“Thanks be to God for lay preachers who accept this sacred call in the Church, engage with formal study and participate in ongoing learning as they share their gifts,” writes Rev Dr Sally Douglas.
By Rev Dr Sally Douglas
There is a great deal that is odd about Christian faith. Sometimes we forget this. Here is one example. In popular imagination the dominant image of ‘God’ is a fearsome, unpredictable Zeus figure, perched on a cloud with thunder and lightning. However, this is not the God that we give our trust to. The God we trust in as Christians is not aloof, nor does our God have to be placated or bribed. In contrast we give our trust to a personal God: God in Community, God in Three Persons, Holy Mystery, Holy Word, Holy Spirit. Not only this, we proclaim that this God in Community chooses to dwell with us in person in the Word made flesh (John 1:1-18). That is, we dare to proclaim that God chooses to walk towards us in person in Jesus, wading into our joy and suffering, bearing life beyond dreaming.
The personal does not stop here. We also proclaim that through the Spirit this personal God is calling each of us by name to join in with the work, nudging us forward to share our gifts. The ‘Basis of Union’ expresses this elegantly: “the one Spirit has endowed members of Christ’s Church with a diversity of gifts, and there is no gift without its corresponding service” (Para 13).
One of the many ways in which people share their gifts in the Uniting Church is in responding to the call of God to become lay preachers. Thanks be to God for lay preachers who accept this sacred call in the Church, engage with formal study and participate in ongoing learning as they share their gifts. I recently had the honour of meeting with lay preachers from around Australia, many of whom had travelled huge distances, in Naarm (Melbourne) for the National Lay Preachers’ Conference.
At the gathering I reflected on this personal God who calls to each one of us by name and what this might mean for our preaching. I shared my conviction that preaching is unlike anything else. Preaching is not simply about conveying information or teaching. Preaching is not like running a bible study, offering political commentary, or a lecture on theology. In a world of soundbites, influencers and rants, preaching is a call to do something very different. Preaching is vulnerable and relational. Preaching emerges from our personal God, calling specific people to share a distinct word with particular people. Trusting that the Spirit is at work and that our sacred texts still speak into the messy realities of life, preaching is this holy responsibility in which a “word moment” is able to emerge.
In asserting that preaching is personal, I am not suggesting that we can get up and say whatever comes to mind at the pulpit. When people turn up for worship they are giving their most precious gift, their time and attention. People deserve that preachers, lay and ordained, have worked thoroughly to prepare. In order to engage seriously with this kind of preaching, preparation needs to include wrestling with the biblical text and our questions, engaging with theologies from around the globe, reflecting on what is happening in our beautiful, broken world and listening for the movement of the Spirit. Whenever I prepare for preaching, after reading the set biblical passages I pray: “What do you want me to say to this group of people dear God?”. And then I try and shut up and listen.
Unlike other speaking tasks, preaching is not about being perfect or performative, or having all of the answers. Preaching emerges from the particularity of being in dynamic relationship with the Source of all. This is why authentic preaching cannot be outsourced to AI. This is why authentic preaching cannot be about downloading someone else’s sermon from the internet and pretending it is our own. Each preacher is called to bring their whole clunky self to the Living God, to stand close to the fire (possibly get burnt), and to tell about it, inviting people into the mystery.
In a world that is increasingly captive to plastic, easy answers and the idol of efficiency, may we continue to hold to the strange beauty of preaching. May we dare to carve out time for the unseen work of being in relationship with the personal God, the Holy One-Sacred Three, pouring over ancient biblical texts, wrestling with theology, attending to the world around us and listening for how the Spirit is calling us to speak to her precious people.
