This document is issued under the auspices of the Center for Congregational Revitalization (CCR) at the Institute of Lutheran Theology. It represents an ongoing effort to clarify the theological and cultural conditions within which congregational life is now lived, and within which the church’s speech, practices, and forms of witness must take place. As part of CCR’s broader research initiative, this text is offered not as a final statement, but as a working articulation intended to assist pastors, congregations, and church leaders in discerning the conditions of intelligibility under which the claims of the Christian faith may be heard as referring to what is real.
Introduction: The Question of Preaching Today
Preaching has always stood at the center of congregational life. It is the primary means through which the Word is proclaimed, the place where the promises of God are spoken into the concrete circumstances of human existence. For much of the church’s history, the task of preaching, while never simple, was sustained by a relatively stable horizon of understanding. The preacher could assume that the language of the sermon, though requiring explanation and application, was heard within a framework that rendered it broadly intelligible. Lamentably, that assumption can no longer be maintained.
The difficulty facing preaching today is not only that fewer people are present, nor that attention is more difficult to sustain, nor even that cultural expectations have shifted. These factors are real, but they do not reach the heart of the matter. The more fundamental issue is that preaching now takes place within a context in which the meaning of its central claims is no longer stable.
The problem is not simply that the sermon must be made more engaging. It is that what the sermon says is not consistently heard as referring to what is real.
I. The Fragmentation of Hearing
Under contemporary conditions, the same sermon can be heard in multiple and divergent ways. The preacher may speak of God’s action, of sin and forgiveness, of judgment and grace, yet these terms do not arrive in the hearer as they once did. They are received within a plurality of interpretive frameworks that shape their meaning in advance.
For one hearer, to say that God acts may still be heard as a claim about divine agency in the world. For another, it may be understood as a way of expressing personal meaning or communal identity. For a third, it may be received with hesitation, as language that gestures toward something no longer clearly affirmed. These differences are not always explicit. They often remain unspoken, yet they structure the act of hearing.
The result is that the apparent unity of proclamation conceals a divergence in understanding. The same words are spoken, but they do not always say the same thing.
This condition is intensified by the fact that many hearers inhabit more than one framework at once. Within the liturgical setting, theological language may be affirmed in its traditional sense. Outside that setting, the same individual may interpret events in terms that leave little room for divine agency. The sermon is thus received not within a single, coherent horizon, but within a field of competing possibilities.
Preaching, in this context, does not address a unified act of hearing. It addresses a fragmented one.
II. The Weakening of Referential Force
The central consequence of this fragmentation is a weakening of the referential force of theological language. Statements that once functioned as claims about what is the case are now frequently received as expressions of meaning, orientation, or value.
To say that God forgives may be heard as describing an act of divine mercy, but it may also be heard as encouraging a posture of acceptance. To proclaim that Christ is risen may be received as a claim about an event in reality, or as a symbolic affirmation of hope. To speak of sin may be understood as naming a condition before God, or as referring to patterns of human brokenness. In each case, the linguistic form remains intact, but the mode of reference shifts.
This does not necessarily produce immediate resistance. The hearer may continue to participate, to assent, and even to be moved by what is said. Yet the relation between language and reality becomes less determinate. The sermon risks being heard not as proclamation, but as interpretation.
Where this occurs, the preacher faces a difficulty that cannot be resolved by rhetorical skill alone. One cannot simply make the language more vivid or more accessible. The issue lies not primarily in expression, but in reception.
III. The Limits of Adaptation
Faced with these challenges, it is understandable that preachers might seek to adapt their language. Terms that appear difficult or unfamiliar are replaced with more accessible ones. Doctrinal formulations are translated into contemporary idioms. The aim is to bridge the gap between the language of the tradition and the experience of the hearer.
Such adaptation has a legitimate place. Preaching has always involved the careful ordering of language so that it may be heard. Yet adaptation alone cannot resolve the present difficulty.
If the underlying issue is that theological language is no longer heard as referring to what is real, then the substitution of more familiar terms does not address the problem. It may reduce resistance, but it may also reinforce the tendency to hear the sermon within a non-referential framework. The language becomes more accessible, but its claim upon reality may be further attenuated.
The difficulty is therefore not that the tradition’s language is too complex. It is that the framework within which that language once functioned has been altered.
To adapt language without attending to this framework is to risk speaking more clearly while saying less.
IV. The Task of Rearticulation
If preaching is to retain its character as proclamation, then the task before the preacher is not merely one of translation or adaptation. It is one of rearticulation.
By rearticulation we do not mean the invention of new content, nor the abandonment of the language of the tradition. We mean the careful speaking of that language in such a way that its referential claim can once again be recognized. The aim is not simply that the hearer understand the words, but that the hearer grasp what those words are about.
This requires a heightened level of theological attention. The preacher must be aware not only of what is being said, but of how it is likely to be heard. This does not entail tailoring the sermon to each possible interpretation. It entails speaking with sufficient clarity that the claim being made is not easily reduced to something else.
In practice, this means that proclamation must resist the drift toward purely expressive or symbolic hearing. It must continue to speak of God as acting, of Christ as present, of forgiveness as given, in a manner that signals that these are not merely ways of speaking, but claims about reality.
Such speech will not always be immediately received. It may encounter resistance or confusion. Yet without it, preaching risks losing its distinctive character.
V. Preaching as the Formation of Hearing
Under these conditions, preaching must also be understood as participating in the formation of the hearer’s capacity to hear.
The sermon does not simply communicate content to an already stable act of understanding. It addresses and, over time, reshapes the frameworks within which understanding occurs. This has always been the case, but it takes on renewed significance where those frameworks are contested. To preach is therefore to engage not only in proclamation, but in formation.
This formation is not accomplished in a single sermon. It is the cumulative effect of sustained proclamation over time. Through repetition, clarification, and patient instruction, the hearer may come to recognize the coherence of the language of faith and the reality to which it refers. The aim is not to eliminate all tension or difficulty, but to render the act of hearing more stable.
This requires patience on the part of both preacher and congregation. It also requires a willingness to acknowledge that misunderstanding is not an occasional obstacle, but a persistent feature of the present context.
VI. The Responsibility of the Preacher
The responsibility of the preacher, under these conditions, is both more complex and more demanding than in earlier periods. It is no longer sufficient to assume that the language of the sermon will be heard within a shared framework. That framework must, in part, be reestablished through the act of preaching itself.
This does not mean that the preacher bears this responsibility alone. The work of teaching, catechesis, and congregational life more broadly all contribute to the formation of understanding. Yet preaching remains central, because it is the place where the Word is publicly spoken and where the congregation is gathered to hear.
To preach, then, is to speak within a fractured horizon without conceding that fracture as final. It is to proclaim in such a way that what is said may once again be heard as true in a robust sense, even where that hearing is not immediate or complete.
Conclusion: Proclamation and Reality
The challenge facing preaching today is not merely one of communication. It is a question of reality.
If the language of the sermon is no longer heard as referring to what is the case, then preaching risks becoming one voice among others, offering interpretation without making a claim upon the world. If, however, the preacher continues to speak in a way that holds together clarity of expression and referential intent, then preaching may still function as proclamation, even under altered conditions.
The task is therefore not to abandon the language of the tradition, nor to rely upon it uncritically. It is to speak it with a clarity that takes seriously the context in which it is heard.
Only in this way can preaching continue to be what it is called to be: the public speaking of the Word through which God addresses the world.
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