Choosing a church (2): The word of God

I listened to parodies of preaching before I actually went to church enough to remember the preaching - to this day, I can't hear about Jacob and Esau without, unbidden, Alan Bennett's pastiche rising to mind (text here, even better if you can find the delivery). This is particularly true because some of the sermons in my parents' church were reminiscent of this approach (still are). Thankfully, where I go now, they're not. 

In fact, I've been fortunate to have a succession of good, and different, preachers at St Michael's. The depth is important because it's exposed me to a variety of tone, which not only reduces the burden on the rector, but also relieves the audience. Elsewhere, things have been mixed. One of my recent local experiments was excellent - he did a short exegesis of the gospel text as his sermon. Others have been considerable less memorable. Some have been terrible, though none have plumbed the depths of St Giles, Camberwell, where some years ago, the priest floated the possibility that the four beasts of the apocalypse of Daniel might be interpreted as modern day figures of evil - "Hitler, Stalin, Mao ... and Thatcher," without a hint of irony. I never went again.

It's obvious why this is important, but here my five point guide to what I want from a sermon, aside from standard public speaking drill - be intelligible, speak, don't read etc:

• Substance. Say something. This is not Thought for the Day. Everyone wants to be here. They know being nice is a good thing. Ditto Jesus loves us. Something more pointed and more material is called for. 
• Scripture. However, this is not an opportunity to regurgitate some thoughts you've been having about contemporary issues based on yesterday's Guardian. Root it in the scripture you've just read. And that's all the scripture, not just the gospel. The other two readings aren't just there for decoration. 
• Focus. Wide ranging sermons lose the congregation, and usually the preacher. Given you get to do this every week, best to stick to one message. It also means you can do it justice.
• Personality. Be careful here, as overpersonal interpretations can simply be a mess, but everything goes better if preachers preach about the things they want to say, rather than things they think they ought to be talking about. Also: if you can't do Greek, don't talk about it. Don't do it badly.
• Brevity. Most importantly, don't go on. I don't have a strict time limit in mind here, but anything longer than ten minutes should be looked at hard. It's probably not worth it.

It's actually not that hard. It's astonishing how many vicars fail.