(The picture to the right is the International Mother's Day Shrine located in Grafton, W. Va.)I listened to two sermons this past weekend. One was on Saturday night at a megachurch that I visited with some friends. The other was at my home congregation where the Associate Pastor preached. In both instances, the subject of the sermon was Mother's Day. Now, with all due respect to mother's and their children, it is hard to find Mother's Day in the bible. As a result, neither one of them were very successful in their sermons. It wasn't that what they said was bad (though the Associate did far better than did the staff member at the megachurch - far better!) but that what they said had more to do with their view of mothers, motherhood, and family than it did with who Jesus is or what the Christian faith is all about. Both of them employed scripture but in a way that made the text(s) ancillary to the real subject of their sermon - Mother's Day.
Now, don't get me wrong, I like Mother's Day. I am married to one and, counter to the rumors out there, I came from one. I think it is culturally important to celebrate Mother's Day. I'm just not sure it is crucial to preach about it each year in May. I say that knowing that the prevailing idea is that you have three times you cannot ignore in the pulpit - Advent, Easter, and Mother's Day. I guess I'm saying that it should be acknowledged, celebrated, and responded to in the service. However, I'm not sure it ought to be preached about each Mother's Day.
One of the problems with what my Associate Pastor called, "Hallmark holidays" is that they tend to overwhelm the text in preaching. Both preachers had great texts for Mother's Day, appropriate for the celebration. The megachurch staff member choose the story of Moses' birth and the Associate Pastor chose the text in Matthew 12 where Jesus does not receive his mother and brothers. Both were rich with possibilities about Mother's Day or some issue related to motherhood or family. Neither were really developed well. Again, the day overwhelmed the text. If there is one rule in preaching that I find violated consistently it is the one where you should pick and text and mine it for preaching material rather than impose on the text what you want to say. Holidays can overwhelm texts and turn potentially rich texts into pretexts for preaching something the preacher wants to say rather than what the Holy Spirit wants to say.
1 comment:
Good post Jeff. One of the ladies at my church was flabbergasted to learn that I wasn't planning to preach about Mother's Day. She quieted down when I reminded her that she had never heard me preach about Mother's Day.
Of course, it really didn't matter what I preached. She had to leave worship early to prepare dinner for her guests and didn't hear the sermon. I guess my priorities are all out of place.
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