Excellent article from Dr. Jeff Mirus, The Challenge of Preaching:
An excerpt:
We moderns are adept at concealing our own hopelessness even from
ourselves, but this message can awaken us to our misery and give birth
to love. Nonetheless, there is a danger. This encouragement can become
empty if it goes too far without introducing its corresponding
challenge. Preachers must not forget that we need to learn how to
respond to Christ’s love. Preachers must identify and explain, in a very
practical way, the false attachments and misconceptions which drag us
down and hold us back. Here I beg preachers to avoid those alleged
clarion calls from the pulpit which “challenge” the faithful to stand up
for whatever moral value the whole world is accidentally already
standing up for.
What is needed is a deliberate focus on the characteristic evils of
our age, the evils that most people take for granted to be goods. This
means, among other things, [1] that preachers must be willing and able to
explain God’s plan for the body and for our sexuality, which He built
into nature, in all its life-giving and love-engendering splendor, so
that we can begin to understand what is wrong with pornography, solitary
sex, sex outside of marriage, contraception, serial monogamy, and
same-sex liaisons. It means preachers [2] must be willing and able to
explain the sanctity of human life and our call to generosity and love.
It means they must help us to recognize our own attachments to material
things, the dangers of our high standard of living, and the many
substitutions we make for God and His love. [3] And it means talking about
real personal sin, not politics.
________________________
