Explaining the Scriptures in the language of the common people is vernacular preaching. It is an incarnate language, one actualized again and again in real-life exchanges — between the preached word and its hearers, and between believers who administer to one another the assurance of Christ’s mercy.

It was Trinity Sunday, and the sermon would be about how the church rejoices in the impenetrable mystery that God is triune (Three-in-One) — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The preacher was prepared to share with the congregation observations about how the Lord can be one God in three distinct persons, and how such knowledge is completely beyond the ability of any human to understand. The sermon had been carefully crafted and sought to make clear how, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians accept this incomprehensible mystery as a fundamental article of faith. As the congregation sang the last verse of the sermon hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy,” I stood confidently in the pulpit scanning their faces. My eyes came to rest upon Walter.

Walter and Marie had been married for more than forty years. When Marie died from complications related to Alzheimer’s, it was a challenge to Walter’s faith, to say the least. Both Walter and Marie were life-long Lutherans and had been active in the congregation for years. They were in church most Sundays and other special worship days. Marie had been very active in the community as well. She is most remembered for how she quietly and compassionately went about offering help in small and large ways to a community she loved. There are more stories of how her caring presence was experienced than can ever be told.

Marie was sick for a very long time and then she died. Walter didn’t officially “leave” the congregation, but his attendance became spotty. Soon he stopped serving as an usher. He then stopped participating in programs. He eventually resigned from the congregation council. I met him on the street one day, and he told me that he was in therapy and was trying to deal with loneliness and depression. He had, he said, “lost the great love” of his life. He wanted to know of some helpful resources with which I could connect him in his personal journey.

I stood in the pulpit on Trinity Sunday wondering how this sermon could be made meaningful for Walter. In the Baptist church where I came to spiritual maturity, worshippers often responded to preaching they found meaningful with generous “Amens.” Those “Amens” often indicated that the preached word was making contact with the hearers. Hearers also cried out to the preachers to make the sermon “plain”: “Make it plain, preacher.” The faith community was giving the preacher the opportunity to reach further than the prepared sermon using words that were common to the various worlds of the hearers.

This article discusses the importance of placing hearers in touch with the ones who speak and allowing the ones who speak to speak in the vernacular when preaching. Explaining the Scriptures in the language of the common people is vernacular preaching. It is an incarnate language, one actualized again and again in real-life exchanges — between the preached word and its hearers, and between believers who administer to one another the assurance of Christ’s mercy.

How can the preached sermon, as it uses the biblical text, effectively engage those who are in the midst of grief or some other kind of human experience? How can the sermon move people, or help them rely on the means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments God brings through Jesus Christ? What might this Trinity sermon say to Walter that would help him raise his eyes and heart to heaven to worship and see the God who redeemed us?

Luther’s Words
In one of his prayers, Martin Luther says, “Dear Lord God, I want to preach so that you are glorified. I want to speak of you, praise you, praise your name. Although I probably cannot make it turn out well, won’t you make it turn out well?”¹

Sermons tell us a lot about those who preach. They tell us less about those who hear. The thoughts a preacher would like to communicate to a congregation in the homily may be completely opposite from what is received by the hearers.

Preaching is largely a weighted method of communication, and it should not be assumed that listeners always agree with and accept the sermon’s content. “It would be an error to presume a passive and receptive audience that regularly received the message as true to life and reliable.”²

Though Martin Luther never compiled his thoughts on preaching into anything like a homiletics textbook, he still held strong views on good and bad preaching. He insisted that preaching be meaningful and understood. Preachers should take into consideration the ethnic, cultural, and social lives of those who have gathered to feast upon the word: men and women, the aged and young, myriad races, a palette of social experiences — all gathered together to hear the word.

Plain-Speaking Reformers
Other reformers also sought to be clear and straightforward in their sermons. John Calvin regularly used dialogue to connect with his congregation.⁸ While little remains of the preaching of the Swiss reformer Huldreich Zwingli, we know that he thought of himself as “a simple and plain preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”⁹ It is without doubt that his preaching was principally responsible for bringing about social reforms he felt to be important. These seem to have been a major theme in his messages. He was profoundly concerned, for example, that the practice of mercenary warfare was devastating Switzerland, and he frequently preached against it.¹⁰

John Wycliffe (c.1330-1384) was considered by many to be the greatest preacher of his day. He once advised preachers to adapt the subjects they spoke on to the understanding of the hearers, that is, preach in the vernacular. In his own discourses he basically divided his sermons into two sections: in the first he explained the meaning of the Bible passage and in the second he applied the doctrine to the needs of the congregation.

African-American Sermon
One stronghold of this pulpit form is also found in the African-American sermon.

"The black sermon is stated in the vernacular, with inflection and timing so musical that many have compared it in style to improvised jazz. Much of the sermon is improvised around a matrix both sacred and profane, and the style is cohesive enough that one can enter virtually any black Baptist, Methodist, or Pentecostal church from coast-to-coast and hear a sermon of similar form.¹¹

This is assured in part by the congregation, which answers the preacher verbally at every opportunity, creating a call-and-response pattern, which often builds to a thunderous intensity. When the congregation hears something that awakens, challenges, or strikes a relevant note, it responds out loud, or with hands in the air, or shaking heads and hearts raised. And the preacher most assuredly will not forget to point the congregation to the source of its life and strength, Jesus the Christ.

On Trinity Sundays most preaching flies over the heads of the laity — as well as many of us clergy. Among the points I attempted to make on Trinity Sunday was that Jesus is God’s knowledge and the Spirit is God’s love and that the knowledge and love of God are enormous and powerful. We are bound by God’s inescapable knowledge and love in good and bad times. That God knows us so perfectly might be terrifying. But that God loves us so passionately ought to be powerfully reassuring.

As the congregation filed out of church I caught sight of Walter. He was now fifth in line for the pastoral greeting. When his turn came Walter whispered softly, “That was a fine sermon, preacher. I felt that I was on your mind this morning.”