How to Write Better Sermons
Part 1: Prewriting
David
H. Petersen
Here, by request, is the first part of a multi-part
series on sermon writing as writing by Fr. Petersen, writing in his regular column, "Commentary on the War." For more of such quality articles in our fine print journal, click here to read about it, or simply here to subscribe. -ed
The
Rational
Seminary
education in North America has to assume a number of competencies based upon an
earned Bachelor’s degree. One of those assumptions is that men entering the
seminary are competent in composition. They almost never are. Thus they muddle
their way through seminary, vicarage, and then their weekly duties without ever
writing decent outlines or crafting thesis statements. To be sure, it is
possible, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, to deliver wandering, nearly
incoherent sermons that edify and nurture the flock. The Lord works through His
ministers and His Word despite the weaknesses of His ministers. The Truth gets
out.
Nonetheless,
sermon writing is writing. It is not completely unique or distinct from other
forms of writing, even if it is closest to speech writing. Preachers, then, can
learn from other writers. They can improve their technique. Improving the
writing process improves the sermons themselves. Better written sermons are
more focused. They are more easily digested and followed by the hearers. There
are, however, other benefits. Getting better at the process also makes the
preacher more efficient and makes the task more pleasant, less of a chore for
him. My suspicion is that our homiletics classes, for one reason or another,
have focused more on how to do the exegetical work and how to deliver a sermon
than they have on how to write.
The Process
Though
the vocabulary varies among textbooks, the writing process, academically
considered, is normally broken into four stages: prewriting, writing, revising,
and proofing. The first thing to know is that these four stages are meant to
describe a creative process. The process is not a list of steps to be
mechanically followed. It is a fluid process.
A writer always starts with some sort of
prewriting, but he might move very quickly at times into writing and revising; yet, at the same time, he will usually continue to gather
ideas and to conduct research right up to the end. The point is that it is a
process. All of it needs to be done. When writers try to take shortcuts they
normally do more work, in a slower fashion, and produce a weaker product. Some
preachers, no doubt, follow the process unaware. When the process is
understood, however, and when it is utilized in a deliberate fashion, it will
not only make the job easier and the sermons stronger, but it will also free
the creative process.
Presuppositions
My assumption is that the sermon’s goal is to
bring comfort through a particular text. We do preach for conversion, but it is
the conversion of the baptized, the daily drowning and rising of Christians,
rather than the conversion of the unbaptized. If we were seeking the conversion
of the unbaptized we would pick the texts that we felt best spoke to conversion
or to that person’s particular struggles. That is the task of evangelism and
apologetics, not preaching. The comfort that Christians receive in the sermon
is Law and Gospel application. They are slayed and raised through the Word.
That brings comfort because they are recast again as God’s children, His
afflicted and His baptized. The Gospel absolves them, God loves them, in the
preacher’s voice. Still this could sound as though it is indistinct from
bedside consolation. Again, what makes it unique is that the preacher is using
an assigned text and set of propers. He is bringing light and comfort to the Christian
in the specific context of the liturgy and church year.
That makes sermon writing easier than most other
writing. Sermons are a response to and an expansion on a specific text in the
midst of a specific set of propers. Thus the triumphant entry on the Sunday
before He dies reads differently on the First Sunday in Advent than it does on
Palm Sunday. That assignment and context means that the preacher doesn’t have
to cast about for ideas in the same way that other writers do. Nonetheless, the
preacher does need to cast about within the text he has been assigned. He needs
to gather and prune ideas. He needs to think about a thesis statement.
Thesis Statements
Sermons need a central point and focus. Without
that, even if they are doctrinally pure and do proclaim the Gospel, they become
rambling commentaries or loosely strung-together anecdotes. The thesis
statement gives focus and direction to both writer and hearer. It is usually a
single sentence and it often has the form of Law and Gospel. Indeed, it is often very helpful, already in
the prewriting stage, to think in terms of a Law thesis and a Gospel thesis,
that is, to consider or find one problem of man that the text either names or
negates or which is suggested in the text, and then to consider its
corresponding solution in the cross. What the preacher is after, in any case,
is a way to bring light and comfort from a particular text in a pointed and
direct way that can be understood by the hearer.
It is important that we emphasize again that the goal
of preaching is not to fully expound a single text. The goal is to comfort
consciences, to absolve sinners, and to proclaim the love of God in Christ
Jesus from an assigned text within the context of the proper and church year.
A thesis statement can take many forms. It can be
analytical, breaking down an issue or doctrine in the text. For example,
exegesis of St. Matthew 21 for Palm Sunday might cause the preacher to notice
that it is highly likely that not all the people who cried “Hosanna” were faithful
and understood what they were saying. It is quite possible that at least some
of them were simply carried along by the emotion and excitement of the moment
and were similarly carried along on Friday to cry out “Crucify.” Thus he might
consider preaching about hypocrisy. The sermon would define what hypocrisy is.
It would expose the hearers to how they fall into a similar pattern, praising
Jesus on Sunday but flinching from confessing Him when it is inconvenient. It
would then find comfort for them in the fact that Jesus accepts the praise of
hypocrites and is not stopped on His journey by their sin. So also would he
demonstrate that the Church has found it wise to put the praise of Palm Sunday
on our lips in the Sanctus. We do not fully understand what we say when we sing
“Hosanna.” Our lives have been riddled through with failures and we sometimes
sing “Hosanna” without even thinking about what we are saying, but Jesus hears
and answers our prayer nonetheless. He answers by dying and rising and by then giving
us His body and blood to both forgive and strengthen us. Rather than explaining
everything that happened to Jesus on the road or tying in all of the
intervenient chants and readings, the preacher judiciously picks one point from
the text, finds a nice tie to the liturgy, and then applies this to his people.
That sort of analysis can be very powerful and helpful for the hearers.
A
thesis can also be expository. A sermon can seek to explain something. The
preacher might take the same text and decide to explain to his congregation
what the word Hosanna means and how that words ties into
the name Jesus. He might track various cries for help or
saving in the Scriptures and how God answers them. He could find a good deal of
help in the intervenient chants and hymns for Palm Sunday. His Law idea could
simply be that we are dying and in the hands of the devil and need rescue and
his Gospel idea could be how Jesus even gives us the right prayers to pray and
is steadfast in His march toward the cross to save us.
Yet another possibility is to make an argument. The
sermon can make a claim and then provide evidence. In the Palm Sunday reading the preacher could argue that Jesus enters
into Jerusalem
in humility not in power. Here he could find evidence also in the Epistle and
Collect. He could unwrap what the Humiliation is and how the Exaltation is so
essential to our doctrine of the bodily presence. Again, the
sermon would have a very tight focus and real application as constrained by the
thesis.
Whatever
the thesis is, and whether it fits neatly into one of the patterns above, it
should be specific. It should cover only what the sermon is going to deal with,
prove, or explain. It should then be supported with specific evidence and
examples. It normally appears in the
first paragraph of the sermon, usually as the last sentence. It should likewise
be repeated in some fashion, maybe not word for word, in the last paragraph.
There
should not be any content in the sermon that is not directly related to the
thesis. If, as the preacher writes or revises, he discovers something more
interesting or relevant, something he hadn’t first considered, he should modify
his thesis to include it or change his thesis and delete what doesn’t match.
Sometimes the process leads the preacher to change his topic. The danger then
is not in changing, but in keeping everything. In any case, the process is
meant to be fluid.
Prewriting and Exegesis
Exegesis is the foundation of preaching. The preacher’s
first step is to seek an intellectual understanding of a specific text. He
wants to take in its context and nuance within the Bible and also within the
propers. But the preacher must know that he will uncover more material and
meaning than he will ever use in a single sermon. Sermon exegesis is distinct
from Bible class preparation and from research that is done for academic
papers. The preacher’s eventual goal is a single idea or theme leading to a
thesis statement that can be developed into a sermon. Solid exegesis and study
will find many ideas. At this stage, during prewriting, the point isn’t to pick
one. It is to develop possibilities and to become fluent with the text.
It is important that the preacher does not settle on the
first idea that occurs to him. He should spend time contemplating what the text
says, what the state of his people and the world is, and consider many ideas
and possibilities. It is very helpful to take notes as a text is being read or
translated. If the preacher does not write these things down he will probably
forget them or he will focus so hard on remembering them that he will not do
any further real exegesis.
Prewriting is the time for gathering ideas. But, again,
if the first idea or insight that a preacher encounters is so exciting that he
can’t wait to begin writing, he certainly may. He should, however, check with
his work from previous years first to make sure he hasn’t simply been drawn to
the same early conclusion over and over again.
It is wasteful and vain to think that exegesis can be
completed in a vacuum or that after it is finished the preacher can then start
thinking about what to say in a sermon. First of all, exegesis can never really
be completed. There is always more to know. Secondly, the preacher should
contemplate the persons and events of Holy Scripture with his people in mind.
He is reading the text for the sake of preaching. The Bible was meant to be
preached and applied. It is not a book about other people. Thus the preacher
should always be thinking of how the text applies, of what doctrines it
presents, and how it presents both Law and Gospel. Nor is the context within
the propers artificial to the meaning of the text. In
the first place, the Scriptures were written for worship, but so also, the
arrangement and setting of texts side-by-side demonstrates the thinking of our
fathers. Again, notes, whether they be on paper or a voice recording on a phone
or in some other format, are always helpful.
If the
preacher skips prewriting, he will usually find that he doesn’t have enough
material to actually write. He will probably be immediately bored with the
sermon or he will feel as though there isn’t anything of interest to say about
a particular text that hasn’t already been covered by Sunday school. If a
preacher finds himself staring at a blank screen with nothing to say, he
probably has not done his prewriting. Staring at a blank screen is a waste of
time. Prepare to write and when it is time, write.
This is
not meant to deny that the Holy Spirit inspires His preachers. He does. But the
Spirit works through means. If you are dragged by violence, with threat of
death, before kings, then don’t worry. The Spirit will provide what you need to
say. Yet, preachers need to know that St.
Paul
Prewriting Techniques
Any writing textbook or a quick Google search will reveal
loads of prewriting exercises for college students. Of particular value is the
Purdue University Online Writing Lab (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/).
That whole site is valuable and includes prewriting exercises that should be
tried. Some preachers might feel as though this is beneath them, as though
these are exercises for amateurs: they are not. Successful, professional
writers all use them. Why then wouldn’t preachers?
There are some exercises that I find particularly useful.
I like to find the negatives in a text. This is obvious when the text says
something like “don’t worry” but it is often the most fruitful when the text
only states things positively. I try to imagine what the opposite is or what
the positive statements reject. I then try to imagine how we are guilty of the
opposite. Another technique I like is to search the Book of Concord for
citations of the text in question to
see how the text is used dogmatically. The same thing can be done with the
Bible reference index for the synodical questions. A favorite technique of mine
is to imagine leaving a note in a Bible for posterity. It is a bit vain,
perhaps, and silly, but I try to imagine what I would write about a text if I
had only a half sheet of paper to stick into a Bible, knowing that my children
would find the note after I died.