The Final Word

Listen to me because I am right!

This is an attitude that many pastors/preachers embrace. Sure, they will be coy and say things like “I’m just preaching scripture,” or “these aren’t my ideas, they are God’s,” but really what we are encountering is a big ego and an even bigger head. That’s why churches are so big, so they can enter and leave.

For now lets not dwell on the arrogance of such a stance, but instead on the idea that the sermon is the final word. The preacher/pastor has proclaimed the word, it is said, it is the truth, and there is no room for discussion. This makes the sermon very much a one-way proclamation, a picture of some smarty-pants telling everyone else what to think.

For those who listened to the corresponding podcast, you may remember hearing me (Jonathan, the smart one) referencing Foucault. I am not a Foucault scholar by any stretch of the imagination and only understand a sliver of his view on rhetoric, power, and structure. I think one could say that from a Foucaultian analysis, in the sermon people are being “educated,” shaped, and formed in one way or another. Yet I do not think this necessarily needs to be a one-way street, but one is which the preacher is also shaped and formed.

When is the sermon finished? I used to say that it is finished when I preach it, but after some thought I think I would amend such a statement. After I preach the sermon, and it is floating in the sanctuary, stirring individuals, it is still happening. When someone contacts me later with a question, thought, or idea in response to the sermon it is still happening. It is at this moment that I am affected by the sermon, sometimes more than the person with the comment. I may be moved to change my point, or to better articulate my point, or to deepen my faith in one way or another because of the interaction. Now the power is in the hands of the listener with the comment, and I am the one who is being invited to engage the word.

If I preach with a sense of finality then I am closed to the continued movement of the sermon. But if I look for continued engagement and dialogue, then the sermon continues to be heard and is never really finished. This means that I may not always be right. Ouch!

Ok, now for things mentioned on the episode.

The Foucault Reader is a great intro to Foucault

From What'cha Reading:

A Writer’s Coach: An Editor’s Guide to Words That Work, by Jack Heart
Published by Pantheon, 2006 (take note, Charley)

The Coming of the Body by Hervé Juvin
Published by Verso, 2010

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