There’s a very thought-provoking article by homiletician Tom Long currently up at the Christian Century on rampant sermon theft. Speaking as a teacher of preaching, he’s not exaggerating the situation…
There’s a much longer post here to be written that I’ve started at times but never satisfactorily completed that probes the contours of this issue moving from a condemnation of interpretative laziness, the need for both priest and parish to be open to the transforming text–a possibility often shut down by bad preaching–balanced with a rejection of novelty and originality for its own sake, ending with an affirmation that the work of preaching is not about creating something new but passing on what we have received–but passing it along in ways that enables the church to experience anew the living Jesus who is at the heart of what we pass down.
Read the article. Don’t plagiarize. Do proclaim the power of the resurrection.