Latin Anthems and Football hymns, and the art of Preaching

Delighted to see that if you buy my most recent publication from Amazon, they recommend that its perfect partner is Chris Erdman's book on preaching.

Rev'd Lamblove has been blogging a good bit about preaching lately. In his latest post he sets out a challenge concerning choosing the text - following a lectionary instead of choosing your own text, he says, gives you a freedom and a constraint. The constraint is that you don't get to pick your pet theme. The freedom is that, instead of you choosing the text, the text chooses you. Something I wrote about in the aforementioned book.

I broadly agree with the use-the-lectionary principle, and most of the time that's what we do here. Although we do have an additional tradition here at Robinson, where we are an interdenominational foundation, a feature that produces its own set of freedoms and constraints. Most Lent terms (January - March) our Sunday Evening services have a theme, and all our speakers are asked to address that theme from one angle or another. One particularly successful theme was "Laughter in Heaven" - eight people looking at what laughter might mean from the point of view of everything from making movies to holocaust memories was a rich and wonderful series. Another theme was "Faith and Justice".  It's clear - here at least - that people who are not normally Chapel-goers are drawn to services with talks on specific subjects. And it's also good to consider that although scripture has a unique role in liturgy, there are many other aspects of liturgy that are routinely left in the shadows if we don't delibeerately put the spotlight on them. I want to do a series on the art and architecture of worship at some point.   

This term our theme has been "Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual songs" - and every preacher has been asked to address one piece of music that we sing in Chapel, either a hymn, a psalm, a canticle, anthem or other song.  Again, the series has built up a rich and challenging picture, exploring the connections between music and scripture and liturgy.  Last Sunday I rounded off the series with a sermon entitles "Latin Anthems and Football Hymns" - asking why we sing different mkinds of music in Chapel, and along the way musing on why people sing hymns at Rugby and Football matches.

Comments

[Wes Ellis]

I come from a tradition that almost always has the preacher choose his/her own scripture to preach from. I actually would prefer following a lectionary in many ways. I fear that if I'm allowed to choose what I preach every time, I may get boring and repetitive because I may, subconsciously or consciously, stick to my favorite topics and scriptures.

I have really been enjoying your blog!

[John Davies]

So... er... why do we sing hymns at football matches, do you think?