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Preaching and Liturgy

An Anglican Perspective

roger spiller

The primary ecclesial context of preaching in the Church of England is that of public worship, and ‘a sermon should normally be preached at every liturgical celebration’.1 Thus the pattern of worship influences and conditions the character and practice of preaching itself. In the last three decades or so the largely uniform and ‘common’ pattern of worship that could be found in every Anglican parish church, with minor variations, has been replaced by a wide diversity of worship and preaching styles. Cultural and aesthetic, as well as theological and liturgical, pressures in the 1960s ushered in a period of great liturgical creativity and experimentation that culminated in Common Worship, published in 2000. This prayer book authorizes alternative worship material and discretion in the use of local practice. Common Worship does not in practice, however, circumscribe the increasingly diverse patterns of worship that seek to match changing lifestyle patterns and especially the new initiatives that attempt to connect with the unchurched. It may be the destiny of liturgists to be latecomers, offering shape and coherence to local liturgical innovativeness that tries to respond to the fast-changing local missional landscape.

Since the 1960s, in the wake of the Parish Communion movement, the Eucharist has become the main Sunday act of worship in most churches, replacing the Prayer Book service of Matins. This has usually meant the reduction in the sermon time or, conversely in some churches, reducing the ministry of the sacrament to an addendum to the service. When, however, the dramatic character of the Eucharist is recognized and brought to life it reinforces the preaching through song and sign and action offering what Calvin called the visible preaching alongside the audible Eucharist. Typically the preaching is addressed to the Confirmed member and reflects the lectionary readings and church seasons. However, to provide greater accessibility for those who are unchurched, many churches now provide a Service of the Word in addition to, or instead of, the eucharistic worship. This gives scope for more extended and creative preaching. Typically in evangelical churches an extended, expository, propositional and ‘teaching’ sermon will be the centrepiece of the worship. It provides its hearers with a solid grounding in the biblical text, although it can be less willing to engage with the features of the human context that seem to defy the solution of the gospel. Churches that are clumsily regarded as ‘middle of the road’ usually take their preaching cue from the intractable issues that confront the human condition, but in trying to avoid any trivializing or triumphalist tendencies, they risk confining the gospel to what their hearers already experience and understand. Churches with a catholic character recognize the Word made flesh in the eucharistic celebration and the community which is re-membered around it. This can lead to an impatience with extended biblical exposition and explanation, and the marginalizing of preaching itself. This inevitably crude summation of Anglican preaching traditions is intended to suggest that for a future, healthy development of preaching, churches will benefit from engaging with the insights witnessed to by other preaching styles within the Anglican Communion.

Different preaching styles

Common Worship affirms that ‘the “sermon” can be done in many different and adventurous ways’ (2005, p. 21) and proposes that this ‘includes less formal exposition, the use of drama, interviews, discussion, audio-visuals and the insertion of hymns or other sections of the service between parts of the sermon’ (note 7, p. 27). This rubric will continue to remain largely overlooked, except by liturgical nerds, unless explicit attention is drawn to it by church leaders. Its significance is that it provides the mandate for the whole Church to be ‘adventurous’ in seeking to communicate the Christian gospel. It may include, as for some younger preachers, using lyrics, clips from films, sports events, soaps, adverts, phone-in discussions not merely to excite interest or to illustrate the gospel but as reference points of modern culture that force us to engage with fundamental theological questions (Lynch, 2008). Common Worship, too, characterizes preaching as ‘story’. Few could doubt the reach, power and fascination of story. We relate to one another through story; we are transformed by story. Story, moreover, as Jesus demonstrated, is not merely the preferred vehicle but the intrinsic shape and content of the gospel. It enlists the primary religious faculty of the imagination, in order to access the alternative world of the gospel that God is creating, which cannot be accessed in any other way. Story, as we see in the dominical parables, creates space for hearers to be active, responsible participants as they locate themselves within the plots, trajectories and characters of the story. The future for preaching is likely to depend upon the rebirth of the story. It has the potential to capture the imagination of a generation who have been turned off by rarefied theological argument. Story, of course, may be augmented by sensory resources. One preacher, speaking on ‘the bread of life’, secreted a bread-making machine under the pews and an unsuspecting member of the congregation remarked that the preaching was so vivid that she could almost smell the bread. I myself was preaching on the theme of ‘the great cloud of witness’ while an over-zealous dry-ice machine operator allowed the entire chapel to be permeated by cloud so that the whole congregation disappeared from view. Preachers will need to be resourceful if they are to enable their hearers to inhabit the Gospel stories. Preaching as story is a model and catalyst to the hearers to rehearse the interweaving of their stories within the divine story of redemption and help the local church to be ‘a storytelling community of imagination’ (Wells and Coakley, 2008, pp. 81, 84). Preachers who know the power of story from its use in all-age and child-centred worship can still be reluctant to launch into the now respectable pedigree of story or narrative preaching, uncertain of the response they may receive. The future vitality of preaching is likely to be dependent upon a boldness to be ‘adventurous’ in the use of ‘story’ in order to connect with a generation who will hear the story with the surprise and newness as of the first hearers in first-century Palestine.

Opportunities for preaching

As ‘the Church by Law established’, it is estimated that the Church of England is in contact with some 85 per cent of the nation (Barley, 2006). The shape of the contact we have will often involve some form of preaching. At times of national significance or crisis, the Church will be expected not merely to articulate the public mood but to locate it within a transcendent frame of reference. Anniversaries of luminous figures, as diverse as Wilberforce, Handel, Milton, Darwin, and events that mark human achievement provide a ‘secular’ calendar that deserves, arguably, a recognition similar to that we give to the calendar of saints. The centenary of the discovery of the electron did not escape the vigilant eye of a cathedral dean, who saw the opportunity to engage with the physicists in the city.2 This is but an example of the ingenuity that is required if the Church is to initiate a focused engagement with the ‘secular’ events, artefacts, activities and anniversaries that shape our corporate life. The Church of England is particularly well placed to occupy this contested ground in our national life.

Demands for the ‘occasional offices’, although reduced in number, are still significant. There is evidence from a study of church marriages that those for whom their marriage may be the only contact with the Church wish for a more extended relationship with the Church’s worshipping community than clergy either expect or offer.3This intimates the need for a more extensive marking of the human lifestyle, and the great archetypal transitions, than the Church has traditionally provided. The future for preaching will reckon with what has been called ‘inventive new personalised ritual’ (MacCulloch, 2009, p. 1013). Wedding vow renewal services, Valentine’s Day services on relationships and services of remembrance for the bereaved are only part of what could form an accessible and comprehensive liturgical cycle and the basis of an annual preaching curriculum on key issues of birth, identity, parenting, family, environment, loss, ageing and death (Barley, 2006, p. 51). Intrinsic to many family celebrations is the annual contact with the Church through the Christmas services. The preaching requires huge sensitivity if it is to strengthen the mystery, intrigue and awe of the story, juxtaposed against the grim reality of the world, and tell the difference that is made by this small child so that the hearers will be urged to ‘turn the page’ and let the wonder linger in them. At the same time, Christingle, crib and Christmas tree festivals are forerunners of new and local liturgies that are making imaginative ways of reconnecting with the traditional story. As the future of preaching will respond to new liturgical opportunities, so also it will respond to different ways of being and doing ‘church’. Mid-week, after-school and Saturday afternoon services are likely to fit better into emerging lifestyle preferences, while hundreds of ‘Fresh Expressions’ and church plants require an informal and interactive style of preaching typified by testimony, story and the discussion of questions within the context of a minimal and creative liturgy.

Issues for preachers

There are particular issues and challenges for preaching within the framework of the ‘established church’. The Church of England has provided the ‘sacred canopy’ over English life and has historically, and perhaps inevitably, been over-identified with western and establishment culture. This appears not to have inhibited the Church’s prophetic challenge of social and ethical issues, and, sometimes, of government policy, at least since the early twentieth century. What is less sure, however, is the extent to which preaching on public concerns contents itself with appealing to the broad support of supposedly universal values and reasoning rather than to the distinctive character of God’s history in Jesus of Nazareth. The comment that ‘There continues to be a surprising dearth of arguments that are rooted in theological or biblical perspectives’ (Partington and Bickley, 2007) does identify the collusive temptation to which the national church is particularly prone. Preachers are likely to find that an appeal to shared values and beliefs ceases to be as obvious as it once seemed. The values of freedom and equality, for example, are not self-explanatory; they will be shown by our public preaching to arise from a vision of human flourishing that is inseparable from the image of God in Christ. Conversely, preaching will meticulously expose the ‘black hole’ in the nation’s life which it believed to be the ultimate cause of the pervasive collapse of trust and social disease. This concerted campaign of attrition will enlist the artistic idiom of story, song, praise as well as satire and mockery as deployed by the ancient prophets, in order to wear down and undermine the prevailing worldview (Brueggemann, 1989).

The Anglican tradition has sought to focus on the wider community rather than merely the congregation and to address through its preaching issues of wider cultural and community interests rather than being over-absorbed with the narrow and particular interests of the faithful Christians. This perspective needs careful nurture at a time of institutional decline when pressure on the local church for the survival of its ministry can lead to an unhealthy parochialism and inwardness. In the manner of the major prophets who were preachers to the nations, not simply to their own constituency, it is to be hoped that the preaching ministry of the ‘national church’ will address the whole creation (Croft, 1999, pp. 115–17).

The preaching in parish churches in England has been shaped by pastoral, rather than missionary, assumptions and has sought to maintain the reassuring continuities of faith and culture and the latent faith of the nation.

Some find new reassurance for this traditional position from the burgeoning interest in spirituality. However, the default character of much contemporary spirituality when divorced from its religious framework renders it impotent, while Gracie Davie’s latest analysis of religion points to the vocation of believers acting in proxy, and by consent, for society as a whole (see also Wells and Coakley, 2008, pp. 147–69). The shrinking of the believing community, however, dilutes the Christian witness, and this points to the need for preaching to assume an intentionally educative role. The postmodern insight that we live in different ‘worlds’ created by language and that experience, including of course religious experience, is linguistically structured should give new confidence to preaching as the means by which people may be transported to and inhabit an explicitly Christian story-centred ‘world’.

Arising, again, from an inherently pastoral model, the preacher has been inclined to maintain a conspiracy with biblical scholarship that evades the voicing of problems presented by the text. The faith of the preacher can thus be different in kind from that of the congregation (Fenton, 1975). An Advent sermon I recently heard, on Luke 21.25–36, unusually began with the candid acknowledgement by the preacher that ‘I don’t understand this Gospel’ and went on to spell out the difficulties he encountered in the text. I suspect that the thoughtful hearer would be conscripted to their own intense engagement with the text and the shattering of some of the superficial comforts that resulted from the honest exposition of the problems it presents as a result of this approach. In doing so it gave permission for the honest voicing of intractable problems whether with the interpretation of the text or with our own personal issues.

The preachers and their authorization

As well as clergy, lay people who become Readers in the Church of England are licensed by their bishop to preach and to perform liturgical functions. The demanding training equips them to be authoritative interpreters of Scripture, while they are particularly well placed through their rootedness in the world of work to act as ‘street theologians’ and to equip members of congregations to connect theologically with their own working lives. Their role is particularly crucial because the local church can often seem uncomfortable with the world of work and fails to equip its members to mount a reasoned defence against the fierce challenges they are likely to face. Congregations may, for their part, be thankful not to be reminded of or bring their working life into church, and Readers may find it more rewarding to ape their clergy colleagues in theological erudition than draw on their own unique experience and insight from their rich and diverse working lives. The ministry of Readers is the primary lay ministry and its members, whose numbers outweigh those of clergy, have been vital to the continuance of the preaching and liturgical ministry. However, the age profile of Readers remains high and the recruitment of younger members has not been encouraging. Reader ministry may be caught in a generational trap. It is generally recognized that with the growth in opportunities for lay members to preach on an occasional basis, there is little incentive to undertake a three-year intensive course to become a Reader.

The burgeoning numbers of those preaching on an occasional basis in many of our churches has brought vitality into worship and has been the catalyst for many once-hesitant lay people to discover their gifts and exercise a valued ministry, often going on to full-time ministry. If, as seems likely, a local lay preaching ministry will continue alongside that of Readers for some time to come, this presents important questions about the assessment of gifts, the supervision and training that is required, the frequency with which an ‘occasional’ preacher is expected to preach in relation to their Reader counterparts and the level of authorization and accountability that is felt appropriate. This has to be managed in a way that affirms and liberates, rather than controls, while also ensuring the quality and theological consistency of preaching for the edification of the congregation.

This can be no more than a brief and personal snapshot on the fast-changing preaching landscape in the Church of England.

In future we can expect to see an expansion in the number, age and background of those being given the opportunity to preach. Informal non-church settings will be usual settings for preaching, while preachers will employ testimony, story, conversation and dialogue and licensed clergy will discover the power of the narrative shaping of preaching, whether as story, as argument or as images. More will be invested by colleges and dioceses in resourcing people on a continuous basis for their preaching ministry. The decline of preaching is, as they say, greatly exaggerated and will remain so while people continue to discover that the young man who hung to death on a cross one dark Friday afternoon is the Father’s way of restoring the whole inhabited world.

Notes

1. Canon B5.

2. Held at Birmingham Cathedral, 13 June 1997, and addressed by Professor Sir John Polkinghorne.

3. Weddings Project of the Church of England. See weddings.project@c-of-e.org.uk.

References

Barley, Lynda, 2006, Christian Roots, Contemporary Spirituality, London: Church House Publishing.

Brueggemann, Walter, 1989, Finally Comes the Poet, Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.

Common Worship: Daily Prayer, 2005, London: Church House Publishing.

Croft, S., 1999, Ministry in Three Dimensions, London: Darton, Longman and Todd.

Fenton, J. C., 1975, ‘The preacher and the biblical critic’, in What about the New Testament? Essays in Honour of Christopher Evans, ed. Morna Hooker and Colin Hickling, London: SCM Press, pp. 178–86.

Lynch, Gordon, 2008, ‘The preacher as cultural critic: possibilities and pitfalls’, The Preacher 129, April, pp. 7–9.

MacCulloch, D, 2009, A History of Christianity, London: Allen Lane.

Partington, Andrew, and Paul Bickley, 2007, Coming off the Bench: The Past, Present and Future Representation in the House of Lords, London: Theos.

Wells, S., and S. Coakley (eds), 2008, Praying for England, London: Continuum.