What is
sermon-centric worship?
Think of a
church where every week the minister decides he wants to preach on topic X on the
following Sunday, then picks Scripture readings for that day based on his topic
and instructs the organist or choir director or praise and worship leader or
whoever happens to be in charge of music to pick music that corresponds with
the theme of his sermon. Everything
else in the service is subordinate to the sermon. People who go to this church go there, first
and foremost, to hear the sermon.
This is
sermon-centric worship. For many
conservative Protestants, especially Calvinists and fundamentalists, this is
the only way of ordering a worship service, deviation from which raises the
suspicion of a weakening of standards of doctrine and practice. This raises the question of what is being
contrasted to the sermon-centric order of service. If the sermon is deemphasized for something
novel and contemporary, some gimmick chosen in order to appear more relevant
and up-to-date and user-friendly and seeker-sensitive and whatever other such
gibberish is currently in vogue, then our Calvinist and fundamentalist friends
have a point. When this sort of thing
is done it is often, perhaps usually, a good indication that orthodoxy and
orthopraxis have dropped a few places in the hierarchy of priorities of a
parish and its leadership.
Suppose,
however, that the alternative to sermon-centric worship were not anything
novel, contemporary, or gimmicky. Think
of a church where the Scripture lessons are not chosen to support the topic of
the sermons but where the preacher is expected to give a sermon explaining the
Scripture lessons assigned to that Sunday in a lectionary designed to take the
church through the written Word of God within a set period. Think of a church where Holy Communion is treated
not as something to be tacked on at the end of a sermon-centric service once a
month or less but as something that should be done as often as possible,
preferably whenever the church meets, and ideally every day, and of at least
equal importance to the sermon and probably greater because it is the ministry
of the Word as a whole, in which the sermon takes a subordinate position to the
Scripture lessons, with which the Sacrament is on par.
The
preceding description is what was generally the case with all churches in the
first millennium of Christian history, remained true of the ancient churches
other than the Roman after the first millennium, and from which the Roman
church deviated not by adopting sermon-centric worship but rather by twisting
Communion-centric worship into a caricature that provoked a response in the
Protestant Reformation that gave birth to sermon-centric worship.
Calvinists
are unlikely to be deterred from thinking their sermon-centric model of worship
to be the only valid one by this fact. Although
the need for a greater stress on preaching – and for higher quality preaching than
what had been the norm – was a common theme of all branches of the Magisterial
Reformation, it was the Reformed far more than the Anglicans and Lutherans who
developed the sermon-centric model, and the separatist sects, even those who
would be appalled to consider themselves “Calvinist” in theology, usually took
their cues on matters such as these from the Reformed. Today, conservative Reformed theologians
more than any other conservative Protestants point to what they call the return
to the primacy of preaching, in explaining what was good and necessary and
right about the Reformation.
Now in the
late Medieval period, in the centuries immediately prior to the sixteenth which
saw the Protestant Reformation, bad doctrine and bad practice concerning both
preaching and the Sacrament became prevalent in the Roman church. This is why the Calvinist position cannot just
be dismissed wholesale. Calvinism,
however, has a tendency to lump doctrines and practices common to all the
ancient churches, not just the Roman but those whose communion with Rome was
broken in the first millennium, in with the errors particular to the late
Medieval papacy. The Protestant
Reformation was a needed response to the errors of the late Medieval papacy,
but Calvinism went too far in rejecting what was common to all the ancient
churches. Typically, when Calvinism
rejected something common to Rome, the Eastern Orthodox, and the ancient near
Eastern churches, it was not because it could demonstrate that the Scriptures
opposed it, but because it could not be shown that the Scriptures required
it. This is a very bad way of
approaching traditional doctrine and practice.
Doctrines, such as the truths confessed in the Nicene Creed, and
practices, such as an annual celebration of Christ’s birth and Resurrection,
common to all the ancient churches, should be regarded as good and sound and
worthy of being retained and perpetuated unless it can be shown that the
Scriptures are explicitly against them.
The rejection as “popish” of doctrines, practices, and traditions common
to all the ancient churches rather than distinctive of Rome in the late Middle
Ages is hyper-Protestantism, and is typical of both Calvinism and fundamentalism,
the most sermon-centric movements within Protestantism.
Let us
consider the difference between Protestantism and hyper-Protestantism as it
pertains to that which was ubiquitously the focal point of church services
prior to the Reformation – the Sacrament of the Eucharist. What the Protestant Reformers objected to in
Roman practice going into the sixteenth century was that while the Mass (the
liturgy of the Eucharist) was said daily, the laity seldom took Holy Communion. They were obliged to attend Mass regularly,
but the only obligation with regards to taking Communion wat that they had do
it once a year. When they received
Communion it was in one kind – the cup was withheld from them. Their part in the Sacrament was, apart from
the once a year obligation to receive it in this mutilated form, was to gaze on
it and adore it. All of this was
particular to the Roman church and a fairly late development. The practice of withholding the cup from the
laity, for example, was no older than the eleventh century and the official
banning of the laity from receiving the cup came barely a century prior to the
Reformation. Obviously, the reform
called for here was to insist that both bread and wine be offered to the laity
and to encourage the laity to receive Communion regularly rather than just
adore the Sacrament. De-emphasizing the
Sacrament, however, so that it is no longer the focal point of the service,
goes against the practice of all the ancient churches, not just against the
errors of Rome. A similar observation
can be made with regards to the doctrine of the Sacrament. The
Protestant Reformers objected to the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation – that
during the Eucharist the bread and wine are transformed into the actual Body
and Blood of Jesus Christ with only the appearance of what they were before
remaining. What all Protestants agree is
objectionable in the doctrine of Transubstantiation is the idea that after the
consecration the bread and wine are no longer bread and wine – the Real Absence
of the bread and wine, if you will. There
are many different Protestant views as to what actually does happen which I
will not be listing here as it is largely beside the point. Suffice it to say that hyper-Protestants are
usually drawn to Zwingle’s view of Communion as a mere symbol remembrance of
the death of Christ, a view Calvin rejected although it is hard to discern a
real difference between his view and Zwingle’s, which interpretation rejects
not merely Transubstantiation and the aforementioned Real Absence of the bread
and wine after consecration, but also the Real Presence of the Body and Blood
of Christ in the elements of the Sacrament, which all the Church Fathers taught
and which all the ancient churches hold to, with all but Rome generally regarding
it as a mystery that does not require an explanation of the sort
Transubstantiation was thought up to provide and for which such an explanation
would be an impiety.
It should
be clear from what we have just seen that the move to de-emphasize Communion to
the point that it becomes something infrequently tacked on to a sermon-centric
service arises out of the hyper-Protestant rejection of the doctrine and
practice common to all the ancient churches – that which is truly Catholic –
rather than mere Protestant opposition to the late errors distinctive to Rome.
Now with
regards to sermons themselves, the Reformers taught that the clergy must not
neglect the duty of giving sermons, that the clergy needed to be better educated
so that they could better explain the Scriptures, that the sermons needed to be
delivered in the vernacular, and should faithfully preach Jesus Christ and not
merely serve some political agenda of the papacy. There were all valid points and that they
were all made indicates that the quality of preaching had declined
significantly although the picture that is often painted of preaching in
Western Europe on the eve of the Reformation is probably exaggerated. It is doubtful, for example, that outside of
university pulpits sermons were given in Latin to congregations that could not
understand it, rather than being preached in the vernacular to congregations
but when published put in Latin for a literate readership. Certainly, the Reformers’ emphasis on the
need for an educated clergy bore good fruit in the academic institutions
established at this time for the purpose of educating clergy in the Scriptural
languages and the art of interpreting them.
The
hyper-Protestants, however, again took things too far. In their doctrine of the primacy of
preaching they elevated the sermon above the very Scriptures the sermon is
supposed to interpret and explain. Consider
the difference between the two models outlined earlier in this essay with
regards to the relationship between the Scripture lessons and the sermon. In the sermon-centric model, the lessons are
chosen to support the preacher’s topic.
In the traditional model, the preacher composes his sermon to explain
the given Scripture lessons. The
traditional model has the sermon subordinate to the Scripture lessons, the
sermon-centric model suggests that the Scripture lessons are subordinate to the
sermon. In some forms of Puritan
theology this was spelled out explicitly.
The Puritans were the original English hyper-Protestants. In The
Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, his response to Puritanism, Richard Hooker
addressed at length arguments from a leading Puritan of his day to the effect
that the mere reading of Scripture in the lessons is insufficient to quicken
the spirits of men, that the Scripture had to be preached, i.e., in a sermon to
be effective. As crass and blasphemous
as this notion is – it translates into the idea that the very words of God are
ineffective but human interpretation of those words is effective – it is
frequently encountered among the sermon-centric.
As with all
such errors the idea that the Word of God is ineffective unless preached in a
sermon has its “proof texts”. These are
Romans 10:14-15 and 1 Corinthians 1:21.
The first of these is where St. Paul asks how they shall call on the
Lord if they have not believed, then how they shall believe if they have not
heard, how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except
they be sent, with the point of course to each of these questions being that
they will not, that it is necessary to believe to call on the Lord, it is
necessary to hear to believe, and to hear one needs a preacher who has been sent. The second proof text is the verse where St.
Paul says that “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them
that believe”. What can be said about
the Puritan, hyper-Protestant, abuse of these texts is that it illustrates the
Reformers’ argument about the need for a better educated clergy.
The word “preach”
in these verses does not mean “give a sermon”.
It is a word that at its most literal means to do the work of a herald,
to proclaim. In these verses it
basically means to tell other people about Jesus. It is hardly confined to the concept of
giving a formal address to a congregation.
Indeed, the implications that are often read into 1 Cor. 1:21 are
hilariously comical when the verse is read in its context. The sermon-centric read it as if the
unbelieving world regarded preaching in the sense of the act of delivering a
sermon as “foolishness” but God has shown them up by using what they consider foolish
to accomplish His saving ends. This is nonsense of course. The ancient world did not regard preaching qua preaching, i.e., delivering an
address to an audience as foolishness. On
the contrary, they held it in the highest regard. If you
don’t believe me, read up on Demosthenes, Cicero, and the role of the art of
rhetoric in ancient education, including the schools of Plato and Aristotle. The only difference between a sermon and
any other sort of public oration is the subject matter. For a Scriptural example, think of St. Paul
before the philosophers at Mars Hill in Acts 17. Those who ridiculed him did so because of
what he preached to them, i.e., the Resurrection, not because of the form or
manner in which he presented the Resurrection to them. In 1 Corinthians 1 it is just as clear I the
context that it is the content of what
St. Paul preached that the unbelieving world regarded as foolish, and not the
mere act of preaching. Note earlier in
the passage, the Apostle, who is rebuking the factionalism that had emerged in
the Corinthian church, says that Christ did not send him to baptize but to
preach the Gospel, adding that he preached the Gospel “not with wisdom of
words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect”. In other words, the power to save in his preaching
came from the cross of Christ, and not from his oratorical ability. The verse immediately after that spells it
out – it is the preaching of the cross that is foolishness to them that perish,
but to the saved it is the power of God.
Again, when
the New Testament speaks of “preaching” as God’s instrument in bringing people
to faith and salvation to people, “preaching” merely means telling people about
Jesus. It could take the form of what
we more commonly call preaching today, that is, giving a speech in which an
entire crowd is told about Jesus at once, like when St. Peter addressed the
multitude on Pentecost or what Billy Graham became famous for doing in our own
time. It could also just be you having
an informal discussing with your neighbor and telling him about Who Jesus is
and what He has done.
The
disingenuity of those who conscript these texts about God using the preaching
of the Gospel to bring salvation into the service of their case for
sermon-centric worship is further evinced in that the examples from the book of
Acts of preaching that is used by God in this manner are all of sermons that
are addressed outward to audiences other than the church. St. Peter’s Pentecost sermon illustrates the
point well. The entire church at the
time was already assembled with St. Peter in the upper room. After the Holy Spirit descended upon the
church, however, the sermon St. Peter gave which yielded the fruit of about
three thousand converts baptized and added to the church, was not addressed to
those with him in the upper room, but to the multitude gathered outside. Later in the chapter, when it says that
those who believed “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship,
and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” this is where we get our earliest
glimpse of what the first church did when she gathered together to
worship. Their continuing “in the
apostles’ doctrine” means that when they gathered they were instructed in the
faith by the Apostles. This is the
beginning of what we think of as the sermon in the regular church service
today. Addressed to those within the
community of faith that is the church, rather than outward, its purpose is
didactic rather than evangelistic.
Together with fellowship, the Sacrament of the Eucharist (“breaking of
bread”), and prayer, we have here the basic elements of the traditional order
of service.
A frequent
accusation which hyper-Protestants level against traditional liturgical,
Sacramental, worship is that it is a show put on by priests acting out a
prescribed role in which the laity are observers rather than participants. This adds a level of deep irony to their
advocacy of sermon-centric worship. The
word “liturgy” which we use for the order-of-service of traditional,
priest-led, Sacramental services comes from combining the Greek words for “people”
and “work” and involves far more participation on the part of the laity than a
non-liturgical service. Throughout the
liturgical service, the clergy and laity interact with versicles and responses,
mostly consisting of the words of Scripture, which introduce or close or both,
Scripture lessons, collects, and other prayers. For example even the Anaphora – the
Eucharistic Prayer in which the elements of the Sacrament are consecrated –
opens with a preface that begins with the priest and laity interacting in the Sursum
Corda (“The Lord be with you” “and with thy spirit” “lift up your hearts” “we
lift them up unto the Lord”, “Let us
give thanks unto our Lord God” “It is meet and right so to do”) and ends, the
preface that is, with the Sanctus hymn sung or said by choir and/or
congregation. The single largest element in the liturgical
service in which the laity plays a merely passive role is the sermon. In a sermon-centric service, this part is
extended and emphasized, and the interactive, participatory, liturgy is
minimized or eliminated, so that such a service is far more limited in terms of
lay participation than a traditional liturgical service. A similar irony, directly related to this
one, is that hyper-Protestants regard the priest-lay distinction as being an
offence against the unity of the church that divides Christians into two
classes with one being unjustly subject to other in violation of the “universal
priesthood of believers”. Apart from
being unscriptural – the establishment of the Apostles as governing order of
the church and their establishing two other Holy Orders under them is clearly
recorded in the New Testament – and illogical – the nation of Israel was
described as a nation of priests in Deuteronomy and this did not preclude the
Levitical priesthood, therefore the universal priesthood of Christian believers
cannot preclude the special priesthood of the Apostolic orders of ministry –
and contrary to the universal practice of every ancient church for the first
fifteen centuries of Christian history, this Christian era version of the sin
of Korah resembles the Communism that is its secular counterpart by producing,
whenever it is acted upon, a far greater gap between minister and congregant,
than exists in the ancient, traditional, order against which it rails in the
name of “equality”.
Finally,
one telling indicator that the sermon-centric model of worship is deeply and
dangerously flawed, is the language that one often hears when such preaching is
discussed. It is not infrequent to hear
the sermon described in such a way as would suggest that the sermon itself is
the Word of God. Let us be clear. The Scriptures are the Word of God. The sermon is someone’s interpretation and
explanation of the Word of God. When the Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel
lessons are read out, this is more properly called “preaching the Word”, than
when the homilist gives his talk on what these lessons mean, no matter how sound
his hermeneutics may be. The two must never be confused.
