On the website for St. Mary's Church I refer to "recordings of sermons" rather than just "sermons." You might think a sermon is a sermon is a sermon. Unfortunately, the confusion about this is increasingly a problem; and I think it's important to be careful with our words.
There are some congregations that never have "live preaching"--which is to say they never have preaching. Instead, they have video recordings that play of someone giving a sermon on some other occasion. Sometimes the video just plays on a screen. Sometimes they do a better job of helping the audience suspend their disbelief: the screen is big and on a stage, so that it almost looks like the "preacher" is right up there talking to you. The presentation might have once been a sermon, if it was preached to people who were actually there to hear it. In some cases, the "sermon" was recorded in an empty room.
Ultimately sermons are preached by a preacher standing in front of a congregation. You have to be there. A sermon is rooted in the Incarnation, even as Jesus came among us in the flesh in order to make his Father known to the world by his words and deeds. Jesus preached. He proclaimed to curious crowds that because he was standing there in front of them, the Kingdom of God was arriving. Matthew's Gospel ties this together: Jesus's presence and his preaching are together the sunrise over a dark world (4:12-17).
Something would have been off about it if Jesus had just recorded himself and then projected it on a screen for people to watch. It would not have been the same if Jesus had told the villages scattered around Galilee about his coming Kingdom by just posting a recording on their website, or worse, simulcasting or live-streaming himself from heaven.
This has bearing on the actual practice of preaching. When ministers record a speech on Wednesday afternoon to offer in place of a sermon on Sunday morning, what if they mess up? If it's bad enough, they have the option of starting the recording over. They don't have to face the risk of standing up in front of people and losing their place or failing to find the right words. They won't see a man's eyes in the congregation and realize that what they're about to say is going to touch a raw nerve. They won't be in the middle of reading the Gospel and suddenly sense the Lord nudge them to give a very different sermon than they expected. They won't have to make that choice: should I play it safe or should I step out in faith? So whatever words are used, the faith itself will not shine through with the clarity that is appropriate to preaching.
In this way, "video sermons" tend to call our attention to really great speakers, rather than to holy witnesses. But whatever those video congregations see when they look up at the screen, it's not a preacher. The figure up on the screen has eyes but it cannot see, ears but it cannot hear, hands but it cannot feel. But Jesus sees you, and he hears you, and he holds you--even as he speaks to you and tells you who you are. It's to him the preacher is called to bear witness.
One thing this means for St. Mary's website is that I'm not going to post a recording of every sermon I preach. Sometimes I preach and feel miserable afterward, yet I still have to trust that the Lord guided me in it. Whether or not I enjoyed it, someone must have heard what the Lord knew they needed to hear. But I wouldn't take each one of those sermons and publish it in a book to make it generally available, even though I believe it was the right word for a particular moment. That helps to bring out the difference between a sermon and a recording of a sermon.
There's a place for recordings. They've even had a significant impact on my own walk with the Lord. They can be anointed by the Lord's Spirit, so that Jesus is delighted to use them in really powerful ways to bless his people. It's similar to the way Christians can receive great gifts from the Lord when they read certain books. But I earnestly hope no congregations hear the reading of Scripture in their assemblies and then pass out books for people to read quietly, without anyone ever standing up in the middle of the room to declare the great things that Jesus did to rescue them.
I pray that the Lord has blessings for you tucked away in many of these recordings. I pray the Lord makes them an occasion to teach, to encourage, to discipline, to build up, to bless. But if you're going to hear a sermon, you'll need to visit St. Mary's Church at 10:30am on Sunday mornings.