Ritröð Guðfræðistofnunar - 01.01.2011, Page 13

regularly. Sermons were reserved for festival days, like Easter and Christmas,
and even then, Charlemagne suspected that the priests mostly talked about
their own ideas. There was way too much interpretive freedom, he felt. So
he ordered his advisers to create two things: a common lectionary, so that
everyone in every town would hear the same texts every week, and a book
of sermons, called a “homiliary,” that provided exactly the right sermons for
those texts. Just think: no more struggling to prepare your own sermons;
it was all done for you! And this was not an optional subscription series. It
was required. It was the law. The people had go to church and the priests
had to preach from the lectionary and the homiliary.
Most of the books I have read about this period emphasize that the
Carolingian Renaissance (which is how they refer to this period) was notable
for its renewal of preaching, which by that time had fallen into a dismal
state. The genius of Charlemagne, they say, is that he recognized the power
of a sermon to transform a culture, and so labored to bring preaching into
every corner of Europe. Well ... that’s part of the story. But if s not the whole
story. If the renewal of preaching means that we all preach the same sermon,
disseminated by the same preacher, every Sunday, that’s not renaissance. That’s
empire. That’s centralized control of the pulpit, and it scares me to death.
Let’s go back to that pastor’s question: What do you think ofpreachers like
Rick Warren who encourage others to preach their sermons? I’m not going to get
into a critique of Pastor Rick’s motives. I have never met him, and I have
never talked with him about this, and I do not believe in slamming other
preachers when they are not present. Let’s assume that Pastor Rick genuinely
wants to do good, not evil, by selling subscriptions to the sermons that are
prepared for his congregation; let’s assume the man loves his people and
loves God. With that in brackets, however, I do think it is fair to examine
the ejfects of this practice.
What happens to us as preachers, if we preach someone else’s sermons?
What happens to our people?
What do we gain and what do we give up, by giving over our interpretive
freedom to someone else?
Let me pause here for a moment to say that I am not trying to shame anyone
by asking these questions. We are preachers and we are busy and we are
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