The first of three Beecher Lectures lays out four codes of preaching

The Rev. Dr. John McClure, a PC(USA) pastor who taught at Louisville Seminary and the Vanderbilt Divinity School, delivers the first of three talks at Yale Divinity School

November 29, 2024

The Rev. Dr. John McClure

The Rev. Dr. John McClure, an ordained minister in the PC(USA) who taught homiletics at both Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and at Vanderbilt Divinity School, delivered three talks as part of the recent Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School. Under the theme of “Renewing Preaching Through a Critical Homiletics of Genre,” McClure spoke in Marquand Chapel on “Critical Homiletics and Analysis of the Congregational Sermon as Genre.”

“It’s an unexpected delight to see so many people interested in this title,” McClure said before launching into his first talk. “Preaching is often overly mystified,” he said, and that can lead to a problem he calls “oracular homiletics,” where “the pulpit serves as an oracle” and “sermons are singularly spiritual events, each one molded by divine hands.” Rather, McClure said, preachers do well to take the advice of British Presbyterian minister Herbert Henry Farmer: Preachers are “servants of the Word whose primary job is to get out of the way so a transcendent God can show up and speak in spite of our human foibles.”

Preachers should, of course, learn “certain public speaking skills,” should know the Bible and Christian doctrine and should “love and care for people inside and outside the church,” according to McClure. But preaching also involves diagnostic and strategic skills similar to the work put in by auto mechanics, plumbers and construction workers. “The car mechanic engages in critical thinking. Assessing the check engine light means deciding whether to replace my catalytic converter or the gas cap,” he said. Construction workers “address strengths and weaknesses, identifying stress points and what needs shoring up. They pay careful attention to shape, size and fit.”

“I will be leaning into this analytic and diagnostic way of thinking about critical thinking,” he said of the lecture series.

What makes a sermon a sermon? “How is it distinct from a moralizing speech, a coach’s pep talk, or testimony at an AA meeting?” McClure asked. “Does a pulpit or sanctuary have to be involved?”

In his research, McClure said he’s found four things Christian sermon writers and listeners expect to hear during any sermon. Before revealing those four things, McClure discussed a meaning of the word “authority,” which is derived from “author.” “We can say you are given authority if you do what’s expected, if you adhere to the genre,” he said. When McClure watches a televised football game, “I authorize someone to do color commentary because I expect they know more about players than I do.”

Here are McClure’s four codes, which he labeled “expected elements of interactions”:

• You are authorized to preach because you can make meaning, the “semantic code in preaching,” where “we expect to hear something that makes some sense and is rationally coherent in some way,” he said. “We expect to hear ideas and messages and perhaps insights, to encounter truth and truthfulness, and to engage in discovery, learning and thinking.”
• Second is the scriptural code, “the way that memory is shaped in and through sermons. I authorize you to preach because I trust you to curate my memory of ancient foundational events of my faith,” he said. Listeners “expect to revisit a sacred origin of faith and to hear ancient words and ancient peoples, places and events. We tell them where and how God is revealed through these ancient words.”
• The third authorization is “because you know my life and the life of the world around us,” McClure said. “We hope you know it deeply and richly and can bring the gospel into this rich experience.” Every congregation “comes with expectations of what the gospel is like. We expect the preacher to engage this experiential and cultural dimension of listening.”
• Lastly, “you are authorized to preach because I trust you can curate the signs and symbols most important to my faith.” Preachers “respond to and build up the theological framework their listeners share.” Listeners “want the universe of religious symbols to be activated and further nuanced.”

While these four codes may seem basic, “Don’t abandon too quickly resources for renewal that lie within the four codes, remixing them to open them up to new circumstances,” McClure told those gathered in person and online for the lecture series.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service

Today’s Focus: First of three Beecher Lectures

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Tracy Babcock, Kitchen Assistant, Stony Point Center, Presbyterian Mission Agency 
Khulan Baigalimaa, Trust Operations Administrator-Funds Services, Presbyterian Foundation  

Let us pray

Gracious and Loving God, we are mindful that you are calling us back into the work of bringing hope to your Kingdom, wherever it may be. We are thankful to be able to support congregations who embrace this calling. Amen.