How not to preach at Christmas part one
Preachers face temptations to go anthropocentric at Christmas. There are lots of angles you can take with the Christmas story, but there are also lots of ways to be a little to creative. That can get us into trouble.
I’m thinking of a Christmas message on marriage. The sermon went something like this: Mary and Joseph faced marriage stress due to an unplanned pregnancy; our marriages face stress too. Mary and Joseph could have blamed each other in lots of different ways; so could we. Mary and Joseph instead responded in faith and trust, and so can we when our marriages run into problems.
The big question, I guess, is this: Is the story of Mary and Joseph in the Bible there to teach us about marriage? The minute we depart from the author’s purpose (and, by extension, the Spirit’s purpose) for the text, we’re missing the point. We are also forced to be selective with the text and skip parts like the angelic visitation and the virgin birth.
Two of the most important questions we can ask in keeping sermons theocentric are, “What is the purpose of the text?” And, “How can I preach a sermon consistent with that purpose?”
Coming up: one more way not to preach at Christmas, and some excerpts from Kevin Vanhoozer’s excellent book The Drama of Doctrine.
December 3rd, 2006 at 11:42 am
So, how do we know what the authors purpose is. I know that the spirit reveals it to us, but is it possible that though the author never intended it, the Spirit reveals something diffrent to us than what the author ever could have imagined?
BTW, I came across your blog somehow, and I knew it would be hard to go wrong with a blog name like this.
December 4th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Ah, the subject of authorial intent. It’s a hot topic, but I would say that it is possible to come to a reasonable understanding of why the author wrote a passage. There are times when the passage takes on a greater meaning later in Scripture. Normally, though, we need to read the passage in light of what we can discern as the writer’s purpose.
I think I will have to return to this topic later.
December 6th, 2006 at 7:51 am
a couple of years ago i went to a few christmas sevices across the UK (visiting family/friends)… first we were told that the christmas story was all about Mary… then at the next one that it’s all about Joseph…. felt like standing up to shout, but I’m British and we don’t do that.
…i was stunned, is it really that difficult to talk about Jesus!
December 11th, 2006 at 10:35 am
[...] A couple of weeks ago, I posted on one of the ways that sermons can go off target at Christmas. In an effort to preach relevant sermons, preachers sometimes miss the theocentric purpose of the passage. [...]