Banality: An Enemy of the Gospel
The following essay appears in the Easter 2026 issue of Gottesdienst. If you enjoy this essay, besides passing it on to others, consider subscribing here.
Banality: An Enemy of the Gospel
For at least a generation, the LCMS has largely reduced sermon evaluation to an exercise in distinguishing Law and Gospel. Whether in confirmation class, in advice about how to listen to a sermon, or even in some seminary homiletics classes, the questions asked, such as “How did the sermon convict you of your sins?”, “Who is running the verbs?”, or even “Was there any false doctrine?” were attempts to help both hearers and preachers make that distinction properly. This is not a bad exercise in and of itself, but the sermon should do more than distinguish between Law and Gospel.
Always, and in every theological task, Law and Gospel must be properly distinguished, but sermons should also explicate Holy Scripture, teach doctrine, and give spiritual counsel. Sermons that lack these elements may not contain any false doctrine. They may even include accurate biblical statements of Law and Gospel. But if that is all they contain, then they risk becoming little more than platitudes and clichés, and the result is banality. Banality is unfit for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church. This essay will address that banality in two ways: first, by considering it from the perspective of beauty— specifically, that banality is order without surprise—and second, by proposing a new diagnostic tool for sermon evaluation.
Sing unto Us a New Song: Order and Surprise
In Beauty: What It Is and Why It Matters Roman Catholic theologian John-Mark L. Miravalle defines the experience of beauty as “delight in perceiving something’s goodness” (2019, 20). Later he explains that beauty requires two things: order and surprise. Order is recognized by intelligence; surprise is grasped by the senses and creates joy. Surprise, he admits, is a difficult notion to capture, but he settles on this definition: “Surprise is the mind’s attentive response to what it does not find obvious” (22). The book is well worth reading.
Miravalle wants to prove what was once obvious: not only that beauty is objective, but that we are morally required to pursue and promote it (5). He argues more from philosophy than from Scriptures, yet nearly every word is compelling. With respect to the need for beauty—both order and surprise—in preaching, consider the following assertion: “We should make our presentations of the truth beautiful. If beauty consists in what is orderly and surprising, it should be a source of lamentation to everyone that so many homilies, lectures, and public speaking presentations are neither orderly nor surprising” (46).
It is no surprise when Miravelle observes that, for the most part, both philosophy and theology have devoted far more attention to the “notion of order in beauty than the notion of surprise” (32). His book tries to make up for that imbalance. Every chapter offers multiple insights and applications both personal and professional, but his comments on banality deserve to be taken to heart by all who preach the Gospel.
Before we go further, it is necessary to note that for Miravelle, surprise doesn’t simply mean new information that the hearer did not expect—though it may be that. More often, the surprise is a juxtaposition that helps the hearers consider something they already knew in a new light or in a more accurate way. The discovery of a pattern in Holy Scripture or a type can be surprising in this way. All Christians expect Christ to rise from the dead on Easter, but some may be surprised to recognize Jonah’s delivery to Nineveh or Joseph’s being found in Egypt as types of that resurrection. Most commonly, however, the surprise comes from a glimpse of the immensity and awe inherent in the Gospel itself. It is like a man who has seen photographs of a waterfall and visits it as a tourist, only to find himself overwhelmed in awe and delight when he finally stands before its sheer scale. Or it is like a Lutheran preacher who has told himself that Wittenberg is only brick and wood and dirt yet finds himself moved to tears when he stands in the very place where the Reformation was sparked.
As already stated, Miravelle argues that beauty is a moral requirement. We must notice and respond appropriately to the goodness and truth around us. Surprise is the required delight or transfixion that is required. Surprise itself is also useful. It “keeps us from getting used to the order and to the form or essence that the order expresses” (33). It makes the old song ever new, not because it never existed before or is some new form, but because it still has more to say to us. Even though a man has been to the waterfall and felt awe, unless he is a tour guide and spends all day there, every day, it will continue to fill him with awe, and even the tour guide will, from time to time, see the waterfall in a new light or from a slightly different position and be filled anew with awe.
Order and beauty are co-dependent and intersecting in the reality of beauty. If they are separated, we fall into danger. In the first place, we can become addicted or obsessed with newness and originality. We can also simply shock instead of surprise. All of that is disorder, which typically comes from impatience. This happens in sermons on both sides of the pulpit. The preacher who desires praise from men can seek it in inappropriate ways, such as by eliciting laughter or by never engaging in difficult topics. So also, hearers are tempted to neglect their work of careful listening and declare a sermon boring that is simply orderly. In both cases the underlying vice is intemperance.
It can go wrong the other way also. We can elevate order over surprise as a safety device and fool ourselves into thinking that “stale, hackneyed, and dull” (52) sermons have done their work because there was no false doctrine in them and they properly distinguished between Law and Gospel. Banality is the result of clichés— clichés which at one point may have served a purpose and confessed truth and goodness but by overuse have lost their punch. They no longer confess but rather hide reality, destroy delight, and prop up the status quo. That is not to say they can never be used. They can, provided the speaker is genuinely trying to communicate something real and not simply reaching for something easy to say or refusing the hard work of actual expressiveness and proclamation. The danger of platitudes and clichés is that they seem to work when they do not. Miravelle points out the Lord’s terrible warning in Matthew 12:36: “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (ESV, 55). The ESV is better here than KJV or NKJV. The Greek word αργος is not mere idleness but lack of attention or indifference. Preachers are called to use words with precision and fitness.
The problem is that banality is quick and easy. Beauty takes time and effort. Miravelle chastises us, saying, “To deny people order and surprise—to act as though they should be content with orthodoxy and exhortation—that’s dehumanizing” (92). Cultivating an appreciation for beauty, especially in the written and spoken word, is a necessary effort for preachers. We should strive in our preaching to make our words match reality. Our sermons should reflect the beauty of God’s creation and His revealed Word and, by eliciting wonder, delight, and awe in the Christians who hear them, make the world a more beautiful place.
A Diagnostic Tool for Sermon Evaluation
Having considered the role of beauty, surprise, and expressiveness in preaching, we now turn to the diagnostic tool promised at the outset. This tool is chiefly concerned with order—not as a rigid checklist for foolproof preaching, but as a way for both preachers and hearers to reflect on how a sermon functions and what it is meant to deliver. It does not assume that the Gospel or pure doctrine can be taken for granted; these must always be pursued, examined, and exercised. Nonetheless, the tool presupposes their presence as foundational.
1. Does the sermon explain a section of Holy Scripture?
Most of the time we expect this to be a primary goal of preaching: to teach Scripture. Sometimes this teaching might be the bulk of a sermon, but it could at times be quite brief. Whatever percentage of the sermon it is, it should never be missing. Sermons are never just doctrinal lectures or moral advice. They do make assertions, but those assertions should be clearly and obviously driven by a scriptural text.
2. What doctrines, besides the Gospel, does the sermon teach?
Every sermon should preach the Gospel in the narrow sense. Walther’s statement that the Gospel should predominate is rightly applied to all of our ministry, including preaching. Perhaps there could be a rare sermon that contains no doctrinal explanations or assertions beyond the Gospel itself, but normally we expect more. This is not to say that every sermon must be deeply doctrinal. Some will not be. Some will be more deeply exegetical. Nonetheless every sermon should contain doctrine and almost every sermon should contain more doctrinal content than the Gospel alone.
3. What applications are made to the lives of the hearers?
Every sermon should contain spiritual counsel and practical guidance. Sermons should not be moralistic, but they should be moral. They should suggest real ways for the hearers to resist sin, cultivate virtue, and exercise faith, and they should encourage and fortify them as they do so. Again, some sermons will be lighter on this than others. In one sense, the words “repent” and “believe” or “trust” are spiritual counsel, and a few sermons may have no more than that. But most of the time, we rightly expect the sermon to give us at least one or two concrete examples of how to think about the world we live in, how to avoid sin, and how to serve our neighbors. Sermons should frequently address our vocations and the ethical situations Christians face.
Conclusion
If you are a preacher and want to improve your craft, read Miravalle’s book. If you are a Christian and want to cultivate a piety that sees God’s goodness even in this allen world and responds to it appropriately, read the book. If you are a preacher asking whether your sermons are hitting the mark, consider this diagnostic tool—and if it helps, test yourself against it. If you are a hearer who has come to expect sermons to be boring and inapplicable, repent; and if your preacher needs some help, consider how you might use the tool to find things to praise in his sermons and to offer some gentle suggestions.