I was asked to review a sermon preached in chapel at Concordia Seminary, and it was a fine sermon. Due to Covid restrictions, I watched online. As I reviewed the written manuscript, I was struck by how much I missed because I experienced it online.
The ancient teacher of rhetoric, Quintilian, said about the hearer: “He will have many other thoughts to distract him unless what we say is so clear that our words will thrust themselves into his mind even when he is not giving us his attention, just as the sunlight forces itself upon the eyes. Therefore, our aim must be not to put him in a position to understand our argument, but to force him to understand it.” (Institutes, VIII, II, 23)
True enough, my mind wandered watching the stream. I wasn’t part of a captive audience in the sanctuary. My eyes could flit and my mind wander to other things in the room. I could talk with Diane, not whisper to her as you might in church. I could get up and go get something to drink if I wanted. A pressing question as we come out of Covid is why in-person worship is preferable to online. Before the internet, we would say you go to church to hear the Word of God, but now a parishioner can do that without getting out of pajamas. There are many good reasons why in-person worship is most desirable, but I just highlight that hearing a sermon in person is a more immersed experience. Watching online is a spectator activity, helpful but not as engaging as being there. The sounds that stir the air, the churchly surrounding, the interaction between the speaker preaching and the listener thinking… these are incomparably heightened by in-person worship. I was blessed watching that sermon online, and how wonderful that technology gives us this capability, but would that I had been there!
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