From One Reformation Anglican to Another

I was taught in my Episcopal seminary to “preach to felt-needs” by holding each sermon up to the test: what are you asking them to do? This approach made sense. It kept my sermons fairly focused and it gave the flock something to work on. Sometimes the answer was “pray more!” It was often “give more” or “do more for God.” Other times there were instructions about how to have a happy marriage or how to forgive those who hurt you. In the best of those sermons, parishioners carried home with them some advice that might be helpful in their daily lives. It sounds good, right? What could be wrong with relaying concrete “application” and actions steps, and giving my opinion about what people should do?

Now I see that the end result of try-harder and do-more sermons is crushing. Those messages were not good good news, no matter how pleasant and entertaining the preacher is. If we are honest, such sermons eventually result in tired, beat up Christians who carry with them the constant reminder that they don’t measure up. And the preacher (I tell you from personal experience) gets tired of fussing at people who don’t seem to be getting better. Although tiring, everyone keeps coming back for more and churches are built on this understanding because it’s easier to promote spiritual disciplines and faith-needs-our-obedience than rest. When we hear Jesus inviting us to come to him for rest (Matthew 11:28), we find it confusing. We are wired to do something else, to do more, and to look busy in case Jesus is coming back soon.

What I preached was law, not gospel! I was delivering the decalogue (or the summary of the law), without the creed. People do not change because they are told what to do. And yet we continue telling wonderful, spiritually-eager people what they should do for God, instead of declaring to them what God has done for them in Jesus Christ. They don’t need a preacher’s boot on the neck, they need a message of God’s perfect love for sinners, the promise of absolution for sinners, and the it-is-finished word of Jesus from the cross for our salvation (and assurance!). It is an enormous missed opportunity because Christianity is not good advice; it is good news! It is not what we do for God that gives us hope because we can never do enough. Our hope comes from what God in Christ has done for us.