Homiletics 2 File 13 Professor Carl Fickenscher II Question by: Joshua >> JOSHUA: Okay. I'm definitely on board with the idea that my job in preaching is to proclaim law and gospel and do the best I can to divide them properly, but obviously then the question is: Which law and which gospel? Sometimes I get great ideas for a sermon and sometimes it's not that easy. I may be doing this a couple thousand times before I'm done. How in the world does a guy come up with that many different sermons? >> PROF. FICKENSCHER: Well, Joshua, I wish I had a real easy answer for that, but you already know this is very tough. The idea that you're going to look down the road and say, "I'm going to preach 2,000 or 3,000 times over the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years of ministry" is almost overwhelming, isn't it. So what we want to do, of course, is break it down to something a little bit more manageable. To begin with the idea of preparing a sermon week after week after week for the same congregation really determine or really requires an understanding of where ideas can best come from. There are two broad possibilities for how you would determine what to talk about in your sermons week after week after week. The first maybe the most obvious is to simply sit down and decide what issue or what need or what kind of idea might be helpful to my people this particular week; to think that something is in the news that I would like to address, or one of my members came to me this week and had a problem about this situation or that situation, and then try to determine how you can address that particular need or that particular situation, that issue on the basis of God's law and God's gospel. That would mean going and finding texts from somewhere in the scriptures. That would ordinarily be called topical preaching. To find your idea first, your topic, your idea first, and then go and find various points of scripture that would answer the questions that come to mind. Now, that's a possibility. But as you can imagine, it has some very big disadvantages that we'll talk about in just a moment. The other broad possibility for, week in and week out, finding an idea for a sermon, something important to speak to your people about, is to begin with a particular text, to let a particular cutting of scripture determine what you'll talk about this week. What is the law in this text? What is the gospel in this text? And next week, what is the law, what is the gospel, in that text? And so on, week after week, letting the text determine your ideas. This is called textual preaching. And there are many strong advantages for approaching our week to week preaching on a textual basis. The question then, of course, is: How do we choose the text? And there are also a couple of possibilities here. I summarize these as either a subjective or an objective method of text selection. A subjective method of text selection is to say you, the subject, the one who is going to be preaching, simply make your choice of text from anywhere in the Bible. Select the text and work from it. That's called free texting. But there's also the possibility of an objective text selection, and this I'd like to talk about a little bit more. Let's begin then by saying that the first step in the invention of a sermon, the first step actually in the entire homiletical process, is to choose an appropriate text either objectively or subjectively. Now, I would suggest that there are advantages to a subjective method of text selection, to begin. Methods or advantages that we should perhaps consider. When the pastor is free texting that is, he, subjectively, is making the selection of the text each week from the entire 66 books of scripture he is ordinarily going to find a text that is relevant to his hearers, and that's an advantage. He's also likely to find a text that is relevant to him. Perhaps something that has really caught his attention this week, or in his personal devotional life of past weeks, and that is helpful in preparing a sermon, because obviously if the text has a meaningful message for this congregation this week, has a meaningful message for the pastor this particular week, it's going to lend itself to some fine preaching. But I would also suggest that there are some advantages, and I think overwhelming advantages, for an objective method of text selection. I think these are advantages, in fact, that strongly override those advantages of free texting or a subjective selection of text. Let's talk about some of the advantages of an objective method of text selection. To say we choose a text objectively is to say that something outside the preacher makes or at least significantly contributes to the selection of the text. One way to do this would be for a preacher to determine ahead of time that for the next, oh, say 18 weeks he's going to preach on the gospel of Matthew. He's going to take a chapter and a chapter and a half and two chapters and eight verses and go from beginning to end through the gospel of Matthew. And by doing so, he has at least somewhat limited the range of possibilities for his text selection. Maybe he could be even so objective as to say, "I'm going to preach one chapter of Matthew a week for 28 weeks, and I won't deviate from that." Okay? That is, to a certain degree, objective. But of course it also has some subjectivity as well, because he has determined that it's going to be Matthew through which he will preach. He's the one who determined that it would be a chapter a week, as opposed to six verses a week and so on. An even more strongly objective method of text selection is to work with the lectionary, or the pericopal system. It was interesting when I was doing my doctoral work with my Baptist friends, this was totally new material to them. My Baptist friends, almost universally, free text. From week to week, they select a text and preach on it, move on to the next week, another text, another text, another text. And as I said, there are some real advantages to that. But what we have in the lectionary is also very helpful, as these good friends of mine also came to discover. The lectionary, as, of course, you know, is a system of lessons that have been cut to take us through the entire counsel of God in a period of either one or three years. Let's remind ourselves of how that works for just a moment, and then we'll talk about some of the advantages of using the lectionary to select our texts. Let's take, for example, the 3 year lectionary which has become very common in our Lutheran congregations. There is also a 1 year lectionary, which is historic and continues to be used in many situations. The lectionary comes from the very early days of the Christian Church and even back to the days before Christ. Already in Jesus' day, the Jews were using a lectionary, which was a system of cuttings from of course then the Old Testament that would be read on every sabbath day. In the Old Testament days, the times prior to Christ's birth and even in Jesus' own day, there would always be a reading from the Torah, from one of the first five books of the Old Testament, and also always a reading from one of the prophets such as the book of Isaiah, which figured prominently, and also often a reading from the psalms. The particular sabbath of the year was always associated with a particular reading from the Torah, a particular reading from the prophets. So, for example, in Luke 4, when Jesus went to Nazareth to his own synagogue in his own hometown and was handed the scroll to read, opened it up and read from Isaiah 61, it was no accident. Jesus had come to the synagogue that day to read that particular lesson from Isaiah, knowing that that was the cutting from Isaiah assigned to be read that day, and it gave Jesus the opportunity, you recall, to say, "This day, the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Well, through the centuries after the time of Christ, this lectionary also developed to include, of course, continuing readings from the Old Testament, but then also readings from the gospel and from the epistles as well. For many years, a 1 year series was predominant, so that every year, every calendar or every church year, I should say, the cycle repeated. Now, since the days of Vatican II in the 1960s, a 3 year lectionary has become much more prominent in many of our churches, including in our Lutheran churches. Here essentially is how our lectionary works: For each Sunday, there will be three readings plus a psalm. One, the gospel reading, an epistle lesson, and an Old Testament lesson. And they're laid out over a period of three years. The three years are designated as year A, year B, and year C. Now, the lessons and all of the other propers or variable portions of the sermon for each week are predicated on the gospel reading of the day. The gospel readings are spread out over the 3 years in this way: Year A is based on the gospel of Matthew. So throughout year A, every Sunday, virtually, the gospel reading of the day will be from the gospel of Matthew. During the festival portion of the church year, the first half of the church year, it will be keyed to the event in Jesus' life that corresponds with that day. During the second half, the church half of the church year, it will simply go progressively, consecutively, through the gospel of Matthew, skipping over of course those parts that have already been read during the first half of the church year. Year B is based on the gospel of Mark, with also additional readings from the gospel of John. Actually, John appears in all three years, but because Mark is the shortest of the three gospels of the four gospels, John also appears more prominently in year B. And finally, year C is based on the gospel of Luke. So, again, through the entire third year of the 3 year cycle, the gospels will be chosen from the gospel of Luke. Now, after the gospels have been selected, then next the Old Testament lessons are selected, and in each case, the Old Testament lesson is chosen to correspond to the gospel for that day. So for example, year A, the fourth Sunday of Advent, the gospel reading is from Matthew it's actually Matthew 1:18 25 when the angel comes to Joseph in a dream and tells him why his fiancee Mary is pregnant. She's going to give birth to a son, they will call his name Emmanuel. And she's a virgin yet. Well, the Old Testament lesson for that particular day comes from Isaiah 7:10 14 and following, where the prophet tells king the king at that time, King Ahaz, that, yes, a virgin will conceive, give birth to a son and will call his name Emmanuel. So the Old Testament lesson is a prophecy which is fulfilled in the gospel reading of that day. There are different relationships between the Old Testament lessons and the gospel readings, but always they're keyed that way. Sometimes it's a matter of prophecy fulfillment, sometimes it's a case of parallel narratives where a story comes from the Old Testament that is very similar in its nature and its message to the events in the gospel reading, sometimes it is a different kind of relationship, like a a question that is raised, a topic that is raised that is resolved by the gospel reading, and that sort of thing. Finally, thirdly, the epistle lesson is chosen for each of those Sundays, and the epistle lesson in our 3 year lectionary moves a little bit differently. During certain times of the church year that would be the high festivals and the seasons of Advent and Lent the epistle lesson is also chosen to correspond directly with the gospel of the day. So, again, during the season of Advent, for example, the Old Testament lesson, the gospel, and the epistle would all carry out one theme. During the rest of the church year, which includes the non festival portion of the church year, the time of the church, also includes actually the seasons of Epiphany and the season of Easter, after Epiphany day and after Easter Sunday, the rest of the church year, the epistles, rather than being drawn in correspondence of the day, simply go consecutively through the books. So, for example, during the season of Pentecost, in one year you might go five consecutive epistle lessons through the book of Galatians, and in that way one picks up essentially the essence of what Paul is getting going to in the entire book of Galatians. Now, of course if we're going directly through the book of Galatians, it may or may not correspond to the gospel of the day because the gospel which is also, that time of year, moving consecutively, doesn't necessarily follow one theme from one Sunday to the next as Paul is following in Galatians. At any rate, what we have here then is a very nicely designed structure of lessons that are assigned for particular Sundays and are a possibility for pastors in choosing their texts quite objectively. For example, in the most objective case, a pastor could say, "Well, I am always going to preach on the gospel of the day, no matter what." And many pastors do that. So it doesn't matter what time of year it is, what Sunday it is. When he opens up his Lutheran worship and looks at the lectionary in the front of the hymnal, he will see there, "This is the ninth Sunday after Pentecost, I'm preaching on" and here's his text. Just as objectively would be the determination by the pastor to say, "Well, this year A, I'm going to preach all the gospels. Next year A, I'm going to preach or next year B, I'm going to preach all the epistles. And finally, year C I'll preach all the Old Testament lessons. Then the next year, A again, I'll preach all the epistles and the Old Testaments and the gospels in C," and so on, so that over nine years, he would preach every one of those lessons. That, too, is very, very objective. Now, either of those might be a little more objective than is comfortable for you. You might like to maintain a little bit of the flexibility. But certainly staying with the lectionary does a great deal to determine ahead of time what your text is going to be. And that may sound like a straitjacket, but the reality is, it's very, very liberating, for reasons I'd like to talk about. Let me suggest six advantages to an objective text selection system, particularly that of using the lectionary. The first big advantage is the advantage of saving time. When I was describing to my Baptist friends how in the Lutheran church we frequently use a lectionary, they were quite excited, because for them, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, always finding a new text was a tremendously time consuming task. In fact, one of my friends was so appreciative of this that he asked me afterward if he could get this this bock that Concordia Publishing House puts out for pastors every year that has the lectionary printed right there on the back. And sure enough, to my knowledge he's still on the mailing list and receiving the CPH little red book every year. You see, a pastor who is free texting, as my Baptist friends do, has to begin each week with a task, job one, of finding a text. Whereas if a pastor is working with a lectionary, he goes in initially knowing he's going to preach probably one of these three lessons or perhaps the psalm of the day, and he has a chance to look at each one, at least in a in a rather cursory manner initially, and say, "You know, I think I'm going to preach the gospel lesson this week." Or in the case I described before, he knows he's going to preach the gospel or the epistle this week or whatever that might be. And so rather than spending time on finding a text, he's already delving into the text, studying the text, developing the text. It can be very, very helpful in terms of saving time. Secondly, the lectionary gives us an appropriate cutting as long as the length of the text. It can be a real problem preaching on a text that is either too short or too long. Preaching on a text that is too short has the disadvantage of perhaps causing us to see the text out of context. For example, one might wish to preach from 1 John 4 on the very brief text "God is love." Now, that can be done. In fact, one can preach a wonderful textual sermon on just that very, very brief portion of 1 John 4. But it's also possible, in preaching on the text "God is love," that we might miss the way John is speaking of love there. There's so much we could say about love, not all of which is biblical, and certainly not all of which is what John has in mind in that particular context. By taking a few more verses let's say preaching on 1 John 4:7 19 then we find, for example, in Verse 10, when John says, "In this is love." Not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Now we realize the kind of love that we really want to be preaching about, if we're preaching on "God is love." Also, a text that is too long can have certain disadvantages because it causes a preacher or forces a preacher, really, to generalize in order to cover the entire text. One could preach, for example, on the Bible, the 66 books. This is our text for this morning. But of course to do that, you're not going to be able to pick up the details of any portion of scripture and exhaust them in a 15 to 20 minute sermon. The result, more likely, is that week after week, when the texts are too long, the sermons will begin to sound very much the same, as we speak in very general terms of law and gospel. We are sinners, but Christ has redeemed us. And the next Sunday again: We are sinners, but Christ has redeemed us. Because that's the way we cover the broad bases of very lengthy portions of scripture. On the other hand, the lectionary is designed to give very preachable portions of usually in the neighborhood of 6 to 12 to 15 verses. Usually the lectionary gives us one complete thought which really is the the unit which the Holy Spirit inspired to be seen as a single thought block. It's not infallible. Sometimes one can argue that the cuttings in the lectionary, of course they're human inventions. But it does give a preacher helpful guidelines in selecting one complete thought to address. Not too short, not too long. A third advantage in preaching the lectionary and an objective text selection is that it gives us very helpful bonds with the universal church. For example, when one preaches the lectionary, very often he can look and find that Martin Luther preached on that very same text on that very same Sunday of the church year 500 years ago, and we have an opportunity to join the church through the centuries in thinking through the chief teachings of God's holy word. Also, in our present day, the lectionary binds us together with the whole church because, for example, other denominations besides Lutherans also use a lectionary, which although slightly different is really very much like the lectionary that appears in our hymnal. It can bind us together with the other members of our own congregations and with those who support us in worship. For example, when a lectionary is used, a pastor can always print in advance in his newsletter the coming lessons for a particular Sunday. Those that will be read and perhaps those that he chooses to preach on. His music people, his choir director, his organist, can anticipate before the year even begins where in scripture he will find a theme for his musical selections for that particular Sunday. It unites us also with the full church in the fact that we share things like Sunday School materials. Our Concordia Publishing House materials are geared to the lectionary. And it unites us with our fellow pastors because getting together each month for our Winkle conferences, we will anticipate that all of us will be on more or less the same page for the future Sundays and we can work together through those texts. So a wonderful advantage also of the lectionary is the way it joins us together with all of those others in the church through the centuries and in our present day. A fourth advantage to the lectionary is it can foster creativity. When we look at the lessons as they have been drawn together for a particular Sunday, we realize that there is an intentional connection among the gospel, Old Testament, and frequently also the epistle lesson. Sometimes that also lends the opportunity for multiple text sermons and surely it gives us the opportunity, at least in preaching on one text, to refer to something in the epistle of the day or the Old Testament of the day that supports the point we're making from our chosen text. Let's say the gospel. Likewise, by unifying the service, it helps us in our musical selection, our selection of hymns and so on, so that the service has a full unified kind of effect. So fourth advantage really is that creativity that comes with a lectionary that is well drawn for us. A fifth very important advantage of the lectionary is that it helps us to preach the full counsel of God. Now, a pastor who free texts every week, who uses a subjective method of text selection, who simply decides this week "I'm going to preach on this because it's relevant to my people and it's especially touched me in my devotional reading this week," can, with very, very careful self critique address all the teachings of scripture over a period of time. But you can imagine just how careful he really has to be to do so. Much more likely and this is probably true for almost every pastor we're going to find that certain topics are more attractive to us, certain texts are familiar and beloved to us personally as pastors. We may very easily find ourselves riding hobbyhorses, you might say, going back perhaps more frequently than we should to the same idea, which is chosen from the same text time and time and time again. Whereas preaching the lectionary forces us to move through all the teachings of scripture over a period of three years. Certainly in year A, we're going to cover Matthew's gospel very thoroughly, and then Mark and Luke, and with John also mixed in. And as the epistle lessons also follow through, the lectionary has been very careful to touch on all the chief doctrines, repeating them then over a 3 year period of time. A pastor is helped, that is, to preach all of those crucial doctrines of scripture, the full counsel of God, over the cycle of the lectionary. Finally, a sixth major advantage of preaching the lectionary that I would like to point out is that it actually can be helpful to us in being more textual in our preaching. Again, it's certainly possible to free text and be very textual indeed. A pastor can select any text of scripture and carefully develop that particular text so that the sermon that comes out on Sunday really does what that text does. But when a pastor is free texting, it usually is the case that he does not begin with the text but, rather, begins with a conversation he had with one of his members the previous Sunday, or something that came up in his life during the week that led him to choose this particular text. The risk is this: When he's had a conversation with a member that leads him to believe "I should really address this particular topic this week," then he goes into the whole 66 books, begins reading, looking for a text that will answer that particular issue, and when he thinks he has found one that will do the job, sure enough, there he goes. He's got his text and he proceeds. However, a pastor does not always grasp exactly where that text is going, on the superficial initial reading. We do thorough exegesis for a reason. As we get in and study that text during the week, we may discover that, sure, the topic we're looking for is addressed there, but that really is a little off center of where this text is really focused. If I really want to preach this text after all, you know, that topic that made me choose the text will just be a minor side issue. If I'm really going to preach this text, I'll really focus on this issue instead. Then the pastor has a dilemma. Either he goes ahead and preaches that text the way it really is, which means he really doesn't address the topic that made him choose it in the first place, or he bends the text and preaches the topic he wanted to preach in the first place, which really then isn't so very textual at all, is it. Now he's really compromised the textuality of his sermon. He's no longer really being faithful to what this text says, right? Or a third option, he goes and finds a new text that really will address that topic directly. That's a problem if it's Friday or Saturday of the week. On the other hand, when a pastor is preaching using the lectionary, an objective system of text selection, he may say, "I'm going to preach on the epistle lesson this week," and as he looks at that text, he frankly may not have any idea what it's really about. He also may not have a clear idea how it's going to apply to his people. So what does he do? He digs into the text. He does the exegetical work, and as he studies that text, he discovers this is what the text is really about. And at this point of course he's free to preach precisely that, precisely what the text is saying. The amazing thing that happens so often, and as a pastor you'll no doubt find this too, is that as he digs deeper into the text and finds out what this text is really saying, so often he finds that it has relevance for its congregation that he never could have anticipated. No, it may not address the particular question that the member asked him about the previous Sunday, but doubtless it addresses something that is very, very important for these people to hear one of these Sundays, and it will be this particular Sunday. The result, then, is preaching that really is more textual, more true to the particular chosen text, without usually really compromising the relevance of the application for the congregation at all. So bottom line, as you're thinking about how to provide a different sermon every Sunday for 2,000 or 3,000 weeks, my strong recommendation is to begin with a text, a text chosen objectively using the lectionary. Let that text determine what you will say this week, rather than looking everywhere else for an idea.