This is the first essay is a special series by the Rev. Dr. Nathan Jennings, Professor of Liturgics at Seminary of the Southwest. There will be five installments in this series presented in intervals through the winter of 2026. A “round up” with links to all five essays will be available in the spring.
What is a Sermon? A Ritual Answer
Preachers know the feeling of weight upon them every time they need to prepare for the next sermon. In this series, I offer practical advice on sermon preparation by developing a liturgical theology of the Sermon. I will define liturgical theology as taking the ritual action of Christian liturgy seriously, and developing what is called “mystagogy,” from reflection upon the shape of our shared Christian Eucharistic rite.
This first post in the series will concentrate on the Sermon as formal act within ritual formal action—the Holy Eucharist—and conclude with some practical ramifications. The Sermon as a formal ritual action connects a suffering congregation to the God of Holy Scripture. Future posts will develop a mystagogy of the Sermon, and from there build a theology of grace, a practical hermeneutic, and conclude with practical aids for connecting with the congregation, as a pastor, through preaching.
A Theology of Ritual Action
To develop a theology of Christian ritual behavior, let’s turn to the discipline of liturgical theology. Liturgical theology draws theological claims from the fundamental shape of liturgical services discerned through historical scholarship and anthropological approaches such as ritual theory. Liturgical theology renews an eschatological understanding of the Holy Eucharist, in which the rite performs an enactment of Christian hope. Using historical scholarship and ritual theory, liturgical theology restores what the early Church called “mystagogy”—ancient instruction in the nature of the Christian mysteries—discerning the mystery of the Christian hope in the unfolding ritual action. In the next post in this series, we will dive into the mystagogy. But to set that up, this first essay will focus on the liturgy as a ritual action, a ritual enactment.
Here it is good to remember that old saying “Actions speak louder than words.” The Christian liturgy is not just an opportunity to say a lot of words in an arbitrary order. The order of the liturgy is not arbitrary but follows the contours of our Christian hope. The words, although necessary and sacramental in nature, are not fundamental, but the ritual actions do not mean anything beyond themselves. Rather, with their accompanying words, they form a whole that enacts something transcendent in our very midst.
Christian liturgy in general, and especially the Holy Eucharist, doesn’t mean anything at all. Rather, it does something—something wonderful, unexpected, and miraculous. It enacts something and makes it real for us. We read from books, kneel and pray, bring up bread and wine, give thanks to God, break it, and share it with one another. In this ritual shape we hear God’s Word, we pray to the Father with God’s breath, we offer ourselves, our souls, and bodies, to be a holy and reasonable sacrifice (BCP p. 336 / Rom. 12:1). Then we receive what no eye has seen, nor ear has heard (Isa. 64:4), more than we could ask for or imagine (BCP p. 126): fellowship with God the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit, and thereby with one another and the whole created cosmos. Friends, the Sermon is a part of this ritual action, and a necessary and inherent one at that.
The Sermon Is a Ritual Action
The first thing to note, then, is that the Sermon is not a break in the ritual action. The Sermon is ritual action. The Sermon is one of the archetypal nodal points within the unfolding of the ritual action. The Sermon is ritual in nature. The preacher is not inserting something nonritual into a rite, but is rather one of the liturgical ministers, providing this portion of the overarching ritual action of the service of the Holy Eucharist. The Sermon is an inherent and necessary ritual movement within the Word of God, itself essential to the celebration of the Holy Eucharist as a whole. To prepare, the preacher remains cognizant of the place of the Sermon as a speech act within the liturgy as a ritual act. What immediately precedes the Sermon in the unfolding ritual action? We know for certain that readings of Scripture and proclamation of Gospel precede. Then what immediately and ultimately follows? Is the immediate action the Creed? A Baptism? The Prayer of the People? The Confession of Sins? When a priest is present, what ultimately follows is the Holy Communion. Our sermons link these, flow from, and lead to these ritual actions.
As preachers, we must approach our preparation for preaching with the same care and reverence as our preparation for any ritual action of Christian liturgy. The role of the Sermon in the ritual action of the Eucharist relates to the mystery that the action unfolds. We will look at that more closely in the next post. For this post it is sufficient to note that the Sermon connects a suffering congregation to the God of Holy Scripture. The Sermon performs this connection. It doesn’t mean it as something other than or beyond itself.
Preach Prepared
The upshot is that we must focus on sermon preparation because, like all ritual action, it takes preparation and intentionality. The sermon, like all ritual action, is not informal, but formal; it is not casual, but solemn; it is not a fireside chat, but a formal act of public speech. I recommend against purely extemporaneous preaching.
Now there is something winsome in the attempt to preach free from a manuscript. I encounter this as an attempt to connect with the congregation, to come across as more engaged and conversational—especially in a post-TED Talk era. I have found only relative degrees of success. Often, sadly, I confess to have tried, and discovered it was no more than an attempt to wing it based on some kind of inherent charisma or charm I presumed myself to possess. Even preaching with a written outline is not the same thing as preaching from a manuscript. I have found that even when I have an outline, if I am not properly prepared, I can get lost and drag out what could have been said more succinctly—and thus to sounder rhetorical effect.
When I decided to wing it, because I thought I could count on sheer talent, it seemed always that what might start off well would inevitably trail off into confusion about what major points I was trying to make or even when to conclude the sermon. I see this as a failure to do my homework, and, frankly, it is a pastoral and professional failure. Professional, because I am compensated to deliver to a congregation something of value. Pastoral, because I am charged as a priest to deliver good news, not to show my self-confidence or to enjoy hearing myself be clever. Like poor preparation and editing, such an attempt to ride on talent or charisma alone is another professional and perhaps even pastoral failure.
My colleague the Rev. Steven Tomlinson teaches an entire class called “Preaching Without Notes.” It takes an entire semester to provide a foundation for this to be a beneficial practice for the church. Preaching without notes is amazing and does not require memorizing a manuscript to do well. But it does take as much preparation as a manuscript sermon, if not more. Preaching without notes is not an excuse to preach off the cuff. It is not an excuse for less preparation. It demands more.
For those of us among the paid clergy, we fail our congregations when we fail to put adequate time and energy into the sermons we are paid well to provide. There is so much more to preaching than professionalism, but it still at least forms a baseline of acceptable behavior. The Sermon connects a suffering congregation to the God of Holy Scripture. Because the Sermon is a ritual act, we must prepare for it as we would for any ritual action: with thoughtfulness, spirituality, and due diligence. In the next post I will delve into mystagogy, showing how the shape of the Holy Eucharist enacts the Christian hope, and following up with practical ramifications for sermon preparation.[1]
[1] I would like to thank my colleagues the Rev. Dr. Dominique Robinson and the Rev. Steven Tomlinson, Ph.D., for conversations and close readings of this series. Their help has significantly contributed to this series.
The Rev. Nathan Jennings, PhD is the J. Milton Richardson Professor of Liturgics and Anglican Studies and Director of Community Worship at Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, TX.
