Sermons have had some bad press in the twentieth century. Some people tend to think of them as boring and preachy. That's certainly the idea you get from one dictionary definition of sermon as "a serious exhortation, rebuke, or reproof; an address on one's conduct or duty, especially a long, tedious, annoying one." Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, (Cleveland: World, 1968) . Well, most of us could summarize how we feel about that kind of sermon in two words: "No thanks!"
Maybe this concept of the sermon as a form of chastisement—as just so much ritualized preaching of official doctrine—is why many people avoid going to church. Recent polls tell us that people do believe in God. But they don't always think they're going to find Him at church!
Twentieth-century religious thinker Alan Watts expressed this concern when, as an Anglican priest, he complained that most official church statements—including sermons—fail to reach the hearts for whom they're intended. Why? Because, in his view, the writers of these statements are too concerned about correctness of "the grammar, the syntax," and the doctrine. And they're not enough concerned with helping people feel close to God. "Today, in Church and out of Church," Watts wrote, "there are thousands of souls who realize in varying degrees of clarity that what they want from religion is not a collection of doctrinal and ritual symbols, nor a series of moral precepts. They want God himself, by whatever name he may be called; they want to be filled with his creative life and power; they want some conscious experience of being at one with Reality itself. . . ." Behold the Spirit (New York: Random House, 1971), pp. 14-15 .
