This is the word of the Lord

The late Hoyt Hickman, one of the Deans of modern United Methodist liturgical thought, wrote a book titled Worshiping with United Methodists.¹ In it, he sought to answer the question, “What is Christian worship?” He listed five principles that characterize Christian worship.  The first is “God’s word is primary.”  Hickman maintains that it is through the essential element of encountering the word of God that the worshipers discern who God is.

Throughout authentic worship the faith community reads the word.  It proclaims the word through (though not exclusively by) preaching.  Then the church engages in one or more responses to the hearing of the word.  He makes the further point that scripture is not only for the preaching moment but for other elements as well.  In gathering words, prayers, offertories, benedictions and other locations throughout the worship event Bible-based language increases the gravity of worship.

If it is true that encountering the word of God is a vital part of our worship (and I believe it is), then it might be that the community of faith should heighten its efforts to do a better job of handling the word.  This is not a blanket criticism of preaching.  I believe that most pastors take the task of proclamation seriously most of the time.  We have varying gifts, and the judgment is not on “how well a preacher does,” but on the faithfulness of “how conscientious that preacher has been in a given instance.” 

All preachers can testify that there are weeks when weddings and funerals and hospitals and administration and all the rest have crowded study time.  It happens.  It is also the case that our perspective can be skewed by how much effort we believe we have expended.  There is not a preaching minister in the world who hasn’t stepped down from the pulpit on a particular Sunday and thought, “Well, they can’t all be gems,” only to have congregants respond as if the preacher had delivered the Sermon on the Mount.  It is also true that we come out of the worship experience occasionally with the reflection of, “Well, that was a good one.  That’s about the best I can do.”  Then, as we greet people at the door, there is a uniformity in their response which goes something like, “Good morning, pastor.”  As I say, it happens.

I once heard Fred Craddock remark on William Sloane Coffin when Westminster John Knox Press published Coffin’s collected sermons.  Craddock said, “When Bill was prepared, he was the best preacher in the English-speaking world.  Of course, Bill wasn’t always prepared.”

The caution I would offer is not on preaching itself.  It is on the way that leaders handle other elements – particularly scripture-related elements.  I have heard preachers read their text as if they couldn’t wait to get through with it so that they could get to the business of preaching.  I have also heard leaders, lay and clergy alike, stumble through lessons as if it were written in a foreign language.  Sure, if you read Acts 2 or Romans 16 (which are both extensive lists of complicated proper names) that takes a little extra work.  But it is no surprise that these readings are part of the day’s liturgy.  I heard David H. C. Read say in a gathering of preachers, “I experience two categories of preachers when they read scripture in worship.  There are those who act as if they have never seen it before.  Then there are those who act as if they wrote it themselves.”

All I am saying is that, if the treatment of God’s word is of primary importance in worship, let’s take the time to do it right.  Read it (beforehand) aloud.  Get a since of the syntax.  Pause in the appropriate places.  Emphasize the meaningful words.  Handle it so that when we say, “This is the word of the Lord,” people can believe it.

¹Nashville: Abingdon, c. 1996.