Hmm, I've also heard an interesting ELCA sermon: the pastorette spoke for 40 minutes about the movie Pay it Forward. She worked herself into a fine fit of tears with nary a mention of God or Christ. It seems to be a pattern with them.
It is indeed a pattern dutifully imparted by homeletics professors in the Seminaries; the pattern is called "transformational preaching". The technique is to use evocative language and narrative, particularly first-person, to draw the hearer into the story; but there is no real proclamation for the technique demands that the story end with "draw your own conclusions".
It is basically Rogersian therapy from the pulpit.