Category Archives: Views from the Street

Long-Range Preaching

25 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by in Connecting the Dots, Views from the Street

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Many of us view preaching as a short-term (tactical) practice of transmitting information. Communication theorists, however, have drawn attention to the inadequacies of the sender-message-receiver or “transmission” model of communication, inherited largely from classical rhetoric. There are a whole host of other elements at work in any communication situation: conventions of listening, worldviews, local history, felt needs, language repertoire, physical setting, and so on. J. Randall Nichols calls this the larger “communicative field” for preaching.

Communicative Field 1

The “long range preacher” develops a preaching plan that contains certain goals for changes within this “communicative field” in the future. As a long range preacher, I see preaching as part of a process that takes time to complete, a process designed intentionally to promote over time certain themes, messages, doctrines, approaches to scripture, attitudes, theological worldviews, core values, or understandings of the relationship between Christ and culture. Preaching is a shared journey, and I am in it for the long haul.

theo

This journey, of course, involves the entire communication life of the church and is most effective when the goals for my preaching are integrated with similar goals in religious education, congregational meetings, publicity (newsletters, website) and so on. In this way, preaching is seen as a part of what Seward Hiltner once called the larger “communicating perspective” on ministry.

In order to develop a long-range vision, I might want to engage in congregational study or careful critical reflection and try to discern theological gaps, inconsistencies, issues, or aspirations within the congregation. After such study or reflection, I might establish long-term goals for the communication life of the church, perhaps in consultation with my church board or leaders in the congregation.

For instance, my congregation might be ready for diversity of membership, increased knowledge of biblical history, a more socially-conscious approach to theology, a firmer knowledge its heritage, and more openness to the certain cultural and social changes. From this list, I can develop a list of concepts, messages, values, attitudes, and forms of communication that will, over time, contribute to bringing about these changes in the congregation.

It is probably too bold to say that sermons actually construct the way that a listener is situated within a communicative field. Listeners are participants in multiple subcultures and negotiate messages from the pulpit at the intersection of many overlapping discourses.

Ritual Communication

Over the long term, however, preaching can provide new categories of thought and encourage new forms of speaking and practice. Preached messages push, pull, nudge, encourage, and cajole listeners. If these messages are consistent and strategic, they can, over time, shift the position that listeners occupy within this complex communicative field, opening up new possibilities for thought and action.

Several approaches to preaching have attempted to take into account the ways preaching has the potential to re-shape the signs, symbols, theological worldviews, and conventions of listening within congregations over time. (see for instance, McClure, The Four Codes of Preaching: Rhetorical Strategies, Tisdale, Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, Nieman, Knowing the Context: Frames, Tools, and Signs for Preaching).

The Frustrated Preacher

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in Views from the Street, Who is this?

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If you’re like me, and many preachers that I have spoken with seem to be, it is common to experience a kind of post partum frustration after the birthing of a sermon on Sunday morning. By Sunday afternoon, we find ourselves second guessing what we have said or the way we said it, and by Sunday evening we begin to wonder whether, in fact, we might not have been better off like St. Francis, delivering our pearls of wisdom to a convocation of the neighborhood pets.

St Francis

What began as a spiritually-charged encounter with God in the throes of sermon preparation and sent us blazing into the pulpit with fire in our bones, feels somehow like a deflated dirigible after 15 minutes of small talk, quick handshakes, fleeting glances, and completely off the wall remarks at the church door.

dirigible

And its not that we haven’t polished the sermon! My goodness. We’ve applied every possible homiletical “best practice,” to our sermonic gem, we’ve practiced until we were about to lose our voice, we’ve used gestures large and small, brilliant changes of vocal intonation, and sparkling nuances here and there. We gave it everything we had. That’s not the issue. We did our best.

And yet, still there’s this nagging frustration. So much talk, and yet we haven’t a clue what it’s all about or what it’s doing. So many incredible, powerful, potentially life-changing words, and yet they seem to us to simply fall to the ground somewhere between the pulpit and the first row of pews.

Over the years, I’ve accommodated myself to this sense of frustration. I think it is natural and normal. The more I think about it, the more I believe that it arises from the reality that every preacher is attempting to do something that is impossible. What we propose to do, to convey a “word from the Lord” is simply a task we’re not equal to. Clay pots, one and all. And so, it is perfectly natural to feel frustrated, even to the point of believing that we are utter and abject failures.

In the last analysis, this frustration is actually a symptom of honesty. And that is a good thing, not a bad thing to experience. We have to be honest with ourselves. Preaching is, ultimately, completely beyond us. We talk and talk and talk, and yet, the things that we point to with our words can only, ultimately, be verified and “proved” by real, lived experience – ours and those who hear us preach.

So, I encourage us not to let the frustration of preaching wear us down. Its an honest emotion. And a theologically sound emotion. We just have to live with it and plough on through.

Epiphany as Sermon Form

03 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Musings, Views from the Street

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How does one preach “epiphany” in an “epiphany-like” way? And how does a preacher keep epiphany alive throughout the year in one’s preaching?

Epiphany, in one translation, means “manifestation.” It is the manifestation or  “showing forth” of God’s glory and divinity in Jesus Christ. The word also translates as a sudden insight into the essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some ordinary occurrence or experience. Epiphanic truth, therefore, is truth that arrives as a sudden insight. It is the endpoint of significant delay, and is the hidden object of great anticipation. And its arrival is unexpected because it is not grand and overstated,  but shows itself within the ordinary stuff of life – like a child in a manger.

Many of the best sermons are “epiphanic.” They delay the arrival of the sermon’s meaning or deepest “truth,” and then, within the anticipation established by that delay, “manifest” that truth by means of the ordinary – in an image of grace, mercy, hope in spite of despair, love, or joy within the fabric of everyday life.

Eugene Lowry’s “homiletical plot” is one such sermon form. In 1980 Eugene L. Lowry published a very popular little book entitled The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form. In this book, he created what is now commonly known as the Lowry Loop to describe the way that a simple narrative plot functions in a sermon. The first part of the loop involves upsetting the equilibrium. An enigma is presented that energizes the sermon’s forward movement: something is wrong that needs fixing, something is out of balance that needs restoration, something is missing that needs finding, something is confusing that needs clarification, etc. This problem is deepened in the second, and downward part of the loop, called analyzing the discrepancy. Like a good plot line, the sermon goes deeper into the problem at hand, complicating the issue and creating a heightened concern among listeners. At this point, the sermon reaches the bottom of the loop in which the preacher discloses the clue to resolution. This is the decisive turning point in the plot. The gospel brings a reversal or “aha” that begins to move the loop upward toward resolution. This, in effect, is the “epiphany” or manifestation of gospel truth that is the heart of the sermon. This “clue” is often taken from ordinary human experience – a picture of “God with us.” From here the sermon moves upward in the fourth part of the loop, experiencing the gospel. The preacher fleshes out the good news of the gospel and its meaning. Finally, at the end of the loop, the sermon helps the congregation anticipate the consequences. The preacher unpacks fully the implications of the sermon’s message for the living of life. In order the help preachers remember each aspect of the loop, Lowry created a little memory device for each part of the loop: Oops!, Ugh!, Aha!, Whee!, and Yeah! The “Aha!”  is the epiphany at the heart of the sermon.

Another epiphany-form is parable. Parabolic communication is designed to introduce as an “epiphany” some form of contradiction and unexpected irresolution where reconciliation and order are otherwise assumed. According to John Dominic Crossan, parable is the polar opposite of myth and functions as an agent of deconstruction, interruption, and change. Many parables take what listeners expect to hear and reverse it. In this form of communication, therefore, the epiphany in the sermon is some form of reversal of listener expectation. For instance, in the New Testament story of the Pharisee and the publican we assume that the original listener expected the Pharisee’s prayer to be accepted by God and the publican’s to be rejected. In the story, however, the opposite occurs, opening the story to new meanings. Epiphany within parabolic preaching is iconoclastic, introducing contradictions or unexpected tensions where none previously existed.

So, how does one preach “epiphany” in an “epiphany-like” way? In two ways, mainly. First, by acting like a storyteller and delaying the arrival of one’s “meaning” in the sermon – and allowing it to arrive as a “clue” embedded within the ordinary fabric of human life. Second, by interrupting and reversing listener expectations; showing how God’s ways cannot be “storied” at all, but often arrive in entirely unexpected and counter-intuitive ways.

Portable Preaching

03 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in Musings, Views from the Street

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John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman, in his essay “University Preaching” said the following:

Talent, logic, learning, words, manner, voice, action, all are required for the perfection of a preacher; but ‘one thing is necessary,’ – an intense perception and appreciation of the end for which (the preacher) preaches, and that is, to be the minister of some definite spiritual good to those who hear…. (bold-face and parenthetical change added, as quoted by John Broadus in his Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, 255).

In homiletics textbooks, this idea that sermons should have a “definite spiritual end” is normally labelled the “sermon application.” And in homiletics classrooms, teachers of preaching such as myself often speak about this as the business of making sermons “portable,” giving listeners something that is not only memorable, but motivational – that leads to specific actions, behavior, or to a new persuasion. Application also refers to “bringing home” an idea. Portability means that the message “comes to roost” – – it suddenly becomes about us, in this room, in this local situation and can be taken away with us into our daily lives.

I find Newman’s words helpful – urging us to offer some “definite spiritual good” to the listener. “Definite” means unambiguous, clearly stated, and decided beforehand by the preacher. “Spiritual good” implies that the sermon influences the human spirit in some way for the better.

In a similar fashion, Thomas G. Long, in his much-used basic preaching text The Witness of Preaching encourages preachers to jot down both a “focus statement” and a “function statement” before crafting a sermon. The focus statement summarizes the preacher’s message. The function statement summarizes the preacher’s desired result. For Long, this result should be tethered as closely as possible to the literary or rhetorical thrust of the biblical text preached. He wants us to ask first of all: “What do the words of the biblical text want us to do or become as a result of this sermon? Texts don’t just “mean” things, they try to do things!

At least three aspects of this way of thinking are much debated.

1. Should the preacher always decide beforehand what spiritual good is to be brought home at the sermon’s end? Inductive homiletics, under the tutelage of Fred Craddock, questions this presupposition. Instead of moving from the exposition of a general truth to its “application,” the inductive sermon moves through a range of experiences toward a general truth. In many inductive sermons, the listener is left to complete the picture – drawing conclusions that best fit their own faith experience.

Craddock’s picture of “Inductive logic” (from As One Without Authority)

2. The persuasive element in application-oriented preaching is sometimes called into question. Lucy Rose, in her book Sharing the Word: Preaching in the Roundtable Church, argues that this persuasive and transmissive model of communication is non-dialogical and reinforces a gap between pulpit and pew. It makes the goal of preaching the business of transmitting what the preacher wants to happen into the hearts and minds of rather passive listeners. This tends to disempower listeners – even if and when they nod and articulate their consent, as in call-and-response forms of preaching. In effect, listeners learn to be passive – awaiting the portable golden nugget(s) to arrive each week.

3. Others believe that “applications,” especially when they are too specific, let some people off the hook. If the preacher is too precise in spelling out a particular “pay-off”, people may find wiggle room enough to say, in effect: “That’s not about me.”

Despite these concerns, when interviewed about preaching, sermon listeners indicate that they generally listen for some kind of portable “take home” element in sermons. The Listening to Listeners to Sermons Project, a massive empirical project funded by the Lilly Foundation, contained several findings that point directly to the desire among listeners for some kind of “portable” application in sermons. Three of these, summarized by Ronald J. Allen, who spearheaded this project, point toward sermon portability:

  • The sermon should center in the Bible and make the biblical material come alive for the listener
  • The message needs to relate in a practical way to the lives of the listening communities
  • Congregations are eager for sermons to help them make theological and ethical sense of the range of life‘s issues
  • Ministers ought to be specific in helping congregations draw out the implications of the Bible and their deepest theological convictions

I sometimes draw out the distinction between denotative “applications” of the gospel, and the connotative “implications” of the gospel. This idea is not new. The great mid-twentieth-century homiletician H. Grady Davis, in his book Design for Preaching put it this way:

“…a sermon idea of more than a bare thought. It is a thought plus its overtones and its groundswell of implication and urgency.”

Whereas an application might denote a particular sought-after behavior or attitude, an implication is not always explicitly stated. Implications surround us with images, ideas, questions, angles of vision that “implicate” us in some way. Instead of striking directly, like an arrow, implications absorb us into a sphere of gospel-influence.

Implications should not be wishy washy. They can and should be intentionally pursued by the preacher. They can be honed as carefully sought “spiritual goods” within sermons, and might include such things as being implicated in the gospel’s relentless hope, or its ethical challenge, or its unexpected offer of forgiveness. Preachers still have to decide ahead of time what such implications are, but they do not have to turn them into a highly specific sermon-takaway (or a list of such things).

In the end, it is likely that all sermons have some kind of function (even if it is to put the listener to sleep). Finding that function, whether an “application” or an “implication”, truing it up, refining it, and focusing it on the situation of one’s listeners can be crucial for making a sermon portable in the best sense of the word.

Part V, Crafting Liturgical Prayer, Types of Public Prayer: Adoration and Thanksgiving

16 Thursday Feb 2012

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Part V, Crafting Liturgical Prayer, Types of Public Prayer: Adoration and Thanksgiving

Praise has two qualities:

1. Unconditioned praise (adoration). This is praise that is conditioned by no prior action from God – praise for God in and of God’s-self.  The focus is on God and on God’s unique and wonderful identity. This includes qualities belonging to God such as nurturance, holiness, beauty, strength, etc. These qualities call forth metaphors for God such as creator, redeemer, savior, father, mother, Lord, sustainer, guide, healer, etc.

2. Conditioned praise (thanksgiving). Thanksgiving connects what we know of God from our past to what we experience in daily living today.  It is rooted in anamnesis, which is a particularly strong and dynamic form of communal remembrance. Thanksgiving always recalls God’s mighty acts in the past in order to make them alive and present in the present. And it always places what we remember in relation to where and who we are now.

Forms of Thanksgiving.

1. Non-sacramental Form. Although this prayer might be offered at any point in worship, it is usually associated with the Lord’s Table, and is best done during a portion of worship in which Communion is usually celebrated. Here I will be suggesting a form for thanksgiving when Holy Communion is not celebrated. This prayer is often associated with the Offertory in the non-sacramental Liturgy of the Word.

The collect form is best, modified (for prayers of thanksgiving) by an introductory dialogue.

Consider prefacing payers of thanksgiving with the traditional dialogue from the great prayer of Thanksgiving:

L: The Lord be with you
P: And also with you
L: Lift up your hearts
P: We lift them up to the Lord
L: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
P: It is right to give our thanks and praise
 

or the abbreviated form:

L: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
P: It is right to give our thanks and praise
 

Follow this with an invocation and relative clause. For instance:

Almighty and merciful God (invocation)
from whom comes all good and perfect gift, (relative clause)
 

Followed by a list of 1st person plural adorations and statements of thanksgiving, which remember God’s grace in the past and place that grace into relationship with the present. For instance:

We praise you for your mercies,
for your goodness that has created us,
your grace that has sustained us,
your discipline that has corrected us,
your patience that has borne with us,
and your love that has redeemed us.
 
We give thanks for your creation,
for the joy of living and the beauty of this day.
                                               
We thank you for your redeeming power,
which parted the Red Sea and brought us out of Egypt,
which gave to us Jesus Christ who died on a Cross and rose triumphant from the dead.
which gives us new life, freedom, and hope even now.
 

End with a result clause and conclusion (perhaps doxological) If a prayer after the collection of the offering, the proper result of thanksgiving might be to offer up our lives to God.

Because of your great mercy and love we offer our lives to you to be your servants and to show forth your praise each day (result clause)
through Jesus Christ, to whom be honor and glory now and forever, Amen. (conclusion)
 

B. Sacramental Form: The Eucharistic Prayer

The form of this prayer has been one of the most disputed and well-honed elements of theology in all of church history, and the Eucharistic Prayer remains the great prayer of the church universal. Adherence as much as possible to this form shows one’s awareness that worship is always done in the communion of saints past, present, and future. If/when crafting Eucharistic prayers, it is crucial to include the following elements if possible.

                   1. introductory dialogue
                   2. preface/thanksgiving
                   3. institution narrative
                   4. anamnesis
                   5. epiclesis
                   6. concluding doxology
 

With only a couple of exceptions all of the historic liturgies which found their way into the liturgical tradition in the West include also:

                   1. sanctus
                   2. intercessory prayers (diptychs)
                   3. preliminary epiclesis (before the institution narrative) in some traditions
 

Here, then, are the basic elements of the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving: 

1.  Introductory Dialogue. This is a dialogue of greeting between the presiding minister and people and invites everyone present to join in the giving of thanks, just as we might introduce grace before an ordinary meal.

            Minister: The Lord be with you.
            People: And also with you.
 

It may include an invitation to lift up the heart to God (sursum corda). This indicates that all that we do is an offering of ourselves to God, rather than a re-offering of Christ on an altar.

            Minister: Lift up your hearts.
            People: We lift them to the Lord.
 

Then there is an invitation to give thanks and followed by a response indicating that this is the proper and correct thing to do.

            Minister: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
            People: It is right to give our thanks and praise.
 

The importance of this action is that the celebrant receives the assembly’s authorization and assent here to prior to proceeding.

2.  The Preface. Next comes the preface, a joyful thanksgiving that usually recites either a specific work of Christ (varying according to season or occasion) or a general narration of the history of creation and redemption. In the West this was a variable thanksgiving stressing one part of God’s saving activity. In the East this was an invariable thanksgiving presenting a general view of the whole history of salvation. When crafting this section, focus on the mighty acts of God in creation and redemption. This thankful recalling of the mighty acts of God is often ended with the Sanctus.

3. The Sanctus.  From Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8. The “Thrice holy” is the highest ascription of praise in scripture.

            Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts
            Heaven and earth are full of your glory
 

The Benedictus qui venit is added in most liturgical traditions. The Sanctus enables the congregation to join in the climax of the thanksgiving.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord

5. The Narrative of Institution. This commemoration of God’s acts is followed and culminated in many liturgies by the words of institution. The Reformers separated this out and made it into a warrant for celebration. Many of our recent liturgies follow the more ancient practice of including it in the prayer.

6. The Anamnesis. As noted before this is a unique kind of “remembering.”  In every sense it is an attempt to bring to life something in the present that occurred in the past. It involves a careful balancing between two elements: memorial and offering. These two are carefully linked in a way that makes the former grammatically dependent upon the later.

  • memorial – this section always mentions the passion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. Often other aspects of the mystery of redemption are included , such as incarnation, burial, the mediation of the ascended Christ at the right hand of God and quite often a reference to the second coming which sets the Eucharist in eschatological perspective
  • offering –this section offers the bread and cup, making it clear that the offering is dependent upon its identification, in virtue of Christ’s institution, with his own offering of himself.

7. Epiclesis – (From Greek word meaning “invocation’) Fundamentally a petition for the descent of the Holy Spirit on the elements and upon the assembly gathered to partake, and a statement of the ends for which this is sought – the fruits of communion.

8. The Intercessions. Intercession appears at this moment in the prayer, because we are most clearly aware of the body of Christ and our participation in Christ’s presence. It is basically an extension of that aspect of the epiclesis that prays for the fruits of communion. This becomes then preparation for communion as our participation in the Body of Christ.

9. The Doxology. The Eucharistic Prayer ends with praise and thanksgiving. (Usually Trinitarian in form).