Preaching Naked

Preaching is the art of simplicity.  It is the task of taking the most complex and perplexing theological concepts and turning them into something that children can understand.  If we are not being told that our preaching is too  simplistic, that we are appealing to children and spiritual babes, then we are not doing a very good job.

John Wesley, it is said, read his sermons to his chambermaid and if there was something she could not understand, he cut it out.  Paul understood this need for simplicity when he said "I was determined to preach nothing among you but Christ, and Him crucified."  Jesus originated this call to simplicity when he invited the children to come to him, and when he spoke in stories and parables.  There is no Biblical warrant for speaking over the heads of people, nor is there any warrant for using the pulpit as a stage for theatrical oratory.

The best stance a preacher may take as he stands before the congregation is to disappear as much as possible.  We must decrease as Christ must increase.

That is, unfortunately, the last thing that most of us preachers really want to do. We want to be noticed. We stand ad the back of the building and the people file by and shake our hand.  Who else can say that everyone shakes their hand at church?  Each one of them  says "Good sermon, preacher."  Sometimes they are truthful.  More often than not, they are lying.  Few of them can remember what we said by the time they get to the car.  But we believe it anyway.    We believe it and take it to heart.

Maybe that's why preachers take such pains to stand above the congregation.  We ascend to the pulpit. We call our podium "the sacred desk."  We change our voices when we preach.  We wear the robe of a scholar and a judge.  We love it when people shout assent to our message.   It is a wonder sometimes that our heads can fit through the double doors of the church. 

In preaching, the only thing that matters is what we preach and how it has affected us.  The problem with many of us preachers is that we no longer tremble before the Gospel.  It does not move us, so we do not move others.  We seek techniques, stories, and theatrical stunts that we hope will do what our hearts will not.  How often we use the pulpit as a mask for our own lack of true faith and conviction. 

C S Lewis in his book The Great Divorce,  paints an image of one of the denizens of hell, who is given a chance for heaven.  It is a small, quiet man who has a loud, Shakespearean actor on a chain. Whenever the mousy man is asked a question, the  actor replies.  Each time he replies,  the man gets smaller until he disappears altogether.  Lewis;' message is clear.  When we pretend to be someone else,  we become smaller.  In time,  we can lose ourselves altogether in our own pretense. 

I do not mean to suggest that there should be no art in  preaching.  The art of the sermon lies in its construction an d its presentation.  That art is like a skeleton, everyone has one, but no one likes to show it around. Its better to keep it hidden and put on a better face.  Just so,  preaching should call attention away from our artifice and towards the cross. 

Preachers should preach naked==not physically naked, of course, but emotionally and spiritually.  Our message needs to come from who we actually are, not who we want to be.  We need to be up front about our own failings as well as our own joys.  Preachers  should be moved by God's word. If we are not moved by God's word, then perhaps we should be silent. 

As a preacher myself, I know how easy it is for our public image to get ahead of my private experience.  I write this to myself as much as to anyone else.  But I do believe that the only way the Good News of which we speak can be real is for it first of all to be real in us.  Then when we reveal ourselves we are also revealing the power of God, and His ability to transform those who hear Him.