Professional Documents
Culture Documents
In 1857 Anthony Trollope wrote in Barchester Towers: “There is perhaps, no greater
hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries than the necessity of
listening to sermons” (U.S. Catholic, July 1970, “Let’s Abolish the Sunday Sermon,” by Daphne
D.C. Pochin Mould). I would not be surprised to find many people today who are willing to agree
with him. –Henri Nouwen
Problem of the Message
If we say that preaching means announcing the good news, it is important
to realize that for most people there is absolutely no news in the sermon.
Practically nobody listens to a sermon with the expectation of hearing
something they did not already know. His miracles, His Death and resurrection
at home, in kindergarten, in grade school, in high school, and in college so often
and in so many different ways and forms that the last thing they expect to come
from a pulpit is anything new.
And the core of the Gospel “You must love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind and you must love your
neighbor as yourself”—has been repeated so often and so persistently that it has
lost, for the majority of people, even the slightest possibility of evoking any
response. They have heard it from the time of their earliest childhood and will
continue to hear it until they are dead – unless, of course, they become so bored
on the way that they refuse to place themselves any longer in a situation in
which they will be exposed to this redundant information.
It is fascinating to see how people sit up straight, eyes wide open, when
the preacher starts his sermon with a little secular story by way of appetizer but
immediately turns on their sleeping signs and curl up in a comfortable position
when the famous line comes: “And this, my brothers and sisters, is exactly what
Jesus meant when He said…” From then on most preachers are alone, relying
only on the volume of their voices or the idiosyncrasies of their movements to
keep in contact.
It is indeed sad to say that the name of Jesus for most people has lost most
of its mobilizing power. Too often the situation is like the one in the Catholic
1 From: “Seeds of Hope – A Henry Nouwen Reader” – Image Books Doubleday. ISBN 0385490496.
school where the teacher asked: “Children, who invented the steam engine?”
Everyone was silent until finally a little boy sitting in the back of the class
raised his finger and said in a dull voice and with watery eyes: “I guess it is
Jesus again.”
When a message has become so redundant that it has completely lost the
ability to evoke any kind of creative response, it can hardly be considered a
message any longer. And if you feel you cannot avoid being present physically
at its presentation, you at least can close your eyes and mind and drop out.
1 From: “Seeds of Hope – A Henry Nouwen Reader” – Image Books Doubleday. ISBN 0385490496.