Greatest living preacher?

My friend and colleague Ray Anglesea sent me two fascinating links to the Times Online yesterday – both about preaching.

The first, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6993099.ece , outlined some recent research undertaken here in Durham to mark the 50th anniversary of the College of Preachers. This has discovered that people who regularly go to church actually value sermons: 96.6% even claiming to look forward to that point in the service.

Then comes the predictable discussion about how long the sermon should be. We all know that Catholics don’t really preach sermons, but only homilies – and 10 minutes for a homily seems fair enough to me. I don’t know any Baptists myself who’d like their minister to go on for an hour and a quarter – but maybe there are some lurking somewhere. Happily no one seems to have asked for a URC view on the matter – though I suspect we’d be with the fence-sitting Anglicans who’d rather it was all over and done with in ten minutes if it’s boring, but will cope with twenty if there’s something worth engaging with.

Funny though that the researchers seem to feel the need to apologise for the “counter-intuitive” discovery that there might still be something to be said for preaching. And what a strange thing, to suggest that communicating face to face with people pastorally or through preaching somehow puts us into an old-fashioned analogue age, and separates us off from our trendy digital colleagues who use alternative technology and spend half their lives on Facebook. I’ve got a feeling some of us are a bit more versatile than we’re given credit for.

But I liked the quote at the end of the piece that informed us that Rowan Williams was among the church leaders who have signed the College of Preachers’ jubilee pledge, commiting themselves to “forward-looking preaching, engaging faithfully with the Bible, directly with the congregation and prophetically with the world, to proclaim Jesus as Lord”. Surely there’s got to be a whole variety of ways of doing that – and sermons of every length and style to fit the bill!

But then I was a bit surprised by the second link that Ray gave me - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6993077.ece . Times online seems to have been very religious yesterday! Here we have a little run-through of great preachers of the past (Luther, Donne, Wesley etc) to lead to the rather cloying conclusion that “Our greatest living preacher is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. His set speeches are notoriously perplexing but his sermons are something else.” I confess I’ve never heard the Archbishop preach, but I can’t help wondering how on earth you could make the claim that anyone was the greatest preacher around. I know there are Preacher of the Year awards, but I always think they sound like something out of Father Ted.

Surely the problem is there in the first linked piece: different individuals and different Christian traditions have very different ideas of what a sermon is – let alone what constitutes a good sermon. I wonder, are those of us who try to vary our sermon style and content depending on the congregation reckoned to be preaching a better sermon to the one rather than the other? I suspect that across the churches we might find a good deal of agrement on what constitutes a bad sermon (with sheer boredom being a significant factor) but very different ideas on what makes a good sermon or a great preacher.

I’m not sure I’ve got a clue who the greatest living preacher might be. But even if I did, since I don’t think preaching is a competitive activity, I’d rather keep quiet about it.


PS As well as sending round useful links, Ray has recently shared some thoughts with some of his colleagues as he’s been preparing his own sermons. I think several of us last Sunday were sharing thoughts about “the third day” as recorded at Cana in Galilee. Do you know why so many Jews marry on a Tuesday?

I’m wondering if we should develop a synod sermon blog, to share both thoughts and finished sermons. Let me know what you think please!