Preach to the choir or to the crowd?

By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Rev. Michael Crosby of St. Theresa's Church often draws inspiration for sermons from a familiar source. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu

Gross, the pastor at St. John Vianney Church, says the joke may even have started at the Roman Catholic parish in his Enchanted Lake neighborhood, but he believes it's more apocryphal than gospel.

Easter, which by some measures is a bigger churchgoing day in the Islands than even Christmas, raises a prickly problem for those looking out at packed pews. Do you preach to the choir or to the crowd?

It's a tough call, pastors say.

"Easter is the most exciting and frustrating sermon to give," said the Rev. Michael Crosby, consultant for clergy for the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu. "Some are there for the religious experience. Some people can't wait for you to get out of the pulpit so they get home to the ham and eggs."

The Rev. Hal Weidner, pastor of Holy Trinity Church in East Honolulu, tries to keep his Easter message layered, so there's something in the sermon for everyone.

But, he said, "I've been told you can put on the best music and the best homily, and those people still won't come back until next Christmas or next Easter."

While the Roman Catholic church is the largest denomination in Hawai'i, members of its clergy weren't the only ones wrestling with Easter sermons last week, trying to tie together religious and secular significance.

The Rev. Chris Eng, pastor of the Waipahu United Church of Christ, says that compared with Good Friday's passion and suffering, today, the day Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, is the feel-good time of the year. Secular culture plays into it, he said, with egg hunts and other pleasures, and some want to attend church solely for the wardrobe opportunity, even in laid-back Hawai'i with its casual dress.

"Even here, they will buy the bonnet, need a place to wear it," he said.

Blending the tough, the soft

Associate Pastor Rob Noland sees the Easter sermon as a joyful contrast to Palm Sunday, when his congregants were asked to reflect upon the suffering Jesus endured. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

— Attributed to Karl Barthe, a neo-Orthodox theologian

In a Baptist survey of the 12 most effective preachers in the English-speaking world, the Rev. Walter J. Burghardt, a Roman Catholic, was listed at the top. (He modestly attributes the survey results to an alphabetical listing of names.)

The co-director of the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C., won't be preaching today because he's recuperating from knee surgery. ("The world will be a little less remarkable," he deadpanned.) But if he were, he would remark that Easter is the most significant feast day in Christian churches.

Burghardt quoted St. Paul: "If Christ is not risen from the dead, then your faith is vain, your faith is empty."

But how do preachers make this message real, especially when facing two distinct congregations: those who attend regularly and those who don't?

"I don't think you can say nice things to each group," said Burghardt, a Jesuit whose book on the art of preaching and 13 collections of sermons are required reading for divinity students. "But you take the high road. ... Speak to them all as believing Christians."

While by the law of averages, some in the congregation will be there for social rather than religious reasons, "It would be a mistake to pitch your sermon, 'You don't go to church regularly, but you should,' " he said.

"Speak on what it means to be a risen Christian, then, without making it obvious, get in your pitch on what a Christian does, which is worship (including Sunday and the rest of the week)."

A good Easter sermon ought to be a tough sermon, touching real justice issues, Burghardt said.

"To be risen with Him is to love as He loved. Love your enemy; love the people on murderers' row; love the person who's a racist. Loving every human being as an image of God, no matter how flawed, is a tough life."

The Rev. Jennifer Lord, an ordained Presbyterian minister and doctoral student, has studied Burghardt's work, as well as taught "Introduction to Preaching" at San Francisco Theological Seminary, a member school of the Graduate Theological Union, a Bay Area consortium of nine seminaries.

"A sermon should proclaim the good news, proclaim what God is doing for us," she said. "So many sermons these days seem more (like) moral instructions. You can almost imagine a preacher up there with a pointer, saying what we should do to be better people. That's not what the gospel is. The gospel is God's love for us, shown in Jesus Christ. ... The subject is God, the verb is what He's done for us."

Lord advocates the "Field of Dreams" approach when looking to increase church attendance, targeting youths and "seekers," who are interested in church but not committed. "We should be doing the core things we do," she said. "We're more in the line of 'If you build it, they will come.' "

Practicing passion

The Rev. Christopher Eng draws a distinction between a great speech and a sermon, noting that sermon is most effective if it has passion. Advertiser library photo

"I prepare a lot more than I actually give," he said. "If B isn't working, if it's going over their heads or they don't believe what you're saying, I switch. It's a living thing, not a script. Any faith-sharing is. ... I've got to preach looking into people's eyes. It's got to be heart to heart, eye to eye. The page can't be between you and the people."

That could be said of Eng, too. The United Church of Christ pastor writes his sermon over the course of a week, and today will try to infuse his sermons with the topical (he plans to talk about the teachers' strike), as well as follow the Greek oratory tradition of appealing to the intellect (logos), the emotions (ethos) and passions (pathos): "You can give a great speech, but if there's no passion, it's lacking."

Even though he could just go online and download an Easter sermon, associate pastor Rob Noland, 33, was feeling the pressure last week about crafting today's sermon. But not as much pressure as he felt about Palm Sunday's.

Noland, who was ordained Oct. 1, will be preaching at his first Easter service for the Wai'anae Christian 'Ohana, part of the Salvation Army's Leeward Corps ministry. The service takes place in the gentle breezes of a beach park, looking out on Poka'i Bay.

"I'm dealing with a lot of people who haven't heard about Jesus," said the deacon, a former graphic designer at Punahou School and the son of a minister. "Last (week) was kind of a downer Sunday. You're going through all the pain and suffering Jesus did for us. It's not a hopeful one. Easter Sunday is going to be more a celebration. ... This week, I'm going to be talking about his resurrection and what it means, because that's what makes Christians different from other religions. ... I always want to do a good job, but you want to really (focus on a) seeker-sensitive type of message, as opposed to a more-in-depth kind of message."

Eng said there are other inherent difficulties: "Easter's a real challenge, because if you look at the resurrection, there's no category from history of someone coming back to life."

Wayne Cordeiro, senior pastor at New Hope Christian Fellowship, doesn't worry about offending the faithful by targeting the newcomer, the seeker, the guest. As a matter of fact, last Sunday, he asked congregants to issue invitations to family, friends and acquaintances to attend the church's three mega-services for Easter, which are expected to draw a total of 15,000 to Stan Sheriff Center.

"It's not at the expense of our people," he said. "It's not about us this Sunday."

He sees it as a matter of perspective.

"I want to give them enough seed," said Cordeiro, who admitted a fondness for metaphors about farming. " ... I've alerted our members that this is harvest time."