pentecostal and charismatic branches of the family.
To give one example: where, in the service, does the sermon come? Its location says much about the implied meaning of the whole gathering, and therefore of the preaching within it. In Protestantism it is regularly at the climax of the service, occupying the longest single section. In Pentecostal and charismatic churches the situation is often similar to this, with the important difference that the sermon is followed by a time where response of one kind or another is specifically encouraged. In sacramental traditions the sermon is usually at the centre of the Eucharist, while the actual climax of the service is the distribution of bread and wine towards the end. Many local variations and permutations complicate the picture. We cannot ignore the existence of such variables in seeking guidance about if, what and how to preach, because the way a sermon is conceived, spoken and heard is inextricably entangled with them.
Contemporary culture
‘Culture’ is the network of customs, practices, preferences, beliefs and languages which makes up the fabric of our daily life. Just as worship and preaching influence each other in many subtle ways of which we are often unconscious, so it is with culture and preaching. Before we make any conscious decisions about whether or what or how to preach, we are affected by culture; and so, before they begin listening to any sermon, are our hearers. But preaching in turn can function as an influence within and upon the cultures around it.
This reality is made more complex by the fact that most Western societies today are ‘multicultural’. Whatever the majority of people think about this, or how it should be handled, a great variety of different cultures jostle alongside each other. Moreover, as immigrants become naturalized, cultures start to blend in confusing but enriching ways. Shared Christian faith adds a dimension to this picture but it does not contradict it. All of us have received faith embedded in cultural clothing (translations of the Bible, church customs, habits seen as ‘normative’, whether weekly Communion or daily ‘quiet time’ and so on). As human beings, we have no other means of receiving it, or of passing it on. Churches themselves become ‘subcultures’, or groups of subcultures, and it is helpful to raise to consciousness those practices, forms of speech, rituals and so on which identify them as such. This is not for the purpose of trying to escape from being a subculture, which is impossible. It is simply so that we can take stock of how we behave, as the basis for bringing our common life under the light of God’s direction.
An important mediator of that direction can be preaching. Through preaching, the gospel can influence culture, if the subcultures of particular churches themselves remain
