If you think of a sermon as a dry, 40-minute drone delivered from a dusty pulpit, you haven't really sat with C S Lewis sermons. Lewis wasn't even a priest. He was a layman, a professor who liked beer and tobacco and long walks in the English countryside, which is probably why his "preaching" feels less like a lecture and more like a late-night conversation in a dimly lit pub.
He didn't do it often. Honestly, he was a bit of a reluctant speaker at first. But when he did step up to the lectern—most famously at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford or during the dark, terrifying nights of WWII over the BBC—he changed how people thought about faith. He didn't use "churchy" jargon. He used logic. He used the way a waterfall looks or the weird feeling of nostalgia you get when you smell old books.
The Weight of Glory and the Problem of "Boring" Religion
Most people who go looking for C S Lewis sermons eventually stumble upon The Weight of Glory. It’s arguably the most famous piece of Christian rhetoric from the 20th century. Delivered in 1941, while bombs were literally threatening to level London, Lewis stood up and talked about... desire.
It’s a weird move, right? You’d think he’d talk about courage or "staying the course." Instead, he argued that we aren't too hungry for pleasure; we’re actually "far too easily pleased." He compared us to a child who wants to keep making mud pies in a slum because he can’t imagine what a holiday at the sea is like. We settle for "moderate" happiness because we’re afraid of the sheer, terrifying scale of what God actually wants to give us.
This sermon hits hard because it’s deeply psychological. Lewis understood that humans are driven by a sense of Sehnsucht—that German word for a long, piercing bittersweet longing for a home we’ve never been to. He didn't tell people to stop wanting things. He told them to want more.
Why the BBC Broadcasts Weren't Just Radio Shows
Technically, what we now know as Mere Christianity started as a series of radio talks. They were, for all intents and purposes, short C S Lewis sermons delivered to a nation under siege.
Imagine it.
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You're sitting in a darkened room, windows blacked out so the Luftwaffe can't see your lights, and this guy with a crisp, slightly posh but warm voice starts talking about the "Law of Nature." He doesn't start with the Bible. He starts with two people arguing. You know the kind—where one person says, "How'd you like it if I did that to you?" Lewis used these everyday annoyances to prove that we all believe in a real Right and Wrong.
It was genius. It was tactical. He met people exactly where they were: in the middle of a mess.
The Sermons Nobody Talks About (But Should)
Everyone knows The Weight of Glory, but if you dig into the archives, you find gems like Learning in War-Time. This was a sermon given to students who felt guilty. They were at Oxford studying things like ancient Greek and mathematics while their friends were dying in trenches.
Lewis told them something radical.
He said that if you wait for "normal" times to start living or learning, you’ll never start. "Human life has never been normal," he said. Basically, he argued that even in the middle of a war, people still fall in love, write poems, and think about the stars. To do those things isn't selfish; it’s a middle finger to the darkness. It’s an assertion that there are things more important than survival.
Then there’s Transposition. This one is a bit more "heady," honestly. He talks about how the higher world (the spiritual) gets "translated" into the lower world (our physical senses). He uses the analogy of a piano piece being adapted for a flute. The flute can't play all the notes the piano can, but it’s still the same song. It’s his way of explaining why spiritual experiences often feel so... physical.
The Style: Why He Doesn't Sound Like an AI
One reason C S Lewis sermons remain popular in 2026 is the total lack of fluff. He doesn't use those "in today’s landscape" type phrases. He uses "smash-and-grab" metaphors.
- He compares a person trying to be good to a man trying to pay a debt he can't afford.
- He describes the soul as a house that God is rebuilding—and it hurts because God is "knocking out a new wing here, putting on a new floor there."
- He talks about the devil not as a cartoon with a pitchfork, but as an efficient bureaucrat.
His sentence structure is all over the place. He'll hit you with a long, winding sentence that explores every nook and cranny of a philosophical doubt, and then he’ll end with a punchy, three-word observation that leaves you winded.
The Nuance of Doubt
Lewis wasn't a "blind faith" guy. He was an atheist until his thirties. He knew exactly what it felt like to think the whole thing was a fairy tale. That's why his sermons feel so empathetic. He never mocks the skeptic.
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In sermons like The Inner Ring, he talks about a very human secular sin: the desire to be "in." You know that feeling when you're at work or school and there's a group that seems to know all the secrets? The "cool" kids? Lewis warns that the desire to be part of the "Inner Ring" will make you do things you hate. It’s a sermon on social dynamics that is probably more relevant now, in the age of Instagram and "clout," than it was when he gave it.
He acknowledges that life is often "grey and uninteresting." He doesn't promise a spiritual high every Sunday. He focuses on the "ordinary" person. In fact, he famously said that there are no ordinary people. Every person you talk to is a "being who, if you saw them as they will one day be, you would be tempted to worship."
How to Actually Read These Today
If you want to dive into C S Lewis sermons, don't just buy a massive theological textbook. Start small.
Most of his best spoken works are collected in a book called The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. It’s a thin volume. You can finish it in a weekend, but you’ll probably spend a decade thinking about it.
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Practical Next Steps for the Curious
- Listen to the few remaining recordings. There are only a handful of actual audio clips of Lewis’s voice. Hearing his cadence—the way he emphasizes certain words—completely changes how you read the text. It's available on various archival sites and YouTube.
- Read out loud. Lewis wrote for the ear. He was a radio performer and a lecturer. If a paragraph feels confusing, read it at a conversational pace. The logic usually clicks into place when you hear the rhythm.
- Contextualize the "War-Time" element. When you read a sermon like Learning in War-Time, remember that the windows were literally rattling from explosions nearby. It adds a layer of "this actually matters" that you don't get from someone preaching in a safe, air-conditioned mega-church.
- Look for the "Transposition" concept in art. Next time you see a movie or hear a song that makes you feel a weird, unexplainable ache, remember Lewis’s idea that the "higher" is trying to fit into the "lower." It makes the world feel a lot bigger.
Lewis once said that he didn't want to create "Lewisites." He wanted to point people toward the truth. Whether you’re a person of faith or just someone who likes really good writing, his sermons offer a masterclass in how to talk about the things that matter most without being a bore.
To get the most out of these texts, pick one—just one—and try to find the "mud pie" Lewis thinks you're settling for. It’s usually a pretty uncomfortable, but ultimately life-changing, realization.