A Short Sermon

Asked to share a “short word” in a Romanian church, I decided to offer a short sermon…on the subject of short sermons.

The first (brief) point was that there is a Biblical basis for short sermons. The Sermon on the Mount can be read in less than 10 minutes, and it is perhaps the most influential ‘sermon’ of all time. Of course, the sermon itself is a literary creation of the Gospel’s author, from brief snippets of Jesus’ teaching offered on various occasions – reminding us that even short sermons are not remembered in their entirety.

The second point was that the longest sermon mentioned in the Bible does not seem to be given as an example to be followed. In Acts 20:7-12, we read that on one special occasion Paul preached at unusual length. The message of that story is presumably that, if we dare to preach at such length, we must also be prepared to raise from the dead those whose lives are lost as a result! Also worth noting is that nothing is said about the content of the sermon: when we preach long, or lecture long (whether lecturing our students or our children), what they will likely remember about the occasion is what was remembered about Paul’s preaching on this occasion: not what was said, but the fact that it was long.

The final point was that as Christians we often substitute a large amount of superficial references to God or Jesus for a smaller number of well-chosen and more profound words and actions. Quality matters more than quantity – that’s a short, memorable saying that hearers of this short sermon can take away with them! Indeed, Jesus’ own short but influential life is supposed to serve as the paradigm for our own.

A single action that expresses genuine love can say more about one’s faith than innumerable Christian T-shirts, bumper stickers, action figures, knick-knacks and bric-a-brac!