The Festival of Homiletics Believes Preaching Can Heal the Divide

“Preaching to Heal the Divide” was this year’s theme for the Festival of Homiletics. 

“This theme emerged from listening deeply to preachers’ experiences over the past year,” Karoline Lewis, the Program Director at the Festival of Homiletics, said. “They have shared stories of congregations torn by polarization, of families split by ideological differences, and of communities struggling to find common ground. Yet, in these challenging times, they have also witnessed moments of profound reconciliation and healing through the proclaimed Word.”

The four-day event, with simultaneous tracks featuring noted scholars, theologians, professors, and pastors, was hosted by Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. “We pray that this week will be a source of inspiration for you in your ministry,” the Rev. Bill Brent, the Senior Minister, said. Many participants said his prayer was answered.

The festival, an extension of the Reverend David Howell’s preaching journal “Lectionary Homiletics,” began on Monday with South African Black Liberation theologian, the Rev. Allan Boesak, who declared, “We are in need of a healing moment.” Naming America’s current political reality under the Trump administration, Boesak said, “Our lines of division are drawn in blood.”

“Within the life of the church and its worship practices, public theology seeks ways to move beyond the impasse of either withdrawal from the world in pietistic quietism or an activism that replaces faith instead of being its fruit,” Boesak explained. “But you cannot name God and not name justice at the same time,” he told the audience.

Dr. Anna Carter Florence, Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary, offered a lecture titled “Staying Together, Running Aground.” Florence invited participants “to look at the shipwreck scene in Acts 27 as a source of wisdom today.”

On Tuesday, the Reverend Dr. Melva L. Sampson, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Practice of Preaching and Practical Theology at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, gathered hearers in the sanctuary where she told them, “Don’t Shrink Back.” Inspired by Hebrews 10:32-39, she challenged hearers to not “shrink back from faithful proclamation even in the face of uncertainty and conflict, but instead to stand firm with courage and hope.”

“Where empire tightens its grip and despair whispers retreat, God calls us to remember our heritage of faith, to remain steadfast in our commitment and to reclaim our prophetic witness,” Sampson said.

At the same time, the Reverend Dr. Cynthia Hale, the Senior Pastor at Ray of Hope Christian Church, was preaching “It’s Not Complicated” (Ephesians 4:1-6). Hale said, “Given all the division in the world, Christians are in a wonderful position to help heal the divide by living out the unity we have in Christ.”

Hale quoted Warren Wierbe, who said, “We don’t have to manufacture the unity; we have to maintain it. We are one.”

Participants were then treated to a mid- morning lecture from renowned Biblical scholar and President Emeritus of Union Presbyterian Seminary, Dr. Brian K. Blount, whose lecture, titled “Help My Unbelief: A Personal Encounter with Paul’s Christ and Mark’s Jesus,” offered “an autobiographically inspired engagement with faith and unfaith in Paul’s presentation of Christ and Mark’s narrative of Jesus, as particularly focused on the father’s cry at Mark 9:24.” Blount masterfully explained the difference between belief and faith. “We must exchange belief with something more durable—faith,” he said.

Blount directed his audience to “follow God’s shatterproof, empowered love. Live out that empowered love in a way that God does—without consideration for how those to whom the love is directed respond or don’t respond to that love, without consideration for how too many people, even Christian people, want to limit love to those who think, act and look like them.” 

Tuesday’s offerings also included a message from Betsy Shirley, Editor in Chief at Sojourners, titled “The Press and the Pulpit: We’ve Both Got Trust Issues.”

“Journalists and preachers are no strangers to working amid uncertainty while striving to tell the truth,” Shirley said. “But beyond our usual struggles—dwindling audiences and limited resources—both journalists and clergy are facing a new challenge: record lows in public trust.”

The afternoon featured a lecture from Dr. Joy J. Moore titled “Recovering Truth amid Doctrinal Divergence,” a sermon by Reverend Olu Brown titled “A New Day, a Renewed Hope, and a Promised Future (Romans 12:9-13) and workshops led by David Gushee, Rolf Jacobson, Karoline Lewis, Matt Skinner, Rachel Baard, Jake Myers and Brent Strawn.

On Wednesday, the Reverend Dr. Eric Barreto, Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, preached “We” (Luke 15:1-7), and the sermon “begins by noticing the question that prompts Jesus to narrate three particularly striking parables. The parables answer the question, ‘Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners?’”

Barreto seamlessly weaved in verses from the hymn “A Woman and a Coin” and invited participants to “encounter the stories anew and find at the end a picture of belonging, the possibility of finding a more expansive ‘we’ than we had previously assumed.”

The third day also highlighted the voices of Austen Hartke, Jared Alcantara, Donyelle McCray, David Gushee, Matt Skinner, Brent Strawn and William Yoo.

On Thursday, the Reverend Dr. Otis Moss III, the Senior Pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, asked, “What happens when ‘prophets and poets’ refuse to speak?” in his sermon “Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace” (Isaiah 58:3-12). “The American church unfortunately has too often chosen empire comfort over prophetic consequences,” Moss discerned. “We are called as witnesses of God’s grace to speak now in this moment or forever hold our peace.”

Moss boldly declared, “And in this moment in America, the church must choose to speak! You don’t have to speak like anyone else. … Just use your voice! However that voice has been given to you by God to speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Moss continued, “Speak now for justice. Speak now for voting rights. Speak now for the poor. Speak now for the brokenhearted. Speak now for the unhoused. Speak now for veterans. Speak now with compassion. Speak now for the undocumented. Speak for every letter of the alphabet—LGBTQIA. Speak now for Haitians. Speak now for Gaza. Speak now for children. Speak now for the democratic experiment of the unfinished cathedral of the yet-to-be United States of America. Speak with [the] prophetic authority you have given.”

His words were met with rousing applause and afterwards, attendees organically gathered to unpack his charge. Some walked towards each other shaking their heads, seemingly in awe of what they’d just heard, while others gathered, energized by Moss’ directions.

The Reverend Dr. Valerie Bridgeman, Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the Methodist Theological School, could also be heard proclaiming a message titled “Making Room at the Table” (Proverbs 9:1-6). “Holiday meals might have been difficult for some after the 2024 elections in the U.S. Faces and fruitcake set firm,” she said. “But what happens when we accept the invitation to make room at the table for wisdom’s delicacies?”

After a short break, Moss offered a lecture titled “When Ministry Becomes an Idol.” “Ministry, while rewarding, has the ability to seduce well-meaning practitioners into the dangerous void of idolizing the craft, actions, and access afforded to those who minister,” Moss said.

Later, Bishop Gregory Palmer offered a lecture titled “Assuming Our True Vocation,” which invited attendees to explore “the ways in which our preaching can be an ongoing exercise in accommodating what is.” “The aim of our preaching is to participate in the creation of what is not,” Palmer said.

Dr. Ted Smith, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Divinity at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, lectured on “Preaching the Wounds” in the afternoon. “Christian hope for healing is not for the restoration of some imagined past, but for real resurrection of the wounded body,” Smith said. Inviting participants to learn from both Pietist and liberationist traditions in order to “consider the ways preachers might tarry with wounds in familial, civic, and ecclesial bodies in order to bear witness to a healing that is more than middle-way civility.”

The gathering concluded with a sermon from Bishop Gregory Palmer, a bishop in the United Methodist Church, aptly titled “Come Closer” (Genesis 45:1-5). Palmer said, “Taking off our masks readies us to take care of the unfinished business that contributes to healing for self, neighbor, and the world.” Afterwards, communion was served.