Sermon Encouragement and Crititic

This is a critic by Dr. Anna Carter-Florence, Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching, Columbia Theological Seminary, of my sermon "Do You Have Need Of The I Am?"

11 May 2019

Dear Gina,

Thank you for your sermon. I think you have some wonderful gifts for preaching, all of which were out in abundance. Your reverence for Scripture is plain and your engagement with it deep and solid; you really convey to us that the text matters, that it is life-giving and lifesaving to you and to us. Even better, you chose a “greatest hits” text (one that we’ve heard many times before), and your exegetical work made it new and fresh and surprising. Your theological insights have feet-on-the-ground ethical significance. You’re a good storyteller: you condensed a complex and lengthy story (Exodus 1 and 2, leading up to the third chapter) with a sure hand, and kept the liveliness of the story. You understand the gift we need to hear in this Exodus text, and you understand how to offer it. Your pastoral concern for us was clear, all the way through. The structure and logic were clean and well-organized. You have a way with language and an ear for a turn of phrase that’s memorable as well as unusual. You have a strong and regal pulpit presence: centered and concentrated, energetic and engaging. Your Scripture reading was beautiful; we were in the sermon before the sermon started. You preach with great heart. And you sounded a refrain we continued to ask ourselves: how are we expressing our need of the I AM? How are we crying out to God to activate our own exit strategies? I can imagine this sermon resonating with a number of different audiences, and I think it would be a powerful theme to unpack with a committee, a youth group, or a women’s or men’s retreat. I hope you heard your classmates’ appreciation for the fine work you did in this sermon, Gina. I’m certainly cheering that God in God’s wisdom has made you a preacher.

So onto where we might go from here. That’s my job, of course: to help you look beyond where you are to where you might go, and to offer another perspective on how you might get there. Sometimes I think of it as getting permission to climb into the crow’s nest of your ship: you’re the captain, and it’s your vessel, but there are things I can notice from my vantage point that will help. Maybe there are rocks on one side that are worth steering away from, or maybe there’s land in another direction, if you head that way. So in that spirit, let me offer you some of what I’ve noticed, for you to think about. 

1. USE ALL OF THE MOMENTUM THE TEXT GIVES YOU. You did a great job of lifting up some new insights from this Exodus text, Gina—no small thing, given its familiarity (to many of us). (And by the way: I think the first three chapters of Exodus are pivotal for our reading of everything else in the Bible, so I always rejoice when a preacher brings them before us, once again; I don’t think we can ever hear these texts too many times!) Your call for us to cry out to God, so that God can activate exit strategies that will save us, was particularly striking. So let the text give you all the momentum it has to offer: keep combing it for places that will resonate with your focus and help to amplify it. One phrase I noticed was in the very last verse of Exodus 2—and it was prompted by the lovely KJV translation that fueled your reading (“And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them”). Crying out can take many forms: lamenting, mourning, weeping, raging, complaining, alerting, arguing, even whining. Your sermon urged us to recognize the ethical dimensions of crying out: that we are in a battle; that we need God’s power to fight on our behalf; that crying out is an expression of agency that in turn, motivates God. So what might the element of “respect” (that is, God “having respect” for those who cry out, as the children of Israel did) add to this? We know God hears the voices of those who cry out. But what does it mean that God respects those voices, and so chooses to act? Is the respect for our honesty, our bravery, our volume, our great need? Is the respect for the human acts of mourning and raging and even arguing with the Almighty? I think so—and I think your sermon led us to think along those lines, too. But “respect” introduces another layer to God’s character that invites us to think beyond the imperative to cry out (that is, we cry out because God commands us to do so). “Respect” indicates relationship and mutuality. I wonder what further momentum your sermon might gain from reflecting along those lines? (I’d be fascinated to hear you do it!)  
2.  CONDENSE THE NUMBERED SECTION. Numbered points can be a great help, to the listener: we can keep track easily, anticipate easily, file away easily. The “rule of three” in particular is very effective. But too many points (and it can be hard to tell exactly how many are too many) can get confusing for a listener, too. Consider condensing your numbered points to the three most salient ones—as a discipline, rather than a rule. Condensing makes us edit down to just the essentials. When I find myself thinking I have five points to make, sometimes I’ll challenge myself to see if I can reduce those to three—which I almost always can. It’s a discipline that forces me to edit and clarify. You might pose yourself a similar challenge, to see where it takes you. 
3. END THE QUOTATION. This is a small thing, but important. Listeners can’t see your manuscript; they need the verbal and aural clues to know when a quotation ends and Gina returns. Either tell them directly (“…end quote…”) or give them a clear pause and perhaps a visual clue. Preaching is a dramatic medium as well as a verbal one. 
   
   Thanks, Gina. It was a privilege to hear you!
   Warm wishes and many blessings to you this summer.

Anna Carter Florence