The substance of preaching does not address a vacuum, speaking information into an impartial void. The prophetic voice of preaching is a counter-narrative to an entrenched conviction that has embraced a false narrative as true, and any other narratives as threats. The body of the sermon is not simply a point of view. It is light that dispels darkness, it is life that contrasts with the living death of the world.
From Preaching Jeremiah by Walter Brueggemann:
… the sermonic “meat” of Jeremiah is truth-telling that voids a fraudulent, death-embracing world. In this particular presentation, we being with the claim of Jeremiah about truth-telling and move to the derivative conviction that faithful preaching consists in truth-telling that anticipates and effects the relinquishment of what is fraudulent and filled with pretence. Preaching does so with their awareness that fraudulent pretence is the key characteristic of the world around us. Such a characteristic is a fraud that is subject to abolition by the overriding truth of God’s steadfast love, mercy, and righteousness, or alternatively, by the cruciform truth of Christ’s foolishness, weakness, and poverty.
Preaching Jeremiah, Walter Brueggemann, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2020, pg 85.
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