Liberating: The Sermon

This post was written by Carol Howard Merritt.

I am reading Gilead. The main character is a clergyman, and as a pastor myself, I feel like I ought to be resonating with him. I should be nodding at the details of his day, because they are so much like my own. But so much has changed in the pastorate since the setting of the story until now, that I don’t feel much connection. From the description, it hardly feels like the same job.

But there is one way in which we are very much the same – we both have files of sermons in our attic. Even though my email has replaced his walks around the neighborhood, and pastors need to live on a salary instead of the chickens and garden vegetables, the sermon has remained in many congregations. His are hand-written in small letters and mine have been typed out on a computer, but we still write them out and keep them boxed up in that place that is either too hot or too cold. And we both agonize over our sermons.

On the weeks that I preach, I try to bring my best writing to the craft. I carefully select each word. I work on the phrasing, rhythm, and poetry. I imagine how the words will rest on each person’s ears. I whisper the words, making sure that I can pronounce the complicated sentences in a comfortable way.

It is not only the writing that I work on, but also the spirit of preaching. That sort of preparation is hard to explain, but I pray and walk, and open myself to God as I prepare the manuscript. Since I work close to the Lincoln Memorial, I often climb the steps and stand where the small brass sign commemorates where Martin Luther King gave his speech. I breathe deeply, remembering that I am stepping into a great tradition that has comforted and agitated so many people for two thousand years. I remind myself that my voice can be a part of a great chorus of liberation.

On Sunday mornings, even though I have been preaching for over a dozen years, I still get nervous. I hope that I’ll have something worthwhile to say – and that, perhaps, even a bit of the word of God might slip between my words and the congregation’s ears.

Whether we are in small parishes preaching to a handful of members or in large congregations expounding for hundreds, leaders faithfully craft these pieces, hoping that somehow God might use us through our paltry words. And I imagine many ministers, serving small congregations, weaving together lovely, passionate sentences for only a handful of people to hear. By the end of the year, we might write over 300 pages – producing more work than the most fruitful novelists. We serve them up, and sometimes hear “good sermon” mumbled with a handshake. On rare occasions, we might get a note of thanks.

Some people say that the sermon may not survive. There is no place in our postmodern era for a lone person to stand up and give a monologue, without discussion or interaction. Pastors do not have, and should not expect to have, the rapt attention of a congregation. We ought to be challenged to wrestle together with what the voices in the text are saying to us.

And, I suppose that in some contexts, the sermon is out of place. There ought to be a space dedicated to questioning the sermon (this can usually be accomplished with our interactive technologies). But I’m still committed to the craft, because it’s a place where the art of the narrative can flourish. It allows a person the space to think for hours about a certain scripture and what it might be saying to us in our context.

And, on rare occasions, sermons can even be a part of that liberating history that has changed the world.

Carol Howard Merritt is a pastor of Western Presbyterian Church, an intergenerational congregation in Washington, D.C. Western’s deep commitment to serving the poor in the city has helped to initiate programs like Miriam’s Kitchen, a social service program for the homeless which provides a hot, nutritious breakfast and dinner for over 200 men and women; Project Create, which teaches art to children in transitional housing; and HIPS which stands for Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive.