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Preaching

By Hedgehog.

Preaching is dead, is it? Not likely! It’s alive and well in Britain. It’s just that the theologians and pundits haven’t noticed. Our modern preachers are the stand-up comedians. They provide the same for the people today as was offered in the 18th century, when folk went to London “to see Garrick act and the hear Romaine preach”. Crowds flock to venues such as the Comedy Store. We should take notice.

Stand-up comics, be definition, are FUN. Too many preachers today are po-faced and over-serious. But fun doesn’t mean triviality. The top comics deal with serious themes. Look at the TV programme, Have I Got News for You. It’s true, as the late Tony Hancock said, that any fool can get a laugh by standing up on stage and mouthing off a few obscenities. The top stand-up men and women do much more than that. They can get attention and laughs without being ‘blue’.

Stand-up comics have strong opinions. They are there, six feet above contradiction, with just the mike. No ‘PowerPoint’ for them. They blast off at the audience. And woe betide the heckler. If the stand-up man sees him, he’ll give him a bad time. Make fun of him in front of the crowd. Of course, we may not like the comic’s opinions, but we will be in no doubt what they are.

Contrast many sermons, then, where clergy seem scared to state anything. It’s been long decline. First, propositional revelation went out of the window. Then there was the great god ‘Balance’ (so beloved by the BBC). The Bible got reduced to ancient opinions about God. Then came pseudo-intellectualism, with lots of long words where a few short ones would have done. Obfuscate the whole lot with nuances that none by the hyper-intellectual will ‘get’, and you have a ‘modern sermon’. Oh, and just see how far you can get without mentioning God or Jesus.

By contrast, God is not off the agenda for comics. There was Dave Allen with fun on theological subjects. More recently, we’ve had the film, Bruce Almighty. Telling points are made. We don’t have to sneak up on folk with disguised God-talk. Many people want firm opinions. Adrift in a post-modern era, they react well to certainties. Sadly, too often the only certainties on offer are either ‘Allah Akbar’ or ‘sex, sex, sex’.

Stand-up comics speak the language of the people! Just like Jesus. Or great preachers such as Hugh Latimer or William Grimshaw. Their sentences are short. Their words are blunt Anglo-Saxon, not high-fluting Latinisms. Today, many people would think that ‘homiletics’ was a study of homosexual diet, and that ‘exegesis’ might be an X-factor for geese. We must cut out the holy jargon if we are to get a hearing.

Stand-up comics expect a reaction when they perform. Church sermons, by contrast, are seen as things to sleep through. When did someone last laugh (intentionally!) at something you said in a sermon? Even the hearty ‘Amen’ seems to have dropped out of fashion. In the past, preachers could get cheered or booed. The nearest I’ve ever come across was when an elderly lady once called out to a preacher: “Speak up - we can’t hear you”!

Less preaching? No way! This is like the lamentable retreat we have seen in schools. “We can’t do daily assemblies, so we’ll have fewer, but of higher quality” was the specious reasoning of the educational pundits. Result? Assemblies dwindling to vanishing point.

What about feedback? But feedback assumes that something has already been said. We live in a age of ignorance. An inexperienced RE teacher looks for the Christmas story in Genesis! Many teachers have never read a complete gospel. And just watch folk on quiz-programmes flounder over the simplest of Bible questions. You need input first, before you can get intelligent feedback. But I’ve always found that, when working in schools, the best bit is the questions at the end of a presentation. That’s when you find out people’s real concerns. You can clear up misunderstandings. You can even check up on how much they have actually taken in!

Finally, one more heresy. Too many sermons are prepared to death. They are overcooked. Excessive preparation leads to obscurity. ‘Invisible for six days and incomprehensible on the seventh’ is the epitaph for many preachers. Prepare, yes; but be flexible to ad-lib when necessary. You are called “always to be ready to give an answer for the faith that is in you.” Keep it simple - Jesus did. And if folk didn’t like what he said - tough! They got the point, even if it made them furious! Stand-up comics do the same. We can learn from them.