Every sermon is an incredible patchwork of thoughts, sources, reflections, teaching and prayer. It is a unique form of verbal communication which should never be underestimated for either its power to transform nor for the time and energy that go into its preparation. A sermon is not just a public oration, it is neither a lecture, nor an opinion piece. It is sacred speech, inspired by the Spirit, which sits within the context of sacred worship.

A sermon is always held within the liturgies of the church, whether in a sacramental service or in a service of the word. There are many different threads that fold into the making of a sermon, and I want to gently unpick some of those threads. A sermon is always embedded, contextual, and part of the fabric of Christian liturgy. A sermon never arises from nothing; it is always emerging from something and within something and towards something. A sermon is directed to the people, the community of faith, the world Christ came to save, and to God; this is perhaps why the preacher will begin their sermon with a prayer, to orient their words appropriately. In the same way that J S Bach inscribed his music with the words Soli Deo Gloria, so the preacher might dedicate their words to the glory of God alone. Whatever words are used, preaching should, first and foremost, be framed by prayer.

A sermon should not jostle for prominence within any act of worship; it is part of worship not the focus of it. The ego and identity of the preacher might be reflected upon here, where do I sit within this sacred speech? Is there too much of ‘me’ here? Even if delivered from a pulpit six feet above the people, the act of preaching is offered in humility, as a sacrifice of praise. As music has been described as the handmaid of the liturgy, preaching should also be considered likewise. A sermon is shaped by many and various elements of the liturgy: the sacraments, the season and the Scriptures, and in some ways the sermon can bind a liturgy together – it informs and is informed by the rest of the liturgy being offered. Some of this may sound obvious, but hearing sermons preached over many years and in many different contexts, I can attest to the fact that many preachers seem to forget this.

When thinking about preaching within the liturgy and the process of preparing a sermon, where might we begin? For me, the first point of reference is the Gospel reading of the day. I think the lectionary we have been gifted creates the shape of our liturgical year and is the place from which our preaching speaks most effectively. In a standard Anglican Eucharist, which is what I know, the Gospel is the first port of call. Whether parable or narrative, what is the central message of the Gospel? Diving into commentaries, practising lectio divina, or praying with the text is where I might go next, reading it repeatedly. And then, if using the related form of the Revised Common Lectionary, where the readings of Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle and Gospel are, as it says on the tin, ‘related’, the key task is to discern the golden thread that runs through all of them.

In the act of preaching, I think words are important, so are there words, or phrases or moods which jump out at me? What is the overarching theme that these Scriptures are pointing to? This is where we might begin, but there is more work to be done.
My next point of reference might be the liturgy itself. Over years of preaching, I’ve convinced myself that every theme or direction or message I might want to develop in my sermon can be found implicitly, or explicitly in the texts of the liturgy. The texts of the liturgy, some of which were used by the earliest Christian communities, create for me something like a fifth gospel from which to work, a ritual enactment of the Scriptures.

I want to check the Propers for the day: the Collect, the Eucharistic prayers, and post-Communion prayer. I want to identify words or phrases from the liturgy that fold into my emerging sermon, thereby giving what I say depth in the prayers and traditions of the church. The great themes of the Christian life are found woven through the liturgy and this is a vital source of our preaching. I have been delighted when a particular theme in my sermon is echoed in some way in the words of a Eucharistic prayer or a collect. I also want to reflect on any sacramental action or movement, the nature of the Eucharist, the promises of baptism, the processions, the bodily postures of the worshipper, the season in which we find ourselves and its associated themes.

The next place of reference might be the hymnody: the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs that have been chosen and hopefully also based on the readings for the day and the season we are in. I want to reflect on the words of our hymnody and our song, these are the words that the people will sing and therefore embody, and again, if there are words, or themes, or tones which the hymnody sheds light on, I might want to weave these into my sermon too.

For example, the beautiful hymn ‘Now the Green blade riseth’ is sung to the French tune ‘Noel Nouvelet’. It’s an Easter hymn in a minor key. I like its ambiguity and its rawness. It is the kind of image I find helpful to reflect upon when I am spiritually preparing for preaching at Easter. It is the sound of an alleluia being sung at the grave. It has a sense of joy which is tempered by the Cross.

As a visiting preacher, I always ask for all the readings and all the hymns and, if appropriate, any other music being sung during the service. These form part of the raw materials for crafting a sermon. The hymnody is another means of reflecting on the words of the Scriptures, a sermon in musical form.

Then I might look up from my desk and consider the liturgical season we are journeying through, what are the bigger themes I could be referencing? Hopefully, these have already been emerging through the Scriptures, through the hymnody, and through the liturgy itself, but it is worth raising our eyes every now and then to the bigger picture. Then finally, obviously, I am looking up and out to the world around me, what is going on in my community, my city, my world, how does this Gospel reading on this day speak into this? How does this liturgy embody, for an hour or so, the laments, the sorrows, the joys, the hopes of the world we live in? What are the wider theological themes the church is being called to reflect upon today? What have we learnt about justice, liberation, peace? What have we learnt about life and about death?
Philips Brooks, the great American homiletician, calls the preacher to aspire to breadth and depth and expansiveness, largeness of movement and great truths in order that our work grows freer, bolder, and broader. He calls these great truths: God’s sovereignty, Christ’s redemption, our hope in the Spirit, the privilege of duty and the love of humanity in the Saviour. These should be, he argues, the strong music that our souls should try to catch in our preaching (Phillips Brooks, On Preaching, SPCK, 1965).

To this end, I want to suggest that, as well as studying the Scriptures in order to prepare a sermon, the preacher might also study and dwell with the words and dynamics of the liturgy in which the sermon is set. As well as being attentive to the context of worship, the desk of the preacher might have across it favoured commentaries, the Bible, perhaps in various translations, other notes and reflections on the Scriptures themselves, but the liturgical preacher might also have to hand a hymn book, the order of service with information about the Collect of the day, the sacraments being celebrated, the Eucharistic prayer being used, and attentiveness to the season or any special local or national celebrations. All these threads are woven together to make the homiletical offering unique.

After all that work there is yet more – as I try to fashion what I might say through structure, narrative and rhetoric and repetition, through images, stories and language, through questions and reflections and by providing space for the listeners to respond and journey through the sermon with me. I’ve summarised this in one sentence but of course constructing a sermon can still take hours.

I know I have described the preaching process in a kind of linear way, but of course, it doesn’t happen like that in real life. All of these threads are often tangled up on the desk beside the computer and in the week preceding the preach, I have to work hard at refining and distilling and clarifying what the Holy Spirit is giving me to say. This process is dynamic and unpredictable.

Often this process of distillation and clarification continues until late on in the week but hopefully, God willing, by Saturday evening, or even sometimes on a Sunday morning, I am down to what I call polishing. That is, reading and re-reading my text – yes, I do preach from a full text, and I am taking care over every single word.
Like a poem, I’m of the mind that preaching is an act where words are important, and each needs care and attention and consideration, especially in a world where words seem superfluous and cheap. Like an icon writer praying with every stroke of the paintbrush, the preacher might pray over every word. I want to use as few words as possible, to maximum effect, making every word I say bear its own load and do its own hard work.

The final piece of preparation for preaching is away from the desk, in situ. The preacher is embraced by the liturgy and embedded within it. The preacher is among people of God doing their work of prayer and praise. Between the words on the page so carefully considered, and the promptings of the Holy Spirit, new worlds can be formed as the word is embodied within the context of Christian worship. To preach within the liturgy means to be shaped by the liturgy and always open to its power to change and save.