Land of the Long Sermon

It is a little known fact that Abraham Lincoln was never actually intended to speak at the dedication of the Gettysburg Civil War graveyard. Indeed, the organising committee for the event only asked Lincoln as an afterthought, indicating that he should make a few "appropriate remarks" at the dedication ceremony.

The main speaker for the event was Edward Everett, a former politician and minister, who was considered at the time to be America's foremost orator. Lincoln was scheduled to speak after the "main event": his role was entirely perfunctory. How curious are the motions of time and circumstance! Had Lincoln not been invited, or even asked to speak, then history would have been denied one of the greatest speeches of all time.

For, of course, Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" has become synonymous for elegance, eloquence, and as a premier example of the art of public speaking. The speech itself was only three hundred or so words long, and lasted scarcely two minutes. However, that has not stopped it being compared to Pericles' monumental funeral oration, recorded for posterity by the ancient historian Thucydides, which was spoken over the bodies of Athenian soldiers killed in the Peloponesian War. By contrast, Everett's oration, which last approximately 2 hours and consumed over 13,500 words, is practically forgotten today.

Not that Lincoln got much credit for his words at the time. He himself didn't like the speech, and the crowd reaction was muted. One newspaper, the Chicago Times, declared: The cheek of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterances of the man who must be pointed out to intelligent foreigners as the President of the United States.

Ironically, it was Everett who recognised the speech's genius, for he wrote in a letter to Lincoln: Dear Mr President - I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central point of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.*

A consciousness that would have come in handy last Sunday, which became the day of enduring long sermons. The first took place during the regular Sunday morning service at my local Uniting Church; the second that evening, at the service for the opening of the Uniting Church's Victorian-Tasmanian Synod, and induction of the new Moderator. I won't go into details, except to say that both sermons were too long (approximately half an hour each) and tried to cover too much ground. Which is a pity, because both sermons contained some excellent ideas that, in and of themselves, would have made for a great sermon: concise, pithy, to the point. But crowded into the one sermon, they required not so much attention as endurance.

I am presently reading a book entitled Necessary Heresies: Alternatives to Fundamentalism by the Scottish minister, Peter Cameron. They are a collection of his sermons, and I think they serve as a model for what good sacred oratory is about. None of Cameron's sermons are any longer than a few pages, and yet they are both packed full of ideas and exemplars of concision and brevity. Regardless of what individuals may think about the content, the structure and pattern of these sermons is ideal.

I only hope that weekends of the long sermon are few and far between - and that, if and when it comes to my turn to be delivering sermons, I can practice what I preach!

Talk to you soon,

BB

Quote for the Day: The best sermon is not that which makes the hearers go away talking to one another and praising the speaker, but that which makes them go away thoughtful and serious and hastening to be alone. (Gilbert Burnet)

*For details about the Gettysburg Address and its background, see the Wikipedia entry or the website for Ken Burns' magisterial PBS documentary, The Civil War.