The (re)founder of the Iona Community was George Macleod,   someone who was known in his day as a great preacher. One of his books is about preaching and is called Speaking the Truth – in Love. The Modern Preacher’s Task. . It’s a collection of Cambridge lectures on preaching.

I found this in his book in his plea that more preachers would preach theology, and he suggests doing a series on parables but ordering the parables so that the basics of theology could be covered. Here are his words:

What of the Prodigal Son to introduce a Sermon on the doctrine of Man?

Of Parables of the Kingdom to portray the Person of Christ:

Parables of the Judgment to portray the Last Things?

Consider the Lilies — or the Sparrows, and preaching on the Manifestation of God in Nature.

Take your hearers to the Synagogue, where Jesus read from the Prophets, and speak of the Manifestation of God in the Bible.

God to the house of Lazarus or to the Empty Tomb itself and preach from there the duty of laying hold on Eternal Life.

From the Living Words of the Gospel the once forbidding ‘scheme’ [of theological doctrines] breaks into life and yet retains its form” (46-47).

Any takers?