The Sermon I Want II
By C. L. JACQUES (To whom a Second Prize has been awarded.) THE sermon I want to hear would frighten me if I heard it. I have listened to sermons regularly all my life, always with a feeling of disappointment, a sense that what I wanted, and yet feared, had not been said. Though I belong to the Church of England, I have heard sermons in churches of every other denomination; but no sermon yet has truly struck at the heart of things for me; my need has yet to be met. In talking to people I have found that this is not an idiosyncrasy of mine. We go through life with a deep spiritual hunger, though only half aware of it.
The sermons I have heard did not meet this spiritual need. Some lacked the ring of real conviction; some lacked substance, were padded out with reminiscence or were just cosy chats. Others were pieces of undigested theology or doctrine, some- times attacks on other Churches; some were a string of well- known phrases and texts which had lost their force and meaning. Perhaps the most disappointing of all were those which played down Christianity to make it attractive, or to soothe and comfort the congregation.
The great Welsh preachers of the last century had a few great sermons, which they preached all over the countryside and improved year by year. So strong was their evangelistic preaching that they struck awe and wonder into the hearts of their hearers. Even if their method is no longer practical today their deep fervour and conviction are more necessary than ever. The modern generation is schooled to a much shorter sermon, and it is a real difficulty for the preacher of today to work on the minds and hearts of men in a mere fifteen or twenty minutes; moreover he has to preach so often to the same congregation that he must become weary of trying to find fresh matter or a fresh approach to old truths.
All I know is that I want to, hear the great spiritual truths and mysteries of the Christian religion preached so vividly and so dynamically that I shall truly believe them; and that all doubts and reservations will be swept away. I want to be drawn into the presence of God by the force of the preacher's own conviction; by the power of a man who speaks in the presence of God and through whole God is speaking. I want to leave that church as one whose direction of will has been changed, and whose burden of despair has been replaced by an immense uplifting of the heart with a new faith: If this seems much to ask, one can only say that it has been done repeatedly through the last centuries.
I want the preacher to set out for me, Sunday by Sunday; the whole basic truths of Christianity,- so that I may never forget them. He will expound them confidently, knowing that he is offering final and ultimate truth. He will not accom- modate himself to the scientist, or politician, or economist, or spiritualist, or industrialist. He will be aware of the tragedy and misery in our world; he will know that he may hurt rather than comfort; that he may arouse bitterness and antagonism, anger and mockery. But he will also command respect, even from his enemies..
Such a sermon, or series of sermons, I should hear with dread, for the preaching of the unassailable Gospel, by a man of the most loving heart and understanding mind, would shatter the shoddy materialism of our age, tear away our comfortable illusions, mock at the rationalisation of our conduct and lay bare our hidden motives. The preacher does not do this by denunciation; if he tries, most of us redirect the accusations to our neighbours. No, it is self-conviction that is dreaded, seeing oneself with no comforting illusions, measuring oneself against the perfection and love of God, opening one's mind to disconcerting truths and finding the old escapist mechanism breaking down. This is the agony of the spirit to be dreaded. This is the humiliation which our pride resents. And we modern people are very proud. It will need a great preacher to break that pride. With our belief in prowess, in science, in man as the conqueror of nature, we acknowledge no need of help; we admit no ultimate failure. As tragedy piles up on tragedy, we still pin our faith to that hopeless conditional " If only men would be more tolerant, a little less selfish, a little more careful on the roads, more charitable, more loving, more disciplined. It goes on interminably, in every discussion of every modern problem. There is no such easy way out. The Gospel says so unequivocally.
The sermon I want to hear will say so, too. And it will say that this Gospel is Good News because it tells the true way out of our dilemma. But it is a hard way. The preacher will not try to make it easy. Even with God's help available for us it will still be difficult. I am afraid of such a hard way, and yet- I want it desperately. So I think do many of us. The preacher will face the fact that this is an age of tragedy, and he will not pretend that Christianity is a panacea for all the evil and misery in the world. He will make us face these facts and realise that suffering is part of life. Even to the greatest preachers God has not revealed all this mystery. There is much that can never be explained. But this A an age of courage also. Men are prepared to take all risks to test the discoveries of science, and the last war inspired deeds of the greatest heroism. Christianity also demands courage, moral courage, spiritual daring of the highest order. It inspires courage also, and makes the most timid of us brave. The preacher must call out this response, and yet be honest enough to confess that Christians live largely by faith, that God is still a mystery and His power and methods incomprehensible to us. This makes the Christian life the greatest adventure of all. In an age of gambling the preacher can claim that the greatest gamble of all is to stake all on God.
The preacher must draw the people not to himself but to Christ. Each individual will come face to face with Christ, and live his own life with his eyes on this Perfection. This is quite different from living to a set of rules. It is much easier to make a set of rules for people and much easier for people to live by them. But I think the preacher who reduces the Christian life to a rule of ethics, however noble, is no longer preaching Christianity. It is a great temptation to do this in this age of mass-propaganda, when men have almost lost the power to think for themselves, and are so drugged with newspapers and wireless programmes and television that even the will to think has been killed. It is like teaching a man to walk who has lost the use of his legs and prefers to be wheeled about even when he has been cur-ed.
When the preacher finds all these apparently insuperable difficulties, he still has all the keys to the Kingdom in his hand. He can tell his people that no man needs to live or fight his way alone. Fellowship is an old-fashioned word, but every preacher knows the bitter loneliness of many people today, their hunger for friendship and true fellowship. Communism has made immense capital out of this crying need. Christianity draws men and women much closer together than any political creed. When the preacher has offered to men today the spiritual truths of Christianity, has brought thern home to God, given them into the keeping of Christ Himself; when they feel the burning power of God's love re-creating them from within and joining them in friendship to their fellow men—their that preacher is doing the work of God in the world today.
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