Sundays in Adult Formation we have been reading together Rev. Christopher Ash’s Listen Up: A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons and the practical tip we looked at on Sunday was “Do what the Bible says” We reflected on times that we had put into practice something from a sermon or a reading of Scripture. I want to share the most recent way that has happened to me.

In preparing my sermon on 1 Peter 4 I came across verse 11, Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; It has long been my conviction that a sermon properly speaking is a preacher speaking to a congregation with the authority of God. Rev. Ash makes this point earlier in his book when he writes:

…it is not always true that when we hear the voice of a preacher, we hear the voice of God. The preacher’s authority is a borrowed authority…. However, when the Bible is faithfully opened up, we are to listen to the preacher’s voice as the voice of God Himself.

I realized that this might impact how a sermon is introduced. The conventional opening prayer for a sermon in the Episcopal Church is “may the words of my mouth and the meditations of (all our/my) heart, be acceptable to you, O Lord our strength and redeemer”

There is nothing wrong with this prayer, but it is not a strong vote of confidence for the authority of the sermon. I think what underlies it is a post-modern assumption that we are unable to access and transmit God’s truth. Yet, that is not what Scripture teaches. Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God.

So what changes? A more traditional pre-sermon prayer is “I would speak to you today in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Preaching is proclaiming God’s words to God’s people, if it is less than that we have no business being in the pulpit. So as a way of helping to hold myself to that standard and to remind us all of what we hope is about to take place, I will be opening my future sermons with the prayer:

“I would speak to you today in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”