Neighbors

Rev. Ashley Sherard

It was my first Sunday as the Senior Minister of West Street Christian Church. I was nervous, of course, but I felt the buzz of excitement and anticipation from the congregation as I walked to the pulpit to deliver my first sermon. I remember feeling so small in this giant room, certainly not qualified to lead a congregation like this one. They were vibrant, mission-focused, busy with the right things, and healthy. I had never had a congregation like this to work with. In the past, I had always spent my time healing hurts, unwinding broken systems, and making hard decisions. This moment was critical; what I said to them on this day would shape the rest of my ministry here.

As I began my sermon, I stepped away from the pulpit – hands sweating, heart racing. I had desperately wanted to preach from a manuscript, but God just wouldn’t let me, so I preached from the heart. I told them I had thought about hitting them with factoids from some great theologians but had, instead, decided that a common Christ-like man was who we needed to hear from. I sang Fred Rogers’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” to my new congregation and the Holy Spirit went to work.

Since that day, much to my surprise and with no planning on my part, the congregation of West Street has embraced the idea of neighborhood. They no longer see themselves as a group of like-minded people gathered intentionally to share life with others who are just like them. Today they see themselves as a diverse neighborhood, brought together by the work of the Spirit to learn and grow from each one’s uniqueness. You don’t get to choose who your neighbors are in geographical neighborhoods, and we shouldn’t be choosing who our neighbors are in the Church.

The Spirit continues to use our shared language of “neighborhood” to move and shape us. I hear those who belong to West Street refer to our Tipton Neighbors, our Neighbors in other places, our Neighbors around the world, our Neighbors who come from different cultures, and our Neighbors with different expressions of self. The Spirit has helped them see everyone as a neighbor, someone to love as Jesus loved.

That first day in the pulpit, the Spirit moved in a surprising way, as the Spirit often does.

Sermonic Function: Head, Heart, or Hands?

Dr. Lance Pape

We preachers think a lot about what to say in our sermons. But we may be less inclined to pay attention to an equally important question: What will this sermon do? The first question focuses on the ideas of the sermon; the second attends to its impact on the life of the hearer. Long after people can accurately recall the “point” of a sermon, they may still be shaped in ways subtle or profound by the encounter it facilitates with the living Word.

Preaching that is mindful of its “doing” begins with close attention to what the biblical text itself is doing, and this calls for sensitivity to textual genre. Doxologies do something different from proverbs, which do something different still from parables. Prophetic oracles “hit” in one way, and psalms of lament in quite another. Narratives show us the possibilities of a proposed world, while exhortations challenge us directly with a new way of being. As the preacher reads the weekly lection, she should give some consideration to what the text is doing to her in that moment. What kind of “energy” is the text giving off? How does it make the preacher feel? What seems possible when reading the text that might otherwise be outside the scope of the seriously imaginable? These “doings” of the biblical text are just as essential to meaning as ideational content. A sermon properly conformed to the biblical text should reflect this performative dimension of its meaning.

Some homileticians recommend that before we begin to craft the language of a sermon, we state in one simple sentence the central idea of the sermon (focus), and in another describe what the sermon will do (function). Another way to approach sermon function is to think in terms of a short, infinitive verb phrase that captures the intended performative force. Thinking about the textual genres above, some likely function verbs for sermons on those kinds of texts might include: “to energize by filling with wonder” (doxology), “to offer guidance” (proverb), “to subvert assumptions” (parable), “to announce urgent news” (prophetic oracle), and “to give voice to grief” (psalm of lament).

Sermonic functions can be divided into three broad categories: head, heart, and hands. Sermons that fall in the “head” primarily transmit ideas, but it will be helpful to distinguish carefully between different forms of this task. A sermon that functions “to remind” the hearers of a conviction long-held but seldom fully considered should be approached differently from one that endeavors “to deconstruct” some damaging stereotype, “to explain” a complicated doctrine, or “to propose” a radical new framework. The sermonic functions “to argue” and “to explore” are both bids to augment the hearer’s understanding, but they require different rhetorical strategies. Getting as clear as possible about the nature of the sermon’s ideational purpose allows the preacher to become more intentional about its form and language.

Sermons that land in the “heart” need to be approached differently. “To encourage,” “to inspire,” “to evoke,” and “to mourn” are just a few examples of sermonic functions that intend transformations of feeling more than thought. In contrast to preaching directed primarily at the head, heart sermons will draw heavily upon story, image, and affective language to achieve their rhetorical goals. Every preacher that wants to speak effectively in this domain will become a student of poetics, enhancing her linguistic repertoire with a steady diet of poetry and story in all its varied forms. The “heart has its reasons that the reason knows nothing about,” and the preacher that would address the human heart must learn to speak its language.

Finally, and perhaps most controversial, are sermons that land in the “hands”—preaching that attempts to persuade the hearer to do something concrete. Christian faith is not just about thinking thoughts and feeling emotions; it is a matter of putting our bodies in particular places, at specific times, for distinctive purposes. Sometimes the claim of a text on our lives is that we show up for a protest, volunteer at a feeding ministry, take sabbath rest, or give generously to a Kin-dom cause. This calls for sermons designed “to move,” “to convict,” “to invite,” “to persuade,” or “to challenge.”

In the end, of course, preachers are not in control of how our sermons are received. Transformation is finally the work of the Spirit. May your next sermon be faithfully conformed to the good purposes of the God that has called you into this crucial ministry.