Preaching Tips

While reading Pastor Peperkorn's blog, I came across this comment and piece of advice by Pastor Wilken about being bored with preaching.

“Bring your own struggles with the text into the pulpit with you and lay them out for the hearers. Be honest. And, get to the Cross. If necessary, drag yourself and your hearers there kicking and screaming. Remember, the sermon isn’t over until Jesus is dead for three days. Get him out of the grave, and onto the altar, and then stop talking.
“Finally, stop trying to be interesting. Focus on Jesus, he’s interesting enough.”

Then there is Pastor Wilken’s sermon analysis diagnostic:

How often is Jesus mentioned? Is he the subject of the verbs? What are those verbs?

Then Pastor Wilken gave this piece of advice on Issues, Etc. today:

Don't give Jesus the week off, and don't let your pastor either.

To [mis]quote Dolly Levi, “Advice on preaching from Pastor Wilken? The world should hear it and grow rich.” At least, I wish my pastor had heard and heeded it before yesterday’s sermon.

I am not a homilist. I do not purport to know how to write a sermon or any such thing, so I rely on pastors to tell me how to recognize good preaching. So here’s my analysis of the sermon I heard yesterday:
#1—I counted that Jesus was mentioned twice. For a Lutheran sermon, that does not seem like enough.
#2—He was the subject of the verbs, but they were wimpy verbs; they were not verbs such as “save,” “forgive,” “die,” or “rise”.
#3—He alluded briefly to the cross. He did not drag us kicking and screaming there. It was more talked around than talked about.
#4—Since Jesus never made it to the cross, then He never made it to the grave in the sermon; therefore, He could not have been gotten out and onto the altar.
#5—I think I missed the point. It was something about exercising our faith so that it doesn’t get flabby, fat and lazy. Even though pastor said we don’t save ourselves, we have to exercise faith ourselves. I think I missed something there.
All in all, if pastor didn't quite give Jesus the week off, he at least relegated Jesus to a lesser seat off to the side. To echo the words of the Greeks to Philip, “Sir, we would see Jesus.”