Read part 4 here.
Throughout this series, I've been sketching the Trinitarian shape of preaching from various angles. It remained largely theoretical thus far. But as one of my professors used to say, "There's nothing so practical as a good theory". I would like to attempt to bring practice and theory together. Fred Craddock writes, "Anyone who has barely survived a verbal massacre knows the truth in Kierkegaard’s simple analogy: 'In sawing wood it is important not to press down too hard on the saw; the lighter the pressure exerted by the sawyer, the better the saw operates. If a man were to press down with all his strength, he would no longer be able to saw at all" (Overhearing the Gospel, p 99).
Violence wielded through words are like sharpened swords that even the most inept hands can swing to deadly effect. We sometimes deem this "prophetic preaching". In all honesty, it emerges more out of our angst than any stream of hope. We might rename it: "pathetic preaching". Richard Lischer is correct in saying, "Violence has a way of making a mockery of words ... When true convictions give way to bigger and bigger lies told with increasingly 'passionate intensity,' the poet knows that it is time to keep silence ... Before any prophet speaks, the prophet is absolutely positive that he or she must not speak" (The End of Words, p5).
I'm convinced that good preaching begins in silence. We need to hear God speak so that we might discern our own angst, which tends to erupt in violence. If this Trinitarian God is a life-giving, life-blessing, life-sustaining God, violence that violates this God's ways in the world will be counter-productive to the Gospel. But, it is exceedingly difficult work to recognize our own "unclean lips" before ranting that we live "among a people of unclean lips". Often we want to begin with what's wrong "out there" and never manage to see what's wrong inside me. This is necessary work if we are to become aware of the ways that we read ourselves into Scripture, how we manipulate the text in our favor.
Our preaching, especially if we don't allow the Spirit to work on us first, devolves into moralistic certainties and brow beating. It's an attempt to force God and people together. It's almost like trying to lead God and people on leashes while they pull in opposite directions. Eventually, the pastor is torn apart from the strain. But, if we believe that God has been at work in the world in prevenient ways (acting well before we act), then preaching becomes about naming God in the world -- not simply trying to get God to show up. That may be the most prophetic task! I want to highlight one way that I think we enter into this work as preachers.
Narrative preaching certainly has its drawbacks and is sometimes overly utilized. However, I want to highlight that the last century of preaching was overly deductive, focusing on the mind alone. Rational propositions may change our thinking but they don't always change our lives. I want our preaching to move to the intuitive (which does not neglect the cognitive but balances it). Henry Mitchell and Frank Thomas demonstrate this method as a sort of celebrative arc. We begin the sermon by engaging in story, metaphor, and the experiential. This moves our audience to engage on a primarily emotive level (cognitive is still active because the story better connect with what follows). After engaging in this initial emotive logic, we move to the cognitive to do analysis and some explanation. We can do some "heady" stuff here, but we can't leave them wondering "So what!?" The final move in the sermon is back to the emotive logic (again, cognitive is still at work) that engages our experiential intuition. This emotive/cognitive arc allows people to engage the intuitive places from which we primarily live (this is a similar argument to those made for the renewal of deep liturgical practices). This becomes an invitation into a particular way of life that can be accepted or rejected, but not simply from a cognitive standpoint. Good preaching engages our experiences in such a way that we cannot remain in the same place we were before. Preachers move beyond violence because they respect the agency of those who hear the message and they honor God’s own agency in both convicting and restoring people.
My concern here has been maintaining God's agency and human agency in the preaching moment, while not reducing the preaching moment to communication of ideas alone. I want to leave us with a final thought from Walter Brueggemann:
Throughout this series, I've been sketching the Trinitarian shape of preaching from various angles. It remained largely theoretical thus far. But as one of my professors used to say, "There's nothing so practical as a good theory". I would like to attempt to bring practice and theory together. Fred Craddock writes, "Anyone who has barely survived a verbal massacre knows the truth in Kierkegaard’s simple analogy: 'In sawing wood it is important not to press down too hard on the saw; the lighter the pressure exerted by the sawyer, the better the saw operates. If a man were to press down with all his strength, he would no longer be able to saw at all" (Overhearing the Gospel, p 99).
Violence wielded through words are like sharpened swords that even the most inept hands can swing to deadly effect. We sometimes deem this "prophetic preaching". In all honesty, it emerges more out of our angst than any stream of hope. We might rename it: "pathetic preaching". Richard Lischer is correct in saying, "Violence has a way of making a mockery of words ... When true convictions give way to bigger and bigger lies told with increasingly 'passionate intensity,' the poet knows that it is time to keep silence ... Before any prophet speaks, the prophet is absolutely positive that he or she must not speak" (The End of Words, p5).
I'm convinced that good preaching begins in silence. We need to hear God speak so that we might discern our own angst, which tends to erupt in violence. If this Trinitarian God is a life-giving, life-blessing, life-sustaining God, violence that violates this God's ways in the world will be counter-productive to the Gospel. But, it is exceedingly difficult work to recognize our own "unclean lips" before ranting that we live "among a people of unclean lips". Often we want to begin with what's wrong "out there" and never manage to see what's wrong inside me. This is necessary work if we are to become aware of the ways that we read ourselves into Scripture, how we manipulate the text in our favor.
Our preaching, especially if we don't allow the Spirit to work on us first, devolves into moralistic certainties and brow beating. It's an attempt to force God and people together. It's almost like trying to lead God and people on leashes while they pull in opposite directions. Eventually, the pastor is torn apart from the strain. But, if we believe that God has been at work in the world in prevenient ways (acting well before we act), then preaching becomes about naming God in the world -- not simply trying to get God to show up. That may be the most prophetic task! I want to highlight one way that I think we enter into this work as preachers.
Narrative preaching certainly has its drawbacks and is sometimes overly utilized. However, I want to highlight that the last century of preaching was overly deductive, focusing on the mind alone. Rational propositions may change our thinking but they don't always change our lives. I want our preaching to move to the intuitive (which does not neglect the cognitive but balances it). Henry Mitchell and Frank Thomas demonstrate this method as a sort of celebrative arc. We begin the sermon by engaging in story, metaphor, and the experiential. This moves our audience to engage on a primarily emotive level (cognitive is still active because the story better connect with what follows). After engaging in this initial emotive logic, we move to the cognitive to do analysis and some explanation. We can do some "heady" stuff here, but we can't leave them wondering "So what!?" The final move in the sermon is back to the emotive logic (again, cognitive is still at work) that engages our experiential intuition. This emotive/cognitive arc allows people to engage the intuitive places from which we primarily live (this is a similar argument to those made for the renewal of deep liturgical practices). This becomes an invitation into a particular way of life that can be accepted or rejected, but not simply from a cognitive standpoint. Good preaching engages our experiences in such a way that we cannot remain in the same place we were before. Preachers move beyond violence because they respect the agency of those who hear the message and they honor God’s own agency in both convicting and restoring people.
My concern here has been maintaining God's agency and human agency in the preaching moment, while not reducing the preaching moment to communication of ideas alone. I want to leave us with a final thought from Walter Brueggemann:
Paul Ricoeur has seen as well as anyone that obedience follows imagination. Our obedience will not venture far beyond or run risks beyond our imagined world. If we wish to have transformed obedience (i.e., more faithful, responsive listening), then we must be summoned to an alternative imagination, in order that we may imagine the world and ourselves differently. The link of obedience to imagination suggests that the toughness of ethics depends on poetic, artistic speech as the only speech that can evoke transformed listening. Even concerning ethics, "finally comes the poet." It is poetic invitation that holds the only chance of changed behavior, a point understood and practiced by Jesus in his parables, which had such ethical bite, but such artistic delicacy (Finally Comes the Poet, p 85).