Free Text Series or Lectionary Preaching?

The lectionary can’t cover everything—but it can cover what matters

My previous article argued that the underlying logic of the topical series preaching paradigm popular in American Christian culture and somewhat influential in Lutheran homiletical thinking carries with it some unexamined weaknesses that are worth the attention of Lutheran preachers. I cautioned that the underlying logic of the paradigm can push the homiletical task toward making Jesus instrumental instead of essential, that is, a topic-first approach has inherent qualities that could either make it more laborious to accomplish gospel predominance or that might move Christ from the center of the sermon’s purpose and position the gospel as a footnote to what people otherwise sense is the primary goal: religious therapy, cultural commentary, intellectual inquiry, or spiritual motivation. I suggested, then, that a shared Lutheran lectionary, with its clear and consistent focus on the words and works of Jesus, makes gospel relevance and gospel predominance more natural—even easy—to accomplish.

Some readers suggested that the paradigmatic issues I described and conversations about them among preachers do not exist to the extent that I described them and therefore most if not all of my argument is spurious. I want to make clear that I do not consider this subject to be in the category of a roiling synodical controversy. I called it a simmering debate on purpose. I have observed it gently bubbling in circuits, conferences, and in the online spaces where pastors gather to talk shop. But by writing as if every reader was fully acquainted with the contours of the conversation, I opened my point to unwanted misunderstanding. The background I elided is this: contemporary Lutheran preachers have before them a significant choice between two fairly distinctive preaching paradigms. One is lectionary-driven, the other is topic-driven. The latter is quite influential, but I am arguing that such influence is not all that warranted and that the former is the better overall choice for Lutheran preachers in our time and place.

A more serious concern from some readers is that I have accused colleagues of ministerial malpractice. Therefore it is good to repeat what I said in the previous installment. I am not saying that someone who preaches topically fails to preach law and gospel, nor am I saying that topical preachers are automatically guilty of positioning Jesus as instrumental instead of essential. I set up the framework of analysis to be one of paradigms in general, not preachers in particular. I signaled this in several ways, especially in gesturing toward the famous dictum that a medium can communicate in a way that overrides or undermines the message or, to put it another way, sometimes style can overpower substance. I’m not talking about the presence or absence of law/gospel sentences but rather the characteristics of preaching paradigms.

Style can overpower substance.

My specific claim was that the paradigm of topical preaching runs an unnecessary risk of interacting with the characteristics of ambient culture in a way that pastoral perspectives might overlook. Preachers tend to think in categories like Christian freedom and efficacy of the Word, but people catechized by the ambient culture’s domineering emphasis on self-ownership and self-construction are prone to engage with sermonizing in radically different terms. We think we have said one thing, but in reality they hear another. The result can be a subtle shift from an objective message of good news to a message perceived as self-improvement. Such an outcome is surely not intentional, but that does not make it imaginary.

I am suggesting that Lutheran preachers think carefully about this phenomenon and adjust their approach accordingly because they are free to do so. Christian freedom is essential to my thinking on this. The fact that we don’t have a prescribed preaching paradigm is why discussing the merits and demerits of the available options is legitimate and worthwhile. That this is an adiaphoron is precisely why it deserves attention.

In this installment I give attention to the sentiment that the lectionary paradigm is too limited and that the topical paradigm is worth pursuing because it gives the preacher opportunity to cover things not covered in the lectionary. In this formulation it’s not that the lectionary paradigm is irrelevant, it’s that the lectionary paradigm is insufficient.

But first, we need to talk about books.

Books are an excellent contribution to preaching

I love to encounter thoughtful, engaging writing on theological subjects—and not just new writing either; reading old books is just as refreshing. C.S. Lewis once praised the salutary effects of the “clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds.”¹

Reading broadly in popular literature is important for cultivating a well-rounded homiletical mind and for developing illustrations and examples. Reading widely in popular Christian commentary is a useful way to develop fresh idiom and expression. Reading deeply in professional literature is important for gaining new angles on familiar texts.

But you know this already. This is commonplace homiletical advice. Preachers know the benefit that comes from reading an expert author exposit a biblical theme. We all have favorite writers who resonate with us. Excellent writing can teach new skills, encourage fresh enthusiasm, offer timely support, increase emotional intelligence, and deepen knowledge. These are good things.

Books are an inadequate agenda for preaching

Sometimes, though, enthusiasm from reading a good book becomes a powerful desire to communicate the same content to the congregation. Thus the sermon-series-on-a-recent-book is born.

I identify with the preacher who wants to act as a kind of London Review of Books for the people he serves. The book review (not the book report) is a simple and flexible genre that offers writers and readers alike the opportunity to creatively interact with all sorts of ideas. If a preacher thinks of himself as a purveyor of engaging ideas (a communicator in contemporary parlance), then he will probably be the kind of preacher who enjoys digesting, synthesizing, and systematizing other people’s work. This is a tremendously useful skill and is valuable in ministry.

But I suggest that the Sunday service is not an ideal time for a book review. Such a practice relies too much on the personality and temperament of the pastor. The homiletical task offers generous opportunity for the preacher to speak naturally from his personality and to develop sermons in a way that suits his temperament, which is why it strikes me as unnecessary for the preacher to also claim control over the agenda of preaching.

Is the pastor’s bibliography an adequate pattern for congregational proclamation? I’m skeptical, but even if I’m wrong, the question remains: On what grounds does the preacher conclude that his reading list should set the every-Sunday agenda for what the people of God hear?

Answers might sound like this, “This book covers things not covered in the lectionary,” or its corollary, “This book covers things not covered with enough detail in the lectionary.” In this sense the topical preacher provides a vital service by selecting texts that plug critical gaps left open by the lectionary.

A framework for preaching that is creative, relevant, enduring, and engaging.

Sufficiency as acceptance of reality

Here I sense common ground between lectionary and topical preachers. A persistent challenge in ministry is to connect parishioners to diligent study and application of the Bible. We all agree that it is good for believers to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. I also understand why the Sunday sermon becomes the front line in the battle to get more people engaged with more biblical topics and their application. Preaching remains the most prominent public voice of the congregation. If a pastor is concerned that people need, say, an in-depth review of how to forgive one another, then the sermon seems like just about the only avenue available.

But here a dose of finitude might be helpful. It seems both self-evident and inevitable that no preaching paradigm could be so extensive that it covers every important subject in careful detail. There are parts of the Bible that the lectionary does not appoint for reading and preaching just as, I am sure, a random sampling of three years of topical series preaching would reveal whole swaths of the Bible and entire categories of teaching that received little to no attention in Sunday sermons.

This is not a problem, though. The point of an organized presentation of Scripture is that certain texts are better suited for certain purposes than others. No one complains that six funeral sermons last year missed out on opportunities to cover Paul’s missionary journeys.

“People won’t get this material otherwise,” when offered as a reason to set aside the lectionary, is a rationale that bolsters my point. If preaching really is the primary way most people connect with Christian teaching, then it is all the more important that the agenda for all that preaching be aligned as closely as possible with the main purpose of Lutheran preaching.

The Lutheran concept of sufficiency has long included the sense that something is sufficient for a given purpose. The purpose of Lutheran preaching is to announce the gospel of Jesus Christ for the salvation of mankind. If there is to be an agenda for the public voice among God’s people, then the person at the center must be Christ and him crucified. The lectionary paradigm excels at this and consistently nudges preachers in this direction. Yes, there will be a lot of otherwise good things that don’t get as much coverage, but some things really are more important to say than what the preacher might otherwise want to say. This is not a problem; it’s the whole point.

Brainstorming as a bad sign

I realize that not all topical series preaching is seeking to plug gaps. I agree that the metaphor has a certain haphazard, ad hoc feel to it. I know that many topical preachers take the task of long-range planning very seriously. I do not doubt that these men believe that what their congregation needs is not offered by seasonal texts from Epiphany or Advent and therefore they need to think thoroughly about what to offer instead. I admire the level of effort that goes into such work, but allow me to suggest that preachers keep one part of that process (the planning) and ditch the other (the inventing).

Consider the cognitive model of topical series planning. It necessarily begins with what amounts to a blank page. Of course, the page is not literally blank; there is, at the very least, a list of every Sunday. Next to these dates are blanks that must be filled. Several may be marked already with themes or events like Soccer Camp, National Back to Church Day, Christmas, and Easter. The task is then to fill in all the blanks with a year’s worth of themes, weekly topics, and biblical texts to support them. And so the brainstorming begins.

The topical preachers I know are usually open-minded men, certainly more amenable to creative innovation than some of their more conservative colleagues, which is why I see a certain irony in the fact that the planning model that undergirds topical preaching is, generally speaking, less likely to produce creative and innovative results. Looking at the year ahead as an empty calendar to be filled with new ideas might just be one of the worst ways to work. Brainstorming can be a bad sign.²

The black hole of the blank page

The typical planning process of the topical series takes the preacher back in time to the unsettling college experience of staring at a blank page that must eventually become a finished paper. The common composition advice in such a situation is to brainstorm. “Come up with as many ideas as you can. See what sticks.” But this advice only makes sense because the writer has nothing to work with. Brainstorming is the first step not because of the virtue of the process but because of the poverty of the situation. When you have nothing, then, yes, anything is better. But that’s a low standard to work with, couldn’t we agree?

A blank slate can be a black hole.

Could it be that the blank slate brainstorm is not ideal for delivering the kind of creative results and engaging communication that preachers want to deliver? Brainstorming prioritizes ideas that come easily. But easy does not equal relevant. Easy is simply a matter of our mind remembering what is most recent, has the most emotion attached to it, or what is most lively, novel, or practical.

Brainstorming is also susceptible to the human tendency to like our own ideas the best. People prefer to hold onto their own ideas whether they are optimal for the task at hand or not. Brainstorming can actually reduce relevance for others.

One might think that adding more people to a brainstorming session will help, but the opposite is usually the case. It instead reduces the quality of the ideas and meaningfully narrows the scope of thinking.

This is not to say that it is impossible to generate creative ideas, but it is to say that brainstorming isn’t as useful a tool as preachers might think it is. A blank slate can be a black hole. If a year of preaching began with a blank page brainstorm, then the odds are increased that the end result was not as creative and engaging as it could have been. There must be a better way.

Books to the rescue

The experience of blank page brainstorming may explain why some lectionary preachers react differently to the reading of books than topical series preachers do. Because the topical preacher has decided against following an overarching preaching agenda, he regularly faces the task of inventing one. It should be no surprise, then, that what a book offers will seem especially valuable: a systematic, carefully organized, and meticulously edited sequence of logic or narrative created by someone besides the preacher. The good book gives the topical series preacher what the lectionary would otherwise provide: a framework for preaching that is creative, relevant, enduring, and engaging.

The lectionary preacher, on the other hand, has a preaching agenda defined by the regular pattern of reviewing the words and works of Jesus Christ in an organized and narrative structure designed to repeat and reinforce itself over time. When the lectionary preacher reads a good book, he more naturally thinks of its benefits in terms of how elements from the book will fit into his preaching now and into the future. He thinks, “This insight will be really useful for my sermon on Lent 1,” or “This chapter will contribute to my approach in Epiphany.”

It is through the connection of new material and existing structures that creative thinking and original effort is most likely to occur.

It is through the connection of new material and existing structures that creative thinking and original effort are most likely to occur, especially if the structure is consistent over a long period of time. The preacher who sets aside invention in favor of integrating his thinking and reading to a lectionary framework over many years might discover that huge gains in creativity and engagement accrue at compound interest.

A different path is before you

The topical series preachers I know are men with tremendous skills at digesting, synthesizing, and systematizing the work of others, which is why I mean it sincerely when I suggest that they might become even better preachers if they migrated to the shared heritage, common good, and creative strength of our lectionary. The communication of important ideas is a skill that becomes all the more potent when connected to a long-term, external framework.

There are also a range of opportunities to engage people with the benefits of good writing apart from a book-driven sermon series. Reading groups, blogs, podcasts, classes, and newsletters are all better suited for the work of interacting with and applying ideas to strengthen and equip the saints for lives of faithful obedience, especially when the telos of such settings is more aligned with treating topics didactically and applying them within community accountability. Lean into such genres instead of trying to fit similar efforts into sermonizing.

To set aside the concept of sufficiency is to eschew a critical element of Lutheran preaching.

Topical preachers are right to remind colleagues of the many important matters that God’s people need to understand and apply, but to set aside the concept of sufficiency is to eschew a critical element of Lutheran preaching. It is good for preaching to be proclamation and it is good when the agenda of preaching is the news to be proclaimed: the person of Jesus Christ and the great works by which he has redeemed us. And when the overarching agenda is not a bibliography of theological miscellany but a framework designed to support the primary purpose of Lutheran preaching, the creative communicator will offer what the denizens of contemporary culture are desperate to hear: a total narrative in which to situate themselves. If believers have the story of Christ for them, then what they have will be more than sufficient.

Written by Caleb Bassett

Caleb serves as pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fallbrook, CA. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the WELS Hymnal Project and chairman of the project’s Technology Subcommittee. He has been a frequent guest panelist on The White Horse Inn, a nationally syndicated radio program and podcast on theology and culture. He is a fellow of the International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism, and Human Rights in Strasbourg, France and a member of the WELS Institute for Lutheran Apologetics.

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¹ On the Reading of Old Books,” God in the Dock: Essays on God and Ethics, Ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harper, 1970), 201-202. Also HarperCollins, 2014.
² For more detail consult the research presented in section 13.1 of “How to Take Smart Notes,” 2nd ed., by Söhnke Ahrens, pp. 130ff.

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Free Text Series or Lectionary Preaching?

The essential element that makes preaching worth anyone’s attention

A common sentiment among my fellow preachers suggests that the lectionary-based approach to preaching has become unsuitable for contemporary ministry. The thinking is that an occasional, topical approach—typically called series preaching¹—is better than following the liturgical church year with its one- or three-year cycle of pericopes used in common across an entire community of churches. This opinion appears to be particularly pronounced in missions to the unchurched and in parish settings self-consciously characterized as visionary or innovative.

This is the first part of a three-part essay in which I will enter this simmering debate. I will analyze and comment on three subtle but significant criticisms of lectionary preaching. I intend to offer meaningful resistance to what strikes me as a largely unexamined assumption: that series preaching is the way of the future because it somehow offers unique advantages for ministering to the kind of people shaped by contemporary American culture. I will work to carve out some much-needed common ground even as I make the case that lectionary preaching remains the best preaching paradigm for Lutherans in our time and place.

Perhaps I will be able to convince some of my fellow preachers to return to the shared heritage, common good, and creative strength of lectionary preaching. But if not, then the series preacher might at least rely less on unwarranted assumptions to justify the practice and become more sensitive to the realistic pitfalls in series preaching.

Effort isn’t the issue

Last year I participated in a conference discussion on how best to contextualize worship to today’s culture. The conversation inevitably turned to contextually relevant preaching. A clear sentiment emerged: lectionary preaching was said to be the easy way to preach because the lectionary has already been planned for you. The topical series, in contrast, was said to be the hard way to preach because a good series requires a significant amount of advance planning. The resulting benefit of all this hardness was said to be a corresponding increase in homiletical relevance. In other words, “The topical series is hard to do because relevance is hard to come by.” By the end of the discussion the matter was even cast in moral terms. One pastor called the lectionary not just the easy option, but the lazy option!

No doubt he was overstating the case. Nevertheless, it seems clear that the lectionary has acquired a reputation as little more than a time-saving table of texts instead of an atlas showing the way to the kind of seriously relevant preaching that ministers of the gospel are called to deliver. Many preachers are setting lectionary preaching aside on the grounds that it is simply too weak of a tool to till the fields where they have been called to gather a harvest.

I will wholeheartedly agree that series preaching takes more effort to do well than most lectionary preachers probably realize. I once had to plan and preach a brief, occasional series and I found the process to be quite unpleasant. Maybe the difficulty arose from working against the grain of so much training and so many years of practice. Regardless, my point is that, yes, it does take serious effort to do series preaching well. I hope any preacher who preaches serially always gives the job the full beans it requires.

Persistent misuse of a preaching paradigm does not prove the paradigm is faulty.

I will also agree that many preachers have used or continue to use the lectionary lazily. The point is well taken that the specific value of the lectionary is not that you can arbitrarily (and at the last minute) grab a text from a table of pericopes and preach as if every sermon is isolated from what has preceded it and what will follow it. But at the risk of offering what amounts to a playground retort—“I’m not lazy, you’re  lazy!”—what is the lectionary preacher to make of the many websites trafficking in ready-to-preach series kits? A clever programmer could probably code a bot to compare the social media feed of every WELS congregation to what’s trending on the most popular sources of series kits and find no small number of matches.

Both lectionary preaching and series preaching have well-known and well-worn ways of taking shortcuts, the habitual use of which should be unwelcome in a virtuous professional culture. Persistent misuse of a preaching paradigm does not prove the paradigm is faulty, rather it bears witness to an ethos short on rigor and lacking in integrity. Excellent preaching of any kind requires significant foresight, careful planning, and all-around effort. The lectionary is not the easy option because preaching is not the easy option. All preaching is hard when practiced seriously and sincerely.

I suggest that we settle on this common ground and focus on more fruitful ways to analyze and compare series preaching with lectionary preaching. We must still discern a credible path from the premise, “series preaching requires more planning than lectionary preaching,” to the conclusion, “therefore series preaching yields greater contextual relevance compared to lectionary preaching.” Is such a path possible or plausible?

Relevance is at stake

Differences over lectionary preaching vis-à-vis series preaching seem to arise most frequently in conversations about what makes preaching relevant to a particular cultural demographic or cultural moment. It seems that context and relevance, not ease or difficulty, are the real points of contention. This is significant for understanding and addressing the issue. The assumption appears to be that the lectionary cannot reliably engage the context of the congregation or the community in which the congregation operates. The question, then, is why anyone thinks this.

One commonly-held answer seems to be rooted in the static nature of the lectionary. The lectionary tells and retells the account of a God who promised (and subsequently accomplished) to become our human brother in order to decisively redeem mankind from its entanglement in the cords of death and to definitively raise us to new life in a God-owned identity and vocational purpose that stretches from this moment through eternity. And because these things happened in the past there can never be new things that happened “once for all,” as the writer to the Hebrews puts it. The core story in the lectionary is static in the same sense that history is static.

This means that the lectionary cannot know who was elected president or what progressives want to teach kids these days. The lectionary does not react to the latest ministry blogs, nor does it comprehend that superhero movies are a big deal. The lectionary hasn’t been imbibing the latest pop psychology and religious self-help. The lectionary doesn’t know any memes. The lectionary hasn’t reviewed the latest Barna studies. Therefore, the thinking goes, for preaching to be relevant to a contemporary setting (as opposed to flowing from a historical consciousness) there must be an intermediary individual or group, like a pastor, group of pastors, or a planning committee, who regularly surveys the surrounding culture anew to discern what topics need emphasizing for preaching to enjoy relevance in the coming months.

This is, to say the least, an extremely popular approach to preaching. Aside from the expository model in which a congregation will work through whole books of the Bible over lengthy periods of time, the entire Evangelical industrial complex appears to be geared toward the task of churning out series after series. Such an approach thrives in the theological framework governed by the presumption that if the church and her ministers will only just embrace the surrounding culture with gusto, then the surrounding culture and its denizens will be more open to the church’s message in return. In this dispensation it seems the concept of relevance is meant to mean the task of calibrating preaching to harness the most engaging subjects or styles of the times, even if it means making heroic leaps of logic to somehow connect intellectual fashions and cultural fads to biblical theology.

This is not the relevance that Lutheran preachers ought to seek.

I am unconvinced that this is best described as relevant. Predictable may be a better word for it—and not the good kind of predictable, like Christmas coming every year. The point at which the series approach as commonly practiced could be called innovative appears to be in the rear view mirror. Whether it’s the barely camouflaged fundraising effort (#generosity) or the soft-core commentary on sex (#intimacy), series preaching as a trend appears to have become a rote procedure by which a cultural product of some kind, like a fascinating book, hit movie, major event, or social trend becomes the catalyst for the question, “How can I preach a multi-week series on this subject?” Indeed, some such books come with twelve chapters, which—voila!—become twelve sermons.

This is not the relevance that Lutheran preachers ought to seek. Unless the goal is to communicate that the church’s message is a Christianized expression of the surrounding culture, it’s an awfully big assumption to think that what’s trending in culture or what’s on the pastor’s Kindle is also genuinely relevant to the actual predicament of particular people in the padded seats, to say nothing of relevance to the formation of thick, resilient, long-term Christian communities. In fact, a serious concern to consider is whether by focusing on cultural relevance the preacher is directing the eyes of his people away from where they need to be focused, that is, preachers can easily point people away from the Person in whom genuine relevance is found. To answer this concern with, “Jesus is in every one of my sermons,” is, frankly, inadequate. Jesus is in an awful lot of hip-hop tracks, too. The heart of the issue is what role Jesus plays in preaching.

Jesus is essential, not instrumental

The series paradigm too easily positions Jesus as instrumental instead of essential, that is, when a congregation’s preaching is presented as a species of cultural commentary, religious therapy, or intellectual inquiry, Jesus must inevitably come across as one of the many great minds that people could choose to follow for good advice. In this paradigm the preacher can really only recommend Jesus, and because he can only recommend Jesus he must go to great lengths to present Jesus as the best way to accomplish whatever the stated goal of the sermon series is. The preacher may say something quite biblical, like Jesus is the only way to salvation, but such a message, while technically true, is overwhelmed by what the medium says. Things soon start to sound less like preaching and more like motivational speaking or life coaching. After all, if this month isn’t “The Greatest Month of Generosity Ever,” then what was it all for?

Things soon start to sound less like preaching and more like motivational speaking or life coaching.

The underlying logic of an instrumental deployment of texts tends to create people who hear only way as better way—and even then, it’s only the better way for now, that is, until they discover an even better way. This underlying logic of instrumentality is subtly implied if not explicitly stated in the form of advice-centric series themes and topics. “Come to hear how Jesus makes blank better,” is the main message, even if a few sentences of gospel are sprinkled in to rescue the sermon from formal charges of legalism. The fact is that there are other great minds out there and many people who recommend them as the good, better, or even best way to get after your goals. Only Jesus asks his followers to bear a cross. At some point following Jesus does not make everything better, it makes many things quite a lot worse. If Jesus is offered to people as relevant insofar as he can be a means toward some other end—especially a self-directed end—then he is not relevant at all.

The psychological captivity of the church.

I file this entire tendency under a concept described as the psychological captivity of the church.² The notion that the most relevant pastor is the one who looks to the world around him to determine where to head with his preaching has probably ceded any remaining position of strength against profoundly strong cultural currents. The church and her preachers are mired in a trade deficit of sorts; we import more ideas than we export.

None of this is to say that good preaching won’t engage with the cultural context of the congregation in significant and meaningful ways. It is to say, however, that it is too simplistic to think that the series paradigm is itself the engine of relevance. Quite often the result is literal irrelevance, especially if what’s on offer is merely a Christianized version of what others offer. People will go elsewhere to get the same practical benefits but without the Christian cross. Can we blame them?

The gospel is relevance incarnate

A helpful way to understand the issue of relevance is to analyze what kind of communication the gospel actually is. Christian doctrine is clear that salvation comes “from hearing” and what’s heard is a “message about Christ.” Here it is not pedantic to point out the plain meaning of the word gospel, that is, “good news.” Because the gospel is a report of an event or state of affairs, we must understand our preaching as the delivery of news. If we are not preaching news, then we are merely hosting a speaking event. Whether this event takes the form of a droning lecture or a trendy TED talk is immaterial. Both manifestations are the same—devoid of the distinctive power at our disposal to call lost souls from death in sin to life in Christ.

What does this have to do with the question of relevance? Everything. A sermon that offers commentary, advice, or application about the world that someone could, in principle, come upon elsewhere and apart from the Christian gospel is, by definition, irrelevant as news. It may be good and useful information that everyone is glad to have heard, but it is not, in the final analysis, news—and certainly not gospel.

Nothing ever will be as relevant as the words and works of Jesus Christ.

What animates the lectionary paradigm is the insight that nothing is or ever will be as relevant to as many people in as many situations as the words and works of Jesus Christ. The relevance people need most comes in the form news, an announcement of events that no one could come upon by any amount of their own thinking or choosing, events that happened “once for all,” but must be proclaimed again and again, generation after generation.

This is why I suggest that Lutheran preachers be less concerned about the quest to make their preaching relevant in culturally conditioned terms and to work instead at saying what is genuinely relevant to people living under the effects of sin and death. You can be sure that everyone will one day find themselves facing a deadly spiritual thirst (indeed, they face it already). Your task is to ensure that they have been drenched with words that point to the one who can and does quench their thirst. Aim your preaching at the moments when people will need to have heard good news, not endless therapeutic applications of biblical proof passages. Aim your preaching at relevance worthy of the word.

The lectionary does make one thing easier

I want to be clear that my claim is not that the series preacher never preaches the gospel, but that the series paradigm as a medium, with its reliance on a culturally-conditioned definition of relevance, makes genuine gospel proclamation either more difficult to accomplish or makes the gospel into an instrumental footnote attached to what people otherwise sense is the obvious goal: religious therapy, cultural commentary, intellectual inquiry, or spiritual motivation.

For example, one Sunday after Easter I was enjoying dinner at a neighbor’s house. Our host, knowing that I am a pastor, asked, “What was your sermon about today?” I briefly summarized the thrust of my sermon on the appointed gospel in which the recently-resurrected Jesus shows his wounds to Thomas. Then, knowing that our host attends one of San Diego County’s largest multi-site Evangelical churches, I asked, “What was your pastor’s sermon about today?” The answer: “How to lead like Moses.” I have little doubt that Jesus was mentioned in that sermon just as I have little doubt that the Lord was mentioned mainly as the means to a practical end.

I am not saying that everyone who follows the series approach to preaching does that, but I am saying that the lectionary makes it a whole lot harder to traffic in legalistic life lessons. It would take a monumental effort to somehow feed God’s people leadership training seven days after Easter while preaching the lectionary. If the lectionary makes one thing easier it’s this: maintaining focus on the words and works of Jesus and delivering the good news in a way that is—as I will argue in the following parts of this series—uniquely poised to matter most in our cultural moment.

There are almost limitless opportunities to engage contemporary culture within the lectionary preaching paradigm. It’s still hard work, too; but where it matters most the lectionary may really be the easy option.

Written by Caleb Bassett

Caleb serves as pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fallbrook, CA. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the WELS Hymnal Project and chairman of the project’s Technology Subcommittee. He has been a frequent guest panelist on The White Horse Inn, a nationally syndicated radio program and podcast on theology and culture. He is a fellow of the International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism, and Human Rights in Strasbourg, France and a member of the WELS Institute for Lutheran Apologetics.

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¹ This article is the first in a series of three that evaluates free text series preaching, not the kind of lectionary-based series featured in the new hymnal’s Commentary on the Propers and offered in The Foundation at welscongregationalservices.net/the-foundation.
² This concept was coined by academic theologian L. Gregory Jones, former dean of Duke Divinity School and provost of Baylor University.

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Preaching with Outsiders in Mind

Insights from Being Open to Feedback

Editor’s note: This issue concludes our series on preaching with those outside our church membership in mind. Since 2011 Pastor Caleb Kurbis has served at Living Savior Lutheran Church in Asheville and Hendersonville, NC. Living Savior has two locations as one church in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. In this mission setting there is never a shortage of opportunities to interact with numerous Sunday visitors and other outsiders. Living Savior’s ministry context includes a majority of members who have never been Lutheran in a region that is less and less Christian with hardly any Lutheran presence.

Introductory thoughts from Pastor Caleb Kurbis

“Pastor, did you know that A.I. could write your sermons for you?”

I had to smile and nod a bit even if my poker face hid the fact that it sounded stupid. Then again, should we be surprised when technology starts to do things that we thought were off the table? I guess I should be thankful that this kind 20-something didn’t tell me this on a Sunday morning. I could have inferred more: “Hey Pastor, maybe you should have artificial intelligence write your sermons.” (Or maybe he was saying that? Shoot!)

“Pastor, did you know that A.I. could write your sermons for you?”

If you want a rabbit hole, search “A.I. and sermon writing.” You’ll find everything from interesting to entertaining to absurd. We could enter some key words, the proper for the day, and some sources. Then we could read through to double check for heresy. Voila! And all that time saved could go toward more ministry and reaching more people. Right? Ha! Of course not. We would miss the benefits of wrestling with the Word. Worse yet, A.I. can’t process the people we’re thinking about and the souls sitting in God’s house. And what about the conversations we’ve had with prosects, considerations for reaching the searching, and wrestling with nuances for those who aren’t only new to our church but even new to the faith?

This series is about preaching with outreach and outsiders in mind. It probably goes without saying, but these articles on reaching the unchurched have some basic assumptions.

• We want to preach to outsiders and the unchurched.
• We are doing what we can to reach the unchurched to bring them closer to the Word.
• We recognize that worship, although maybe trending less today than with previous generations, is a great avenue to bring people closer to the Word and to God’s people.
• We want to make sure that they get “every good and perfect gift from above” as we ask God to help us communicate his truths clearly.

That last point is the basis for much struggle for me personally. Over the last couple of years, I have grown to feel dumber and dumber as I wrestle with this question: “Am I sure that these people, especially new people, are hearing what I want them to hear?” That’s not intended to sow self-doubt in every corner. It’s intended to encourage double-checking the sermon preparation and communication process. The more I think, the more I wrestle. And the more I wrestle, the more it makes me want to talk with people and work on the “stuff” that makes a sermon.

Am I sure that these people are hearing what I want them to hear?

Four ideas to help connect what we say with what they hear

1. Speaking of “stuff,” there was a young couple with two little kids who wanted to talk about “church stuff” as they just started attending Living Savior. He was Catholic before he became “close to nothing.” She described herself as having an “eclectic denominational path.” It was the season of Easter. They kindly emailed a question ahead of time. “We heard you say that we have this ‘life’ right now and not just eventually in heaven. That doesn’t make sense. And this world? Ugh! We may have missed something. Can you please explain?”

Thank the Lord for people who ask. (And imagine the many who don’t!) I looked back at my sermon on Revelation 21. I was trying to make the point that this vision of heaven is not only for the future; the life found in and through the Lamb belongs to us right now. But what questions would newbies ask? My sermon draft might say “life” after hours of work. But do I think deeply enough about the questions they (might) have? The more we ask about what specific people might think, the better we become at speaking clearly. And whether we know or think that we know or don’t know at all, it’s always helpful to ask. If we ask what someone thinks about a challenging subject in our sermon, would they refuse to answer? Who says they have to be members of our church? I was once encouraged by a wiser, older pastor to ask for feedback from outsiders in order to make my sermons better for outsiders. That starts with me seeking them out. Whether they become prospects is irrelevant for my feedback goal. Then again, we may be given the blessing of new people who will ask us on their own. “Can you please explain?”

2. I’m kind of a fast talker. I’ve slowed down over the years, but I need more work. Especially when I talk with sooomme of myyyy olllder suuuthrrn’ fooolks. Okay, not that bad. (Or fake!) But I remember many years ago when a very intelligent and emotionally sharp woman in my church told me, “You’ve been thinking about this a lot! Can you give us a little more time to think about it too?”

I had just preached on Luke 15 in the middle of Lent. Does it get any better? The challenge isn’t finding meat in that text. Rather, the challenge is to select and prepare small, choice cuts in a way that’s easy for God’s people to savor and digest. It seems that my sermon came across more as force-feeding. Yikes! She was right. Add that to the reasons that we pray with Luther, “… if you had left it all to me, I would have ruined it long ago” (Luther’s Sacristy Prayer). It gets better (read worse).

There was already an appointment on my calendar that week to grab coffee with a prospect that I had been working on for a long time. The conversation eventually got to the sermon the Sunday before. He said, “I need to go back and listen again.” The translation in my head sounded like this: That is a really nice way of validating what that lady said. You’ve got some work to do.

It reminds me of what a good pastor friend once said. “We slave over our sermon all week. Every sentence, logical structure, and sound. But the people? They have one second to get a thought, or they don’t.” Add to that listeners who don’t know context or terminology or Bible history or inside jokes or Lutheran-ese, etc.

Think about how new listeners process deep content, logical leaps, and a speedy pace. When we slave over what to say, we need to remember that how we say it happens quickly to the ear. That doesn’t just mean that we need to slow down. That leads to other questions. If I heard this for the first time, would I get it? If I summarized my last several paragraphs with one sentence each, is the logic simple and clear? What would I change if I had to explain this to a child?

We need not shy away or be distracted from saying the simple things.

3. A young man in his early 30s had been an atheist. Now he’s more of an agnostic. He said that he relates to the Stoics quite a bit. He doesn’t want to come to church quite yet because he doesn’t know much. He doesn’t want to sit there and have things sail over his head even though he is intelligent. I assume that you, like me, start thinking about how simple and clear the gospel is and how hard we work (and we must) to keep it simple.

Our professors encouraged a serious and robust devotional life. One professor at the Seminary said, “If you don’t have a personal devotion first thing on Sunday morning, what are you doing? Truly, what are you doing?” True, wise, instructive, and beneficial. But one Sunday hit me upside the head.

The sermon was done. First things first, a devotion from Our Worth to Him by Mark Paustian.¹ The one on Easter. He notes that maybe on Easter we could avoid getting into all the apologetical tidbits of the resurrection and simply focus on the true blessings and eternal benefits of Easter for God’s people. In short, it’s okay and maybe even often preferred to say the simple truths. It hit me because I read these words on the Third Sunday in Easter, and I had erred in the other direction.

Of course, Prof. Paustian isn’t suggesting an either/or scenario all the time. Anyone who has heard him speak or read his writing has witnessed the benefit of weaving together both clear biblical truth and apologetics. It is an art worth aspiring to. Rather, when it comes to the truths that matter most, we need not shy away or be distracted from saying the simple things.

It shouldn’t go without saying that simplifying our preaching is not just for newbies but also for those who have been in church almost every Sunday for their entire lives. (On this point Nathan Nass’s Preach the Word series is worth rereading.²)

We need to say the simple thing as clearly as possible. Of course, we want to give our people meat. We also want them to have milk. But nothing says we can’t communicate steak-like truths in a milky way. Truths that are out of this world can be shared on a rudimentary level. Sharing the simple truths leads to deeper applications. In other words, think not either/or but both/and. It will benefit regular members and certainly also outsiders.

Some further questions pertain to resources. What devotional resources do you use? How do you view yourself as a listener to the author/speaker? What resonates with you? Maybe you prefer deeper devotionals like The Daily Exercise of Piety by Johann Gerhard. Or maybe you like what fellow brothers write in NPH’s Meditations. Or you’ve found treasure in Paustian’s Our Worth to Him. What is there in the simplicity of our devotional resources and lives that can easily translate into our sermon preparation and even our preaching?

4. I recently got back into officiating high school basketball. No, I don’t like getting yelled at and called names for fun, although there is something to be said for testing the thickness of our pastoral skin in some ways. But this outlet and pathway for connecting in my community can get serious. The supervisor provides critique. And it’s really interesting seeing how people receive it, or not. The supervisor confided in me about pushback from someone by saying, “Reffing is very subjective. Subjectivity is personal. So, people either take it personally or they improve.” Would you agree that preaching is highly subjective? Do we welcome constructive criticism to improve? Or do we take it personally or avoid it altogether?

A member in my church works in an economic realm of our world that is way beyond me. He works with elite people who exhibit the highest levels of professionalism. But you wouldn’t know if you met him because he’s a very gracious man. Years ago, he asked me who I’m trying to reach with my sermons. I said they’re for everyone. I waited, knowing he had more to share. He asked, “Pastor, do you pursue constructive criticism on your sermons?” I told him that I have a couple of guys whose feedback I seek. And sometimes I’ll hand members an anonymous feedback form. Notice he asked if I pursued it, and not just received it. Why? We’re always improving.

I don’t know of any line of work or any craft where someone can improve significantly without some form of criticism. That’s true for this man’s line of work with upper-crust business folks. That’s true for some bumpkin preacher in the mountains of Western North Carolina. And that’s true for you. Of course, the fact that you’re still reading this is one clear indication that you know this. Even so, when it comes to preaching with outreach and outsiders in mind, isn’t it worth pursuing feedback from fellow preachers and others whom we trust?

I wonder what it would be like if we started asking each other some of the following questions. If you brought your unchurched neighbor to my church, what is there about my recent sermons that I should keep doing? What would need improvement? Can you read/listen to/watch a couple of my latest sermons through the perspective of first-time guest and let me know what was clear, confusing, churchy, and/or comforting?

Don’t be afraid of criticism and feedback for the goal of improvement. In fact, be concerned if you resist it.

Applying the Word to people who are veterans and to those who are new or outsiders is worth our best efforts. We deeply desire for their hearts to gain clear insights from the Word. That’s not something A.I. can produce, much less bless. But that is certainly the area code where God works blessings and will produce growth for our good and for our people. He has and he will!

Don’t be afraid of criticism and feedback … be concerned if you resist it.

Timeless Reminders

Editor’s note: This issue’s timeless reminder comes Rev. Tom Jeske’s introductory article in Preach the Word: 8:1.

I like the advice of a classmate who endured a rough chapter of ministry. When I asked him how it was going, he said “Nothing I can’t handle with a good night’s sleep… and some devotion time in the morning.”

Lutheran Preacher, start your day by reading the Scripture! Set your alarm. Get by yourself. Graze like a sheep in the pasture of the Word. You can’t preach to anyone else if you are gasping for air. I try to read four chapters a day. I don’t always make it. (Especially for you younger pastors: Did you know that if you discipline yourself to read four chapters a day, you read through the whole Bible every year?) Isn’t that a worthy and reachable goal? No one has to be a great scholar or have outstanding gifts to do this. You put yourself before the living words of the Holy One of Israel. How can something not happen to you?

After I finish reading, then I pray. We all know that prayer is not a Means of Grace. First the preacher listens, then the preacher speaks. I made a little pattern to help me. Of course it’s not original with me—just ask Peter the Barber. And yes, I can actually pray without it. But I’m a person who easily loses his concentration. This little outline helps me in a way that I suppose is akin to how journaling helps some people think. I list four matters on my conscience and confess them. I list four specific gifts for which to thank God. I make myself write down ten names or initials. The last section is a hodgepodge of hopes, dreams, needs, and half-baked ideas. Brother, you do it your way and improve on my idea. But hear Luther:

“Whenever I happen to be prevented by the press of duties from observing my hour of [Word and] prayer, the entire day is bad for me. Prayer helps very much and gives us a cheerful heart, not on account of any merit in the work, but because we have spoken with God and found everything to be in order.”

You know that by “prayer” he meant “Word and prayer.” Preacher, your morning Word and prayer will serve you well as you present devotions in meetings of every type, hospital visits, confirmation Bible classes, unexpected phone counseling, difficult face-to-face conversations, and finding the love to make outreach a part of your week.

The best part of a morning devotion is the sweet experience of a clear conscience. “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,” (Ps 143). Battered and fearful hearts know no finer way to spend time. Perhaps the second-greatest benefit of a morning devotion is its cumulative value for your preaching. Your preparation, your product, and your confidence to step before God’s people to preach are going to grow steadily.

Written by Joel Russow

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¹ online.nph.net/our-worth-to-him-devotions-for-christian-worship.html
² Vol. 23 at worship.welsrc.net

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Preaching with Outsiders in Mind

Insights from a Pastor Reaching Unexpected Prospects

Editor’s note: This issue continues our series on preaching with those outside our church membership in mind. It provides insights from Pastor Ben Kuerth, from Divine Savior in Doral, Fla., a northwest suburb of Miami. Prior to his ministry in Florida, Kuerth started a mission church, Victory of the Lamb in Franklin, Wis., where he served for twelve years.

Divine Savior operates an academy with 1,150 students and a special needs school with 40 students. A unique challenge is preaching to 65 WELS called workers who are mostly from the Midwest while also connecting with many who have never heard the pure gospel. Doral is home to immigrants from Venezuela, Colombia, most of South America, and many other countries since those who want to do business in South or Latin America have offices in Miami. This presents opportunities to share the gospel with souls who have little Bible background and for whom English is often not their native language.

Ideas from Pastor Ben Kuerth

Four examples or thoughts on how outsiders have impacted your preaching preparation:

The first three examples are of people in suburban Wisconsin—one from the early days of renting a Polish beer hall, one from our days in a movie theater, and one from our new ministry center. The last example is from Florida.

A tough father. He did MMA fighting at a local gym—not a big guy, yet wiry and tough. I sat next to him at the closing picnic for our soccer Bible camp which his daughter had attended. I invited him to church. He smirked and said, “Nah, church is for wimps.” I ended up daring him to come to church for the sake of his daughter and prove to her that he was a tougher and better man than Jesus. He said, “Okay, you’re on!” To my surprise, he actually came that Sunday . . . and faithfully almost every Sunday after that. Baptizing him and his daughter was a special moment. He thanked me for making church feel like a place where guys like him who were rough around the edges could come and not feel weirded out. He helped me realize that a lot of guys deep down are craving someone to call them out and call them to something more, Someone bigger.

A lot of guys deep down are craving someone to call them out and call them to Someone bigger.

A tearful mother. One night the phone rang. The woman was in tears because her son had committed suicide the day before. The reason she called me was because three years earlier I had knocked on her door while canvassing and invited her to church. She never came. What I didn’t know is that she had been watching our services online for years. Even though I barely knew her, she knew me and considered me her pastor. On the phone she told me the previous night she had watched one of our services on repeat over and over from 2:00 to 4:00 a.m. God’s Word was the only thing that soothed her broken heart. She reminds me of something now whenever I see the camera at the back of church: somewhere at the other end of that camera lens’s tunnel is someone else just like her—a soul hungry for what only God’s Word can give, someone who at some point will likely look to me as their pastor.

She had been watching our services online for years.

A trembling woman. One Sunday I noticed a car I didn’t recognize. It was parked some distance from the doors of our ministry center. For 15 minutes it just sat there. No one got out. Worship was about to start. But I felt I needed to go out there. I introduced myself and said, “Can I walk you in?” The woman in the car was trembling. She said she’d been battling depression. She had prayed to God for a sign—either to get out and actually go inside or to go away for good. She had recently considered ending her life. She then said something I’ll never forget: “I came here thinking maybe I’ll first give church one last shot.” I think of her often on Sunday mornings even now as I pray, “Lord, help me today to speak and act as if someone here is giving church one last shot.” This has had a lasting impact on me.

A grieving son. Recently in Doral I’m grateful for Bruno who has started bringing his two daughters to church. A few years ago, his dad died of cancer, and it was brutal for him to watch. How his dad faced death without hope did a number on him. During the pandemic he began seeking God, thinking that there must be more than this material world. Thoughtfully he wondered, “There has to be a God since I have this desire to be a good person and want to make the world a better place.” So out of the blue, he came to our church. From his home office he can look out his window and see our “Divine Savior” sign—a sign from God he now calls it! I can still see Bruno leaning in, intensely listening as I preached that first Sunday. Over a strong cup of Colombian coffee two days later, Bruno shared what had hooked him: “It’s like you were saying, ‘Let’s get back to the basics . . . but in a good way.’” My sermon that previous Sunday was nothing special—except for the simple, clear law and gospel with Jesus at the center. But, of course, (silly me) that’s exactly why it was so special for him! God brought Bruno into my life at just the right time when I needed to be reminded that I don’t need to carry the burden of always being super creative or needing to come up with “new-to-me” content. What people need, more than anything, is the clear, Christ-centered truths of the Bible communicated simply and sincerely. That is sorely lacking in so many South Florida churches. Is it also by you?

I don’t need to carry the burden of always being super creative or needing to come up with “new-to-me” content.

Three encouragements to preachers for keeping outsiders in mind in sermon preparation:

1. Clear beats clever. Sometimes I try and get too clever, and I end up confusing people. Clear and clever? That’s great when you can pull it off. Sometimes the occasion calls for it, perhaps. But if you’re trying to communicate with people whose first language is something other than English, or with people who are brand new to Christianity (or both!), being clear is the vital task. The more people I meet from other countries, the more I’m starting to realize this.
2. “There’s a soul at the end of that tunnel.” I tell myself this whenever I look into the livestream camera lens. There are potential pitfalls to preaching when you’re aware of people “eavesdropping” anonymously from anywhere in the world. Yet over and over, for years now, I’ve met or interacted with people who’ve reached out to me as their pastor even though I had no clue I was pastoring them. This is simply because someone invited them to watch online, linked them to a particular message, or they stumbled onto our website where at some point the Spirit prompted them to take a next step. So, keep them in mind. Consider greeting those who are worshiping online. Invite them to reach out to you if and when they’re ready. Simply acknowledge their “presence” with gratitude whether or not you know if anyone is actually out there watching. With archived services and messages online, it’s virtually guaranteed that someone will be eventually. It’s also a great way to establish a culture that communicates, “We are a church that is always expecting guests.”
3. Imagine someone present in person or online who is giving church one last shot. Between people disillusioned with some church experience and those doing the trendy thing of “deconstructing” their faith, this is a huge segment of people. When you prepare for a service imagining that such people will be present, it changes how you plan to greet people in the parking lot, host the service, conduct the liturgy, and communicate during the sermon. At least it has for me.

Consider greeting those who are worshiping online . . . to establish a culture that communicates, “We are a church that is always expecting guests.”

Two sermon excerpts of preaching with outsiders in mind:

Here is an excerpt from Pastor Kuerth’s sermon on 2 Thessalonians 1:3-10. You will hear his theme “Only Jesus Provides Eternal Home Security” echoing in the excerpt below.

The Thessalonians knew that ultimately only Jesus provides eternal home security. They knew that only in Jesus would they be kept safe from God’s judgment against sin. How about you?

There is a danger today, I think, that we would be so lulled into a false sense of earthly security that we forget about our real need for Jesus and his saving grace. There is a danger today facing everyone in Doral that if we just have enough money, or toys, or technology . . . and that if our earthly lives and houses feel safe . . . and we have the sense that we’re in control and if we keep our lives so busy that we don’t even really think about death or God’s judgment or wrath . . . then everything must be okay, and we just assume we’ll be safe forever and ever. There is a danger today specifically for Christians too that we would compromise the convictions of our faith and the teachings of the Bible in order not to experience conflict with the world. There is a danger that we would make our own personal comfort a higher priority than taking up our cross and following Jesus no matter the cost rather than be made fun of by our friends who don’t believe what we do.

But no matter what the cost, no matter how heavy the cross we have to carry in life or how much conflict we face, to those who cling to Jesus, he promises relief. Paul says, “He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well.” This is why the Christian church is the only place where you are perfectly safe. You’re safe here not because this earthly building is built impossibly strong. You’re safe here not because nothing bad could ever happen here. You’re safe here because only Jesus Christ provides eternal home security. Like Paul told the Thessalonians, “This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.” . . .

Everything Jesus accomplished as the stand-in for sinful humanity, he did for you. When he died on the cross, those were your sins he was paying for. When he rose from the dead, that was your victory over the grave that he won. When he comes back in glory, he will come to bring you safely home and glorify you with him forever. It’s something we can look forward to. Only Jesus provides eternal home security until the day he says, “Welcome home.” Then we will be forever safe from all violence, selfishness, exploitation, and greed. Then we will be forever safe from all the consequences of sin and from endless ruin itself.

Here is an excerpt from Pastor Kuerth’s sermon on Matthew 1:18-25 with the theme, “Jesus Gives Us What We Need.”

So how could (Joseph) be sure (of what the angel told him and if he was equipped for the task of raising and protecting the Son of God)? Because he simply took God at his word. He went all in trusting God’s Word instead of his initial feelings. There’s a great lesson for us. That’s why months later Joseph followed through and named that little boy Jesus. Even after he had time to think things through, he was still sure. Even after the emotional high of a personal visit by an angel had long worn off, Joseph kept hanging on to God’s Word. He knew that God was with him.

And you can be sure of that too, no matter what you’re going through right now and no matter what surprises you will find in the future. For even though life often takes us by surprise, nothing takes God by surprise, and his presence in your life means you have nothing to fear. In our world there are lots of uncertain things. Pop up ads promise you too-good-to-be-true deals if you just click on them right now. Weather predictions are sometimes right and often not. The stock market is volatile and not even the experts seem to know whether it’ll go up or down. You might not be sure what the next year is going to hold for you and your family. You might not always be sure where you’re going to find the courage to deal with the different people and situations you face.

But you can be sure of Jesus. You can be sure he came to pay for your sins as the only one perfectly qualified to do so because he is both fully God and fully human. You can be sure that he lives to take you to be with him forever heaven. You can be sure that Jesus is your Savior God who is with you as you go forward into the future. Because he is Immanuel.

One preaching resource (besides the Bible and Confessions) in your library and why you have found it valuable:

I need to talk through the ideas in my head with others in order to sift out the wheat from the chaff, so for years now the most helpful resource in preaching preparation has been to meet regularly with other pastors to share key insights, applications, and ministry stories of the real people we’re thinking of as we prepare a sermon on the same text. I feel blessed to get to do that via Zoom with other Divine Savior campus pastors as part of our multi-site ministry.

A preaching book that I regularly consult is Stories with Intent by Klyne Snodgrass. Prof. Paul Wendland suggested this in a satellite summer quarter class on preaching parables. The book provides useful insights into story structure, historical context and interpretation, and relevant modern applications. I’ve realized that I could improve how I tell stories, so the book has been a help in thinking through the ways Jesus used stories.

Timeless Reminders

Editor’s note: This issue’s timeless reminder comes from Prof. Emeritus James Westendorf’s article, “Passionate Preaching for Impassioned Preachers.” You can read Prof. Westendorf’s article in its entirety in Preach the Word 4:1.

Know Your Text. Often when you go up to a person you didn’t know very well before and start asking him questions about himself, rather than simply listening to what other people have to say about him, you find out some very interesting things. You may get to know the person so well that you want to introduce him to your friends. The same thing can happen with texts. You begin a dialogue with a text, asking questions of it and listening for its unique answers, given in a way that perhaps no other text can give, and you start getting excited. The conviction begins to grow in mind and heart, “Wow, this text has some amazing things to say, and it says them so marvelously. I can’t wait to introduce it to my people next Sunday.”

Know Your Pulpit. The sermon is our chance to tell others what we have seen and heard from the mouth of God himself. I wonder with what feeling Philip spoke the words to Nathanael, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”? I don’t think those words were said matter-of-factly because what they revealed was so mindboggling and amazing. You are in the same situation when you preach, only you don’t have to find the people first. They have come to you! Don’t hide the excitement. Let the enthusiasm that is in your heart show!

Know Your People. The impassioned preacher is not just a visiting pastor, he is also a listening one. He does the hard work of actually paying attention to what his people are saying. He makes mental notes of the fears, disappointments, doubts, and hopes which his parishioners describe. . . . When he is in the pulpit, all those conversations come flooding back into his memory. In his voice can be heard his unrestrained joy that says, “Boy, do I have something wonderful to tell you.”

Know Yourself. I’m sure you have been told more than once in your career, “Preach every sermon and apply every text to yourself before you take it to your people.” When that is done faithfully and regularly, the enthusiasm to share grows. . . . There are no magical formulas and no artificial contrivances that can keep the fires burning and the juices flowing, but that doesn’t mean there are no solutions to the absence of passion in our hearts and in our sermons. You are regularly working with the Spirit’s own instrument. Let it have free course in your heart. The passion will be there; passionate sermons will be the result. You and your people will reap the benefits.

Written by Joel Russow

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Preaching with Outsiders in Mind

Insights from Multiple Ministry Settings

Editor’s note: This issue continues our series on preaching with those outside our church membership in mind. This issue provides insights from Pastor Tom Engelbrecht, who has served in multiple ministry settings: six years at a mission restart called Amazing Grace in South Beloit, IL, then six years as assimilation pastor at Christ in Pewaukee, WI, a large congregation, where he also was involved in starting a second site. He currently serves at Christ Our Redeemer, Aurora, CO, which is a small to medium sized congregation with a Lutheran Elementary School. Pastor Engelbrecht is married to Jackie and together they have four children.

Ideas from Pastor Tom Engelbrecht

Four examples or thoughts on how outsiders have impacted your preaching preparation:

• A caution to remain clearly biblical. I’ve always wondered, as have most pastors, I think: What would happen if you interviewed the members in my congregation on basic points of doctrine? How would that go? I try to keep that in mind when preparing sermons—perhaps many of the “insiders” are kind of “outsiders.” Because of that, my first example of an “outsider” impacting my preaching isn’t an outsider at all. I was at a large congregation and asked a retired pastor to offer feedback on a particular sermon that I knew I had tried to gear toward outsiders. He said something to the effect of “It didn’t sound very Lutheran.” I remember I had intentionally tried to avoid jargon and technical words. I wanted to be as simple and clear as possible. To this day, I’m not entirely sure if the pastor’s observation was positive or negative, but it sticks in my mind as a caution to remain clearly biblical (Lutheran) in my attempts to reach outsiders where they are at.

What would happen if you interviewed the members in my congregation on basic points of doctrine?

• Specific law fully, yet wisely. I was preaching at the brand-new second site of our large church. We were trying to reach out to the families who sent their kids to the public school in which we were worshiping. There were about thirty people in attendance, and a couple of the families were from the school. I remember making a law application that had to do with online pornography. Following the service, one of the women, who was there with her 11-year-old son, said that she didn’t expect that her son would be exposed to talk about pornography at church. They didn’t return. I don’t think I would have preached the sermon any differently if given a second chance, but I think about that interaction as I seek to preach specific law fully, yet wisely, for the sake of the listeners.

She didn’t expect that her son would be exposed to talk about pornography at church.

• Good news for the anxious. Have you seen the first-time guests that come in with the “deer in the headlights” look? We recently had a woman visit us for the first time with that look on her face. It made me wonder what was going through her mind. It also made me wonder if anything was getting through at all because of the stress of her unfamiliar surroundings. It impressed upon me the importance of the clear proclamation of law and gospel so that even those who may be anxious or distracted will hear the good news that their sins are forgiven in Jesus.
• Share…no matter how people react. I was preaching for a funeral of a young girl. I didn’t dwell too much on the life of the girl, but rather on the hope that Jesus gives—especially through Baptism. I was a little surprised to see a woman frowning at me and shaking her head during the sermon. I didn’t have the chance to talk to the woman after the service and find out what was bothering her, but it sticks in my mind as an example of those who don’t appreciate the hope we have in Jesus. Funerals seem to be where I have the chance to address more outsiders than any other service. What a privilege we have to share the foolishness of the hope of the resurrection, no matter how people react! And what an opportunity for outsiders to confront death and hear about True Life.

Funerals seem to be where I have the chance to address more outsiders than any other service.

Three encouragements to preachers for keeping outsiders in mind in sermon preparation:

• Smile. Yes, smile. And give people reason to smile. A mission counselor taught me that when he critiqued one of my services. One of the only critiques he gave was, “You should smile while you’re giving the Benediction.” It’s very simple but not always easy to do when we’re focused on leading a service. Smiling and giving people a reason to smile sets people at ease and draws them in to listen.

“You should smile while you’re giving the Benediction.”

• Call, talk to, and spend time with your members and your prospects. I’ve had the privilege of serving at a mission restart, a very large congregation, and a smallish congregation with a school. I’ve always been able to find reasons to stay in my office. That’s when sermon writing has felt stale and out of touch. Spend time with people. Their joys, burdens, blessings, and challenges are the same things that outsiders are experiencing. If we listen, people will let us know what’s going on. We’ve got the message that addresses what’s going on.

I’ve always been able to find reasons to stay in my office. That’s when sermon writing has felt stale and out of touch.

• The law and the gospel are the two main messages in the Bible. Through the law God crushes the self-righteous and through the gospel God heals the broken. We all know this, but not everyone knows this. A law/gospel sermon isn’t necessarily going to be simplistic. It might be exactly what that outsider needs. They almost certainly will not have heard a clear law/gospel message before. You get to be the one to share it with them.

Two sermon excerpts of preaching with outsiders in mind:

Here is an excerpt from Pastor Engelbrecht’s sermon on Romans 7:14-25, where he focuses the listener on our internal struggle against sin and then points hearts to the One who rescues sinners from themselves.

Why do you do what you do? How many times a day do you ask yourself that same question? You tell yourself you are going to be more positive today, but the first chance you get, you complain. Why do you do that? You want to keep your cool with your kids, but you fly off the handle. Why do you do that? You aren’t going to get online and visit those illicit websites tonight, but you grab your phone or computer and sink right back into the filth. Why do you do that? You are going to show love to your wife or respect to your husband, but you snap at them the first chance you get. Why do you do that? You are going to stop participating in gossip, but the moment you hear that juicy morsel you can’t help but pass it along. Why do you do that?

That’s exactly what Paul is talking about. Paul confessed that he didn’t do what he wanted to do. He did the very things he hated…. Paul puts a name to “myself,” the part of me that will not do what I want. He calls it the sinful nature. Every one of us is born with a sinful nature that we’re stuck with until we die. The old man in our lives is always catching up to us and crashing into us to ruin the things we want to do. The other night in Bible study someone gave a great example of the old man ruining the things we want to do. He said that he works downtown and occasionally he’ll see people begging for money on the street corner, so he’ll often give them whatever change he has. He said he does that simply out of faith in Jesus. But he said that almost every time he does it, there’s a part of him that hopes someone else saw him do what he did so that they think he’s a great guy. What was a selfless act turned into a selfish act. I appreciated his honesty and completely agree that when we want to do good, evil is right there with me! Myself is always against me….

The struggle between “me” and “myself” finally brings us to the “I.” I am wretched. I need to be rescued from myself. If you’re anything like me, my dear friends, that’s often where you stop. I am wretched. I don’t understand what I do. But we can’t stop there. Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! Jesus always wanted what God, his Father, wanted. He always knew what his Father wanted. He always did what his Father wanted. That doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t struggle. He was tempted in every way, just as we are, but he was without sin. That means he was righteous. This is why Paul brings up Jesus Christ into the midst of the battle of me, myself, and I. We don’t know what we do, but Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. He knew exactly who he was doing it for. He did it in exactly the way it needed to be done to rescue us from us.

Here is an excerpt from Pastor Engelbrecht’s sermon on John 20:1-8, where he highlights the main character in our lives to explain the impact of the resurrection on insiders and outsiders alike.

When it comes to the account of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, I’ve always operated under the assumption that Jesus is the main character of the resurrection. What you’ll notice is something that surprised me…. We might go so far as to say that John makes the main character of Easter morning the empty tomb. We should begin by asking the question, “Why would John make the tomb the main character of the resurrection morning?”

Probably the best answer for why John makes the tomb the main character of resurrection morning is because everybody else made the tomb the main character that morning…. When (Mary) saw the tomb was opened, what did she assume? She didn’t assume that Jesus must be risen from the dead just like he said. Instead, knowing that he wasn’t in the tomb, she came to the conclusion that his body must have been moved to another tomb…. She ran and told this to Peter and (John). When they heard her story, they took off running. You have to admire their urgency, but where did they run. They ran to the tomb! Why did they run to the tomb? As far as they were concerned, Jesus was dead…. Their thoughts and lives were governed by death. So of course, they went to the tomb.

What is the main character in your life? Mary, Peter, and John probably thought their main character was still Jesus, but their thoughts were consumed by the stuff of death. Their footsteps that morning led to the place of death. You might think I’m overstating things, but when our thoughts are consumed by any other main character in our lives than Jesus, our footsteps are leading to a place of death.

Think about what types of things become the main characters in our lives. We get consumed by success at work or our children’s happiness or a healthy body or more material things in our lives. What is the inevitable destination if our footsteps lead down the path in pursuit of those things and other things like them? The destination is death. We don’t always think about it that way because those are good things in our lives. But they can’t be the main character in our lives because they end in death….

(Mary, Peter, and John) saw the stuff of death in the tomb. What didn’t they see? They didn’t see Jesus. Why didn’t they see him? Because he was alive…. The tomb is no longer the main character, because the tomb is changed as well. Now the tomb is the empty tomb. It’s not Jesus’ tomb anymore. It’s the empty tomb. Which means it’s never going to be the main character again. Jesus’ empty tomb is the promise and the proof of all our empty tombs. Jesus’ empty tomb is the promise of life for all those who have Jesus as the main character in our lives through faith. With Jesus as the main character in our lives, everything changes.

Jesus’ empty tomb is the promise and the proof of all our empty tombs.

One preaching resource (besides the Bible and Confessions) in your library and why you have found it valuable:

Early on in my ministry I very much appreciated Franzmann’s Bible History Commentary. It was valuable for helping me make sure that I didn’t go off track about a narrative text. Most recently, I was thankful for Michael Horton’s Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Reckless World. It was a helpful reminder that God continues to use the ordinary means that he’s always used to reach and strengthen people: the gospel in Word and Sacrament. As we do our best to use God’s ordinary means, he will bless it as he sees fit.

Timeless Reminders

Editor’s note: This issue’s timeless reminder comes Rev. John Vieth’s article, “The Value of the Four Divisions of Theology for Our Preaching.” You can read Pastor Vieth’s article its entirety in Preach the Word: 5:6.

Pastoral theology classes occupy an important place in our own seminary training. They do not, however, comprise the entire curriculum. Our well-balanced training in the disciplines of Biblical Theology, Historical Theology, Systematic Theology—as well as Practical Theology—prepares us for not only the general demands of pastoral life, but also for our pulpit work in particular…

Biblical Theology
We can’t share what we ourselves don’t have. If our purpose in preaching is to share with our congregations the words and promises of God, a thorough acquaintance with those words and promises on the part of the preacher is paramount. God did not call us to preach and then ask us to create interesting, comforting, or motivational messages of our own. He has called us to preach the interesting, comforting, and motivating message of his Holy Scriptures…

Historical Theology
While we do well to heed Harold Senkbeil’s warning, “…it’s always dangerous to run a church by archeology” (Dying to Live: The Power of Forgiveness, p. 78), our study and review of the controversies and heresies that troubled the Church in the past can prevent us from saying things we don’t want to say when we stand up to preach…

Systematic Theology
Since systematic studies equip us with a ready grasp of the great truths of the Bible and how they fit together, our training in dogmatics can help prevent us from developing novel interpretations of Bible texts that are contradictory to the rest of God’s word. Preachers with defective or deficient doctrine can unwittingly fall prey to pitting one text against the rest of God’s revelation.

A second advantage of thorough instruction in systematic theology is that it can alert us to preaching values in texts which serve as the sedes for certain Christian doctrines. When the Church has historically identified certain passages as key proofs of particular Christian teachings, those teachings deserve consideration in sermons based on those texts.

This is not an exhaustive listing of the value our theological training has for our preaching. Hopefully it reminds us to take up and dust off some parts of our training that we have let lie on the shelf for a while. Listen again to the encouragements of August Pieper:

In the parsonage, in the pastor’s study, in his little den are the sources of the church’s strength. If this little den becomes cold and empty, or if it is dedicated to the Old Adam and the spirit of this world, the church’s strength will evaporate, and the spirit of the world will overwhelm it. If, on the other hand, the Spirit’s fire burns in the pastor’s praying and studying, new streams of the Spirit will flow out daily to God’s people (WLQ, Vol. 84, No. 4, p. 276).

Written by Joel Russow

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Prof. Russow at the National Conference on Lutheran Leadership

Preachers can enrich their preaching with non-members in mind by attending his session in January at the Chicago Hilton. Here’s the description of his session, but note that it’s not only for preachers!

St. Paul ask the believers in the church at Corinth to think about what they do if they are gathered for worship and “an unbeliever or an inquirer comes in…” (1 Corinthians 14:24). So, Paul tells those believers to expect that “non-members” will show up and to think through what happens in worship because of that fact.

In our WELS congregations, we hope to increasingly have “unbelievers and inquirers” visiting our worship at the invitation of a Christian friend. Over half of unchurched people say they would seriously consider accepting an invitation from a trusted friend to visit church. So, imagine WELS members take this all to heart and begin regularly inviting unchurched neighbors and family members to worship. Some of them actually show up! Now what?

What would you want the preacher to keep in mind as he preaches to these guests for the first time? Preachers, how should the presence of visitors impact your sermon preparation and proclamation? How deep can (or should?) a sermon go with listeners who know little about the Bible?

The reality is that our sermons will strive to keep two audiences in mind—church members and non-members. This presentation will especially wrestle with keeping the non-member audience in mind, but the encouragement shared will also edify the members too. Church members and preachers alike can benefit in this presentation as they seek to grow wise toward outsiders and make the most of every preaching opportunity.

Learn more at lutheranleadership.com.

 

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Preaching with Outsiders in Mind

Insights from an Urban Setting

Editor’s note: This issue continues our series on preaching with those outside our church membership in mind. The previous issue provided insights from a pastor serving in rural Nebraska. This issue provides insights from a pastor serving in the greater Seattle area.

Pastor Daniel Lange shares insights from his ministry at Light of Life Lutheran in Covington, WA, where he has served for twelve years. Pastor Lange also serves as the first vice president of the Pacific Northwest District.

Ideas from Pastor Daniel Lange

Four examples or thoughts on how outsiders have impacted your preaching preparation:

Preschool parents – Every week I see the moms and dads dropping their kids off at our preschool. They are outsiders who could visit church any given Sunday and sometimes do. In my conversations with them, I’m often reminded that they are busy, stressed, worried for their children, filled with questions or guilt about parenting, and looking for deeper peace and purpose in life than living the “American dream” in the suburbs of Seattle. (I confess as a parent living in the same community that I struggle with much of the same). What would I want to say if a family from our preschool stepped in this week? “God use these words for them. May they find the Savior who invites them to find rest for their weary souls.”

The conversation died when I said I was a pastor.

My neighbors – Last year, two young professionals moved in next door. As we greeted one another, the conversation died when I said I was a pastor. Since then, as I’ve poked around different topics, I would describe their worldview as many living on West Coast—atheist, humanist, and secularist, with a splash of anti-religion. They care deeply about social issues. While they haven’t come to church yet, my prayer and goal for them is that someday they will. When I see opportunities to touch on current events in my sermon, I ask myself, “How would I say it if I knew they were coming? Or how might I say it if we were talking to one another in the backyard?” When looking at issues in the world, we may not agree on the cause, but we can agree that the symptoms are ugly. I, too, see the devastating effects sin has on our society. How can I connect those problems to the Problem and finally to the Solution of Jesus?

The drug-addicted welder – I met a man in my community two years ago. He was more open with me than anybody I’ve ever met. After finding out I was a pastor, in the first five minutes he confessed to me he was addicted to drugs, alcohol, pornography, and sometimes slept with prostitutes. He said he had recently been trying to quit it all. With tears starting to run down his cheeks, he wondered if I had time for a question. He wanted to know if his baptism still meant anything. I was able to talk him into a Bible Information Class but still have not convinced him to come to church, although he has promised many times to show up. He is a reason I sometimes ask myself, “Is God’s grace clear in this message? If this is the Sunday he arrives, will he see the Jesus who forgives him still, loves him still, and, yes, whose baptism still promises eternal life?”

Many of them are burned out by heavy preaching which presents Christ only as example.

The drifting de-churched – The collapse of Mars Hill in Seattle left 10,000 Christians without a church home. A few of these families have made their way to our congregation, joining some others with a non-denominational background. Many of them are burned out by heavy preaching which presents Christ only as example. They remind me to preach the law with all its deadly force and the gospel with all its life-giving power.

Three encouragements to preachers for keeping outsiders in mind in sermon preparation:

1. Regularly pray for first time visitors at your church. I live in an area where we don’t get walk-in visitors on a regular basis. When we do, one thought I don’t want to have is, “I wish I would have put more time into my sermon this week.” I’ve heard this from several others: the best outreach a pastor can do is to have a good sermon every week. Praying for regular visitors is an exciting pastoral practice. It’s exciting because God often says, “Yes,” to those prayers. It also helps me keep the outsider in mind when preparing the sermon.
2. Trust your sermon preparation process. Sometimes when Easter, Christmas, or VBS Sunday is coming, I find myself falling into the trap of focusing on the audience before I have spent enough time in the Word. At some point, we do turn from gazing into the Word to gazing at our audience, but don’t make that turn too quickly. Stay glued to the text, soaked in the Word, and keep digging, just like any other week. When the speaker is captivated by what he has discovered, the audience (both insiders and outsiders) will be listening.
3. We have THE STORY. In the age of information, where people are bombarded with disinformation, fake news, biased views, and thousands of stories every week, what comfort to know that we have THE STORY. Even though we may not know the personal story of every outsider who comes into our doors, we know that God’s STORY includes them. What a privilege to share, even if it’s just one time.

Two sermon excerpts of preaching with outsiders in mind:

Here is an excerpt from Pastor Lange’s sermon on Genesis 1, preached during the summer of 2020 when protests and riots gripped Seattle, Portland, and much of the nation. Lange comments that the sermon attempted to connect social issues people are passionate about to the greater problem of sin.

“Why is our world broken?” Be careful as you answer that question. Some might say, “Because of racism.” I wouldn’t disagree. Some might say “Because of lawlessness.” I wouldn’t disagree. “Because of selfishness, because of hatred, because of greed.” I wouldn’t disagree. But the reason I urged you to be careful in answering the question, “What is wrong with our world?” is this: everything we see happening right now is connected to a problem that runs much deeper than anything you see in the headlines. Like a river of pollution and filth THE PROBLEM runs its ugly course through every part of our existence. It’s source, the headwaters, begin flowing into our world just 2 chapters later.

I find myself falling into the trap of focusing on the audience before I have spent enough time in the Word.

Genesis 3. The tragic account of how God’s beautiful creation fell apart. Tempted by the devil at a tree, the first human beings reached for something they could never attain, they believed the serpent’s lie that they could become like God himself. And rebellion, evil, and sin went viral. Spreading like a cancer into all of God’s creation. Racism is an evil that flows from this event. Lawlessness is an evil that flows from this event. Injustice, violence, hatred, fear, greed, selfishness, apathy—all of it flows from what took place at that tree.

It’s very likely that because of your background and upbringing, one of these issues angers you more than another. And because of that, you are likely drawn to one side more than another. And if you are drawn to a side, you then have the target: the other side. To point out how they are so wrong and how your side is so right. And like blinders on a racehorse, our anger focuses our attention on the issue and against the other side and we forget something. We often can’t see it, but since the fall into sin there is not a single person living on earth who is completely right. Not even close to it. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). I’m not saying there isn’t a time to speak up and speak out and stand for justice and righteousness, but I fear we often do so without acknowledging and confessing something first—that wicked and evil river of pollution flowing from the tree in the Garden of Eden has flowed right into my own heart as well. As children of Adam and Eve, we were born with hearts of darkness. You were born with a heart of emptiness. We all enter this world with hearts filled with chaos, emptiness, and disorder. We are all guilty and deserve God’s righteous and true anger to come down upon us.

The scene is set again for one of the greatest demonstrations of God’s power and love. He looks at this mess of a world and he sends his Word again to bring peace, order, justice, and life. This time he didn’t just speak the Word, he sent the Word. The Word of God took on human flesh. Born of a woman and placed in a manger. The Word grew up and walked the earth. He, and only he, lived righteously and walked perfectly. He, and only he, was always in the right. He, and only he, was truly in a position to look down on everyone else in righteous anger, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked up to his Father and said, “Let it be me! Let your anger come down upon me! Not them. Let all this mess fall squarely upon my shoulders.” And so, we go to another tree. The tree where the innocent Son of God, took up all our pain and misery and suffered injustice for us once and for all.

Many guests would be used to preaching heavy on sanctification and light on justification.

Here is an excerpt from Pastor Lange’s Palm Sunday sermon on Philippians 2. This sermon was preached on a Sunday when many preschool guests would be in attendance. Lange comments that this sermon attempted to speak to the de-churched with a non-denominational background. Many guests would be used to preaching heavy on sanctification and light on justification.

Remember what was said at the beginning (of the text), “In your relationships with each other have the same mindset Jesus displayed.” God commands us to be humble just like Jesus. And if I said, “Amen,” right now and you left, you might be thinking this was the sermon summary: “1) Jesus was humble, 2) God commands us to be humble just like Jesus,” and you might be fine…for a while. You might go to IHOP and get your pancakes, go to Home Depot and buy your hanging flowerpots for the deck, but sooner or later this question would catch up with you today or this week, “Have I been humble like Jesus? Am I in my life being humble like Jesus? Can I ever be humble like Jesus?”

Why is it that my heart enjoys having the advantage over others? When people treated Jesus like nothing, he carried on in love without complaining? But why is it that when people dismiss me or treat me like nothing, I want to say, “Excuse me, don’t you know who I am? How significant I am? You can’t treat me like that!” And being a servant? Why is it that after a long day of work, the dishes get done, the house gets picked up, and finally a quiet hour for me, and right when we sit down, we hear from upstairs, “Mom, Dad, I need you.” Why is this heart of ours is so slow to serve? This is not a “Look at Jesus and be humble like him!” kind of sermon, this a “Look and first be humbled!” kind of sermon. Be humbled by the truth we haven’t loved this way. Be humbled that God commands us to love this way, but we can’t. We have broken his commands. Someone had to pay for our pride and our selfishness, someone had to pay for the times we haven’t loved others. Someone had to pay for all of our sins. That is what Jesus came to do. It was the reason he came to the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. To rescue us from sin. He didn’t bring an army. He would win victory over sin by surrendering himself. His humility is our hope!

There is no greater act of humble love. The exalted one, who by nature is God, allowed sinful humans to pin him to a crossbeam with nails. The most powerful being to ever walk the earth rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and offered himself to die. The one equal to God didn’t consider using that advantage for himself, even when the other crucified criminals mocked him telling him he should save himself. He stayed. He didn’t even think of saving himself, because all that was on his mind was saving you. The payment we owed God the Humble Servant has given.

One preaching resource (besides the Bible and Confessions) in your library and why you have found it valuable:

One resource is my blank sermon writing template page. Every week I open this document when it is time to begin a new sermon. It has prayers, reminders, tidbits from homiletics class, quotes from other preachers, sermon diagnostic questions, etc. Here is a sampling of what is on it right now:

1. Begin with prayer. Remember: It is a privilege to stand in pulpit. Enjoy the process!
2. Catch ME in the Gospel net this week!
3. Holy Spirit, use this message despite me!
   • Text: Theme of Day: Prayer of Day: Lessons: Initial Ideas:
   • Law: “How can I preach the Law to the secure sinner?” (CFW Walther, Proper Distinction)
   • Gospel: “How can I preach the Gospel to the crushed sinner?” (Walther)
   • Other thoughts and questions:
     • Where is Christ in this text?
     • What lie is the devil telling? How does this portion of God’s Word expose that lie?
     • OT questions: What does the text reveal about God and his will, God’s acts, covenants, law, grace, etc?
     • What is the narrow and broad context of this text?
     • Don’t forget the “So What?” factor.
     • With this sermon I pray that the Holy Spirit will ____ my listeners to…

Timeless Reminders

Editor’s note: This issue’s timeless reminder comes from sainted Prof. Daniel Deuschlander’s article, “Preaching Old Testament Texts.” You can read Prof. Deutschlander’s article its entirety in Preach the Word 7:2.

Perhaps it will help if we start with the simple and so useful assumption: Every text is unique. It makes no difference whether the text is from the Old Testament or the New, keeping that assumption in mind may help to guard against preaching the same sermon every Sunday or from using the same application, no matter what the text: This is the Word of the Lord. Now let’s go out and share it with our neighbors and relatives. Just as the miracles of Jesus are all the same only different, so too are the Bible stories of the Old Testament. Jesus’ miracles all prove that he is the omnipotent Son of God who cares about our human condition. But each recorded miracle is at the same time unique, containing in its telling a lesson found nowhere else in quite the same way. So also the Bible history of the Old Testament. Each story makes the point that God is serious about his Word, both the law and the gospel.

The preacher is always looking for what makes these inspired words, this particular story, unique.

Each story illustrates the truth that grace is always undeserved, that we live by faith, and that we walk as pilgrims under the cross. And at the same time each story is unique and sharpens our understanding of those eternal truths just a little bit more. It is part of the art of the preacher of the Word that he is always looking for what makes these inspired words, this particular story, unique. He is always asking the text: What are you doing here? Of all the things that God could have said, could have told us about, why this?

Written by Joel Russow

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The Foundation – Year A

The worship planning spreadsheet (and PDF version) for the entire year has been available since mid-August. Advent through Epiphany had been posted in early June. Some materials such as the Preacher Podcast and graphics are still being provided as they become available.

To receive earliest notice of such materials, be sure to sign up for email notification of new resources at welscongregationalservices.net/subscriptions/. Pastors might want to encourage musicians to sign up for the Hymnal Highlight series, which offers practical and helpful ways to introduce new hymns.

Are you just now considering The Foundation for the first time? Be sure to review the introductory video at welscongregationalservices.net/foundation-yr-a/ and also Worship the Lord #111. A link is just under the video. Note that you can use The Foundation even if you don’t have the new hymnal. You can easily adapt the worship plan for CW21 in the Year A Planner to CW93. The new lectionary is available in the free test drive version of CW Service Builder (builder.christianworship.com) and for purchase from Logos. Since the Gospel readings in the new lectionary are almost always identical to the old, you can still use Planning Christian Worship (worship.welsrc.net) for hymn suggestions if you’re still using CW93. Just watch for any hymns that focus on a First or Second Reading that might have changed in CW21.

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Preaching with Outsiders in Mind

Insights from a Rural Setting

Editor’s note: This issue continues our series on preaching with those outside our church membership in mind. The next two issues provide insights from pastors in differing settings—a pastor serving in a rural town and a pastor serving in a big city.

Pastor Frederic Berger shares insights from his ministry at St. Paul’s in Plymouth, NE and from preaching at Christ Lutheran in Beatrice, NE. Pastor Berger previously served at St. Paul’s in Livingston, MT and currently serves as the chairman of the Nebraska District Mission Board.

Ideas from Pastor Frederic Berger

“Funerals are one of our best forms of outreach.”

Four examples or thoughts on how outsiders have impacted your preaching preparation:

I come at this from the rural ministry perspective of a longtime established congregation. We live in a town of 400 people (Plymouth, NE). That means that on a typical Sunday we don’t have a lot of “outsiders” randomly coming for worship. But that also means that it becomes easier to key in on the types of services that we absolutely know there are going to be outsiders. Here are a few examples:

People are longing for these types of relationships, and they are in short supply among pastors in our country.

1. Funerals – When I arrived in Plymouth, one of our elders commented, “Pastor, funerals are one of our best forms of outreach.” He wasn’t wrong. Everyone here knows everyone. People take time off to attend funerals. They bring food in abundance to share at the luncheon. They stay after for fellowship. They pay attention to the service, the building upkeep, the small details, and the sermon. Unlike other churches in our area, they have noticed in the sermon that the pastors have a close relationship with those who are now in heaven and with the family. The sermon is all about Jesus, but it’s always wonderful to share in the sermon how our church has connected the person who is now in heaven to the message of Jesus in immense proportions through Word and Sacrament over his/her life, while they were able to come to church, while a shut-in at home, and even in the last moments in the hospital. People are longing for these types of relationships, and they are in short supply among pastors in our country. Using relationships to connect people with the means of grace is our bread and butter in the WELS, and outsiders notice this.
2. Weddings – At least in our area, and this is probably a widespread phenomenon, weddings even in churches have turned into a quasi-service, with officiants becoming ordained online for twenty bucks or acting like it. We have had several people take the Bible Information Class (BIC) who first came in contact with us as a guest at a wedding. And so even though I have found wedding sermons to be some of the most difficult to write, it gives an excellent opportunity to share law and gospel with many “outsiders.”
3. Confirmations, Baptisms, Big Anniversaries, and Birthdays – Again, due to the strong family ties (often multi-generation families that stay in the area), when there is a family event, all the uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, etc. who are churched and unchurched attend the worship service. It might be for a special prayer or bouquet of flowers in the front for mom’s 80th, and 40 “outsiders” will be in attendance. I try to keep this in mind during sermon preparation. How can I take the truths of God’s Word and convey them in a simple, straightforward way? An introduction to catch their attention. A comment about Bible Information Class. A time in the sermon for them to actually ponder (and share with people sitting next to them) what this means for them. At this year’s confirmation service, one of the younger church council members commented to me, “That sermon was perfect for all the guests who were here today.”
4. Christmas and Easter – These are Sundays for “outsiders” in all settings. I always think it is interesting to tailor your illustrations to your audience, which is quite easy when you are speaking to a congregation that understands farming and agriculture, because God often uses these illustrations.

Good preaching for “outsiders” is probably also good preaching for “insiders.”

Three encouragements to preachers for keeping outsiders in mind in sermon preparation:

1. A good sermon is a good sermon. Good preaching for “outsiders” is probably also good preaching for “insiders.” As you spend time crafting a clear message, using pertinent illustrations, making applications to everyday life from God’s Word, sharing law and gospel, reviewing biblical accounts for the biblically illiterate and for the long time Bible reader who needs a refresher, defining terms such as justification, sanctification, repentance, redemption, etc., working on delivery, memorizing, it’s going to be a faithful sermon for all. Study the text. Write it. Memorize. Go and preach it like you mean it.
2. Try to put yourself in their shoes. It is scary coming into a church for the first time, especially to an established one in a rural setting. People are going to notice you. So, from start (greeting) to finish (greeting) and everywhere in between (liturgy and sermon), do everything you can to make the service easy to follow and make them feel comfortable and welcome.
3. In our setting, strong relationships and rapport already exist between members and non-members, which allows our members to easily invite non-members to worship, and, even better, to BIC. Take advantage of that. Sometimes our established rural congregations can be greatly benefited by using some of the same ideas that our new mission churches are using. Borrowing an idea from a mission church in our area, we offered a BIC at a brewery. This non-traditional idea especially sparks a lot of interest in a setting where only the traditional is expected. We had 125 various insiders and outsiders join us over the 18 weeks. In a rural setting, our members have an already established strong network for friendship evangelism.

We offered a BIC at a brewery.

Two sermon excerpts of preaching with outsiders in mind:

Here is an excerpt from Pastor Berger’s confirmation sermon. Times of celebration prove to be wonderful opportunities for outreach at St. Paul’s. Pastor Berger notes that his small rural congregation had 388 in attendance for this confirmation sermon on 2 Timothy 3:14-17.

I’m going to start by asking you a fairly ridiculous question, but I want an honest answer: If God told you to chew a piece of Trident original flavored gum every day, would you do it? It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? It takes us out of the hot topic of religious discussions and simply gets to the heart and core of this matter: If God tells you to do something, do you do it? Looking at a ridiculous question helps you to understand your attitude towards listening to God or not listening to God.

Which is so different than everything else in life, isn’t it? If you do not listen to someone’s good financial advice, you might not have as much money as you could have. If you do not listen to someone’s fashion advice, you might not look as stylish as you could have. If you do not listen to someone’s lawn advice, your grass might end up looking like mine—half dead. But if you do not listen to God, those stakes are so much higher. It finally ends up being heaven or hell for all eternity.

My guess is that you’re here today because you recognize that. My guess is that you do care what God has to say. Do you do it perfectly? No, none of us do. That’s why we confessed our sins at the beginning of the service. That’s why we need and why we have a Savior named Jesus. But my guess is that you’re here today because you care about what God says in his Word, and you’re here today because you want to encourage these confirmands to do the same.

The truth is, God doesn’t tell you to chew a piece of Trident original flavored gum everyday…. But God’s Word does tell you to do something…. God’s encouragement for each of us: CONTINUE IN WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED…

(Continuing in what you have learned involves having) a devotional plan. If you need one, talk to me or Pastor Dauck. We would love to be your personal devotional trainers. Make Sunday morning the priority. I know that stuff that can come up, that you can get sick, that you might have to be out of town. But make it the priority. And I’m talking the Sunday morning package—45 minutes in Bible Study, it’s awesome. An hour in worship. And if you have some hang up, some reason that is preventing you from coming, talk to me, Pastor Dauck, or the elders. If someone says that they aren’t coming because the pews are uncomfortable, let us know. We will remove a pew and put in a Lazy Boy for you…. That’s how much we want you to be here with your brothers and sisters, remembering your baptisms, hearing the Word, and receiving the Lord’s Supper.

(God tells us to continue in what you learned) for a really important reason. Because he says in verse 15 that the Holy Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (The Holy Scriptures) make us, who are born spiritually dead, spiritually alive. They share with us this incredible message—that because Jesus, God who took on human flesh, lived a perfect life, died on the cross, and rose from the dead, our sins are forgiven … and that when we die, we live with God for all eternity in a place he describes as Paradise….

We will remove a pew and put in a Lazy Boy for you.

And contrary to common thought, it’s not just for the future—not just for after death. No, God wants us to continue in what we have learned because, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

When you become the famous athlete, continuing in God’s Word prepares you for fame and what you’re going to do and say in your 30 seconds in the spotlight. When you’re diagnosed with a horrible disease, continuing in God’s Word prepares you for processing that difficult news. When you become extremely wealthy, continuing in God’s Word prepares you and helps you understand where it came from and how to use it faithfully. When you’re struggling in school, when you’re dating that special someone, when marriage gets tough, when family grows or doesn’t grow, when you’re struggling with an addiction, when your loved ones are being called Home, in every circumstance that you can ever think of in life, continuing in what you have learned prepares you for it.”

Here is an excerpt from one of Pastor Berger’s funeral sermons on Revelation 7. He exhibits what he commented on earlier—preaching Christ-centered funeral sermons as a pastor who has a close relationship with his people.

Your sins, the things you have done wrong in your life, the ways that you have disobeyed the Almighty God—they are forgiven! That secret something that you did in your younger years, that very few people know about, that burdens your conscience to this day and still you lose sleep because of it, Jesus tells you, “I suffered for that sin on the cross. It is finished. The price has been paid!” One day, on a day only God knows, you will stand before his judgment throne and you will hear the two most beautiful words, “NOT GUILTY!”…

This is a short summary of things Frank, Tudy, and I would talk about around their kitchen table. And Frank, when he’d hear that gospel message, that good news that heaven is secured for him not because of anything he could possibly do but because of what Jesus has already DONE, COMPLETED, and FINISHED, you’d see his face just light up. Because this meant that one day when he died, he would be with the Lord in paradise with 100% certainty because what was necessary for his salvation was already accomplished.

One day having talked about the Bible’s clear main message, the gospel, I gave Frank and Tudy bread, which Jesus says is his body. And then I gave Frank and Tudy wine, which Jesus says is his blood. And I told them, “Frank and Tudy have peace today knowing that your sins are forgiven, and heaven is won for you.” And Frank gave that Frank Imes’ laugh and said to me, “Pastor, that’s the best news in the world!”

Why did Frank say that? Because he knew his sin. Over his 80 years, he knew his thoughts, words, and actions did not always line up with God’s will. He knew that he fell far short of God’s standard, which is perfection. But this good news about what Jesus did for him—taking upon himself Frank’s sin and giving to Frank his perfect record…. Yes, that wonderful message of the gospel changed everything for Frank. It meant peace no matter what happened on this earth. The best news in the world meant that Wednesday was the best day of Frank’s life because God whispered in his ear, “Today you will be with me in paradise” and then peacefully took him there. And John in Revelation 7 gives us a glimpse of what Frank is experiencing right now.

“It’s good for the shepherd to smell like his sheep.”

One preaching resource (besides the Bible and Confessions) in your library and why you have found it valuable:

A longtime District President is a member in my congregation, and he often stops by the office and says, “I always worry about a pastor spending time in his office.” I usually respond back, “I find myself worrying about you a lot too,” mostly because I don’t know how else to respond to that. But I think he makes a good point. Or as another pastor once said, “It’s good for the shepherd to smell like his sheep.” Probably more than another book to read in our offices, my best preaching comes after spending time with those I’ve been Called to serve. The more I get to know them, the more I know in what ways the text I’m preaching on will apply to the joys and difficulties they are facing in their life. Not only will interacting with our members give good flavor to our sermons, it will also give them encouragement to be with the church family around Word and Sacrament on Sunday mornings.

But if you really want a book, Just Say the Word!: Writing for the Ear (by G. Robert Jacks, Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1996) is a good resource to transition seminarians from essay writing to sermon writing. But otherwise, put down the book, close Facebook, and spend time with your members and prospects.

Put down the book, close Facebook, and spend time with your members and prospects.

Timeless Reminders

Editor’s note: This issue’s timeless reminder comes from Rev. Daniel Leyrer, currently serving at St. Marcus in Milwaukee, WI. You can read Pastor Leyrer’s three articles, “Full Strength Law and Gospel Preaching” in their entirety in Preach the Word, Vol. 6:1-3. This excerpt comes from “The Pastor Preaches Full Strength Gospel” (Preach the Word 6:3). All back issues are available at worship.welsrc.net/downloads-worship/preach-the-word.

One of my favorite lessons on preaching comes from the story of the minister who was scheduled to conduct worship at the state penitentiary. The day before the service he walked around the chapel with the warden to “get the lay of the land.” As he viewed the seating arrangements, he noticed that one of the chairs was draped in black cloth. The preacher asked the warden about the chair. “The man who sits in that chair tomorrow morning will be executed tomorrow night,” the warden explained. “His chair is draped for death. Your sermon will be the last one he hears.”

Every time I mount the pulpit I may very well be preaching to someone sitting in a pew draped for death.

That story reminds me that every time I mount the pulpit I may very well be preaching to someone sitting in a pew draped for death. My pulpit might be draped for death for that matter. The point is we never know. We preachers never know if this is the last sermon a parishioner will hear or the last one we’ll have a chance to preach. Seen from that perspective, preaching a sermon is urgent business.

If you knew it was the last sermon for somebody, what approach would you take? It would be a good time to remember one of our titles: minister of the gospel. Given one last chance to preach a sermon, we would present the gospel as clearly and personally as we knew how. This is full strength gospel preaching—speaking not so much about Jesus’ word of forgiveness but becoming Jesus’ voice to speak that word of forgiveness.

Written by Joel Russow

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Preaching on the First or Second Reading with the Day’s Gospel in Mind

3 – Preparing the Sermon

When my dad died in 2008, I decided to contact the four congregations he had served during his ministry. I asked the local pastors if they might announce his passing in case someone remembered. At least one did. A member in her 90s walked out of church and told her pastor, “I remember Pastor Tiefel’s first sermon.” The young pastor was eager to know what she remembered. “I don’t remember much of anything,” she said, “except the text. He preached on the draught of fishes.” I’ve retold that story many times over the years and invariably end the same way: That’s the highest compliment a pastor can receive.

“Preach the text” is the imperative the homiletics professor lays before student preachers—and then obligates them to do it in class sermons. The sermon, as we learned it and as we teach it, exposits a text, it explains and applies a passage of Scripture. On the basis of that exposition, the sermon proposes a truth. The sermon can take on a variety of forms—didactic, inductive, homily, narrative, or expositional¹—but the best Lutheran preaching in all cases exposits a text and proposes a truth as it proclaims law and gospel.

Is the writer backing away from this “preach the text” allegiance?

Those who have read the first two articles in this series may have wondered if the writer is backing away from this “preach the text” allegiance. If the preacher preaches on the First or Second Reading with the day’s Gospel in mind, does the new imperative actually become “preach the texts”? Does the preacher end up preaching on two texts instead of one? Does such a sermon compromise the unique setting and message of the alternate reading?

Those are legitimate questions, especially when asked by men with our homiletical training and exegetical sensitivities. Rest easy. The preacher who takes on this idea must still preach the text. He lets the text say what the Spirit wants it to say and does not manipulate the Spirit’s intention. He preaches the text in its historical context and allows the text’s proposal to guide the sermon. The goal of this kind of preaching is to maintain textual independence even as we understand the preeminence of the day’s Gospel and the inter-dependency of the Sunday Proper.

At the same time we realize that preaching styles are not static. We preach the same truths (often based on the same texts) our grandfathers preached, but we preach them in different ways. Sermons today are less oratorical and more conversational. They often contain inductive approaches even if they announce a theme and several parts. Our fathers would not have dreamed of leaving the pulpit to preach (nor would some of their sons), but this is common in our circles. As someone who has observed the evolution of the lectionary and its propers over the span of almost 50 years, I sense the Christian Worship resources provide an excellent opportunity to place both the chosen text and the day’s Gospel in clear view in the sermon.

The preacher can expect that this approach takes a little additional work and time. Following are some steps which can make the effort manageable and rewarding. Illustrations are based on the Proper for Advent 4C scheduled for December 19, 2021.

Choose the Text

Preachers select their sermon text in a variety of ways. Some follow a specific pattern; some simply choose the text they want to preach on. I belong to the latter group, but there is a reason for my choice. During this past Advent season I had preached on three Luke texts in a row; it seemed time for a prophetic or epistle text on Advent 4. I copied the Prayer of the Day and the three readings and spent some time reading and thinking about them: Micah 5:2-5a, Hebrews 10:5-10, and Luke 1:39-55. A phrase in the Prayer of the Day caught my eye: “Take away the burden of our sins” and that phrase made me look more carefully at the Hebrews reading. I had never preached on that text before and preaching on Hebrews on Advent 4 seemed intriguing.

Veteran preachers who have preached through the ILCW/CW lectionary will notice many new texts in the new lectionary especially during the Epiphany and Pentecost seasons. While the Gospel selections remain very much the same, the First and Second Readings are often new.

Begin with the Gospel

I begin with a study of the day’s Gospel, obviously if that’s my chosen text but also if I’ve decided to preach on one of the other readings. I know these Gospels pretty well, but a new look is important. In our new resources the Gospel invariably guides the theme or focus for the day and sets the course for the rest of the Proper.

The Gospel for Advent 4 in Year C is Luke 1:39-55 and relates two themes: Elizabeth’s reaction to Mary’s pregnancy (the Visitation) and Mary’s Magnificat. Neither Luke 1:39-45 nor Luke 1:46-55 appeared in the historic series nor in CW’s One Year Series. The Roman Lectionary selected the Visitation but not the Magnificat for Advent 4. The ILCW lectionary selected both accounts for the Gospel reading on Advent 4C but placed 46-55 in parentheses suggesting it to be optional. All the other Lutheran lectionaries since then follow that pattern. Only the Christian Worship resources, past and present, select the entire pericope for Advent 4. I’m glad both sections are there.

The Song of Mary can’t be ignored, of course. It’s one of the four great Lukan Christmas canticles. It puts into picture language the work of Christ and includes Mary’s wonderful confession, “My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.”

The proposal of the text might be: Two believing women, both chosen for their mothering roles by the Lord, confess the blessings of the coming King.

With a solid understanding of the day’s Gospel, the preacher moves ahead to his text.

Study the Text

It’s not necessary to review all the points of a Hebrews 10 text study here; a few points are enough. The proposal of the text is that Christ identifies himself as the perfect sacrifice for sin and as the one pointed to by the Old Testament temple sacrifices. It was important to notice vv. 1-4 and especially v. 4: “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” If not the blood of bulls and goats, then what will take away sins?

The answer is in the text. In vv. 5-7 the writer places the words of David in Psalm 40 into the mouth of Christ. In vv. 8-10 the writer comments on the words of Christ. In both sections we note the truth that God does not accept the temple sacrifices as the final payment for sin. Christ through David makes three points concerning what does serve as the final payment for sin:

The body you have given me

My status as the one chosen and promised one (written about in the scroll)

I have come to do your will, my God

The writer’s comments review the statements of Christ and then he concludes: “By that will we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

What is striking here is the Savior’s coming to do God’s will by sacrificing his body cannot be limited to the Incarnation. His work is completed at the cross. I wondered how I could get Good Friday into a sermon preached six days before Christmas!

Observe the Points of Comparison

With both the Gospel and the Second Reading in front of me, I began to look for links and comparisons.

The most obvious was that Mary was carrying the body to be sacrificed. Another was that both Mary and Elizabeth were aware of the will of God and of the child’s place in the Old Testament Scriptures. The third was that both women understood this child to be bringing relief from sin and shame. I was not sure, however, that either woman understood at this point that the birth and body they were rejoicing in would eventually end up in a bloody death on a cruel cross. Finally, I considered that I could hardly overlook the Magnificat in this sermon.

It all happened, not just with a baby’s cry in a manger but with the Savior’s cry from the cross: It is finished.

Create the Structure and Write the Sermon

I decided to lead off with Mary and focus on the little body that was alive and growing inside her. I made the point that the incarnation needed to lead to the crucifixion. The theme is “Sing Your Christmas Carols at the Cross.”

You can’t ask a man what it’s like to be pregnant. He can tell you what his wife tells him about being pregnant, but that’s not the same. So I can’t tell you what Mary was thinking or feeling those first weeks after Gabriel’s visit. It seems like she needed to talk. The Gospel for today tells us that she went to see Elizabeth. It seems to have been a good choice. Elizabeth was an older relative, probably a confidant, and the news was that Elizabeth was pregnant too. So Mary headed south a hundred miles to spend time with Elizabeth. Was she more tired than usual? Did she have morning sickness? Feel a heartbeat? Was she showing? We don’t know. We do know this: This baby inside her was her baby, but he was also God’s baby, God’s Son. So we can be pretty sure that this baby was the center of Mary’s world.

Right now, this baby is the center of our world too. We’re six days from Christmas and Christmas is about a baby. Page through the Christmas hymns in the hymnal, new one or old one. The baby is everywhere. Look at the manger scenes in churches; the baby is always in the middle. You come to church on Christmas Eve and the focus is on a baby lying in a manger. This is the way it needs to be. We need to remember who the baby Jesus is. At the instant of his conception in Mary’s womb this baby already was God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. And from exactly the same instant he was also truly and fully human. On Christmas Day St. John will remind us that the divine Word became flesh—incarnate: in the flesh—and made his dwelling among us. And that’s why this baby is the center of Christmas.

So Mary went to see Elizabeth and sang a song about her baby. We call it the Magnificat, a word that means to magnify or to glorify. Mary sang, My soul glorifies the Lord. But she didn’t stop there; she kept singing, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. To Mary, there was more here than a pregnancy, more than a birth, more than a baby. Mary understood that the incarnation wouldn’t end in Bethlehem. In her body Mary felt a baby; with her faith Mary saw a Savior. And that’s why this baby was the center of her world. And that’s why this baby is also the center of our faith.

Just like Mary, we sing Christmas songs at this time of the year and we all have our favorites. The Second Reading for today, from the letter to the Hebrews, reminds us that there is more to Christmas than the birth of a baby. We are all looking ahead to Christmas today, but we also need to look beyond Christmas. So I say:

“Sing Your Christmas Carols at the Cross.”

The first part of the sermon was a pretty standard exposition of the Hebrews text. I explained the context of the letter, the problems which caused the author to write it, and the remedy to the problem he put forward. I explained the text verse by verse. I concluded: Whether you’re an Old Testament believer or a New Testament believer, obeying God’s law never solves the problem of sin. Obedience can’t earn you forgiveness. Neither animal sacrifices nor personal sacrifices ever get rid of hell.

So what did get rid of sin and hell? Christ speaking through David again: A body you prepared for me. That’s what would do it. So here’s the baby Jesus! The Son of God who was in the beginning, who was with God, who was God, this divine being wrapped himself in a human body: First a fertilized egg, then an embryo, then blood and veins and bones and skin. Then emotions and intelligence, then the sense of pleasure and pain. This is the baby born in Bethlehem. This is the incarnation: God took on flesh and blood. God became a baby. And his parents named him Jesus.

But he didn’t stay a baby or a boy or teenager. Then I said—Christ speaking again—Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll. The Old Testament scrolls were filled with promises that a Messiah would come from God. This boy named Jesus was God’s choice. Then I said, I have come to do your will, my God. The writer repeats this to make the point: Then he said, Here I am. I have come to do your will.

I explained that the will of God is to save the world from sin. I said, The Son of God took on a body to do what God willed and what God wanted. I detailed the need for Jesus to be a human being and then repeated the point: Jesus did what God wanted; he carried out God’s will. And so his incarnation led to his crucifixion. And now the writer concludes: And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Application followed. This body came for each of you sitting in these pews. This body for each child, each grandchild, each neighbor, each friend. This body stood in place of all bodies everywhere on the globe. Holy? Yes, holy! Your sins cleansed, your slate clean, your guilt abolished, your condemnation dismissed, the devil defeated, and his hell destroyed. Holy? Yes, holy! Your prayers heard, your sadness lifted, your sickness explained, your lives empowered, your future secure, your heaven guaranteed. And all because the Son of God became a baby in a body. And now you know why Mary sang: My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

When Mary went to visit Elizabeth, she didn’t know the details. She couldn’t have foreseen the shepherds at the stable or the gifts of the magi. She probably wondered what old Simeon meant when he told her that a sword would pierce her soul. She couldn’t have imagined a crucifixion; she couldn’t have handled the thought of seeing her baby die. But she certainly saw the victory. And so Mary sang with a mother’s heart, but she also sang with a believer’s heart. (Here I quoted vv. 50-54.) The baby she was carrying would be the central figure of history and what he would do would be the turning of history. Nothing would ever be the same. And it all happened, not just with a baby’s cry in a manger but with the Savior’s cry from the cross: It is finished.

And that’s why we sing our Christmas carols at the cross. The crucifixion comes along with the incarnation. The Son of God took on a human body to become the Savior of the world. And so, he took away your sins, too. The man who wrote to the Hebrews had to remind them of this. And he needs to remind us, too. So when we sing sweet carols like “Away in a Manger” or “Silent Night” or “Angels We Have Heard on High,” we must see the whole story. We must look beyond the ox and the ass and the swaddling clothes; we must see the cross and the nails and crown of thorns. We must see the life he lived for us and the death he died for us. And then we will see what Mary is seeing now: Her son as the risen and reigning Savior who hears her sing with all the saints and angels of heaven. And those songs sound forever.

If the reader is interested in trying this concept, look ahead to the Proper for Easter 5 in Year C. The sermon is based on Acts 11:1-18. The Gospel for that day is John 13:31-34. That’s the Proper I’ll be writing about in the next article of this series.

 

Written by James Tiefel

Prof. Tiefel, now Pastor Tiefel, serves two small congregations in Mequon, WI, in semi-retirement. Over a 35-year career at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary he taught classes in worship and preaching. As an every-Sunday preacher once again, he is able to combine many of the concepts he taught in the classroom with practical experience.

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¹ Expositional preaching, as I use the term in this group of preaching styles, has a more specific definition than I use in this paragraph. It is popular among conservative Evangelicals whose worship patterns do not include the guidance of the church year, the Proper, and the lectionary. The usual approach is to take a longer section of Scripture (perhaps even an entire book in a series of sermons) and work through it verse by verse as one might in a Bible class. Expositional preaching certainly can exposit a text and propose a theme. How well it fits in the liturgical rite is another question. I did not add topical preaching to my list. While it may propose a truth, it does not exposit a text.

 

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Preaching on the First or Second Reading with the Day’s Gospel in Mind

2 – The Sermon and the Proper

Law and gospel. These two teachings, the most important truths of the Bible, must form the heart and core of the preacher’s sermon, and of the two, the gospel must predominate. The good news that sins are forgiven finds its source in the words and works of Jesus recorded in the four Gospels.

Of course, the good news is also announced in Isaiah 53 and Romans 3. The preacher who selects his sermon text from the books of the Old Testament or the Epistles is able (actually obligated) to preach the gospel. But this series of articles raises this question: Can the preacher remain faithful to legitimate homiletical principles of exposition and proposition and yet enable the Old Testament or Epistle text to focus also on the words and works of Jesus? Can the preacher find a legitimate connection between the First or Second Reading and the day’s Gospel and can he include in his sermon both the focus of the alternate text and that of the day’s Gospel?

The Proper

Finding an answer to these questions begins with an understanding of the Proper, a set of readings, prayers, psalms, and hymns selected for each Sunday and festival of the church year and also for minor festivals and parish occasions which a congregation might observe. As it developed in the western church (but not in the eastern church), the Proper changes from week to week while the Ordinary, a set of five song texts, repeats each week in some way. The Proper is most obvious in The Word section of the Lutheran order of service.

Tracing the history of the formation of the Proper isn’t easy. The first Christians relied on the apostles to relate and explain the words and works of Jesus, although Jewish Christians often retained their custom of reading from the Old Testament and singing the psalms. Eventually, copies of the Gospels and epistles became available and ministers read those scriptures in worship in a lectio continua pattern.¹ The Gospel received special honor and was the last of the readings to be read.² When believers began to pay special attention to the great events of Jesus’ ministry, the Gospel accounts which related those events were read as pericopal readings, i.e., cut out sections of the lectio continua manuscript. On these festivals, readings, prayers, and psalms complimented the Gospel account. As the church year formed, churchmen imitated this practice on other days as well. These variables, called propria, were generally established by Luther’s time and were adopted by most Lutheran churches. With the day’s Gospel setting the focus, the variables provide what we call the Proper.³ Historically, the Proper consisted of the introit, collect, Epistle, gradual, Gospel, and communio (sung before the preface). Christian Worship considers the Proper to be the Prayer of the Day, First Reading, Psalm of the Day, Second Reading, Gospel Acclamation, Gospel, Hymn of the Day, and Sermon. The lectionary serves the Proper in that it lists the readings selected for the various days and festivals. Christian Worship Altar Book lists all the parts of the Proper for Sundays, festivals of both the three-year and historic lectionaries, as well as for the minor festivals and occasions.

Unity of the Proper and the Unified Service

No one knows how the variables were chosen in antiquity. The theologians who made the decisions undoubtedly worked with wisdom and piety, but often as not were influenced by calendar changes, local circumstances, and even medieval heresies.⁴ Reformation theologians assembled a slightly revised version of the so-called historic lectionary and its matching set of introits, collects, and graduals, and these propers guided Lutheran worship for centuries.

How well the readings, prayers, and psalms of the historic series matched is open to debate. The interconnection is obvious in the Proper for the Transfiguration of Our Lord but not as clear for the Third Sunday in Lent. The propers of the later Epiphany Sundays and the Sundays after Trinity have even less unity. Some have tried to find a unity in the historic propers,⁵ but Preach the Gospel was wary. Understanding the Proper does not mean, the authors stated, that the preacher “strains to discover and elaborate points of contact between the sermon text and the other propers [sic] where such points of contact do not really exist.”⁶ Trying to preach on an Epistle text with the day’s Gospel in mind was often a challenge at best and often impossible.

How well the readings, prayers, and psalms of the historic series matched is open to debate.

The three-year lectionary, created by Vatican scholars in 1967 to replace the historic series and then revised and published by the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship in 1973, expanded the selection of Gospels and Epistles and added a reading from the Old Testament. “In almost every instance,” ILCW commissioners stated, “the Old Testament passage was chosen because it relates to the Gospel.”⁷

In a major change from existing patterns, however, the three-year lectionary reclaimed the ancient custom of lectio continua. Creators selected readings from one particular epistle to be read over a span of weeks notably during the Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost seasons. The ILCW followed the Vatican’s lead. While pointing out the value of the plan, framers recognized that the idea of a unified service was usually impossible. “It must be remembered, however, that such semicontinuous use of an epistle is somewhat isolated…the epistle provides a band of blue week by week; the Gospel has a red thread connecting its readings. But they do not necessarily mix to form purple.”⁸

The ILCW lectionary was approved and began to experience wide-spread use in WELS in the early 1970s. After several liturgy committee debates, the lectionary published in Christian Worship resources (1993 and following) was virtually unchanged. The volumes of the text studies in Sermon Studies⁹ (based primarily on the ILCW readings) included contributors’ efforts to find a thematic thread in the readings, but the efforts were often cumbersome. At that point the idea of preaching on Epistle texts in light of the day’s Gospel had no cause for discussion. (CW93’s limited set of prayers, psalms, and verses of the day also rendered a unified proper difficult.)

Efforts toward enhancing the unified Proper

The committees which worked on Christian Worship Supplement (2008) sensed a weakness with the lectio continua approach and worked to introduce unity to the three-year cycle. Authors created an entirely new set of Epistle selections designed to match the themes of the appointed Gospels and also replaced many prophetic readings chosen by ILCW with Old Testament narratives. The Christian Worship Supplemental Lectionary provided an impetus for a serious discussion of the unity of the Proper and aroused some interest in the concept of preaching on the First and Second Readings with the day’s Gospel in mind.

A major effort of lectionary revision began in 2014 with the appointment of the Scripture Committee of the WELS Hymnal Project.

A major effort of lectionary revision began in 2014 with the appointment of the Scripture Committee of the WELS Hymnal Project. One of the committee’s primary goals was to restore the unity of the Proper for each Sunday and festival of the three-year cycle and promote the idea of a unified service. They identified a theme or focus from the day’s Gospel and selected First and Second Readings which supplemented and complimented the day’s Gospel. The following comparisons indicate the difference in approach:

ILCW Pentecost 10B
Exodus 24:3-11 – The Lord confirms his covenant with Israel
Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16 – Unity and maturity in the body of Christ (lectio continua from Ephesians)
John 6:1-5 – Jesus feeds 5,000

CW Proper 12B: God provides earthly bread
Exodus 16:1-15 – The Lord sends bread to sustain Israel
2 Corinthians 9:8-11 – The promise and use of earthly bread
Mark 6:35-44 – Jesus feeds 5,000 (the Mark account replaces John’s account)

The preacher might see how the Lord’s actions in Exodus and his promises in 2 Corinthians blend with the miracle of supplying bread to 5,000—in fact, more than enough.

ILCW Pentecost 15A
Exodus 6:2-8 – The Lord’s identifies himself to Moses
Romans 11:33-36 – The depth of the riches of God (lectio continua from Romans)
Matthew 16:13-20 – Jesus sought, received, and blessed the confession of his disciples

Proper 16A: Who do they say I am?
Exodus 34:5-9 – The Lord identifies himself and Moses acknowledges the Lord
Romans 10:5-13 – Everyone who believes and confesses will be saved
Matthew 16:13-20 – Jesus sought, received, and blessed the confession of his disciples

The preacher might connect the believing confession noted in Exodus and Romans with Peter’s confession in the Gospel. A confession of the name of the Lord is the password to life with God.

You have to deal not only with the bride but also with the rest of the family.

Preach the gospel by preaching the Gospels?

Our homiletical heritage exalts the independence of the sermon text and our seminary training exhorted us to “preach the text.” As a preacher and a teacher of preachers I agree wholeheartedly. One of our best preachers, Prof. Daniel Deutschlander, often noted, however, that preaching on a text is like getting married: You have to deal not only with the bride but also with the rest of the family. The Western Rite and its inclusion of the Proper obligates this consideration. The question is: How does one deal with the family without harming the bride? We respond that CW21’s new unified Proper enables us to preach on the First and Second Readings with the day’s Gospel in mind.

Written by James Tiefel

Prof. Tiefel, now Pastor Tiefel, serves two small congregations in Mequon, WI, in semi-retirement. Over a 35-year career at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary he taught classes in worship and preaching. As an every-Sunday preacher once again, he is able to combine many of the concepts he taught in the classroom with practical experience.

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In the previous issue of this series, we adduced portions of a sermon based on 1 Kings 3:5-12, the conversation between the LORD and Solomon. In that sermon, the Gospel, Matthew 13:44-52, set the pace; it introduced the text. The sermon underscored the truth Jesus emphasized in the two parables. The basic outline:

“What We Want Is What Matters”
So what matters?
So how much does it matter?

The exposition seems to have been faithful to the text. It included the historic connections and messianic implications. The text was predominant, but not dominant. It complemented the point Jesus was making in the Gospel.

The sermon segment that follows illustrates another way to preach on the First Reading with the day’s Gospel in mind. Prof. Brad Wordell of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary preached on Elijah and the prophets of Baal at the seminary’s opening service in August 2021. He used Proper 19B – Spiritual warfare:

1 Kings 18:21-39 – Elijah and the prophets of Baal
Ephesians 6:10-18 – Spiritual warfare
Mark 9:14-27 – Jesus heals a boy possessed by a spirit

The theme of the sermon was “The Home Team Loses” and he addressed three points in the exposition of 1 Kings 18: the nature of the battle, how the war is fought, and how the battle ends.

Third and finally, how the battle ends. How dramatic! The LORD does more than is needed, expected, or imagined. He often does. The LORD sends fire from heaven just minutes after Elijah begins praying—not just the sacrifice, but the altar, even the rocks, the ground, and the water are consumed, and everyone falls down and acknowledges that the LORD is God. Baal is proven to be a lie, an invention of the father of lies, and the false prophets are put to death in the Kishon Valley. The newspaper the next morning would have had this headline: The Home Team Loses. This in spite of everything being in their favor. It was their mountain! He had 450 prophets to one! And Baal was supposed to be the god of rain and lighting. But Baal couldn’t light one fire.

We weren’t there to see this victory on Mt. Carmel and such victories don’t come along very often. But this dramatic defeat of the home team and the ministries of Elijah and Elisha at this time were the LORD’S ways of promising that his plan of salvation was still on track: his eternal Son would come to destroy the work of the devil, to set the captives free, and to open the way to eternal life. On Mt. Carmel the home team lost because in the “eternal” battle the home team loses! And that is exactly what we heard in the Gospel tonight! Jesus, the eternal Son of God, came onto the devil’s turf. He could say to demons, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” By offering himself for our sins on the cross, Jesus has broken the devil’s hold on us too. He can no longer accuse us, not because we haven’t sinned but because those sins have been paid for. And if Jesus’ victory over the devil in this world wasn’t enough, our Savior did more than we would have asked or imagined: the Savior rose from the dead and announced his eternal victory in the devil’s headquarters, in hell itself—another nail in the home team’s coffin.

The final nail will come, when the Lord Jesus returns in glory with all his holy angels and raises all the dead and judges all mankind. The LORD who sent fire on Mt. Carmel will send fire on the whole universe. He will destroy it and create for us and all believers a new and perfect world. Everything will be new there. No sin or sickness or hatred or favoritism or oppression or racism or death—none of those things. There will be no enemies there, no battle to be fought. Everything will be new. We will be the new home team and our joy will have no end in the presence of the LORD our God.

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The Psalms, the Sermon, and the Proper

A decision was made when Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal and its supporting resources were published to list the selected Psalm of the Day in juxtaposition with the three lessons. That decision led many to the impression that the Psalm of the Day was a fourth lesson and a potential sermon text. The practice eventually appeared wherever the lectionary was published. The Sermon Studies series include two volumes of text studies on the psalms.

Decades have passed since decisions were made for the 1993 hymnal, but this member of the Liturgy Committee does not recall a decision to list the psalms with the readings. Project Director Kurt Eggert called the psalm selections “liturgical songs” and most were edited (some severely, e.g., Psalm 73) to promote a specific theme and/or to fit on a page! Christian Worship Manual mentions nothing about using the psalms as sermon texts. For some reason CW Manual lists the other parts of the Proper separately, the prayer, verse, and hymn of the day, but not the psalm.

The new Christian Worship and its resources eliminate this format. Where the lectionary is included (e.g., in Christian Worship Hymnal) only the three readings are included. Where the entire Proper is listed (e.g., in Christian Worship Altar Book), the prayer, psalm, verse, and hymn of the day are noted apart from the readings.

There is nothing wrong with preaching on the psalms. The preacher should not assume, however, that the selected Psalm of the Day is a suggested text.

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¹ Justin Martyr, First Apology, chapter 67: “…the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.”
² Philip Pfatteicher, Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 141 (Minneapolis: Augsburg) 1990.
³ The set for each Sunday or festival is the Proper for the day. Both the Proper and the Ordinary are a set of parts; our resources do not speak about the Propers for the day any more than they speak about the Ordinaries. The plural is used only for a set of propers, e.g., the propers for the Sundays in Lent.
⁴ Luther complained that many of the ancient Epistles “seem to have been chosen by a singularly unlearned and superstitious advocate of works.” (LW, AE, Vol. 53, p. 24).
⁵ Fred Lindemann in The Sermon and the Propers, and Ralph Gehrke in Planning the Service made valiant efforts to find such a unity. (Both are Concordia Publications, and both are available at Amazon.)
⁶ Joel Gerlach and Richard Balge, Preach the Gospel, p. 159 (Milwaukee: Northwestern, 1982).
⁷ Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship, The Church Year Calendar and Lectionary, p. 22 (St. Louis: Concordia, et al., 1973).
⁸ Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship, p. 22.
⁹ Eleven volumes of Sermon Studies, all published by Northwestern Publishing House between 1982 and 2002, are identified in the online library catalog of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

 

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Preaching on the First or Second Reading with the Day’s Gospel in Mind

1 – The Gospels: The Center of the Gospel

The gospel is the good news that God forgives sins and saves sinners. This is good news because without this news the news is bad: God condemns sin and destroys sinners. Lutheran preachers make the gospel the priority of their preaching because the good news is the best news a sinner could ever hear.

The Bible communicates the good news in a variety of pictures. The good news is that God and sinners are reconciled; sinners are at one with God. The good news is that sinners are redeemed; they are bought back from the slavery of sin and the dungeon of destruction and restored as God’s children. The good news is that sinners are justified; God declares that sinners have a new status in his sight, a status in which he sees them as holy and blameless. Lutheran preachers use these and dozens of other Bible pictures to announce the good news.

The gospel is more than news, however. It is also power. In a way that we preachers cannot grasp, the Holy Spirit employs the good news to lead sinners to believe the good news. By the power of the gospel sinners come to trust what they have no right or reason to believe. As the gospel invades their minds and hearts, believers begin to understand the depth of God’s love. They gain courage in trouble, strength in weakness, confidence in prayer, joy in obedience, and hope for a life with God that never ends. As they preach the good news, Lutheran preachers provide the Spirit an opportunity to change the lives of sinners as he wishes and wills.

Lutheran preachers also preach the bad news, the law. The bad news clarifies the realities of sin. The law is not what the sinner wants, but what God wills. Obedience to the law is not a maybe but a must. Condemnation for sin is not a possibility but an absolute. The law does not coddle but warns. Without the preaching of the law, the gospel is ho hum and so what. The gospel will not be sweet until the law becomes putrid in the sinner’s soul.

Law and gospel. These two teachings, the most important truths of the Bible, must form the heart and core of the preacher’s sermon. Jesus, Paul, and Luther exemplified law and gospel preaching. C.F.W. Walther wrote a book about it.¹ The absolute goal of Lutheran preaching is to announce and apply the law and let it do its work and to announce and apply the gospel and let the Spirit do his work. No greater epitaph can placed on a preacher’s headstone than this: He preached the law and the gospel.

The center of the gospel is Jesus, the Son of God from all eternity and then, in time, even this time, the son of Mary. The righteous God cannot forgive, reconcile, redeem, or justify without Jesus. The God-man stands at center of the Bible: everything before him foretold his coming; everything after him explained his coming. What the serpent first heard after Eden, Moses, David, and the prophets anticipated and announced. The Alpha and the Omega John saw in his vision of the future is he who walked with the apostles in time. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

So what did Jesus do and what did Jesus say that qualifies him to be center of the Scriptures and the central character of human history? The Spirit tells us this in the Gospels. What the apostles proclaimed in the days following Pentecost, four men, guided by the Spirit, wrote down some years later. Each man’s central character was Jesus, although each man, guided by the Spirit, told the story from a different perspective. Together these four, two apostles and two apostolic co-workers, presented the life and times of Jesus so that we are able to see how reconciliation, atonement, redemption, and justification were achieved. They present to us the Savior in his dual nature as divine and human. They assert that he was the one God had promised in the past. They point out his perfect obedience to the law in the place of sinners. They describe his desired use of baptism and his institution of the holy meal. With extraordinary detail they note the innocence of his suffering and the stark reality of his death as payment for sin. All proclaim his resurrection and the final days of his time on earth. Besides recording his deeds, each Gospel writer added thousands of words from the Savior’s own lips which announced the realities of sin and the good news of forgiveness. John alludes to all these words and works of Jesus when he writes at the end of his Gospel: “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31).

Of course, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not the only Bible writers who knew the Savior’s words and works. Moses promised a prophet, David could envision a king, Isaiah described the suffering servant and his ultimate sacrifice. Zechariah could see the donkey, Micah knew about Bethlehem, and Malachi saw the Baptizer, but everything they saw and heard described the God-man who would work and teach in Palestine for 33 years. Peter proclaimed the universality of his Savior’s kingdom, Paul explained justification by grace and faith alone, and John described love as the essential feature of fellowship with God, but they all based their words and their faith on what Jesus said and did. And what Jesus said and did is recorded in the Gospels.

Much of Christian and Lutheran preaching over the centuries has proclaimed the gospel on the basis of accounts from the Gospels.

It does not surprise, therefore, that much of Christian and Lutheran preaching over the centuries has proclaimed the gospel on the basis of accounts from the Gospels. The first Christians replaced the betrayer with a man who had been with the apostles “the whole time the Lord Jesus was living among us, beginning from John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection” (Acts 1:21-22). The same believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). Peter’s sermons after Pentecost inevitably led to the words and works of Jesus; Paul’s sermons do, too (the notable exception being the Areopagus mission sermon). The early church fathers, including Ambrose and Augustine, regularly preached on the Gospel appointed for Sundays and the great festivals.² Almost all of Luther’s published sermons, at least in the American Edition, are based on Gospel texts, although much of his preaching took place within the context of the Sunday Gottesdienst where it was expected that the historic Gospel would serve as the day’s text. This expectation remained in place at least in Europe until 19th century, often dictated by provincial consistories. Good Lutheran preachers even in WELS seem not to have hesitated to preach on the historic Gospel every Sunday. One gets the impression from personal conversations that many of today’s WELS preachers still preach on the appointed Gospel texts more often than on Old Testament and Epistle selections.

For hundreds of years, the choice of the Gospel text was as much pragmatic as it was principled. At least on Sundays, the historic Epistle was the only other possibility.³ In an effort to relieve some of the monotony, Lutheran churchmen offered alternate series of preaching texts with the claim, however, that these were intended to match the historic Gospels. Old Testament texts chosen to accompany the historic Epistles and Gospels were generally buried in small print (cf. The Lutheran Hymnal, pp. 159-161) or reference works (cf. The Lutheran Liturgy, p. 459 ff.⁴). In most cases, Old Testament texts were reserved for occasional services.

The introduction of the three-year series, offered by Roman Catholics in 1967 and then in revision by the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship in 1973, suggested a new pattern. The liturgical rites created in that era included three readings on Sunday, one from the Old Testament, a second from one of the Epistles (or Acts during the Easter Season), and the third from one of the Gospels. Perhaps with more intensity than previously, our professors encouraged their students to rotate the three texts in preaching. Rotate we did in a variety of ways. The most efficient rotators preached equally on all three selections, e.g., Old Testament texts in Advent, Epistles over Christmas, Gospels during Epiphany, etc. Others followed the same sequence Sunday by Sunday. In many cases the believers in the pew heard as many sermons based on prophetic texts and teaching texts as sermons based on the words and works of Jesus.

Of course, there was value in this. Preachers were able to proclaim law and gospel to their hearers by means of Old Testament history and prophecies. They explained Old Testament history and its messianic implications. Preachers used Epistle texts to detail theological intricacies and applied them to the Christian life. The lectio continua nature of the initial set of Epistles enabled preachers to work through a single letter over a series of Sundays and highlight its content as they might do in a Bible class. The selected Gospels offered more of the words and works of Christ than the historic series had.

Much of preaching was unaffected by this change in mood. Preachers still based their text studies on the original languages and relied on the historical-grammatical method of textual interpretation as they had been taught at the seminary. The preacher proclaimed law and gospel through Isaiah’s pen and Paul’s writing as well as he had when preaching the words and works of Jesus. Preaching remained expositional and propositional as it had always been. In some cases, however, what came to be missing were the words and works of Jesus. Not on the festivals, of course. One can hardly preach on Jonah’s prayer from Jonah 2 on Easter without a focus on the resurrected Christ. The preacher simply can’t focus on the messenger who brought good news to Jerusalem (Isaiah 52) on Christmas Day without including the messenger who is Christ. But other Sundays don’t force such a connection. Ruth’s decision to follow Naomi’s God doesn’t require comparison with the leper’s decision return to give thanks and confess his faith. One can preach on Paul’s storm experience in Acts 27 without mentioning the storm on the Sea of Galilee which Jesus calmed.

Perhaps with more intensity than previously, our professors encouraged their students to rotate the three texts in preaching.

As the years passed as a regular preacher and as I taught seminary Middlers how to preach on Old Testament and Epistle texts, I began to wonder if it is possible to preach on the First or Second Readings assigned to a Sunday and connect them to the Gospels appointed for the day. In other words, can the preacher remain faithful to legitimate homiletical principles of exposition and proposition and yet enable the text to focus also on the words and works of Jesus? When the three readings are carefully chosen, can the preacher find a legitimate connection between the First or Second Reading and the day’s Gospel and can he include both the focus of the preaching text and the day’s Gospel in the sermon? I have no desire to compromise the truths or the settings of the readings; I do sense a desire to connect them to the words and works of Jesus. As an every-Sunday preacher again, I have opportunities to test this concept.

Can the preacher find a legitimate connection between the First or Second Reading and the day’s Gospel and can he include both the focus of the preaching text and the day’s Gospel in the sermon?

The Preach the Word articles which follow this introduction will explore this idea. Sections of a sermon based on 1 Kings 3:5-12, appointed to accompany the Gospel from Matthew 13:44-52 (Proper 12 of Year A in the new hymnal lectionary), provide an example of what this series means to explore.

 

Written by James Tiefel

Prof. Tiefel, now Pastor Tiefel, serves two small congregations in Mequon, WI, in semi-retirement. Over a 35-year career at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary he taught classes in worship and preaching. As an every-Sunday preacher once again, he is able to combine many of the concepts he taught in the classroom with practical experience.

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I want to tell you a story you’ve all heard before. There was this guy and he was out for a walk, just looking around at the trees and the flowers and the big blue sky. All of the sudden he tripped and almost fell on his face. He figured it was a root or a stone, but when he looked it was a box, an old, beat up wooden box. He bent down and opened the cover—the lock had rusted away a long ago—and what he saw he couldn’t believe. He’d been in plenty of jewelry stores, but he’d never seen anything like this. What to do. He couldn’t offer to buy the stuff; it was obviously priceless. He wasn’t going to steal it, although the box was way too old to belong to the young farmer who owned the land. He was going to do this legally. He raced into town, got together every dime and dollar he owned, made an offer, bought the field and he got the treasure. You know why. The treasure mattered. It changed his life.

Here’s another story; you heard this one, too. He was a purveyor of pearls, those creamy white oval stones you find inside oyster shells. This guy knew pearls backwards and forwards; he knew the difference between fake and genuine and even between low quality and high quality. So one day, he found a pearl like he had never seen before. It had uncommon luster, brilliant color, and perfect shape. The price tag was outlandish, but he got together every dime and dollar he owned, made an offer, and he got the pearl. And you know why. The pearl mattered. It changed his life.

You know both of these stories because you heard Jesus tell them in today’s Gospel. The parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price are two of the seven parables Jesus told his followers in one fairly long sermon. Jesus made the same simple point in both parables: Search for what really matters in life and then do what needs to be done to own it and keep it.

So what really matters in life? Well, we all know the answer. We’re Christians and faith tells us what matters. The trouble is that our brains and our emotions don’t always follow faith. The line between what matters and what doesn’t matter gets blurred. Health matters, relaxation matters, possessions matter, education matters. And even if we know in our hearts what really matters, we struggle to pay the price to gain it and guard it.

The man in the field, the man in the jewelry store, and a man in Gibeon all teach us the same truth. You know the man in Gibeon, too, because you heard about him in the First Reading. The man is Solomon, the king of Israel, and his story isn’t a parable. It’s an actual event that took place at the very beginning of his reign. The story begins when God comes to the new king and says, Ask for whatever you want me to give you. Solomon’s response reminds us of this truth:

What We Want Is What Matters

1. Solomon almost didn’t get to be king. Even before his father David died there were palace intrigues and military coups that could have kept Solomon off the throne and maybe even left him dead. But Solomon was David’s choice and even more he was God’s choice and that settled it. Solomon proved himself the be the right choice. He showed his love for the Lord by following David’s instructions and by honoring God with his obedience and respect.

But he was young, probably only 20, when he became king. He had almost no experience. The nation of Israel was an emerging empire and surrounded by jealous monarchies. And ruling over 5,000,000 people—about the population of Wisconsin—who were notorious for being surly and stubborn would have intimidated anyone. So when the Lord invited Solomon to ask for whatever he wanted, this is what Solomon said, Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?

¹ C.F.W. Walther, The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel, W.H.T. Dau, translator (St. Louis: Concordia, 1927).
² M. F. Toal, The Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000).
³ A stack of sermon outlines created by noted WELS pastor Carl Gausewitz indicates Gausewitz preached on the historic Epistles and Gospels throughout the entire year in alternating years, apparently with the same outline.
⁴ Luther Reed’s classic study of Lutheran worship was published by Fortress Press, Philadelphia, in 1947.

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I find that writing isn’t difficult. Sitting down to write—that’s difficult. The good lurking within my procrastination, fueling the fear at the edges of my work, is that it matters to me profoundly, this business of writing Word-saturated, Christ-obsessed sermons.

At last, I dare to step past the basics of preaching¹ and to take up the writing task itself. As a message begins to emerge from the scribbles on my legal pad, the essential question becomes one of movement. Where to begin? Where am I heading? How will I get there?

As I take up these questions with you, I find myself entwined in the great homiletical debate between deductive and inductive styles. To tease out the differences, let’s consider two sermons based on Hebrew 5:7-10.

Sermon Introduction #1

What if I told you a story about a young pastor, early in his days of planting a church, carrying the weight of the world? He answers the phone, listens for a few moments, hangs up, walks down the basement stairs, closes the door behind him…and cries. What if I cried a little just telling you about it?

I can imagine two reactions. One: you’re embarrassed for me, put off by the show of weakness, rolling your eyes. You think, “Man, keep it together.”

But I can imagine another reaction. You think, “Of all the times I’ve heard him speak, now he has my attention. Maybe he’s like me. Maybe I could tell him things. I think he’d understand. Maybe he could help.”

The very thing that repels one person draws another. You might even wonder what was going on down there? What do they mean, those sounds coming up through the basement door?

It is just this way with Jesus. He scandalizes many—this weakness of God on display in the lowly Jesus carrying the weight of the world, God the Son crying and crying in the Garden. It is the very thing that has our attention and draws us in.

What’s going on, not down the basement stairs, but a stone’s throw away? What is the meaning of the “loud cries and tears” of Gethsemane.

Answer? The Son of God is being qualified to be the Savior of the world and the saving of you.

Deductive Preaching – Arguing from a Conclusion

A message that starts that way is on the deductive end of the continuum between deductive and inductive movement. I reached a conclusion in solitude about the telic note of Hebrews 5:7-10. My 60-second introduction was designed to prepare a compelling announcement of that day’s whole point. I left no one in suspense about what it was. In the “loud cries and tears” our Jesus is being qualified to be our Savior. I would not have hesitated to announce this theme in advance.

By “arguing from a conclusion” I only mean that it was a joy to spend the remainder and bulk of my time playing on my theme and sharing the rewards of my study, unpacking the big thought and establishing it by means of the assigned Word.

It seemed to me at the time to be the way that particular text was asking to be treated. I elected to offer that sort of clarity right up front given that there was plenty left to challenge my listeners. Our Jesus “learned obedience?” When was he ever not obedient? “Once made perfect?” Was he ever anything but perfect? I pulled out all the homiletical stops I know of in the form of illustration—of willingness made complete in the act—and application—we are being qualified by suffering, too, you know. Lord, we are learning, too.

And I dare to hope, under the blessing of Christ, that people walked away appropriating the deep beauty and consolation of that text.

There is no one who understands you like the lowly Jesus. No one who knows you the way he knows you. No one cares the way he cares. No one who could ever have saved you the way this one has saved you. That’s what you’re hearing from a stone’s throw away.

Sermon Introduction #2

Hebrews 5 has challenged me. I have feared that something is lost on me, whatever it was that caused Psalm 110 to be the most often quoted Psalm in the New Testament. The writer to the Hebrews thrills at the thought of Jesus as “priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” To think that we have a king who is also a priest.

Um. Okay.

I have heard of priests and I know what kings are, but for most of my life I have felt no heart connection. The thrill doesn’t easily reach me.

I find I can’t go directly for the heart when I handle Hebrews 5. I need to drill down toward the heart through the head. There are things to study and grapple with, things to understand though they elude us until the Spirit lights them up.

To begin, let’s imagine the skyline of ancient Jerusalem dominated by two structures. The royal palace where the king sat amidst the trappings of royalty, power, and providence—here is one worthy of all your hopes. The holy temple where the priest serves in the aura of mystery, grace, and sacrifice—when he smiles at you, unworthy though you are, it is the smile of God.

The thing is, a man could be one or the other. Not both.

Was King David reflecting on that as he read the story of father Abraham and Melchizedek in the Torah? Did he think, “I can’t be both…but there was one once. There was a king who was also priest. There was a priest who was also a king.” Then the Spirit fell. Then true inspiration hit: “And there will be again!”

Inductive Preaching – Arguing to a Conclusion

I was, of course, just getting warmed up. There was more work to be done in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110. There was further still to go in the “uphill climb of understanding” before we could arrive at the “smooth downhill of revealing.”

That’s one way to think of inductive preaching, simplistic though it may be. Inductive movement may involve communicating both the challenge of the text as it first confronted us, as well as the way that challenge resolves, one way or another, in a fresh view of Christ crucified and raised. We share the part that perplexed or disturbed us on our way to a conclusion in which all that was dark is light, questions find answers, and the restless may rest.

That sense of missing something in the name Melchizedek—something that ought to have me leaping—is absolutely what challenged me about that portion of Hebrews 5. And because it was real, it was what I found most interesting.

It sounds cliché, but inductive preaching is intentional about leading hearers on a journey of discovery. I create an itch that needs scratching. I propose an honest dilemma, and then, well, I write my way out.

Inductive preaching is intentional about leading hearers on a journey of discovery.

Why Not Go Full-on Inductive?

The extreme arguments you encounter for inductive preaching would have us take a risk we are not willing to take, namely, that for all our cleverness, our listeners may not arrive at the truth at all. There is a radical position that smacks of Erasmus in his debate with Luther, namely, in his preferring questions over answers. To this Luther insisted that the Christian heart loves and lives off the assertions of God’s Word and its crystal-clear propositions. The predictableness of preaching that always comes around to Christ and him crucified is a good thing. No, it is the best thing.

Early in my days as a preacher, there is no doubt that when I ditched deductive preaching, I turned instead to a method I must now refer to as the “hot mess.”

Ultimately, the extreme version of the argument that takes inductive preaching to be the only preaching that shows respect for a modern audience does not honestly account for the deductive style of some of the most gifted and influential preachers of our time.

Settle on Deductive Preaching and Call It a Day?

An extreme argument for deductive preaching will be hard pressed to justify why it takes so few cues from the communication in the Bible itself with its absolutely stunning array of communication forms. There is a wildness to biblical revelation that we would only domesticate and diminish when room is not given for its prophets and poets to speak the way they speak—in love song and rescue story, smoky ritual and visions by the river. There is nothing obvious about a Burning Bush.

The exaggerated “deductive-only” rant could cause a preacher to deliver a theological treatise and say contentedly within himself, “I told them, so now they know.” He may give so much away in his published theme and parts that people feel little reason to listen.

He may casually assume that all come hungry to hear what he has to say. That hunger may need to be awakened, such as by that itch that begs for scratching, a puzzle that needs solving, a story that demands an ending, a song that disturbs for the way you hold back the final note.

A radical position prefers questions over answers.

A False Dichotomy

We need not huddle on the two ends of the continuum. Combining deductive and inductive elements keeps preaching fresh. Any time we aren’t saying something in the most straightforward way we possibly could—by penetrating questions, in narratives we don’t immediately explain, through images we hope to hang in the basement gallery of people’s hearts—we are being inductive. We’re leaving room for our listeners to complete the meanings we intend and be part of their own persuasion, making things more fully their own.

There can be entangling moments of induction within a deductive style that has no lack of clarity or authority. There can be resolution at the end of a measured time of disorientation.

None of us want our preaching to be vanilla. There is a sweet spot between numbing ambiguity and spoon-feeding. Perhaps we are not helping people on toward further outposts in Christian thinking and living when they know what we’re going to say before we say it.

The challenge, then, is that audiences are diverse with the need for both straightforwardness and discovery, what is unambiguous blended with what makes for that interesting car ride home.

There is a sweet spot between numbing ambiguity and spoon-feeding.

Genre Can Help

If my sermon text is a gorgeous psalm, I try to write elements of beauty into my message. Like a novel by Flannery O’Connor, my preaching may set grace against the blood and dead bodies of the Old Testament such as to make evil recognizable. If my text is an ancient story, I might bring it into conversation with a story of now. A provocative text asks for a provocative sermon. To say nothing of a visual text. A somber text. An ironic one.

If, on the other hand, my text is theologically dense and tightly constructed, an expository approach has wonderful possibilities. Why deconstruct and then reconstruct a text like that? Instead, set the context. Walk through verse by verse. Draw law and gospel to the surface and Christ into the frame, if he isn’t there already. Insert pictures and encouragements as the moment requires. Why not adhere to the agenda the Spirit has set?

Combining deductive and inductive elements keeps preaching fresh.

Might as Well Preach It

A kind reader of Preach the Word offered me this advice. I was unsure of where to go next on the topic of sermon writing. He suggested I include a longer excerpt of a sermon as a way to communicate indirectly what I’ve been trying to say all along.

So, if you’ll indulge me, where were we? Ah.

Melchizedek.

We were drilling down through the head and toward the heart.

I can be as foolish as the pagans for whom it’s all about the question: what do I have to do to get the deity to care? I can carry the weight of the world, but the Word reaches me again: “Cast all your care on him.” Toss ‘em like a backpack tossed across your dorm room. Throw them on the one with the scars in his palms.

He cares for you.

Or think of Isaiah mocking the pagans for the gods they fashioned from wood and stone and then had to carry around on their own backs—heavy things hunching them over. I can be that foolish and that exhausted, trusting in things I have to carry around myself. But the News reaches me again.

There is one who carries me.

We haven’t seen the last of anxiety and shame. But I can welcome them when I see how strongly they play in my bondedness to Jesus—in the fact that I will always need him.

What I need is a king.

I require a king to adore, a king who can subdue me, carry on his rule of peace in this busy mind and this troubled heart. I need the king who will consummate his kingdom, the new Jerusalem descending from the sky.

What I need is a priest.

I am capable of so much shame, the great self-inflicted wounding. Sometimes I don’t want to show my face. It is just then he shows me his. He smiles on me with the smile of God, honors me, clothes me in beauty, covers my disgrace with a righteousness that is all him and none of me. I see it now.

I need a king who is also a priest. I need my priest to also be my king.

I need to know that wherever I am and whatever I am doing, the one who prays for me is the one at the center of all things, holding all things together by his powerful Word. And when I stand before him on that day, the King of the universe, the Lord of all there is, I will be standing before the one who laid his body down.

(Long pause.)

This will sound strange, but I walked through the cemetery near my house early this morning and threw a rock as far as I could. I actually did that. That was me naively wondering just exactly how far is “a stone’s throw away.” I don’t have a great arm…but it’s pretty far. I wanted to see for myself.

Can you picture it? Have you ever been able to hear someone not only crying from that far away, but you were even able to make out the words? Imagine. The loud cries and tears go on and on. At last it gets quiet. For the moment, he’s all prayed out.

“Abba, your will be done.”

Here prays a king for all your fears, a priest for all your shame. A lone cross juts up from the landscape of human history. It dominates our horizon. Here the blood of royalty mingles with the tears of a priest.

Melchizedek! (I say this with a fist against my chest. You see it, right?)

Melchizedek!

Here is the name for the heart’s greatest affection. There is no one who understands you like the lowly Jesus. No one who knows you the way he knows. No one who cares the way he cares. None other could have saved you the way he has saved you. Blessed be the name. Amen.

The Moment the Preacher Dies

Guru of adult education, Jane Vella, steals a thought from Paolo Freire about “the moment the teacher dies.” They disagree only about whether both student and teacher recognize it when it arrives. It’s about what happens when the teacher truly joins those she means to serve in the task of learning, a student among students.

By “the moment the preacher dies,” I mean something else. Someone asked me what I pray for as I bow my head before reading my text. There are several variations on the theme. But whatever else I say to my God in that moment, I always also say what I learned in a garden:

“Not my will but yours be done.”

I know what I want to happen next. What do you want to happen, Abba? Honestly, preaching you still thoroughly humbles me. And so, because ultimately there’s my way and there’s your way, let it go your way.

As for me, let me die in this moment to all self-concern and to every doomed identity. Let me die outright to the hunger to be well thought of. But this—this preaching Christ crucified—it still scares me because of how much it matters.

I am willing to be disturbed, yearning, and unfinished until you, Lord, release the final note.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

As I lift my head, as I stand here, it is enough to take a good long look at the faces turned toward me and love them, even as I am loved. It is enough to be forgiven and to be, even now, on my way home.

Written by Mark Paustian

Dr. Paustian is a professor of communication and biblical Hebrew at Martin Luther College where he teaches “Advanced Christian Rhetoric” which combines an introduction to homiletics and an introduction to apologetics in one course. He holds a PhD in Communication from Regent University.

¹ The previous five articles in this series were titled “Joy and Confidence from the Basics.”

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