Preaching the Headlines is not actually about preaching on the headlines at all, but about determining what matters most to our community and why it matters. In her book in the Working Preacher Books series, homiletics prof Lisa L. Thompson proposes a new starting point for sermons, from which neither the preacher nor the listeners might know where the exploration is going.
A preacher needs abundant curiosity. We must assume less and admit we know less, for the sake of preaching and figuring out life on the ground.
Then we can ask better questions—of the text and of each other—not knowing where they may lead.
Speaking of questions, where do we think authority lies in this work of preaching? Does the preacher bring answers, or is the community a space in which to interrogate together?
Communal work
People constantly live in crisis, pandemic, politics, wealth disparity, and so much more. Dr. Thompson’s primary purpose is to help preachers better articulate what we know to be true. There are different versions of the challenge we face. Cohost Rolf Jacobson raises one: How do you preach the gospel to meet a world that doesn’t have the problem your tradition’s primary interpretation was formulated for? This can lead to interrogating what we actually mean by religious terms like sin, redemption, salvation, et cetera.
Preaching is not about having the answers, but about empowering those who hear our messages to do this interpretive work with us. This is community work; we hold a mutual responsibility for all our questions.
Cohost Karoline Lewis recognizes how Thompson is reframing preaching as a process that brings people along, as opposed to coercing the listener into a point the preacher believes, or getting them to do something.
What if we just become discerners of life and faith together?
Unknowing
What is a sermon like when it has this starting point? The unknowing can be unsettling for both the preacher and the listener, just like the sermon-creating process is. We’re going to trust the process of engaging the text and engaging this moment in the world—even when we might get to the other side and find there aren’t tidy conclusions.
Sometimes there’s a collapse of the space between the biblical story, the characters, and what they’re going through, on the one hand, and people living through something that has made the news today, on the other. It requires the work of both the preacher and the listener to make connections and discern what that means.
How do we get to know what the problems in the community are, so that sermons can be relevant to them? Thompson emphasizes recognizing what we don’t know, visiting people at work to find out what they’re really dealing with, and being an engaged neighbor.
We also have to make decisions about limiting our exposure to the news to preserve our emotional well-being. There’s a cycle between a posture of listening and a posture of retreat.
We listen to people’s stories around us, but also to the Bible as a product of its time, which also reveals things about human bodily experiences for our time. This takes seriously incarnational theology.
Lisa Thompson comes back to the physical senses when encountering the text. What did it feel like? What did they see, smell, or experience with their other senses? Before getting to the sermon, the preacher can try to experience the world of the text as a fresh encounter every time. Spend some time being present to the text without knowing where it’s going yet, and acknowledge where the tensions are.
Then you’ll be ready to lead the conversation in community.
For more on this volume in the Working Preacher Books series, Preaching the Headlines: Possibilities and Pitfalls, listen to a podcast episode or watch it on YouTube, in which Rolf Jacobson and Karoline Lewis discuss the book with author Lisa L. Thompson.
