The late Phyllis Tickle famously observed that, every 500 years, the Church cleans out its attic. Well, here you go, Church: a 500-year old classic, now translated into English for the first time.
If any one sermon is emblematic of the Reformation of preaching itself, this is it. Preached and promptly published in the spring of 1522, it made the biblical and practical case for reading and preaching in the local language. Oecolampadius, serving as chaplain for the household of Franz von Sickingen, noted how time was wasted in worship with the Latin readings, since no one understood them, and in fact they were read so poorly that those in attendance ridiculed the whole thing. But the Word of God himself wants to speak plainly his promises of eternal life and salvation to his people and, of course, to be understood, so the love of God for his people motivated Oecolampadius to read and preach in German.
Rarely has a single sermon ever caused such a stir. To this sermon, preached three months before the publication of Zwingli's famous "Clarity and Certainty of the Word of God" (September 1522), can be traced the most important homiletical development in Reformation, a simple pastoral decision made by a chaplain and former monk who, at the time, was also reaching back 1000 (500 x 2) years or so into the church's attic and translating the sermons of the Greek fathers, especially Chrysostom, and refreshing the preaching office with the greatest examples of public proclamation in the Christian era. Sure enough, Oecolampadius' sermon itself, and the "Beautiful Letter" in which he explained his modest, common sense liturgical changes to his friend Caspar Hedio, became one of the great sermonic moments of all time.
To Hedio, Oecolampadius wrote of his service on the Ebernburg, "here I carry on sowing on rock," a clear reference to the quintessential parable of the Word, and thus to preaching itself. The parable of the sower, of course, as Jesus told it, promised no harvest from seed that falls on the path or among stones or thorns, but — another major point of emphasis in the sermon — the miracle of preaching is at work here. Yes, by a sheer miracle of God, when Jesus himself preaches with us as we preach, even a single seed, like this sermon, can strike such a strong root as to break through rock, find water, and bear a harvest to surpass all expectations. Has the last 500 years seen or heard a more seminal sermon than The Sermon on the Vernacular?
The whole of Oecolampadius 1522 correspondence is included here, as is the balance of his letters with Hedio through 1525. Among the latter is Hedio's (1524) Foreword to his German translation of Oecolampadius' Sermons on the First Epistle of John. In the generous Supplement to this new volume the reader also finds the first English translation of Ernst Staehelin's exhaustive and groundbreaking 1916 essay on Oecolampadius' translations of the patriarchs.
Dedicated with thanksgiving to the Triune God for preachers of the Word everywhere.
BTW, Amazon's hardcover platform is still in Beta, so the two JO translations linked here (in hardcover with djs), plus this hardcover reprint of Sime's short double biography of Zwingli and Oecolampadius, are all available at Barnes & Noble. Paperback will go live in a day or so. Don't expect Amazon to list BN titles, though. I'm not sure "do unto others" has quite penetrated the greatest retailer on earth. For that reason, it would be most helpful if you would spread the word, link, like, share, gift, recommend, purchase, order through your local BN, ask your library to acquire it, shout it from the rooftops, all of the above, etc. Don't let Behemoths go unchallenged. But the current paragraph constitutes the major part of my very low-tech and organic marketing plan. May the Lord give the growth. Thank you and may the Lord be with you.
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