What is the purpose of a sermon?

Have you ever wondered what the purpose a sermon is suppose to be? I mean this man or woman is standing up there, talking to a crowd of people.  What gives them the authority?  Why do they talk and talk about things that don't necessarily make sense or interest me?  What's the point?

I have a confession to make, when I was growing up, I was that kid who did not always pay attention during the sermon.  It would not hold my attention.  I would either look at the stained glass windows, draw on the bulletin or there were some Sundays that I would actually do the head bang. (You know that time when you are trying to stay awake but are fighting falling back to sleep and your head falls down and whips back up. If you don't know what I am talking about, go to your next service and sit in the back and look around more than likely there will be one.)  Sadly this is still the case, although not when I am preaching.  For even when I hear some preachers, I still begin to wander into my own thoughts and even do the head bang.  (Although proudly, I have not done the head bang since 2010.  But that's a different post. :) )  For those of you who agree or resonate with my confession.  I feel your pain and perhaps you could share this post with the person who is delivering the sermon. 

That's right deliver the sermon.  A sermon is suppose to be something that is prepared. Now whether the sermon is delivered to an audience, an individual, whether the preacher could be standing directly before you or in a pulpit.  Whether the person is speaking with no response but the physical response of the listener or they are both engaging in a conversation.  Regardless, the sermon is something that should be delivered and engage the listeners.  Time should be given to the message and words carefully chosen.  The person should bring the audience with them on a journey.  A journey through ones life.  The preacher should bring a person from where they are at within their life to the moment that Christ is calling them to.  Where is that?  To their death.  To the very end of their life so that they can be made new.  So that the person can realize that they are mortal, that they have been given the gift of life and all that is around them, all that they are is a gift given for you to enjoy and cherish. Yet it is here at a person's death, when their will to hold on to and grasp all that is around them ends. This is the Law, the very thing that points the person into realizing that all that they do, they can not achieve the right relationship that God desires them to be in.

Then when the preacher has done that, the preacher should remind the person of what God has done for them.  That through Jesus Christ, God's only Son, God loved us so much that Jesus came to share that love with us.  God wanted to go to where you are hiding, where you thought you wanted to be and realized that you were sitting in your, other's and and the entire world's filth.  God came there and was with you.  Raised you up out of it and cleaned you so that you could return to that relationship.  So that you enter into that relationship exactly as you were created to be and even when you begin to stray that you and others remind you to not leave but stay.  But even if you did leave again, Jesus would come get you.  How many times would Christ do this?  As many as it would take. And here we have the Gospel, the good news that comes in the form of a person.  Thus the very reason why we still have preaching of a sermon, message, homily, or whatever else you want to call it.  The word of God comes alive before you, not in words on page, not on some screen but through a person who lives and dwells with you and where you are so that you may be lifted up to the new life that is given to you in Jesus Christ.

Now every week, a preacher will not always be speaking directly to you but still there is a message of Law and Gospel that is being spoken for you to hear and know for someone else within the community.  Someone that you should also be caring for.  But it is very much like a batter in baseball, they are not always going to hit a home run into the grand stands.  Sometimes it is a pop fly and someone else catches it.  Regardless, we are all gathered to enjoy the game, to enjoy the life that is given to us but also be reminded that we are there gathered by the one God who created, sustains and watches over us.


 "Having had ways of construing reality drowned in baptism, the baptizeably read the signs of the times as signs of dismantling and deligitimating.  Repentance. Deotxification. Having been forced to let go in baptism, having had our fingers wrenched loose from that which we formerly grasped, we begin to read what others see as mere social disintegration as signs of dismantling, as the loss of a known world so that something can be born." (Peculiar Speech, William Willimon, p. 45)

This quote of Willimon, I thought was remarkably powerful and gave me much inspiration in writing this piece.  I give thanks for preachers and writers such as him.  This quote left me wondering, how shall we be a sign, signal or witness that Jesus is Lord?

Oh and if you wanted more of a definition, check out wikipedia on sermon.