Homily or Sermon?

In recent months I have found myself wanting to substitute the word “homily” for “sermon” in our Sunday orders of worship. “This is curious,” I said to myself. “What is this about?”

At first, I suspected my desire to appear more southern than I have a right to claim to be. Homily. Hominy. Homily. Hominy. Homily.  Hominy. This word association evokes all things truly southern. The very sound of it suggests a languid, non-pretentious, warm morning, southern repast. Perhaps I will even develop a drawl.

“Hominy” derives from the Algonquin term for grain; it never occurs alone. What is its partner? “Grits.” True grits. Real Southerners spot us interlopers a mile away: 

"Sir, what would you like for breakfast?" 

“I’ll have a grit.”

“A grit? I’m sorry, sir. They never come alone.”

I think a good sermon ought to be a little “gritty”, don’t you? Grits on your plate keep you humble. The best upscale sermons ever savored still have some down-home common sense about them.

But I don’t think this is it. My Catholic friends point out that they “do” homilies while Protestants “do” sermons. So maybe there’s a wannabe priest lurking in my robe. But while I confess to being an ecu-maniac, and believe with every fiber of my being that we should work that “all may be one”, I have no desire to exchange the riotous freedoms of my tradition for the particular restrictions of another.

I asked my erudite colleagues to tell me the difference between a homily and a sermon. No one seems to know. I asked you who sit through them. “Homilies are shorter,” you say. With all due respect, I think you beg the question. Certainly my homilies are not shorter. (“Pastor,” pleaded one member, “your words don’t have to be eternal in order for them to be immortal.”)

Finally I looked in the dictionary. Homily is rooted in the Greek homi-letikos, meaning "conversation." Sermon comes directly from medieval Latin for "speech", and that probably derives from serere, “to link together or string together” like beads on a necklace. While both words carry the meaning of “a religious discourse before a congregation,” the nuance of homily is “an informal exposition usually of Scripture.” Sermon carries the additional shade of “an annoying harangue”.

I am allergic by temperament to harangues. I cherish dialogue. I like the thought that what I say from the pulpit is one piece of a much longer conversation that has been going on for centuries.

So as I prepare for our worship, perhaps I  am asking myself this question: “What shall it be this Sunday? An informal exposition, or an annoying harangue? A speech, or a searching  conversation?”

© Gilbert Friend-Jones, in Faith in a Minor Key.