If you find yourself preaching through epistles for multiple weeks, maybe, just maybe, your hearer will find something familiar from last week in what you are talking about this week which piques their interest, and even whets their appetite for what else might be coming.
Preaching epistles in the lengthy Pentecost/Trinity season presents itself as an interesting option for the preacher who likes to prepare months ahead, since the Lectionary is structured to get the Church to hear the epistles in this season over weeks at a time, more or less (some a lot less!) as complete letters. If Pentecost is a season of teaching for the Church, then the teaching preacher can catechize through whole letters over the course of weeks. If the summer months risk monotony and the Church desires a break from routine, the epistle series presents an option more cohesive than the Old Testament pericopes which are regularly construed with the Gospel lessons (and are generally more familiar to an established congregation than are the psalms or other liturgical elements). They can also lend themselves to the “sermon series” should the preacher imagine anyone cares about such things. It is often best to let the text speak for itself without laying a patina of “relevant theme” or “current topic” across weeks of an epistle, as such moves tend towards a center of gravity that is less truly expository than paraenetic (with things like “forty days of purpose” or “how to be a better parent” or other potentially legalistic preaching of that type).
It is true, though, most epistle series in the Lectionary are brief enough that the preacher can think about a scope of four to eight weeks and know there are organic connections in argument, vocabulary, inspired author, theme, and purpose from one week to another. And if you find yourself preaching through epistles for multiple weeks, maybe, just maybe, your hearer will find something familiar from last week in what you are talking about this week which piques their interest, and even whets their appetite for what else might be coming.
Epistles in the long ordinary season of the Church are especially nice for the preacher who sets himself the (highly commendable!) task of investing a decade in focusing three years at a time in proclaiming all the Gospels, all the Epistles, and all the Old Testament pericopes the Three-Year Series has to offer. The life of Christ through the synoptics with John thrown in through Year B is an essential shaping experience for the learning theologian; with the typologically rich lessons of the Old Testament foreshadowing our Lord’s incarnation, ministry, passion and death, resurrection, ascension, and return are essential too. But the epistles provide something like a respite for most preachers. I am simply mentioning matters of fact (and judge them and yourself as you wish!). On the one hand, most are likely more familiar with the New Testament than the Old Testament, with Greek than Hebrew, with Paul than Ezekiel or the Book of the Twelve. On the other hand, their length and familiarity make them appear more digestible. It is tempting to conclude they are easier to preach than the Gospels or Old Testament readings.
Of course, it is true for some pericopes. But beware! It is not true for others! Furthermore, another warning for all: Responsibility in exegesis and pastoral care demands you pay attention to these texts with the same diligence as any other. Do not let familiarity breed contempt! My general advice with epistles is not to “cherry-pick” or use them as the path of less resistance for the Sundays you are faced with a thorny prophet or a hard saying of Jesus. If you want to preach epistles, do them in context and spend the weeks necessary to hear out the author of a letter.
Here is some advice I give my students which is likely to be good rule-of-thumb advice for preaching in general:
- Do not use epistles as a way to pound your pulpit when your favorite text just happens to come up (again, “cherry-picking” on text or agenda).
- Do not use epistles as a means of avoiding the items you find more difficult to deal with in the other lectionary options.
- Do not use epistles as an excuse to be an “expository preacher” and ignore the rest of the Lectionary.
- Do not try to force the epistles into some kind of thematic context with the other readings in the Lectionary. This risks readings that range from the simply suboptimal to the downright silly.
- Do not slack on your exegetical work because you think you know Paul, Peter, or John well enough, and you do not need to do the work.
- DO preach Christ as the center of every text you are tasked to proclaim (the Christ, the whole Christ, and nothing but the Christ).
- DO emphasize the person and work of Jesus, in particular His passion and death as atonement, as propitiation for our sins, and not ours only, but also the sins of the world.
- DO proclaim rather than teach. Epistles (and catechetical preaching in general!) are valuable gifts to the Church, but the pulpit is not the place to lecture. It is the sacramental point of killing and making alive for your hearer, so do that from start to finish.
- DO preach the epistles as the Word of God in Christ!
