Wolterstorff on the Reformed doctrine of Sermon as Sacrament

Describing Calvin’s doctrine of preaching, Wolterstorff says: “The reading in the church of the anciently spoken word of God provides the basis for the here-and-now speech of God to God’s people. The sermon is “sacramental” of the speech of God – not of the static presence of God but of God’s very speaking.” (p288)

 “Often it is said that the churches of the Reformation have no sacramental consciousness. The truth is that the Calvinistic wing of the Reformed tradition, and the confessional documents of the tradition as a whole exhibit an intensely sacramental consciousness, more than is typical of such as the Roman and Anglican traditions. Part of this “more” pertains to the sermon. More than any other traditons in Christendom, the churches of the Reformation – Reformed, but Lutheran as well – have emphasized that by way of church proclamation, God acts graciously towards God’s people. An irony of the traditional polemics on these matters is that often those most critical of the Reformed churches for their supposed lack of sacramental consciousness were themselves the most resistant to granting any “sacramental” status to church proclamation…. it was in part because their own sacramentalism was more a sacramentalism of God’s static presence than of God’s active doing.” (p288)

“Those who are hesitant to ascribe to the sermon so “sacramental” a status as did the Reformers will usually focus on the deficiencies of sermons and the shortcomings of preachers. The answer of the Reformers to this objection is structurally the same as that given by the medieval church to the suggestion that the effiecney of the sacrament depends on the holiness of the priest: God uses fallible human material to accomplish God’s ends.” (p289)

“… the Reformed churches introduced into their liturgies the “prayer of illumination” before Scripture and sermon. It was their deep conviction that there is no true preaching and no right hearing without epiclesis.” (p290)