Some habits never change

I’m not sure if this tale is true, but it’s one of my favourites.

A man was watching his wife with great interest as she prepared a large, succulent ham for their Thanksgiving meal. Before placing the honey-glazed meat in the oven, the wife cut off one end of the ham and discarded it in the trash. With surprise, the husband asked why she had wasted a perfectly good piece of meat.

“I don’t know,” the wife replied. “My mother always chopped off the end of her Thanksgiving ham before baking it.”

The wife, curious about this odd holiday ritual, phoned her mom to ask why part of the ham was thrown away every year. The mother reported that she had learned the practice from her own mother many years ago.

So they called Grandma.

“Oh, yes,” Grandma said. “When Grandpa and I were newly married, we lived in an apartment. We had such a tiny oven that I had to cut off a corner of my ham to make it fit inside the small roaster. I kept doing it, out of habit I suppose, even when we bought a bigger oven.”

Whether or not the details of this story are true, there’s a lesson to be learned. Sometimes old habits need to be re-examined and the origins of our actions uncovered. Even in church.

This month we’re taking a fresh look at an old Christian standard – preaching.

Preaching is the central event in most evangelical church services. But that hasn’t always been so. Not until the Reformation – and the desire to rouse people to personal faith through the exposition of Scripture – did sermons become so vital. Prior to that time, church services revolved around the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Suddenly, word surpassed ritual.

But has the word grown cold, leaving congregations bored, uninspired, or even snoring in the back of the sanctuary? The current frenzy of debate over the topic and the resurgence of preaching conferences (see “People of the Word”) suggest that something is very wrong. So, what’s the matter with preaching?

Lots, according to some.

Some say that today’s sermons contain propositional truths disconnected from the whole biblical narrative. They say that many preachers pick and choose their Bible verses without telling the background story or providing context. These folks advocate for narrative preaching and believe that “the chief role of a Christian is to tell a better story.”¹

Some say that preachers have strayed from the biblical text and that their sermons are nothing more than practical self-help lectures. These critics fear the gospel is being watered down for the sake of mere numbers, leaving today’s Christians biblically illiterate and uninformed.

Some, like Ray Bystrom in his feature article, say preaching is too passive for church-goers who learn best through participation and activity. Bystrom presents a compelling vision of how listeners can be taught to actively engage with the biblical text.

Others worry about pastors. These folks say that asking one person to prepare a creative, original, 30-minute sermon every week is too much. British sociologist David Martin believes “the decline of preaching presumably has something to do with a diminishing stock of things to say.”² With sermon stealing and pulpit plagiarism becoming a problem,³ he may be right.

Mennonite Brethren writer Katie Funk Wiebe agrees. “We shouldn’t expect one man or woman to come up with a fresh word from God each week, especially someone who is also burdened with many meetings and other responsibilities,” she says. “Nor is there enough time for new insights to emerge.”⁴ Funk Wiebe advocates a return to the multiple-lay-preacher system, in which members with the spiritual gift of preaching and teaching share the pulpit.

So, who’s right? Is there a problem with preaching? Perhaps the problem is our North American predisposition towards human effort, performance, and results.

Perhaps we should revisit this ancient element of Christian worship simply to remind ourselves that, ultimately, we’re not in control. Preaching God’s Word is much like a dance – between proclaimer and listener, between word and action, between past and present. The dance takes on many forms, but is always choreographed and animated by God’s Spirit.

I think John Hines, bishop of the Episcopal Church, said it well in his 1977 retirement address: “Preaching is effective as long as the preacher expects something to happen – not because of the sermon, not even because of the preacher, but because of God.”

1. Donald Miller in “A Better Storyteller,” Christianity Today, June 2007.
2. David Martin in What Happened to Christian Canada? Mark Noll. Regent College Publishing, 2007.
3. “Sermon stealing,” The Christian Century, April 17, 2007.
4. “Letters,” The Christian Century, June 26, 2007.