When I was working on my PhD, on Anglican churches that don’t use Anglican liturgy, the comment I heard most when talking about it went like this: ‘Of course all churches are liturgical really …’ If I had a penny for every time I heard that, I’d have £3.67. As an ex-Baptist-turned-Anglican I was very aware that all congregations have their own set shape and form, what liturgists call ordo or ‘order’, not just those who are deliberately and proudly ‘liturgical’. But what exactly is the role of preaching within that ordo or liturgy? The sermon or homily can be the high spot of the service, but it can also be a period where people can switch off, since nothing is demanded of them, and in some places little is given to them. I want to suggest six ways in which the sermon can function vis-à-vis the form or liturgy which surrounds it, and how we might deliberately preach into it.
Let’s begin with the obvious:

1. PREACHING CAN INFORM THE LITURGY
Services work best when they are about something, and the theme can come from a variety of sources: the lectionary, a teaching series, an occasion such as a Saint’s Day, a particular season like Advent, or a more recent designation such as Racial Justice Sunday. Most churches will in some way use this theme to choose hymns, prayers and other ingredients in the service, and Anglicans have a wealth of seasonal and thematic materials available to them. The rest of the service hangs together around the given theme, but it is in the preaching that it can be explained, developed and applied most fully. It is also really important, by the way, for service planners not just to know what the preacher is going to be talking about, but also what they are going to be saying about it, where they’re coming from, if you like. My musicians, intercessors and lay worship-leaders, when I was in parish ministry, knew that I always wrote my sermons on Tuesdays, and they would ring me up on Thursdays and ask me where I’d be going, so that they could plan accordingly. It’s not good for the sermon to be ignored, or worse contradicted, in the intercessions! (And it’s also not good to leave it until Saturday evening, when it’s too late to liaise with anyone.)

2. PREACHING CAN UNDERLINE THE LITURGY
I recently had to preach on the lectionary readings for the Baptism of Christ in Matthew 3. I explored how Jesus’ baptism gave him, and should give us, three things: assurance of the Father’s favour, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and equipping for ministry to come. But I then made the point that later on in our Creed we would be acknowledging our baptism (the same would work with, for example, some words of a hymn or song we were going to sing later). I encouraged people to use those words, when they came, to reappropriate their own baptism, to know once again the Father’s favour towards them, to seek a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit, and to recommit themselves to the work of God in his world. Thus a clause of the Creed, often a bit of a boring low-spot in the service to be honest, could be emphasised for people to notice again and to use in their own personal response to Scripture. The preaching helped to apply a text to people by underlining it for them.

3. PREACHING CAN EXPAND THE LITURGY
I’m writing this just before Lent, and am working on a sermon for the First Sunday on Jesus’ temptation from Matthew 4. The service will begin as usual with a penitential section, where we will acknowledge that we have given in to temptation in a variety of ways, but it is in the sermon that this idea will be expanded as we consider the nature of temptation, where it comes from, and what it says about us whether we succumb or not. Liturgical churches are good at covering many different themes and ideas in their set texts, but preaching can take them to a whole new level rather than simply mentioning them, as it were, in passing. I find it important when preaching to have two questions in mind: what do I want people to know, and what do I want them to do about what they know? I have found that within Anglican liturgy there are multiple opportunities for people to respond, in a variety of ways, so I will be looking for parts of the service where the shape or text can be used appropriately, once the preaching has covered the theme or issue (more on this can be found in Responding to Preaching [Cambridge: Grove Books, 1997]). One response in many churches is that people will gather around the altar-table and receive Communion, and it can be good to preach in the sermon or homily towards that climactic act, encouraging people to receive with genuine devotion and perhaps a new insight.

4. PREACHING CAN INSPIRE THE LITURGY
...or perhaps make it more inspiring! Once in the past I preached a mini-series in our church on commitment, spending a week each on ‘Passengers, Punters and Prima Donnas’. Passengers were those simply coming along for the ride without being involved in the life and mission of the church. Punters were the consumers who were happy when everything was to their liking but simply shopped somewhere else if something failed to please them. And Prima Donnas were those who would become upset and defensive if their role or empire was threatened. I wanted to round off the series with a call to full-blooded commitment to our local church, to a refusal to act in any of the above ways, and above all a total commitment to God which would mean that we lived out his mission in the world without church politics getting in the way. Wherever could I find a closing prayer which would say all this and allow people to recommit themselves to membership of our church and to God’s people? I realised quickly that we already had one, and that we used it every week after Communion. But however well this prayer expressed what I wanted to say, I knew that because we said it every week it had become familiar and domesticated. So on the final week of the series I substituted the Methodist Covenant prayer, which makes the same commitment but in a much more powerful and beautiful way. You could hear the people saying ‘ouch’ as the words hit home with fresh power, because I had been preaching towards them.

5. PREACHING CAN EXPLAIN THE LITURGY
I have a friend who leads a growing church in a student town. Aware of the fact that Anglican liturgy might appear a bit strange to the uninitiated, he holds a monthly ‘Teaching Eucharist’ where the theme of the service is the service itself. I know of other churches that do this, taking one part of the service each month, for example the Peace, exploring where it came from, why it’s there, and how we might understand and therefore use it more helpfully. Perhaps most importantly the Communion, what it means, and how to receive it appropriately can be explored. Apparently services like these are popular, inspiring lots of ‘Oh – that’s why we do that! I had been wondering’ conversations. No doubt this can be overdone, but in these days of the so-called ‘Quiet Revival’ it seems like a really useful and helpful policy. Even if we don’t adopt this wholesale, we can still achieve the same thing in smaller ways, by dealing with ideas such as why there is a more sombre mood during Lent, or what the Advent candles are all about. And of course, non-Anglican churches could easily do their equivalent teaching on their own worship ingredients.

6. PREACHING CAN CELEBRATE WITH THE LITURGY
Although in my retirement I worship regularly at my parish church, there are a couple of times each year when only the Cathedral will do. One of those occasions is the Easter Vigil, a triumphant and rich service which in Sheffield ends with a magnificent firework display from the Cathedral roof, a part of the ‘liturgy’ which perfectly sums up the joy and victory of the Resurrection, and proclaims it to the nearby clubbers in the streets in an unmissable way. This upbeat mood demands to be reflected in the preaching. Somehow an academic monologue on the possibility or otherwise of resurrection, or a nervous assurance that you don’t have to believe in anything supernatural to be a Christian really, just wouldn’t seem to lead to such a climactic end to the evening, but fortunately the sermon, often preached by the Bishop, usually celebrates the resurrection of Jesus and everything it means for us, and particularly those who have just been baptised and/or confirmed during the service.

This final point seems to me to sum up the others. When preaching and worship-leading are singing off the same hymn-sheet there is a synergy which can happen in many ways, and which can have a powerful impact on the worship and discipleship of congregations. But when preaching fails to work with the shape, words and actions of the rest of the service, when it is deemed unnecessary because ‘the liturgy speaks for itself’, or when we simply provide a period for people to switch off and lose concentration, we really are missing a trick. A final picture might be helpful, particularly for lovers of jazz: the sermon can be the improvised solo in the middle of the liturgy’s regular harmonic structure and melody, so play for all you’re worth!