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Harmony of Thunder, Program Six
Sometimes the best sermons are the shortest ones. And all the time, without exception, the best sermons are the ones that can be summed up in a simple, direct, meaningful phrase. I call these simple phrases “summary sentences,” and personally, I try to have one for every sermon that I preach. I not only want to be able to have a summary sentence around which I build my sermon, but I also want to do my best to make sure that the people listening to me leave the church with the summary sentence, or some form of it, in their memories. I hope that if someone who was not at church asks, “what did Fr. David preach on today?” that at least most of the people who listened to the sermon would be able to describe some part of the sermon that had stuck with them.
Hi, welcome to Harmony of Thunder, where we explore and enjoy the rich tradition of Orthodox preaching. I’m your host, Fr. David Smith. Each week, Harmony of Thunder chooses a sermon from scripture, from the works of a saint, or from a contemporary source, and we spend our time together looking at the style, the illustrations, and the spiritual message of the preacher.
Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of Your Most Holy Mother and of all the saints, bless your Holy Orthodox Church with great preachers and people who want to hear them. Amen.
Today we’re not so much looking at a particular sermon, but were looking at the summary of a number of sermons that were preached by our Lord Jesus Christ in the gospel of St. Mark. I say this describes a number of sermons because the passage reads “Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.'”
In this passage, the gospel writer has clearly given us a summary of the sermons that our Lord preached. St. Mark tells us that as Jesus traveled around the area of Galilee, He preached a number of different times in different places. Of course, we don't get the entirety of our Lord's sermons that He preached during this tour, but the gospel writer is able to sum up in one short sentence the essence of all of those sermons: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” The actual sermons were much longer than that, weren't they? Our Lord Jesus did not gather a large group of people together, stand up before them, and say, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel,” and then send them home. No, this is clearly the summation of his messages, the essence of what he preached.
And this is why I love this passage of St. Mark's gospel so much. The gospel writer could easily sum up the essence of our Lords preaching – this tells me that Jesus preached good, memorable sermons. He knew good communication. I might even be sol bold as to say that He used summary sentences the way I do. Or rather, I do the way that He did. People didn't walk away from the sermons of Jesus simply feeling good about the fact that they'd spent some time listening to a spiritual man fill their ears with spiritual sounding words. Not at all. There was power, and meaning, and a memorable message, in the sermons our Lord preached.
I have heard people talk about sermons almost as if they are sacramental. And I've heard preachers preach almost as if the words they're saying are liturgical. Both of these attitudes are terrible mistakes. Preaching is not sacramental. One characteristic of sacramental acts is that a Christian can benefit from them even without understanding what has happened. A good example is baptism. Is a baby different after a baptism that he was before? Absolutely! Does the baby know it? Not at all! The only thing he might have gotten out of the sacrament may have been the lesson: “when they hand me to the priest, I'd better get ready for the quickest bath of my life!” But a sermon is entirely different. If you don't understand the sermon, you've gained nothing at all. As a point of fact, when you listen to a sermon and gain nothing at all from it, you may be putting your soul in peril, as our Lord says in the explanation of the parable of the sower and the seeds, “When anyone hears the word of the Kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart” (St. Matthew 13:19).
Along with this, a sermon is not a liturgical act. It is part of the liturgy, to be sure, but when the priest who has not prepared anything simply stands up before the people and says a few pious sounding words, or briefly reviews the gospel reading, or preaches basically the same thing he preached last year when that gospel was read (because he's basically no different than he was last year and his parish is also basically the same), then a great opportunity has been lost. Can you see our Lord doing that? Can you see our Lord mumbling through a few pious words in order to fill the time, because a few words after the scripture reading are traditional?
The second thing I love about this passage is that this sermon gives us an imperative, like all good sermons do. We don't just listen to a description of an idea, a poem, a great illustration, a well crafted oration. No. When you listen to a sermon preached by our Lord Jesus, dear Christian, you know you've gotten your marching orders. Jesus' sermons did not consist of an exchange of pleasantries. Did you think they would? Rather, His sermons are built on the foundation that He is God, and you are servants of God, and the sermon is a gift given to you so that God could reveal to you His holy will for your life.
And what is the imperative that St. Mark took from the sermons of our Lord? What is the summary that he brings to us? Repent. Repent. Repent. Is the task of Christians to feel good about themselves? No, the task of Christians is to repent. Is the task of Christians that we have happy relationships and a lot of money? No, it's repentance. Does Christianity exist so that you can rest easy knowing that you're going to heaven when you die? No, it's repentance. To quote Fr. Philip McCaffrey of Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church in East Syracuse, “The task of the Christian is to practice the art of repenting. We are repenters.”
If fact, I'm going to make that our quote of the day, “we are repenters.” Say that with me: we are repenters.
Thirdly, I love this quote from St. Mark's gospel about the preaching of our Lord because Jesus gives us a reason for the imperative, “repent,” but the reason is not logical, its revelatory. In other words, when our Lord tells us to repent, he doesn't say that we should repent because it makes sense to repent, but because the Kingdom of God is at hand. We repent because God commands it, and because when He is close to us, repentance is the only way that we can genuinely commune with Him, it's the only way that we have access to the perfect and sinless God.
One popular aspect these days in the training of preachers is for everyone to take a class in logic. The concept is that a logical sermon will make more sense to people in the 21st century. And if it makes more sense, it's better, right? I don't think so. I'll confess to you that sometimes on the way home from church my wife will say to me, “your sermon today made no sense at all.” That's not what I'm talking about. I mean that we must preach the gospel, and the gospel is an affront to logic. We must preach the scriptures, which will never be mistaken as a textbook in logic. We must preach the will of God, and sometimes the will of God makes no sense to us. But it doesn't have to. Our task is simply to obey. I mean obey God, by the way.
I don't know about you, but I enjoyed this opportunity to look at the preaching of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Join us next week for a new episode of Harmony of Thunder. We're starting a series on the Hexaemeron of St. Basil the Great.
Oh Lord, help us to hear and heed the words of the great preachers of Orthodoxy, that we may glorify you with our faith and lives, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
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