The Preacher's Tale: Explorations in Narrative Preaching

Contents

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface by the Revd Dr David J.Schlafer

Introduction

1  The Cool of the Day: Preaching with Imagination and Plot

Genesis 3.1–24

2  Legion: Hearing Voices

Luke 8.26–39

3  The Certain Lawyer: Preaching the Familiar

Luke 10.25–37

4  Eli Seeing Clearly: Inhabiting a Character

1 Samuel 3.1–20

5  Pictures of Heaven: Preaching Possibilities

Revelation 21.1–6a

6  Peter and Jesus: Weaving a Background Thread

Matthew 16.13–28

7  Having Faith: Preaching a Slide-show

Matthew 9.9–13, 18–26

8  A Certain Ship: Playing with an Image

Matthew 20.1–16

9  Weeding: Ways of Seeing

Matthew 13.24–30, 36–43

10  Advent Stars: Preaching from Shared Experience

Matthew 2.2

11  Getting Ugly: Preaching the Peculiar

Mark 3.20–35

12  Don’t Do It, Lord: Preaching a Prayer

Luke 2.1–7

13  Luke’s Editor: Preaching Fiction

Luke 21.5–36

14  The Wife of Noble Character: Scene-shifting

Proverbs 31.10–31

15  Yearnings: Listening for the Unheard Voice

Ezekiel 36.24–28

16  Great Gable Remembrance: Finding the General in the Particular

Psalm 121

17  Resurrection Story: Preaching Poetry

Matthew 28.1–10

18  Sarah Laughs: Panning Back

Genesis 18.1–15

19  Speaking in Tongues: Getting in on the Action

Acts 2.1–21

20  Pictures at an Exhibition: Inventing a Narrative

Matthew 13.31-33, 44-52

21  Naboth’s Vineyard: Preaching the Past into the Present

1 Kings 21.1–21a

22  Paul’s Sound-bite: Preaching St Paul

Romans 5.1–15

23  Five Husbands: Preaching Painful Stories

John 4.5–26

24  Grasping Rainbows: Preaching Questions

Genesis 9.8–17

25  Lord of the Dance: Preaching the Gospel More Than the Passage

26  Party Spirit: Preaching a Proposition

John 2.1–11

27  In the Beginning: Avoiding an Explanation

Genesis 1.1–2.3

28  A Christmas Journey: Preaching on the Move

The Christmas Lessons

Afterword

Matthew 17.1–8

Further Reading

Copyright

To my sons, Philip and Stevie,

and my wife, Hilary;

and in memory of

my mother

Acknowledgements

My grateful thanks go to:

David Schlafer for generously reading my manuscript and contributing a preface; and with him also to Herbert O’Driscoll, for opening up for me what preaching could mean, and how exciting it could be, and enabling me to find my own preaching ‘voice’.

David Shervington, Commissioning Editor at SCM Press for discerning some slight merit in my proposal for this book.

My colleague Michael Beck and my wife Hilary, for reading the manuscript. The errors and omissions that remain are mine, not theirs.

The Diocese of Newcastle for giving me sabbatical leave in order to write; and to colleagues who covered in my absence from my parishes.

Former parish colleagues and members of my congregations in Southsea, on the Isle of Wight and lately in the Allen Valleys of Northumberland for their patience while I tried to learn how to preach.

My late mother, who first caught me up into the delight of stories, and the truth that they can tell.

And lastly to my family: to my sons, Philip and Stephen, and again to my beloved wife Hil, for all their encouragement and faith in me that this book might be worth writing.

Preface

Narrative in Preaching: Shaping Sermons to Make Sense of the Gospel

David J. Schlafer

No, what you have begun reading is not a newly discovered fragment from the magnum opus of Geoffrey Chaucer – although interesting comparisons with the Canterbury Tales could, in fact, be made. Like Chaucer, Jon Russell convenes a community of travellers, and leads them peripatetically on a common quest – storytelling his way along, pausing periodically to reflect, then picking up the pace again, one story leading to another. For neither of these authors are their stories simply illustrations of a more fundamental ‘point’. Both Canterbury Tales and A Preacher’s Tale are the tales that comprise them.

There is, however, a marked difference between these two taletellers. The tales Chaucer has his pilgrims recount serve as entertaining distractions for them along a journey with a purported higher purpose. These tales seldom seem related to – and often seem incongruous with – the stated objective of the expedition. In this regard, Russell is the un-Chaucer. The sermon tales he shares in A Preacher’s Tale are all engaging expressions of the very adventure along which he leads his fellow preacher-pilgrims.

This is a book of preaching and about it. The sermons shimmer with theological imagination and rhetorical skill. The insights that ensue – crisp and shrewd – reconsider the immediately previous sermon in light of particularly relevant preaching principles. Other writers on the craft of preaching are invited to join in and enrich the unfolding conversation that the author convenes with preaching colleagues. This volume is an experience of learning to preach (or to preach afresh), first by entering in to the hearing of it, and then by standing back to consider that hearing. Rather than a preaching text to work through and subsequently try to ‘apply’; Jon Russell’s sharing of preaching wisdom is a set of continuing invitations to preaching partners – to gather as practitioners, to share sermons and strategies, to reflect on what ‘works’ (and ‘doesn’t quite… ’) – and, in all of this, to celebrate and nourish their individual and shared vocations.

The conversation Russell frames has a particular focus, at once sharply framed, and very spacious: Narrativity as a critical dimension of the preaching art form. Narrativity – what is that? Preaching in ways that are deeply informed – exegetically, theologically and rhetorically – by God’s ever unfolding Story of Redemption. Narrative preaching (which can include but is not synonymous with ‘preaching stories’) is grounded in the recognition that a tension-charged, telos-focused journey in faith is the centring energy for ‘making sense’ of the gospel – a quest for Spirit-infused intelligibility, one that can undergird and animate:

1  every contextually attentive hearing of a biblical text;

2  every effectively undertaken sermon preparation process;

3  every gospel-shaped sermon event, fashioned for and shared with a gathering of listeners;

4  every individual preaching life vocation;

5  every effort to convene companies of preachers in communities of practice;

6  every journey towards spiritual discovery that preachers seek, by the grace of God, to foster in the minds and hearts of those who listen to them preach.

What is the underlying leitmotif in these distinctive but closely connected undertakings, all of which are either explicitly or implicitly engaged in A Preacher’s Tale? The deliberate intent is to discern a sense of the gospel as dynamic process – to track the trajectory, plot the drama, and foster more fully a continually unfolding adventure into God’s amazing grace. Narrativity, in Christian Scripture and tradition, in Christian proclamation and in Christian practice, is not simply ‘storytelling’ – even good gospel storytelling. It is learning to trace the movement of meaning in play through those mighty acts whereby God has given and keeps giving us life and salvation. Narrative preaching seeks to shape a ‘sense’ of that movement in ways that are both intelligible and palpable to sermon listeners.

Narrative preaching is ‘entertaining’. Not in the sense of captivating our attention by distracting us from the complexity and conflict (or the boring monotony) of daily life. But ‘entertaining’ in the sense that it invites us to entertain – with open minds, active imaginations and quickened hearts – the prospect of ever deeper, ever more surprising, life-transforming, divine revelation.

Resistance in preachers to approaching their vocation as a sacred narrative art form can arise from many directions, all (surely!) deeply engrained from formal or informal schooling:

1  Apprehension: I’m just not good at telling stories!

2  Suspicion: The gospel isn’t ‘just a story’ – it’s not a ‘tall tale’, a fictitious fabrication!

3  Qualification: Stories may have a place as illustrations in gospel proclamation. But commending the gospel requires a more basic communication strategy – information, explanation, exhortation, all conjoined by argumentation.

Yet the biblical record can itself be understood as (indeed, no better understood than) a sweeping Creation to Re-Creation tale. A tale chock-full of stories from start to finish. Those portions of Scripture cast in other literary genres – such as poems, proverbs and closely reasoned conceptual explanations – are grounded in and framed by the narrative of salvation history that stretches from Genesis to Revelation. The genres we call ‘Gospels’ are the Tales of Four Preachers. The book of Acts is a Spirit-infused sermon anthology – sermon after sermon, most of them explicitly story-formed, all interwoven within a wider narrative trajectory. Jon Russell’s Preacher’s Tale is thus in distinguished literary and theological company!

Why the centrality of narrative in Christian preaching? Framing sermons, theologically and rhetorically, as plots – strategically unfolding adventures of spiritual discovery in which shaping strategies of sequence, suspense and surprise are integral – is critically important if we wish to honour and engage:

1  The givens of an oral genre. Preaching is a performance art, deployed, step by step, in temporal sequence. It is not a visual art accessible for observation ‘all at once’, or a written composition that can be ‘paged back through’ for repeated reading and reflection.

2  The integrity of listeners. Preaching issues an open-ended invitation to listeners, rather than imposing summary verdicts upon them.

3  The preacher’s own participation. Preachers are tour guides, ‘along for the ride’, rather than instructors removed from their classes who hand out assignments to be completed by their less-educated students.

4  The character of a pluralistic culture. Preaching (especially under current social conditions) addresses those who expect to be offered alternatives for individual choice rather than ‘articles of faith’ that members of a homogenous community uncritically accept from an authority figure.

5  The nature of spiritual faith journeys. Preaching seeks to foster exploratory and evolving journeys rather than to set forth programmes of information or skill mastery.

6  The historical-eschatological trajectory of God’s creating-redeeming acts. Preaching bears witness to the unfolding mystery of salvation history, rather than to a set of definitive, fully intelligible theological propositions.

The interplay of sermons and reflections offered here is an articulate, compelling embodiment of and witness to these six considerations – rhetorical, moral, vocational, sociological, spiritual and theological – considerations that make a narrative approach to the practice of preaching attractive, if not imperative.

The following pages are filled with sermons that plot, and homiletical reflections that reveal ways such plotting can unfold. A quick perusal of the contents page will show that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ way of forming a narrative sermon. The spectrum of sermon strategies is as wide as the Scripture texts from which the sermons are created. Closer attention will reveal a wide variety of exegetical strategies in play, theological issues reflected on, pastoral concerns addressed, and contemporary moral issues considered.

Narrative preaching is, indeed, a challenging pilgrimage for preachers to undertake; but it need not be an overwhelming one. The joy that Jon Russell encounters in the sacred play of his own preaching dances through this volume – palpably, infectiously, irresistibly. Come on into the sacred play of gospel sense-making! In your vocational journey as a preacher, you will find analogous joy.

Introduction

The study door closes like the door of a prison cell, confining me inside with a Bible, a typewriter and a blank sheet of paper. Sunday is but four days away; I must then preach my first sermon as a newly ordained curate. I pray. I study the text. I add a couple of things to my to-do list. I pull a couple of commentaries off the shelf, and read what the experts have to say. I make a phone call. I nip downstairs to make a cup of coffee. But eventually, I can delay no longer. I pick up a pen in order to plan a sermon outline. What on earth does God want me to say?

My sponsoring diocese made the huge investment of sending me to a residential theological college, to enjoy three years of sequestered study at the prestigious theology faculty of the nearby university. By way of preparation for my preaching ministry, I was there equipped with the best set of critical tools that money could buy. I sat at the feet of eminent Old and New Testament scholars. I learned how to operate source criticism and form criticism. I learned how to power up redaction criticism and state-of-the-art canonical criticism. J, E, P, D and the Synoptic Problem became my work-bench. Gerhard von Rad and Martin Noth, Rudolf Bultmann and Brevard Childs looked over my shoulder and guided my hand. I learned the vital importance of, as Thomas Long puts it, extracting sermonic points from sealed textual jars without contaminating them with my own eisegesis.¹ I learned to ask what the author intended; I learned to look for the sitz im leben of this pericope.

I listened to sermons preached by visiting preachers in the college chapel every week. I took part in sermon classes, with video review of my earnest early attempts to preach. Oh, and before I had even gone off to train, a member of the congregation of my home church had informed me, on the flimsiest of evidence, that I had ‘a gift for preaching’; while my college’s motto had been ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel’ …

So now, bent almost double under the weight of apprenticeship and expectation, I am on my own. Still with only a Bible, a typewriter and a blank sheet of paper. And, I hope, pray and trust, something to say that God wants to communicate to my new congregation. A three-point sermon by Sunday, on the text of ‘Jesus, the True Vine’.

I have the manuscript of that first sermon, 35 years later. It is unimaginably dreadful. I’d picked up some interesting points from the commentaries I’d read; I’d found a goodish illustration or two. But what I produced showed little evidence of any gift for preaching, however carefully I had employed the set of shiny new critical tools at my disposal. The congregation must have concluded very quickly that whether my sermons be short or long, they were always going to seem long.

Much, much later, I learn that it is not only I who struggle: other preachers suffer similar pains of guilt and self-doubt, and are prepared to be honest about it. Thomas Long lets me into a ‘little secret’. Conscientious biblical preachers, he says, have long known that the classical text-to-sermon exegetical methods produce far more chaff than wheat.² It is necessary to shift a lot of earth in order to find the right nugget of gold for this particular sermon; and we are left with the nagging suspicion that a lot of our effort has been wasted.

The problem is well summed up by Northrop Frye:

The analytical and historical approach that has dominated Biblical criticism for over a century was of relatively little use to me, however incidentally I may depend on it. At no point does it throw any real light on how or why a poet might read the Bible … Textual scholarship has never really developed the ‘higher’ criticism that made such a noise in the nineteenth century. Instead of emerging from lower criticism, or textual study, most of it dug itself into a still lower, or sub-basement, criticism in which disintegrating the text became an end in itself. As a result, its essential discoveries were made quite early, and were followed by a good deal of straw-thrashing.³

The trouble was that, without it ever being made explicit, the sermon strategy that I had been taught was propositional and deductive. The preacher’s task was to distil the word of God from a biblical passage by looking for the main point, by isolating the dominant thought, without contaminating it with personal whim or prejudice. He or she should then explain this for the congregation through a well-constructed, logical, rational, and preferably unemotional argument. Thus would the preacher effect a change in their behaviour, or an increase in their understanding. As recently as 2015, I have seen this strategy commended for use in a homiletics textbook.

For ten years I struggled on, growing ever more dispirited. I tried my best to make sermons relevant to the lives of my congregation and hold