preaching

I recently heard an interview with the writer of a very popular advice column. She is so popular that a selection of her columns has recently been published as a book. What makes her so popular is a quality that one person calls "radical empathy." She mulls over a letter for weeks, seeks to know the question behind the question, and then responds from a place of heartfelt concern and love.

When I was in seminary I made the mistake of taking a particular course as a once-a-week evening class. Although I only had to undergo this ordeal only once a week, it meant that I had to listen to 3 continuous hours of dry academic rhetoric, rather take it in one hour doses. (Not all of my professors were so dry, just this one and maybe a couple of others.)

I bring up these two incidents because they made me think about the role of the sermon in the life of the church community. Is the sermon supposed to be a theological treatise that may or may not be relevant to everyday hurts and challenges or is it supposed to be a wealth of human empathy to which the Bible may or may not be relevant? Obviously these are two extremes. But I know of many people who are willing to live in one end of the spectrum or the other. As a preacher, I'm challenged by this almost every week. What sort of sermon should I deliver? What I preach will shape our church community. We need both radical empathy and sound theology. I pray that I can connect the two well.