There is a new fashion in church for priests to stand in the arch of the rood screen to preach their sermons. Perhaps it is not new, but I'm behind on ecclesiastical fashions. The last good one was the Reformation, and that had its problems.
What is this about? Do you have no conception of acoustics? Did you go to seminary for nothing?
If you think standing in a pulpit puffs you up and makes you look as though you are presuming on your spiritual authority, the priesthood is not for you. That is the point of the priesthood. You're not one of the sheeplike rabble. I mean, you're going to give a sermon, right? It's going to be about how we should all be better people, right? Because you've thought about the gospel and read some exegesis, right? Standing in a place where you can't be seen or heard doesn't make you less bossy, it just makes you more pointless.
And the pulpit is already there. Some architect designed it, so that you could preach from it. Centuries of ecclesiastical architecture have established a gospel side on which it sits. There are flowers named after it. The president of my university has no qualms about bloviating from it, and she holds no holy orders.
So get up those stairs, and read the gospel and preach your sermon, putz.
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