Preaching the Manifold Grace of God, Volume 1: Theologies of Preaching in Historical Theological Families

By Ronald J. Allen

Preaching the Manifold Grace of God is a two-volume work describing theologies of preaching from the historical and contemporary periods. Volume 1 focuses on historical theological families: Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, Anglican/Episcopal, Wesleyan, Baptist, African American, Stone-Campbell, Friends, and Pentecostal. Volume 2 focuses on families that are evangelical, liberal, neo-orthodox, postliberal, existential, radical orthodox, deconstructionist, Black liberation, womanist, Latinx liberation, Mujerista, Asian American, Asian American feminist, LGBTQAI, Indigenous, postcolonial, and process. In each case, the author describes the circumstances in which the theological family emerged and describes the purposes and characteristics of preaching from that perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jun 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781725259607

Book preview

1

Preaching in the Orthodox Theological Family

J. Sergius Halvorsen

When many people think of Orthodox Christianity, one of the first things to come to mind are Byzantine icons: images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the saints rendered in a premodern style that invite one to consider that Jesus and the saints are looking at you as much as you are looking at them. One might also think of long, ornate liturgical services, sung by chanters or choirs unaccompanied by musical instruments. Preaching, however, is not normally considered as a distinctive facet of Orthodox Christianity and, indeed, those who have attended an Orthodox service where there was no preaching could not be faulted for assuming that preaching is not even part of the Orthodox tradition. While preaching may not have as prominent a place in Orthodox worship as in other traditions, Orthodox Christians in North America, beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, have taken a renewed interest in preaching.

As an Orthodox Christian priest, preacher, and teacher of homiletics, it has been the goal of my professional life to remind Orthodox Christians that the church was established and is maintained by those who can say along with the Apostle Paul, We preach Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23). Specifically, my work has focused on articulating an iconic, biblical homiletic that is appropriate to the Orthodox Christian liturgy. While the worldwide Orthodox Church encompasses tremendous homiletical diversity, the goal of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of Orthodox Christian preaching in North America.

Circumstances That Gave Rise to This Theological Family

The Eastern Orthodox Church includes the four ancient Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, along with more than twice that number of autocephalous or autonomous churches with members throughout the world. Eastern Orthodox Christians primarily trace their spiritual heritage to the Greek-speaking Christians of the Roman (and later Byzantine) Empire. Orthodox Christian interpretation of Scripture and theology is largely based on Patristic and conciliar writings up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the end of the Byzantine Empire.¹ Another important source of spiritual heritage for Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe and throughout the world, is the Slavic Christian tradition that begins with the baptism of Prince Vladimir of Kiev in 980 and builds upon the theology and spirituality that the Slavs had received from the Byzantines.² Finally, it is important to note that many Orthodox Christians trace their spiritual heritage to the Arabic speaking Christians of the Middle East.³

Colonization, mission, immigration and globalization have all played a role in the spread of Orthodox Christianity throughout the world, and in the case of the immigrant experience in North America, the different streams of spiritual heritage have mixed and combined as the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition has been both received and transmitted in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over (Luke 6:38). As the history of the Orthodox Church relates to its preaching in North America, I touch on six facets of the rich history of Orthodox Christianity: (1) the Eastern Church; (2) the imperial church; (3) the persecuted church; (4) the ascetic church; (5) the immigrant church, and (6) the missionary church.

Eastern Church

When considering the distinction between Western and Eastern Christianity, 1054 is often cited as the decisive separation since that is the year Cardinal Humbert and a group of papal legates delivered the Bull of Excommunication in Constantinople. While this was not the first time that theological and political tensions had resulted in excommunications between Eastern and Western Christians, unlike the previous divisions, the schism of 1054 has never been healed.⁴ While there have been numerous occasions throughout history when Eastern Orthodox Christians have engaged with, and have been influenced by, Western Christians, the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition maintains a theological and liturgical tradition that is both complementary and distinct from Western Christian traditions.

Imperial Church

With the Eastern Orthodox Church firmly rooted in the Byzantine tradition, the conversion of Constantine is held in particularly high regard; and, indeed, both the Emperor and his mother, Helen, are venerated as saints. Constantine played a decisive role in the life of the church, moving the capital of the Roman Empire eastward from Italy to the shores of the Bosphorus . . . [and] on the site of the Greek city of Byzantium, he built a new capital, which he named after himself ‘Constantinopoulis.’ Shortly after deciding to move the capital in 324, Constantine called the first General or Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church at Nicea in 325.⁵ The church’s newfound imperial status was famously celebrated by the church historian Eusebius of Caesarea whose perspective the Eastern Orthodox theologian Cyril Hovorun summarizes in this way:

Eusebius interpreted the conversion of the empire as an act of divine providence comparable with the most important events of the sacred history of Israel . . . This is because all of the troubles that the church had experienced were relegated to the past, and the Kingdom promised by Christ had finally arrived. The new relationship between the church and the empire, according to Eusebius, became an eschatological category.⁶

However, this eschatological triumphalism expressed by Eusebius in the fourth century would later be tempered by episodes in which the leaders of the church found themselves directly at odds with imperial authorities. Two such instances are the Empress Eudoxia’s banishment of John Chrysostom, the Archbishop of Constantinople and outspoken preacher, which led to his untimely death in 407; and the rise of the iconoclast Emperor Leo III in 726, which led to more than half a century of violent persecution of those who defended the veneration of icons. The iconoclast heresy was formally condemned at the Council of Nicea in 787.⁷ These notable periods of conflict notwithstanding, Imperial Christianity as a theopolitical entity⁸ both in the Roman (Byzantine) Empire and later, but no less importantly, in the Russian Empire, made possible a great many of the of the theological, liturgical, and artistic developments characteristic of Orthodox Christianity today. To this day, in Greece, Russia, Finland and a number of other Eastern European countries, the Orthodox Church continues to have the role of a state church.

Persecuted Church

While there is an unmistakable legacy of the imperial church in the Orthodox tradition, it is equally important to note that the Orthodox Christian tradition also bears the marks of persecution and oppression. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 most Christians in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East lived under Ottoman rule. While Christian communities were often afforded a great deal of autonomy in the millet system, it was nevertheless a profoundly different experience than that of an imperial church. In the twentieth century Eastern Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe faced intense persecution under the communist rule of the Soviet Union. Conditions were worst of all for the Church of Albania . . . In 1967 the government of Hoxha announced that Albania was now the first truly atheist state in the world: every place of worship had been closed and every visible expression of religious faith eliminated. Repression fell with equal severity on Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Muslims.⁹ The testimony, preaching and theological writing of the martyrs and confessors from these times, especially from the twentieth century, continue to serve as a powerful and prophetic voice within the broader Orthodox Christian experience.

Ascetic Church

While ascesis has always been present within Christianity, a distinct ascetical or monastic tradition began developing in Egypt before the middle of the third century, prior to the conversion of Constantine.¹⁰ During the fourth century, Egyptian monasticism grew and flourished, giving rise to a body of monastic spiritual theology and literature. Two notable works are: the Life of Anthony, which played a pivotal role in Augustine’s conversion,¹¹ and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers which, through brief, image-rich vignettes, presents the wisdom and ethos of the fathers and mothers who lived the ascetical Christian life. Throughout the Byzantine period, monasticism had a notable influence on, and made inestimable contributions to Eastern Christianity both in terms of liturgical life and spirituality. Unlike the Roman Catholic tradition which saw the rise of peripatetic and active religious orders, Eastern Orthodox monasticism, has primarily maintained the contemplative ascetical life of men or women living together in community offering a place of hospitality and spiritual retreat for guests. Perhaps the most notable center of Eastern Orthodox Christian monastic influence is Mt. Athos, located in present day Greece, which includes numerous monastic communities that continue to this day.

Immigrant Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church in North America, in addition to the aforementioned historical influences, is also profoundly shaped by the immigrant experience. The majority of Orthodox Christians in North America are members of jurisdictions with direct ties to bishops overseas.¹² In some cases, this connection to the mother church overseas fosters an ethnic identity for Orthodox Christians whose presence in North America is regarded as a diaspora. The majority of Orthodox Christian jurisdictions in North America share a common liturgical tradition, and in most cases members of different jurisdictions are free to worship together. However, each jurisdiction reflects its own unique liturgical, cultural and linguistic heritage; and each jurisdiction is governed by a separate administration.

Missionary Church

The oldest continuous presence of the Orthodox Church in North America is among the native people of Alaska who were baptized by Russian missionaries in the late eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, when Alaska was a Russian colony. While the number of native Alaskan Orthodox Christians is relatively small, the spirit of mission and evangelization of the Alaskan experience serves as an inspiring ideal for many Orthodox Christians in North America today. More recently, the late twentieth century witnessed the reception of a large number of converts to Orthodox Christianity, mostly from other Christian traditions, which has had a substantial impact on the Orthodox Christian experience in North America. While the circumstances surrounding the evangelization of the native people of Alaska, and the reception of Christian converts from other traditions are profoundly different, in both cases, the life of the church has been noticeably affected by the culture, traditions and worldviews of those who have found a new spiritual home in the Orthodox Church.¹³

Main Ideas in This Theological Family

The Orthodox Church embraces a number of unique theological perspectives that are relevant for its preaching tradition. Because of the political and theological division that occurred between Eastern and Western Christians in the eleventh century, Eastern Orthodox theology, for the most part, has been unaffected by the significant theological developments and controversies in the Christian West during the second millennium. While Eastern Orthodox Christians in North America today are profoundly western in terms of culture, education, and worldview it is important to note that the spiritual heritage and theological tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church does not bear the imprint of Scholasticism, the Enlightenment, or the Reformation and Counter Reformation, in the same way that Western Christian traditions do. For many Orthodox Christians in North America today, the doctrinal affirmations of the first seven ecumenical councils and the theological writings of the church fathers (and a few church mothers) are the primary guides to the exegesis of Scripture for preaching. Additionally, the theological debates and discussions within the church that have been most influential in recent decades have largely been based on new readings of ancient patristic texts.

Orthodox theology embraces mystery and sacramentality when regarding God’s saving work in humanity, and is explicitly rooted in the fundamental mystery of the Incarnation: the teaching and person of Jesus Christ are central to all Orthodox theology. The prominence of mystery in the tradition is evident in the use of the Greek word mysterion in much of the patristic literature to refer to the sacraments. Even in contemporary usage, it is not uncommon to hear Orthodox Christians refer to the bread and wine of the Eucharist as the holy mysteries. Beginning with considerations of the Incarnation, and how it is possible for the transcendent, omnipotent God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be present in the midst of this broken, dark and sinful world as a human being, Orthodox theology embraces the confession of an ineffable, yet immanent mystery.

One of the most prominent twentieth-century Orthodox Christian theologians, Alexander Schmemann, articulated a compelling vision of sacramentality, not only in terms of the celebration of the Liturgy, but in terms of the entire life of the Christian.

The church is the Sacrament of the Kingdom—not because it possesses divinely instituted acts called sacraments but because first of all, it is the possibility given to man to see in and through this world the world to come, to see and to live it in Christ. It is only when, in the darkness of this world, we discern that Christ has already filled all things with himself, that these things, whatever they may be, are revealed and given to us as full of meaning and beauty. A Christian is the one who, wherever he looks, finds everywhere Christ, and rejoices in Him. And this joy transforms all his human plans and programs, decisions and moves, makes all his mission the sacrament of the world’s return to Him, who is the life of the world.¹⁴

Schmemann’s emphasis on the mystery (sacrament) of the Kingdom of God is also extremely important for preaching since it emphasizes divine sovereignty. The Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church begins with doxology, Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, always, now and ever and unto ages of ages.¹⁵ Schmemann rejects the idea that God’s kingdom is only a future reality. "For the first Christians the all-encompassing joy, the truly startling novelty of their faith lay in the fact that the kingdom was at hand. It had appeared, and although it remained hidden and unseen for ‘this world,’ it was already present, its light had already shone, it was already at work in the world."¹⁶ This theological vision of the church as the means for perceiving the kingdom of God in this world, and as an opportunity to experience the transformation of divine beauty and joy in God’s presence—particularly in the celebration of the Liturgy—has powerful implications for an Orthodox Christian homiletic: preaching that occurs within this liturgical context should enable this very mystery of divine encounter and transformation.

The twentieth-century liturgical theology of Schmemann emerges from a much older spiritual and ascetical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church that emphasizes the possibility for divine transformation. This theology was notably articulated by Gregory Palamas in fourteenth-century Byzantium in response to a controversy surrounding hesychasm: contemplative prayer leading to silent internal contemplation. John Meyendorff, summarized Gregory’s theology in this way:

Since the Incarnation, our bodies have become temples of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us (

1

Cor

6

:

19

); it is there, within our own bodies, that we must seek the Spirit, within our bodies sanctified by the sacraments and engrafted by the eucharist into the Body of Christ. God is now to be found within; He is no longer exterior to us. Therefore, we find the light of Mount Tabor within ourselves. The apostles had only an exterior vision, for Christ had not yet died and risen from the dead, but today we are, all of us, in living reality members of His Body, the Church.¹⁷

It is important to note that within the Eastern Orthodox tradition there is not a hard distinction between monastic and secular theology and spirituality. While a great deal of exegetical, theological, and spiritual writing of the Eastern Orthodox tradition has been shaped by the monastic experience, the ascetical tradition of self-denial as an expression of love for God and love for the neighbor is understood to be applicable to the life of every person, regardless of their specific vocation.

The Orthodox Christian tradition is fundamentally an ascetical tradition of divine encounter that is rooted in meditation on the Crucified Messiah. This centrality of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection is, in part, reflected in the prominence of the elaborate liturgical celebration of lent, holy week and Pascha in the Eastern Tradition. For many Eastern Orthodox Christians, the fundamental rhythm of life changes during this season with an intensification of public liturgical celebration the domestic observance of fasting and almsgiving, and the private disciplines of sacramental confession, along with heightened focus on private prayer, reading scripture and meditation. This ascetical spirituality that pervades the Eastern Christian Tradition, rooted in the mystery of the Crucified Messiah, is not a dark anthropology or an unhealthy preoccupation with the immanence of death, but rather it is a frame of reference that emphasizes humility, personal repentance, and a healthy honesty about the reality of death.

It is also important to note that Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross is regarded primarily as a manifestation of divine love in victory over sin and death. Within the Eastern Orthodox tradition, there is relatively little—if any—emphasis on substitutionary atonement, as one might find in some traditions. In part, this approach can be traced to the relative comfort that the Eastern Orthodox tradition has with mystery when dealing with the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith. Broadly speaking, as long as one remains within the doctrinal framework of the conciliar decrees from the first seven ecumenical councils and abides by the historical canonical norms, one is free, and even encouraged, to reflect on the mysteries of the faith as mysteries: salvific realities that embody apparent contradictions. This approach to the Crucifixion as a mystery of victory in defeat, glory in humiliation, or life in death, fosters in the faithful a sense of dynamic contemplation. The Crucifixion is not a theological problem to be solved, but rather a glorious and profound mystery that can lead the humble disciple to an ever-deeper encounter with God.

A final, and in some ways a summative, theological idea central to the Eastern Orthodox tradition is the concept of theosis: human persons becoming ever more like God by grace. One of the most often quoted phrases relative to the discussion of theosis is from Athanasius who said in the fourth century, God became human that we might be made god.¹⁸ However, theosis is not some sort of secret shortcut to power, glory and spiritual bliss, rather it is the narrow path to the Kingdom of Heaven that leads straight to the Cross. Theosis, deification, becoming like God, means being crucified like the Son of God through a Christ-like dying to self. Athanasius presented a compelling vision of this in The Life of Anthony, the monastic hero who enters into the spiritual warfare through the ascetical life. Athanasius writes of Anthony’s victory however, in a way that is profoundly Christ-centered: This was Anthony’s first contest against the devil—or, rather, this was in Anthony the success of the Savior, who condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.¹⁹ The point of the ascetical life is to become like God, by grace, so that in humility and weakness, Christ might be victorious in the believer.

Purpose and Characteristics of Preaching in This Theological Family

Preaching in the Orthodox Christian tradition in twenty-first-century North America is a component of a larger liturgical action. For Orthodox Christians liturgy is the primary constitutive communal action, and within the rich cycle of the liturgical services, the Divine Liturgy, and specifically the Sunday Divine Liturgy, holds the natural place of primacy since this is the service where the faithful gather around the Lord’s table to give thanks and to receive the holy mysteries. Most of the preaching that occurs in the Orthodox Church in North America occurs in conjunction with the celebration of the Sunday Divine Liturgy, and while many Orthodox Christians hold preaching in high regard, the liturgy is the foundational context within which preaching emerges. Put in more pedestrian terms, if the priest were to celebrate the Divine Liturgy on a Sunday morning and not preach, some would be scandalized. Whereas if the same priest were to preach, but not celebrate the Divine Liturgy on a Sunday morning, almost all would be scandalized.

This is not to say that preaching is foreign to the Orthodox Christian tradition, because preaching has always been an important component of the life of the church. Ironically, the church has recognized the importance of preaching most acutely in those times and places when civil authorities have attempted to silence the gospel. There has always been preaching in the Orthodox Christian tradition, but the church’s formal liturgical celebrations have not always been the primary locus for preaching, nor has preaching always been understood as an essential component of the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. Like a plant that can thrive in different environments, and assumes a slightly different morphology based on its surrounding, Orthodox Christian preaching adapted and thrived in different contexts and in different forms.

The practice of preaching immediately after the scripture readings within the context of the Divine Liturgy is a relatively new development in the Orthodox Church. Within immigrant Orthodox Christian communities in the early twentieth century, when preaching occurred within the Liturgy, it would usually occur immediately before the communion of the faithful or after the conclusion of the liturgy.²⁰ During the twentieth century, and in parallel with the broader liturgical movement, the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church in North America underwent some notable changes. While the liturgical reforms and renewals within the Orthodox Church in the twentieth century pale in comparison to those that occurred in other traditions, Paul Meyendorff notes that of the many different facets of liturgical renewal that took place in the Orthodox Church in twentieth-century North America (e.g. use of the vernacular, adoption of the new calendar, revival of frequent communion, etc.), one of the most profound changes was the formal placement of the homily after the Scripture readings in the Liturgy,²¹ a practice that has been widely adopted in North America and in some cases has been explicitly codified in the rubrics of the service books.²²

The rationale for this change came primarily from the historical evidence that preaching immediately followed the scripture readings within the celebration of the Lord’s Supper²³ so it was argued that the change was not an innovation, but rather a return to an older practice. It is important to note that the rubrics not only specified the appropriate location for preaching, but the rubrics specified that preaching was to happen. However, as this change was implemented, there was relatively little critical reflection on how this might impact the form and content of the preaching that the rubrics now prescribed to follow the scripture readings. Was the sermon supposed to be a mini-Bible-study nestled into the liturgy? Was it supposed to be a little catechetical talk, or a polemical diatribe? Was it supposed to be an academic lecture or an extemporaneous free-association on whatever the preacher was thinking about on that morning? While placing the sermon immediately after the scripture readings certainly heightens its prominence, this liturgical change happened before there was a commensurate emphasis on teaching the art and craft of homiletics, and this created unique challenges.

The quality and form of the preaching that was now happening within the liturgy immediately after the scripture readings varied substantially. As noted earlier, the traditions that were brought to North America from abroad largely represented imperial or state church contexts where opportunities for preaching tend to be more numerous than the Sunday only liturgical practice that tends to be the norm in North America. Additionally, those traditions that were brought to North America from minority Christian communities, such as the Arab Orthodox Christians from Syria, emerged from contexts in which the minority community maintained a much stronger social and ethnic cohesion than is the norm in pluralistic North American culture. In both cases, preaching was neither considered to be a mandatory constituent of the Sunday Divine Liturgy, nor was it necessarily regarded as a fundamental skill for the parish priest. As seminaries were founded in twentieth-century North America, and as formal education became an ordination requirement for Orthodox Christian clergy, the emphasis was primarily on theological academic disciplines (biblical studies, patristics, church history and dogmatic theology) and liturgical skills.

This is not to say that Orthodox Christians had no appreciation for preaching, or that there were no great preachers. However, for most of the twentieth century, the presupposition was that good preachers are born, but cannot be taught. However, more people were paying attention to preaching because the sermon was now occupying a prominent position in the liturgy and preaching was occurring with greater regularity. This homiletical prominence, beginning in the late nineteen-sixties, and early nineteen-seventies, when rubrical changes were codified, led to a growing interest in preaching, and one might even say a homiletical renaissance, that has led to Orthodox seminaries embracing homiletics more seriously as an essential pastoral discipline since the nineteen-nineties.

For Orthodox Christian preaching in North America, proficiency has followed prominence. As it became increasingly normative for preaching to immediately follow the scripture readings in the liturgy, the more people began to take seriously the form and content of preaching. Initially, the homiletical practices that had been employed earlier (preaching immediately prior to the communion of the faithful, or after the conclusion of the liturgy) were the same practices that were used to prepare and deliver sermons that immediately followed the scripture readings. In some instances, these practices had been inherited from church life in the old country, and in other cases, preachers adopted homiletical forms that were popular in North America at the time, from other Christian communities.²⁴ While the practices varied, they included broad categories such as generic spiritual talk; expository preaching, verse by verse sermons, biblical exegesis; liturgical catechesis; moral exhortation; and exploration of thematic links between lectionary texts. Nevertheless, there was still a common implied presupposition that the liturgy is one thing and the sermon is another. Liturgically and homiletically, this meant that when preaching began, liturgy per se, was paused while the sermon was delivered, and when the sermon ended, the liturgy resumed. This approach follows logically from the older practices of preaching at the end of the liturgy when liturgy is formally finished, or with preaching immediately before the communion of the faithful when attention shifts to the logistics of distributing communion and there is a natural change in the flow of the liturgy.

The new practice of preaching immediately after the scripture readings gave preaching a new prominence in the Divine Liturgy, which meant that the faithful, preachers and theologians began to take more seriously the role of preaching and to ask hard questions about preaching. This increasing emphasis on the role of preaching was also affected by the prominence of preaching within the broader North American Christian context, and the increasing numbers of both clergy and faithful who were entering the Orthodox Church from other traditions in which preaching played a major role in Sunday worship. For the purpose of this discussion, I touch on five important voices in homiletical discussion from the late twentieth-century: (1) Alexander Schmemann’s The Eucharist from 1963; (2) Paul Tarazi’s 1979 lectures delivered at the St. John Chrysostom Lectureship on Preaching at Hellenic College and Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology; (3) Schmemann’s 1988 The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom; (4) the 1989 encyclical On Preaching from the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America; and (5) Thomas Hopko’s 1997 article, The Liturgical Sermon.

Schmemann, The Eucharist

Alexander Schmemann is one of the best known Orthodox Christian theologians of the twentieth century and was the leader of the liturgical reforms and revivals that occurred in the Orthodox Church in North America. In his 1963 book, The Eucharist, he argued that, The proclamation of the word is a sacramental act par excellence because it is a transforming act. It transforms the human words of the gospel into the Word of God and the manifestation of the Kingdom. He then continues, "This is why the reading and preaching of the gospel in the Orthodox Church is a liturgical act, an integral and essential part of the sacrament."²⁵ While he is silent regarding the appropriate form and content of liturgical, sacramental preaching, this statement, in some ways, marks the beginning of a decades long process in which preaching is redefined in terms of liturgical and sacramental theology.

Tarazi Lectures

In a series of three lectures Paul Tarazi presented a biblical and patristic paradigm for preaching. The first lecture emphasizes the destabilizing and corrective aspects of the prophetic word:

Through the prophets, the Lord started questioning instead of answering. God himself initiated the conversation and opened the subject of discussion. He also chose the place of encounter instead of leaving it to the people. They used to come to God at his altars and the city gates, veiling their sins under their neat garments, whereas now God went out to meet them in their homes, in the streets, in their workshops, disclosing the secrets of their sinful hearts.²⁶

The fundamental message of the scripture, seen most vividly in the words of the Hebrew prophets, is a call to repent. God’s word is lifegiving precisely because it calls God’s people to turn from their wickedness and live faithfully (Ezek 18:27; 33:19). Jesus Christ both fulfils and supersedes the ministry of the Hebrew prophets in that God’s message is coextensive with the person of Jesus who is the incarnate Word of God. Now, if Jesus is the object of faith, then the potential believer had to be faced and challenged by Christ himself—a personal decision regarding another person required a personal encounter.²⁷ The call to repent is embodied in the person of Jesus whom the faithful encounter in the liturgy.

As we encounter the person of Jesus Christ, Lord and Redeemer, in the elements of bread and wine, so we meet the same Jesus Christ, Lord and Redeemer, in the element of the proclaimed word . . . If repentance is at the heart of the Old Testament prophetic preaching, much more so the same holds true for the apostolic proclamation which offers the last chance of a return to God in view of the immediacy of the end of times. The message of metanoia (repentance) is at the root of Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom (Matt

4

:

17

; Mark

1

:

15

).²⁸

Tarazi emphasizes that God’s call to repentance is rooted firmly in relationships with the neighbor; there is no such thing as a private sin, for all unrighteousness ultimately affects our ability to love the neighbor. The prophets said it, Jesus affirmed it, the apostles proclaimed it: the neighbor is the criterion, the scale, the thermometer, our walking judgment, our practical sentence to either life or death, because God himself encounters us in our neighbor.²⁹

Tarazi’s vision for Orthodox Christian preaching is rooted in the biblical hermeneutic of repentance and humility that is fundamental to Orthodox Christian spirituality and the writings of the church fathers. Tarazi notes that while the patristic writings are fundamental to Orthodox Christian theology, they should not be the content of preaching: it is not enough to simply repeat what the Fathers said.

Study of the church fathers should not be done solely with the intention of knowing what they said about the Scriptures and what they said the Scriptures are telling us, but also (perhaps more importantly so) with an eye on how the fathers read the Bible and how they arrived at saying what they said to their contemporaries so that we may be able to study the Scriptures as they did and to proclaim Christ to our contemporaries with the same zeal.³⁰

Along these lines, he forcefully rejects the idea that a preacher can only preach on virtues that the preacher has mastered, arguing that this kind of preaching is actually a blasphemy, since the preacher is only preaching oneself. Rather, the preacher is to study Scripture, and prepare the sermon in tears, as the word of God calls the preacher to repent, and then approach the pulpit with the same reverence that the preacher approaches the chalice.³¹

Schmemann, The Eucharist

Returning to Schmemann and his book The Eucharist, published posthumously in 1988, we find an expansion of his 1963 definition of preaching in terms of liturgical theology.

[T]he genuine sermon is neither simply an explanation of what was read by knowledgeable and competent persons, nor a transmission to the listeners of the theological knowledge of the preacher, nor a meditation apropos of the gospel text. In general, it is not a sermon about the gospel (on a gospel theme), but the preaching of the gospel itself.³²

While he does not go as far as to say that the sermon is a liturgical text, he implies that it is in his reflection on the role of the Amen to which the hearers are invited to respond. "In antiquity, the assembly responded to the celebrant’s sermon with a triumphal amen, testifying by this that to the acceptance of the word, sealing their unity in the Spirit with the celebrant."³³

Encyclical

In 1989 the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America issued an encyclical On Preaching, and, as is usually the case with encyclicals, it is more prescriptive than descriptive. The encyclical opens with Matthew 4:17, the summary of Jesus’ preaching, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand, which links repentance from sins to the encounter with God in the kingdom of heaven.

While stressing that all believers are called to preach the gospel in whatever capacity they are able, the encyclical notes that the ability to preach well is not necessarily bestowed at ordination, and that due to the unique vocation of the priest and the importance of preaching, some priests must work more diligently, laboring with more effort.³⁴ The encyclical emphasizes that the sermon should focus on Jesus Christ, include a prominent call to repentance and an eschatological word of hope and should be crafted in language that is in the vernacular (English) and uses rhetoric that is accessible to the hearers. Underlining the rubrical changes made two decades earlier, the encyclical emphasizes that preaching normally follows the scripture readings in the Divine Liturgy, but when pastorally appropriate, can occur any time the faithful gather for prayer. The encyclical closes with an interesting section on the role that electronic media can play in allowing preaching to be more broadly accessible, and foreshadowing the powerful impact that blogs, podcasts and livestreaming would have with the dawn of the Internet age. The encyclical does not go into tremendous depth, and as Joseph Letendre argued shortly after its publication, it fails to identify specific weaknesses in preaching that need to be addressed.³⁵ However, the fact that the Holy Synod issued an encyclical on preaching is notable in that it represents the increasing prominence of preaching within the Orthodox Church.

Hopko Article

Thomas Hopko’s 1997 article The Liturgical Sermon expands and sharpens the ideas presented in the encyclical. He states the liturgical sermon is not preached in any place other than immediately following the scripture readings and he also defines preaching as an essential element of the Divine Liturgy: There is no Christian liturgy without God’s Word. While people may encounter the Word of God in reading or hearing Scripture, they never have eucharistic communion in the Lord’s Body and Blood without first partaking of his holy Word.³⁶ He also stresses that the liturgical sermon should emerge from the biblical texts read during the liturgy. Additionally, he emphasizes the importance of liturgical occasion, implying that the sermon is to be understood similarly to liturgical texts (propers) that are prescribed for specific liturgical occasions. However, unlike the majority of liturgical texts which are intended to be used repeatedly, year after year, the liturgical sermon is also to reflect the unique situation that the faithful are facing. The liturgical sermon is the sacramental act of God’s glorified Son Jesus Christ delivering the Word of his Father through his ordained preacher to the gathered assembly.³⁷ While it is not said explicitly, the implication here is that the liturgical sermon is to be understood as a liturgical text intended for one unique place and time in all of creation.

Continuing Relevance of This Theological Family

The most important characteristic of Orthodox Christian Preaching in North America is the gradual, but steady development of the sermon as an organic component of its liturgical context that began in the mid- to late twentieth century and which continues today. Rhetorical and homiletical practices leading to sermons that interrupt the poetic, sacramental, liturgical encounter with Christ are generally receding. On any given Sunday, one could find a number of homiletical styles being practiced in Orthodox Christian parishes (and sadly, there might even be a few parishes where no preaching takes place). However, the training that has been offered in Orthodox Christian seminaries for the past few decades emphasizes a Christ-centered, biblical liturgical homiletic that stresses narrative, anamnesis, and icon (image). Additionally, there are three broad categories that may have been common earlier but are gradually in decline: (1) generic spirituality; (2) thematic linkage between lectionary texts; and (3) doctrinal triumphalism.

Generic Spirituality

For decades, it was common for preachers to presume their hearers lived within a Christian culture, and therefore it was presupposed that every time the hearers heard God they would make a connection to Jesus Christ and his teaching. Such a presupposition yielded a large body of preaching that repeatedly mentioned God yet rarely, or never spoke about Jesus, his life or his teaching. However, the convergence of two factors have made this form of preaching less prominent. First, North American culture, which one could argue was majority Christian at the beginning of the twentieth century (albeit composed of different denominations) was vastly less Christian at the end of that century. When preachers mention God in a sermon today, it is no longer safe to assume that the hearers think of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the father of Jesus Christ. As Saint Paul says, There are many gods (1 Cor 8:5), or more explicitly, there are many false gods, and only one true God. To put it bluntly, the religious context of the twenty-first century has rendered generic god language unacceptable for Christian preaching. Second, as preachers began to consider the sermon as a liturgical action, it has become increasingly important to ensure that the liturgical sermon is as Christ centered as the liturgy in which the Lord’s Supper is celebrated. This includes more emphasis on scripture, and greater prominence of Jesus’ life, and teaching within the liturgical sermon.

Lectionary Themes

When preachers first began to make concerted efforts towards crafting a liturgical sermon, a style of preaching emerged in which the objective of the sermon was to identify as many common themes as possible among the lectionary texts prescribed for the day. This style of preaching reflected two important emphases. First, the biblical grounding of the sermon, and second, its liturgical character. However, there were two key problems. The first problem is that this approach reduces the liturgical texts to objects for examination rather than considering proclamation of scripture as an opportunity for a sacramental encounter with Christ. Instead of allowing the text to paint an authoritative icon of the biblical world into which the hearers enter to encounter Christ, the lectionary theme approach regards the text as an object for analysis. (e.g., In the Gospel reading from the fourth chapter of Matthew, the first four verses present a theme of repentance . . .). Rather than inviting hearers to stand at the foot of the Cross of Christ, or to set the hearers at the feet of the apostle or prophet, the hearer is invited to stand above the biblical text and dissect it thematically. While it might be interesting to consider how the various pericopes were chosen for the lectionary and to examine the many possible thematic connections between them, this kind of discourse is largely detached and abstract. Knowing that the theme of repentance is found in all of the readings is much less transformative than a sermon that persuasively invites the hearer to repent from sins (e.g., Today Christ calls us to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand . . .).

The second problem is that this kind of thematic sermon is not so much liturgical as it is metaliturgical: rather than speaking like the liturgy, it speaks about the liturgy (e.g., There are two sets of readings today because we have both the Sunday reading as well as the reading prescribed for the Sunday before Christmas . . .). It is also important to note that this kind of metaliturgical preaching was not limited to the exploration of biblical themes. During the decades of the liturgical movement, preachers often stressed liturgical catechesis, explaining what liturgy means, or where it has come from.

While liturgical catechesis had an extremely important role, and in some cases may still have, there is an increasing sense that a sermon that invites the hearers to encounter Christ liturgically, anamnetically, is more theologically appropriate than a sermon that educates the hearers about the liturgy that is being celebrated. Liturgical teaching sermons often feel like halftime commentaries in which the liturgy would pause while the preacher provided a summary of the first half of the game, and talked about what was yet to come. In the same way that this kind of preaching tended to reduce scripture to an object for analysis, metaliturgical preaching invites the hearer to stand above the liturgy and look at its overall structure or historical development, rather than inviting the hearer to enter more deeply into the anamnetic reality that liturgy opens up for the faithful. (e.g., Today Christ is baptized in the Jordan, and we stand with the crowds who have come down from Jerusalem . . .).

Doctrinal Triumphalism

Triumphalism is a temptation that all preachers face: it is always easier to point out the sins and failings of the neighbor, than it is to look deeply into one’s own heart and confront the sin and darkness there. As mentioned earlier, North America in the first half of the twentieth century perceived itself as largely a Christian context, and one of the challenges that Orthodox Christians faced, particularly as a minority denomination, was to differentiate Orthodox Christianity from other Christian traditions. Because of this, it was quite common to hear sermons that focused on what we Orthodox believe or pray or do compared to other Christians. This reflected a much larger trend within Orthodox Christian theological discussions of the time that attempted to articulate the unique position of the