Solving the Story Problems
Preaching
THE SONG AND THE STORY
It has been many years since I first read Thomas Chalmers' famous sermon, "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." Until recently, it was one of the almost universally-studied sermons in theological schools, largely because of Chalmers structure and style. It ought to be studied today - not for matters of language and form - but for its origin. The story behind it is what makes it interesting and pertinent to contemporary story preaching. It reveals one of the essential factors in solving the "story problems" that most preachers seem to face today: how to find a sufficient supply of illustrations and stories for their sermons.
Chalmers often made the trip from Edinburgh, Scotland, to Glasgow by horse-drawn coach. He liked to sit up on top of the coach beside the driver, and he rode up there as often as possible. He noticed that one particular driver always flicked his whip at one of the horses; it was always the same horse and always at the same place in the road. Finally, he asked the driver why he did this and received an explanation from the man. It seems that the horse in question was afraid of something real or imaginery that inhabited that spot in the highway. He would balk, even rear on occasion, and throw off the even gait of the team. When the driver realized why this was happening, he diverted the horses's attention from what frightened him by nipping him sharply with his whip, and the horse would immediately settle down and quickly resume the correct pace. Chalmers realized that the introduction of a new factor into the situation freed the horse from the influence of whatever disturbed and frightened him at that point in the trip. This gave him the idea for a sermon meant to edify his hearers by showing them that the only way that our love of the world can be expelled from the heart is through the expulsive power of a new affection which, for the Christian, is the love of the Father. The text for the sermon was 1 John 2:15 - "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The story of the horse and driver does not surface in the sermon but the sermon would not have been conceived without the combination of text and story.
Chalmers was in touch with life, and that was one of the reasons that he was a great preacher. He observed what was happening, investigated what he saw and heard, and reflected - with perception - on matters that to others might seem insignificant. Were he living and preaching today, there is no doubt in my mind that the style of his sermons would be different; he would tell more of what he had seen and experienced in incidents like that of the driver who touched his whip to one of his horses to regain his attention to the task in which he was engaged. I suspect that Thomas Chalmers would tell The Story and that he would have an almost unlimited supply of illustrations to interweave with the gospel story.
The Illustration-Story Problem
To preach biblical story sermons - or any other kind of sermon that is concrete and narrative in character - requires that the preacher have a veritable storehouse of sermon resources. Graphic sermons literally consume illustrations and stories to such a degree that the preacher never seems to have enough of them. For too many preachers who understand the importance of illustration-story in the sermon - and who never seem to have the stories and anecdotes they need - Friday is, apparently, crucial to the homiletical process, and the search for illustrative matter turns what might be an orderly procedure for building the sermon into a "honiiletical crash program." And preachers have told me that when they work that way, the real crash occurs on Sunday morning. Their illustrations are either limited in number and often are insufficient in quality and theme for the task they should perform in the sermon. Preachers say that they need help in finding illustrations and stories for their sermons.
A current writing assignment to do some "preaching helps" for a journal used ecumenically includes, among the instructions for completing the task, this suggestion: "If possible, include at least one story. Subscribers are clamoring for stories ... At least half the material should be original: stories, thoughts, examples, odd connections, reminiscences, applications, etc., out of your own experience ... Err on the side of the simple and the homely, rather than the elegant and the eloquent ..." Arndt Halvorson is aware of the demand for stories and illustrative material and comments:
An eavesdropper on a group of preachers in informal discussion could well wonder if ...
concern with the text is shared by all. In their unguarded moment, preachers seem more concerned with getting what they call "preaching ideas." They ask, "Have you read any good books lately?" They ask, "Have you heard any good illustrations?" They ask, "What do you think of the latest television preacher?" Resisting the impulse to moralize about such apparent lack of concern for biblical scholarship and theological issues, we can recognize that preachers are concerned that their sermons be interesting, contemporary, stimulating. They feel the pressure of being heard.1
And they know what parts of the sermon people really hear, thus their continuing concern with the accumulation of usable stories for their own preaching ministry. The real problem is that, for maximum effectiveness in sermon preparation and genuine impact in their sermons, they ought to find their own materials. Time and know-how appear to be at the heart of the problem.
Attuned as they are to their market among the parish pastors, publication houses respond with the publication of sermons that pick up where Martin Luther left off in his Church Postils (from post illa verba, "after the word"). The function is to assist preachers in rounding out their sermons so that they will be holistic from a theological, biblical, and pastoral perspective. They are intended to be resources for preaching - "helps" - and not necessarily sermonic models. Those who oppose the publication of entire sermon manuscripts do so, I am told, because preachers tend to bypass the intention of writers and publishers by culling out the illustrations for their sermons and, more or less, discarding the rest of the sermons except, it is claimed, "for an occasional idea." "Why not," some of these critics ask, "stop publishing sermons?"
Some sermon "helps" do concentrate on the circulation of illustrations and stories among the preachers who subscribe to their service, leaving it up to the preacher to accept or reject them, to use or not use them - as they choose - in their sermons. They believe it to be entirely legitimate to incorporate some other person's stories in their sermons; after all, almost every preacher has done this at one time or other in his or her ministry. When sources are given and the stories behind the stories are printed, too, the publication of illustrative sermon materials takes on additional significance. The readers are encouraged to mine other stories from the sources and to adopt as their own methods that will enable them to discover their own illustrations and stories. Preachers learn about preaching from other preachers. Modern versions of the Church Postils are important because they teach preachers how to incorporate illustrations into their sermons instead of merely offering stories to the preachers.
When it was first published, I found Leslie Waterhead's When the Lamp Flickers2 to be a fascinating volume of sermons for homiletical study. It was apparent why Weatherhead could fill the City Temple in London so that his sermons had to be piped into overflow rooms - even after he retired and was over eighty years of age. Weatherhead's sermons proved him to be in touch with the Bible, on the one hand, and with life, on the other. He knew the art of sermon illustration as it related to pastoral preaching. Some readers only discovered stories and illustrations in his sermons, but those who studied them uncovered their true worth and the power of Weatherhead's pulpit ministry in his use of experience, memory, and imagination in narrative material, his pastoral concern for the health and spiritual growth of his congregation, his skill in planning and producing consistently effective sermons, and his scholarship in biblical and theological matters. To study sermons like his - in other preachers, too - is continuing education in homiletics.
But sermons, like the Bible, ought to be read and allowed to speak for themselves. Do the words printed on the page come alive as you read them? Do they "speak" (is the style really oral)? Do the stories demand to be told again - by you and others? Does the sermon hold your attention all the way to the conclusion? Questions like these need to be asked and answered by a simple "why" and "how?" How does the preacher move from text to sermon? How does the preacher develop the theme - and the story line - of the message? Why? Why does the preacher use the style employed in any given sermon? Why does the preacher do theology - or not do it - this way? Why does the preacher, preach this type of sermon in the worship setting? How does this sermon relate to the sacraments and the sacramental life of the people? Sermons, you see, allow readers to ask questions of them that would not be asked when illustrations alone are read by the preachers. This makes them, in my opinion, more valuable than "bare" stories or collections of illustrations. And depending on one's choice of preachers, the reader may engage in sermon study that will contribute in mastering the biblical-narrative sermon style.
Resources for Preaching
Eyes and ears - and a perceptive mind - are the preacher's most important assets for discovering sermon resources in the shape of stories and illustrations. Without developing perception for seeing, hearing, and reflecting upon what happens around them, preachers are reduced to buying books of illustrations, subscribing to the several types of "sermon helps" on the market, reading volumes of sermons, and collecting stories from whatever reading programs they have developed - or their hunt-for-illustrations procedures. Perception enables preachers to recognize the implications and the consequences of what is seen and heard; not merely what is observed and overheard. It identifies the important stories that occur as everyday, or accidental, occurrences, and assists preachers in discerning the theological implications in them.
In a chapter of his Authentic Preaching, Arndt Halvorson writes about "Our Hidden Resources" - how they may be found in our parishioners, in the world around us, and in literature. The latter helps us to find the language for preaching effectively and to understand the human situation.3 Of Flannery O'Connor, he says, "Her writings encourage us never to let up in our explorations of solid biblical theology."4 He also states:
I also want to encourage you to use more wisely the literary resources of our own age. Every preacher, I believe, should find rich mines of insight - theological and human - from reading Franz Kafka, William Golding, Morris West, John Updike, Hermann Hesse, Saul Bellow, Chaim Potok - to mention a few.
There are writers like Frederick Buechner and Loren Eiseley whose works are in a special way helpful to preachers.5
He asserts that Elie Wiesel "is seeking a center for a centerless age," and observes that the great novelists (Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, Fitzgerald, and others) "don't explicitly concern themselves with theological questions, neither do they ignore them. They probe what we call the human situation."
Theology surfaces in many books that have been called minor classics, such as Peter Mattheissen's At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, or Antoine de Saint Exupery's Wind, Sand and Stars. For example, "St. X" writes about his crash in the Libyan desert as his plane went down, lost in the night. He and his mechanic survived, walked across the sands for five days before - almost dead - they were rescued by a Bedouin. He recorded the experience after he awakened between white sheets - and then spelled out what it meant to him in two theologically perceptive reveries. He wrote of water as "not necessary to life, but life itself," and of the Bedouin as a kind of Christ figure:
You, Bedouin of Libya, who saved our lives, though you will dwell forever in my memory yet I shall never be able to recapture your features. You are Humanity and your face comes into my mind simply as man incarnate. You, our beloved fellowman, did not know whom we might be, and yet you recognized us without fail. And I, in my turn, shall recognize you in the faces of all mankind. You came towards me in an aureole of charity and magnanimity bearing the gift of water. All my friends and all my enemies marched toward me in your person. It did not seem to me that you were rescuing me; rather did it seem that you were forgiving me. And I felt I had no enemy left in all the world.6
Isn't that close to what we are trying to convey to people when we preach about his body broken and his blood shed "for many for the forgiveness of sins"? Shouldn't our experience of his forgiveness be something like that when the Word is preached, confession made, absolution offered, and the meal partaken? It has been said that the classics (and near-classics, we might add) often contain more theology in them than the sermons preached in our pulpits. By reading them with perception, and over against the Bible and the theological framework within which we preach, this can be corrected as it should be - and within the aegis of story and the narrative-biblical sermon. A good and regular reading program may be most helpful in developing the kind of perception we need to preach the gospel to people today.
Connecting the Classics to Contemporary Life
Television offers preachers another important resource for discovering stories and illustrative materials which might be useful in the preaching ministry as it concerns story sermons. I have heard preachers say that they are reticent to incorporate illustrations from television programs lest their members conclude that they are spending too much time in front of the TV set. It has been said that one would have to be almost mindless to watch television without discrimination: much of it is worthless to most of us. But many people spend hours viewing television; it is an invaluable companion for the lonely and the persons confined to their homes or beds. It is one of the most powerful forces at work in the shaping of values and styles of living of the people who come to church on Sunday. One unnamed commentator went so far as to say that "Television will determine the kind of people that we are." In a book that every preacher ought to read, Neil Postman insists that "television is the primary curriculum" for most people living today. He shows how children are affected by it, and other studies have reached conclusions similar to his; even the commercials on television are "real" to children - part of the program itself. Teaching as a Conserving Activity, Postman believes (and so titles his book) is a possibility in our educational system, but only when the impact of television is comprehended and allowed to inform the teacher how to speak and teach. If preaching, too, is conceived to be "a conserving activity," our pastors had better learn why people watch so much television and why it has such a powerful effect on them.
Television can - and does - affect people positively and, in some ways, for the better. It makes clear to us exactly what the world around us is like through news programs, specials, and documentaries. A few hours of television viewing a week can enable us to see what life is like all over the world. People have seen hunger, the tragedy of war, the plight of the homeless - whether victims of natural catastrophies or human actions - and they have seen - not just heard about - joyous events in the life of people and nations. They know about the effects of acid rain, PCBs, ICBMs, terrorism, medicine, psychology, scientific research, space probes, industrial problems, economic difficulties, high interest rates, and much more than the average person ever knew about before. Television has opened our eyes to life and the world around us, working at times like the preaching of the law, at other times as preparation for the preaching of the gospel.
And television hands preachers the opportunities to create sermons which will help people to make some sense out of the topsy-turvy world we live in and, through the gospel, give us hope. If one were preaching on the "last things" on the first Sunday in Advent, at least part of the sermon might be an interweaving of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with the gospel. Bradbury's book is concerned with the BOMB and its ultimate threat to life in the universe. The book is over thirty years old, but, as is the case with much science fiction, it could be called prophetic. In 1981, it was shown on television as a six-hour special, mostly because of the landing of the space probes on Mars. Bradbury, incidentally, was invited by Dr. Carl Sagan to appear with him on television as a kind of celebration of that landing on Mars. As a result of the progress made in space exploration and flight, a manned landing on Mars by 1998, as Bradbury predicted in The Martian Chronicles,7 is a real possibility.
One of the reasons for incorporating the story, in its entirety, into sermons, is that many people in the average congregation will have seen the television version of it, or part of the six-hour film. The preacher would be dealing with material familiar to listeners and should already have their interest. A second reason has to do with a serious weakness in the television version of The Martian Chronicles: The BOMB was played down as a factor (in the book it is the major factor) in the future of life on earth and the solar system. The book speaks more directly to people who are concerned that a nuclear war would wipe out all life in this world; that's the book's prediction in the last chapter, "The Million Year Picnic." The book deals with the fear of total annihilation, a dread that has surfaced over much of the face of the earth, and it stands in sharp contrast with Luke 21:25-36, which speaks of "signs in the sun and moon and stars and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity ... men fainting with fear at what is coming on the world ..." But the gospel speaks of hope, not total destruction of life: "And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." The gospel of God's promise that Christ will return to usher in the fulness of his Kingdom is the message that might be preached over against the fantasy-about-to-become-fact television version of The Martian Chronicles and the prophecy in the book that we are about to destroy the world and ourselves. The book is an exercise in reality over against the rather watered-down TV special and shows things as they could be, should a nuclear war actually come about. But the gospel of our Lord tells of God's intention for people and life on earth. His death and resurrection have not been in vain. He will return at God's appointed time and usher in the "fulness of the kingdom."
Countless classics have been made into television specials and have had tremendous impact on people. Some of them are classic because they have stood the test of time and still have something to say about life and human relationships. Others of recent vintage, like Roots, have also captured the attention of people and made them think - and opened the way for the preaching of the Word. Since the book was made into a television movie, "Roots" has appeared in sermon titles all over the country.
The same is true of a classic short story by Rudyard Kipling, "The Man Who Would Be King." Published over half a century before it was made into a movie, offered first in theatres, it finally was shown on television. Many of those who once read it in high school or college saw it on television and, perhaps, discovered new meaning in it. The preacher who might have read the story at one time and have seen the film version, either in a theater or on television, might use it on the Sunday of the Passion and Holy Week, interweaving the Kipling story with the gospel story in what could become an enlightening biblical story sermon.
Holocaust is another example of book-into-movie-then-television special that offers the preacher opportunity to make his sermons more narrative and more powerful proclamation of the gospel.
Other types of television programming, including the daily news programs, have utilitarian value for one's preaching ministry. Many preachers picked up on the two heroic incidents associated with the crash of the Air Florida plane into a river bridge during the afternoon rush hour. Many found powerful Lenten sermon illustrations in this news story (the incident happened in January, 1982). The story of the man who four times selflessly passed the helicopter's rescue line to others, only to sink beneath the water to his death when the helicopter returned for him, makes the cross - though still a mystery - more understandable. Television connects life to the lives of the people who view it - for better or for worse - and preachers have the opportunity to extend that connection to the gospel story that offers God's perspective on life and death, time and eternity.
The introduction of cable television, HBO, and satellite reception into many communities makes a wider variety of programming available to the people in our parishes. Some of it is quality literature turned into movie or television stories that might have preaching possibilities. If the pastor is aware of what is being televised - or shown in the movie theaters - selective viewing is easily planned and the payoff will come in one's preaching. The time may come when pastors will buy home video recorders so that they might record valuable programs they can't ordinarily see, for playback at their leisure. "Television preachers" and other religious programming could also be taped for delayed playback, thereby enabling the pastor to see first-hand what is happening on Sunday morning when he is occupied with the duties of the day. The preacher could also study the sermons and the television preachers on such a tape and make this at least an occasional part of one's continuing education program in preaching. The video recorder is a tool worth considering for one's preaching ministry. It can make the good things offered by television more accessible to the busy pastor.
An Exercise to Improve One's Use of Resources
Short stories, I have suggested, are valuable to preachers searching for resources with which to enrich their sermons. They also offer the opportunity for preachers to improve their ability to tell stories and make the best possible use of stories while improving their story preaching. The preacher might begin this exercise by reading a short story that has some possibilities for incorporation into a sermon and, after reading it, retell it as concisely, yet dramatically, as possible. To do this with fidelity, it will be necessary to isolate the plot, the action and the dramatic details, the dialogue, the resolution of the encounter, and the conclusion, to decide what should be eliminated and what has to be retained so that the story will have impact. The preacher should voice it into a tape recorder, play it back, analyze it, and then voice it again. The goal would be to reduce a ten- or twelve-page (or longer) story to one or two paragraphs, sufficient to tell the story effectively.
The preacher might also take a fifty-five page chapter out of a book like the previously mentioned Antoine de St. Exupery's Wind, Sand and Stars (for example, "Prisoners of the Sand") and attempt to retell it in two minutes or so. This is even more difficult a task than is reducing a short story to an illustration: one must decide what to eliminate and what to retain in the retelling, while remaining true to the context and the details of the extended incident. When preachers do this, they should find themselves ready to incorporate sermon illustrations which are effectively constructed. They will have learned a skill essential to the building of the biblical story sermon.
If the preacher encounters difficulty in this exercise, it is well to reread and restudy the stories of Elie Wiesel, Fred Buechner, Fred Craddock, John Vannorsdal, and others who know how to tell stories with precision and power. By their use of language, some of these writers demonstrate how to tell the biblical story in more interesting and involving ways. Elizabeth Achtemeier singles out one among them as a model for preachers:
[P]erhaps Frederick Buechner is the most widely known among such preachers. Buechner's genius as a writer is the ability to recast the biblical literature into new forms of narrative and biography, sometimes successfully recapturing the original impact of the Scriptures, sometimes missing the full dimensions of their certainty, but nevertheless introducing us to a compelling homiletical model.8
When we understand how Buechner and the other tellers of The Story have mastered the art of biblical storytelling, we should be on the way to mastering the art of the biblical story sermon ourselves.
There is a bonus in all of this study of story, storytellers, and The Story: the combination reveals most of the secrets of holistic preaching that complement the worship (the Song) of the people gathered for thankful and adoring response to God's actions in Christ. We learn to rethink and relive stories and The Story in apposition to each others, and this enables us to rethink and retell The Story in the pulpit with spontaneity and freshness. If telling The Story does not come together in the pulpit, in the delivery of the sermon, it won't come together at all. Except, of course, for dialogue, the storyteller does not recite stories by memory. Instead, he or she rethinks and relives them so that they come alive again as they are told. The Story - because it is a story that must be told - is a call to the conception, construction, and communication of the gospel, which can change people's lives and build up their faith in God - through a narrative sermon. Then The Story (as told by God's preachers) and the Song of God's people, in response to that Story, will be heard throughout the land.
Postscript on Collecting and Retaining Stories
and Illustrations
All the preachers I know who have made extensive and effective use of secular story in their sermons have developed some kind of system for collecting and filing the sermon materials that their reading, observation, and perception have discovered. Such systems vary from the use of notebooks and journals to complicated files set up according to the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress system of classifying illustrations, quotations, and stories. It is of fundamental importance that preachers have a system; that system must be personalized so that it is of maximal usefulness to the individual preacher.
Such a system ought to be simple in concept and utility. A notebook or a recipe box with 3x5 cards - or several topically indexed file folders - will do for a start. As one's perception increases, the system can be revised and expanded. An audio tape recorder is essential in this process and ought to be utilized for "making notes" on reading and observations which can be used later or even transcribed into a written record. Some pastors are already making use of video recorders, and the time will come when computers will be the tool to employ for storing sermonic materials, and perhaps word processors will play a part in sermon preparation.
It ought to be a rather compact system that is kept up to date. Otherwise, the preacher will collect all manner of items for use in preaching that will never find use. The collected materials ought to be culled out from time to time and extraneous illustrations discarded. Better yet, the preacher who is working with a long-term plan for preparing sermons, who has some idea what sermons he or she will be preaching during the coming year, and who is attuned to the church year's cycles, will be able to collect stories and other materials with selectivity. Those illustrations which are timeless and pertinent, dramatic and gripping, will be those worth retaining for future use.
Select and collect sermon materials with care. The use of copying equipment makes the task of collecting illustrations from newspapers and magazines a relatively easy one. And a usable filing system assures that the preacher will not run out of sermon-stories but will usually have the needed illustration readily available. Story sermons then become feasible as a weekly sermonic reality within the Song sung by the people of God.
Chalmers often made the trip from Edinburgh, Scotland, to Glasgow by horse-drawn coach. He liked to sit up on top of the coach beside the driver, and he rode up there as often as possible. He noticed that one particular driver always flicked his whip at one of the horses; it was always the same horse and always at the same place in the road. Finally, he asked the driver why he did this and received an explanation from the man. It seems that the horse in question was afraid of something real or imaginery that inhabited that spot in the highway. He would balk, even rear on occasion, and throw off the even gait of the team. When the driver realized why this was happening, he diverted the horses's attention from what frightened him by nipping him sharply with his whip, and the horse would immediately settle down and quickly resume the correct pace. Chalmers realized that the introduction of a new factor into the situation freed the horse from the influence of whatever disturbed and frightened him at that point in the trip. This gave him the idea for a sermon meant to edify his hearers by showing them that the only way that our love of the world can be expelled from the heart is through the expulsive power of a new affection which, for the Christian, is the love of the Father. The text for the sermon was 1 John 2:15 - "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." The story of the horse and driver does not surface in the sermon but the sermon would not have been conceived without the combination of text and story.
Chalmers was in touch with life, and that was one of the reasons that he was a great preacher. He observed what was happening, investigated what he saw and heard, and reflected - with perception - on matters that to others might seem insignificant. Were he living and preaching today, there is no doubt in my mind that the style of his sermons would be different; he would tell more of what he had seen and experienced in incidents like that of the driver who touched his whip to one of his horses to regain his attention to the task in which he was engaged. I suspect that Thomas Chalmers would tell The Story and that he would have an almost unlimited supply of illustrations to interweave with the gospel story.
The Illustration-Story Problem
To preach biblical story sermons - or any other kind of sermon that is concrete and narrative in character - requires that the preacher have a veritable storehouse of sermon resources. Graphic sermons literally consume illustrations and stories to such a degree that the preacher never seems to have enough of them. For too many preachers who understand the importance of illustration-story in the sermon - and who never seem to have the stories and anecdotes they need - Friday is, apparently, crucial to the homiletical process, and the search for illustrative matter turns what might be an orderly procedure for building the sermon into a "honiiletical crash program." And preachers have told me that when they work that way, the real crash occurs on Sunday morning. Their illustrations are either limited in number and often are insufficient in quality and theme for the task they should perform in the sermon. Preachers say that they need help in finding illustrations and stories for their sermons.
A current writing assignment to do some "preaching helps" for a journal used ecumenically includes, among the instructions for completing the task, this suggestion: "If possible, include at least one story. Subscribers are clamoring for stories ... At least half the material should be original: stories, thoughts, examples, odd connections, reminiscences, applications, etc., out of your own experience ... Err on the side of the simple and the homely, rather than the elegant and the eloquent ..." Arndt Halvorson is aware of the demand for stories and illustrative material and comments:
An eavesdropper on a group of preachers in informal discussion could well wonder if ...
concern with the text is shared by all. In their unguarded moment, preachers seem more concerned with getting what they call "preaching ideas." They ask, "Have you read any good books lately?" They ask, "Have you heard any good illustrations?" They ask, "What do you think of the latest television preacher?" Resisting the impulse to moralize about such apparent lack of concern for biblical scholarship and theological issues, we can recognize that preachers are concerned that their sermons be interesting, contemporary, stimulating. They feel the pressure of being heard.1
And they know what parts of the sermon people really hear, thus their continuing concern with the accumulation of usable stories for their own preaching ministry. The real problem is that, for maximum effectiveness in sermon preparation and genuine impact in their sermons, they ought to find their own materials. Time and know-how appear to be at the heart of the problem.
Attuned as they are to their market among the parish pastors, publication houses respond with the publication of sermons that pick up where Martin Luther left off in his Church Postils (from post illa verba, "after the word"). The function is to assist preachers in rounding out their sermons so that they will be holistic from a theological, biblical, and pastoral perspective. They are intended to be resources for preaching - "helps" - and not necessarily sermonic models. Those who oppose the publication of entire sermon manuscripts do so, I am told, because preachers tend to bypass the intention of writers and publishers by culling out the illustrations for their sermons and, more or less, discarding the rest of the sermons except, it is claimed, "for an occasional idea." "Why not," some of these critics ask, "stop publishing sermons?"
Some sermon "helps" do concentrate on the circulation of illustrations and stories among the preachers who subscribe to their service, leaving it up to the preacher to accept or reject them, to use or not use them - as they choose - in their sermons. They believe it to be entirely legitimate to incorporate some other person's stories in their sermons; after all, almost every preacher has done this at one time or other in his or her ministry. When sources are given and the stories behind the stories are printed, too, the publication of illustrative sermon materials takes on additional significance. The readers are encouraged to mine other stories from the sources and to adopt as their own methods that will enable them to discover their own illustrations and stories. Preachers learn about preaching from other preachers. Modern versions of the Church Postils are important because they teach preachers how to incorporate illustrations into their sermons instead of merely offering stories to the preachers.
When it was first published, I found Leslie Waterhead's When the Lamp Flickers2 to be a fascinating volume of sermons for homiletical study. It was apparent why Weatherhead could fill the City Temple in London so that his sermons had to be piped into overflow rooms - even after he retired and was over eighty years of age. Weatherhead's sermons proved him to be in touch with the Bible, on the one hand, and with life, on the other. He knew the art of sermon illustration as it related to pastoral preaching. Some readers only discovered stories and illustrations in his sermons, but those who studied them uncovered their true worth and the power of Weatherhead's pulpit ministry in his use of experience, memory, and imagination in narrative material, his pastoral concern for the health and spiritual growth of his congregation, his skill in planning and producing consistently effective sermons, and his scholarship in biblical and theological matters. To study sermons like his - in other preachers, too - is continuing education in homiletics.
But sermons, like the Bible, ought to be read and allowed to speak for themselves. Do the words printed on the page come alive as you read them? Do they "speak" (is the style really oral)? Do the stories demand to be told again - by you and others? Does the sermon hold your attention all the way to the conclusion? Questions like these need to be asked and answered by a simple "why" and "how?" How does the preacher move from text to sermon? How does the preacher develop the theme - and the story line - of the message? Why? Why does the preacher use the style employed in any given sermon? Why does the preacher do theology - or not do it - this way? Why does the preacher, preach this type of sermon in the worship setting? How does this sermon relate to the sacraments and the sacramental life of the people? Sermons, you see, allow readers to ask questions of them that would not be asked when illustrations alone are read by the preachers. This makes them, in my opinion, more valuable than "bare" stories or collections of illustrations. And depending on one's choice of preachers, the reader may engage in sermon study that will contribute in mastering the biblical-narrative sermon style.
Resources for Preaching
Eyes and ears - and a perceptive mind - are the preacher's most important assets for discovering sermon resources in the shape of stories and illustrations. Without developing perception for seeing, hearing, and reflecting upon what happens around them, preachers are reduced to buying books of illustrations, subscribing to the several types of "sermon helps" on the market, reading volumes of sermons, and collecting stories from whatever reading programs they have developed - or their hunt-for-illustrations procedures. Perception enables preachers to recognize the implications and the consequences of what is seen and heard; not merely what is observed and overheard. It identifies the important stories that occur as everyday, or accidental, occurrences, and assists preachers in discerning the theological implications in them.
In a chapter of his Authentic Preaching, Arndt Halvorson writes about "Our Hidden Resources" - how they may be found in our parishioners, in the world around us, and in literature. The latter helps us to find the language for preaching effectively and to understand the human situation.3 Of Flannery O'Connor, he says, "Her writings encourage us never to let up in our explorations of solid biblical theology."4 He also states:
I also want to encourage you to use more wisely the literary resources of our own age. Every preacher, I believe, should find rich mines of insight - theological and human - from reading Franz Kafka, William Golding, Morris West, John Updike, Hermann Hesse, Saul Bellow, Chaim Potok - to mention a few.
There are writers like Frederick Buechner and Loren Eiseley whose works are in a special way helpful to preachers.5
He asserts that Elie Wiesel "is seeking a center for a centerless age," and observes that the great novelists (Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, Fitzgerald, and others) "don't explicitly concern themselves with theological questions, neither do they ignore them. They probe what we call the human situation."
Theology surfaces in many books that have been called minor classics, such as Peter Mattheissen's At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, or Antoine de Saint Exupery's Wind, Sand and Stars. For example, "St. X" writes about his crash in the Libyan desert as his plane went down, lost in the night. He and his mechanic survived, walked across the sands for five days before - almost dead - they were rescued by a Bedouin. He recorded the experience after he awakened between white sheets - and then spelled out what it meant to him in two theologically perceptive reveries. He wrote of water as "not necessary to life, but life itself," and of the Bedouin as a kind of Christ figure:
You, Bedouin of Libya, who saved our lives, though you will dwell forever in my memory yet I shall never be able to recapture your features. You are Humanity and your face comes into my mind simply as man incarnate. You, our beloved fellowman, did not know whom we might be, and yet you recognized us without fail. And I, in my turn, shall recognize you in the faces of all mankind. You came towards me in an aureole of charity and magnanimity bearing the gift of water. All my friends and all my enemies marched toward me in your person. It did not seem to me that you were rescuing me; rather did it seem that you were forgiving me. And I felt I had no enemy left in all the world.6
Isn't that close to what we are trying to convey to people when we preach about his body broken and his blood shed "for many for the forgiveness of sins"? Shouldn't our experience of his forgiveness be something like that when the Word is preached, confession made, absolution offered, and the meal partaken? It has been said that the classics (and near-classics, we might add) often contain more theology in them than the sermons preached in our pulpits. By reading them with perception, and over against the Bible and the theological framework within which we preach, this can be corrected as it should be - and within the aegis of story and the narrative-biblical sermon. A good and regular reading program may be most helpful in developing the kind of perception we need to preach the gospel to people today.
Connecting the Classics to Contemporary Life
Television offers preachers another important resource for discovering stories and illustrative materials which might be useful in the preaching ministry as it concerns story sermons. I have heard preachers say that they are reticent to incorporate illustrations from television programs lest their members conclude that they are spending too much time in front of the TV set. It has been said that one would have to be almost mindless to watch television without discrimination: much of it is worthless to most of us. But many people spend hours viewing television; it is an invaluable companion for the lonely and the persons confined to their homes or beds. It is one of the most powerful forces at work in the shaping of values and styles of living of the people who come to church on Sunday. One unnamed commentator went so far as to say that "Television will determine the kind of people that we are." In a book that every preacher ought to read, Neil Postman insists that "television is the primary curriculum" for most people living today. He shows how children are affected by it, and other studies have reached conclusions similar to his; even the commercials on television are "real" to children - part of the program itself. Teaching as a Conserving Activity, Postman believes (and so titles his book) is a possibility in our educational system, but only when the impact of television is comprehended and allowed to inform the teacher how to speak and teach. If preaching, too, is conceived to be "a conserving activity," our pastors had better learn why people watch so much television and why it has such a powerful effect on them.
Television can - and does - affect people positively and, in some ways, for the better. It makes clear to us exactly what the world around us is like through news programs, specials, and documentaries. A few hours of television viewing a week can enable us to see what life is like all over the world. People have seen hunger, the tragedy of war, the plight of the homeless - whether victims of natural catastrophies or human actions - and they have seen - not just heard about - joyous events in the life of people and nations. They know about the effects of acid rain, PCBs, ICBMs, terrorism, medicine, psychology, scientific research, space probes, industrial problems, economic difficulties, high interest rates, and much more than the average person ever knew about before. Television has opened our eyes to life and the world around us, working at times like the preaching of the law, at other times as preparation for the preaching of the gospel.
And television hands preachers the opportunities to create sermons which will help people to make some sense out of the topsy-turvy world we live in and, through the gospel, give us hope. If one were preaching on the "last things" on the first Sunday in Advent, at least part of the sermon might be an interweaving of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles with the gospel. Bradbury's book is concerned with the BOMB and its ultimate threat to life in the universe. The book is over thirty years old, but, as is the case with much science fiction, it could be called prophetic. In 1981, it was shown on television as a six-hour special, mostly because of the landing of the space probes on Mars. Bradbury, incidentally, was invited by Dr. Carl Sagan to appear with him on television as a kind of celebration of that landing on Mars. As a result of the progress made in space exploration and flight, a manned landing on Mars by 1998, as Bradbury predicted in The Martian Chronicles,7 is a real possibility.
One of the reasons for incorporating the story, in its entirety, into sermons, is that many people in the average congregation will have seen the television version of it, or part of the six-hour film. The preacher would be dealing with material familiar to listeners and should already have their interest. A second reason has to do with a serious weakness in the television version of The Martian Chronicles: The BOMB was played down as a factor (in the book it is the major factor) in the future of life on earth and the solar system. The book speaks more directly to people who are concerned that a nuclear war would wipe out all life in this world; that's the book's prediction in the last chapter, "The Million Year Picnic." The book deals with the fear of total annihilation, a dread that has surfaced over much of the face of the earth, and it stands in sharp contrast with Luke 21:25-36, which speaks of "signs in the sun and moon and stars and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity ... men fainting with fear at what is coming on the world ..." But the gospel speaks of hope, not total destruction of life: "And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." The gospel of God's promise that Christ will return to usher in the fulness of his Kingdom is the message that might be preached over against the fantasy-about-to-become-fact television version of The Martian Chronicles and the prophecy in the book that we are about to destroy the world and ourselves. The book is an exercise in reality over against the rather watered-down TV special and shows things as they could be, should a nuclear war actually come about. But the gospel of our Lord tells of God's intention for people and life on earth. His death and resurrection have not been in vain. He will return at God's appointed time and usher in the "fulness of the kingdom."
Countless classics have been made into television specials and have had tremendous impact on people. Some of them are classic because they have stood the test of time and still have something to say about life and human relationships. Others of recent vintage, like Roots, have also captured the attention of people and made them think - and opened the way for the preaching of the Word. Since the book was made into a television movie, "Roots" has appeared in sermon titles all over the country.
The same is true of a classic short story by Rudyard Kipling, "The Man Who Would Be King." Published over half a century before it was made into a movie, offered first in theatres, it finally was shown on television. Many of those who once read it in high school or college saw it on television and, perhaps, discovered new meaning in it. The preacher who might have read the story at one time and have seen the film version, either in a theater or on television, might use it on the Sunday of the Passion and Holy Week, interweaving the Kipling story with the gospel story in what could become an enlightening biblical story sermon.
Holocaust is another example of book-into-movie-then-television special that offers the preacher opportunity to make his sermons more narrative and more powerful proclamation of the gospel.
Other types of television programming, including the daily news programs, have utilitarian value for one's preaching ministry. Many preachers picked up on the two heroic incidents associated with the crash of the Air Florida plane into a river bridge during the afternoon rush hour. Many found powerful Lenten sermon illustrations in this news story (the incident happened in January, 1982). The story of the man who four times selflessly passed the helicopter's rescue line to others, only to sink beneath the water to his death when the helicopter returned for him, makes the cross - though still a mystery - more understandable. Television connects life to the lives of the people who view it - for better or for worse - and preachers have the opportunity to extend that connection to the gospel story that offers God's perspective on life and death, time and eternity.
The introduction of cable television, HBO, and satellite reception into many communities makes a wider variety of programming available to the people in our parishes. Some of it is quality literature turned into movie or television stories that might have preaching possibilities. If the pastor is aware of what is being televised - or shown in the movie theaters - selective viewing is easily planned and the payoff will come in one's preaching. The time may come when pastors will buy home video recorders so that they might record valuable programs they can't ordinarily see, for playback at their leisure. "Television preachers" and other religious programming could also be taped for delayed playback, thereby enabling the pastor to see first-hand what is happening on Sunday morning when he is occupied with the duties of the day. The preacher could also study the sermons and the television preachers on such a tape and make this at least an occasional part of one's continuing education program in preaching. The video recorder is a tool worth considering for one's preaching ministry. It can make the good things offered by television more accessible to the busy pastor.
An Exercise to Improve One's Use of Resources
Short stories, I have suggested, are valuable to preachers searching for resources with which to enrich their sermons. They also offer the opportunity for preachers to improve their ability to tell stories and make the best possible use of stories while improving their story preaching. The preacher might begin this exercise by reading a short story that has some possibilities for incorporation into a sermon and, after reading it, retell it as concisely, yet dramatically, as possible. To do this with fidelity, it will be necessary to isolate the plot, the action and the dramatic details, the dialogue, the resolution of the encounter, and the conclusion, to decide what should be eliminated and what has to be retained so that the story will have impact. The preacher should voice it into a tape recorder, play it back, analyze it, and then voice it again. The goal would be to reduce a ten- or twelve-page (or longer) story to one or two paragraphs, sufficient to tell the story effectively.
The preacher might also take a fifty-five page chapter out of a book like the previously mentioned Antoine de St. Exupery's Wind, Sand and Stars (for example, "Prisoners of the Sand") and attempt to retell it in two minutes or so. This is even more difficult a task than is reducing a short story to an illustration: one must decide what to eliminate and what to retain in the retelling, while remaining true to the context and the details of the extended incident. When preachers do this, they should find themselves ready to incorporate sermon illustrations which are effectively constructed. They will have learned a skill essential to the building of the biblical story sermon.
If the preacher encounters difficulty in this exercise, it is well to reread and restudy the stories of Elie Wiesel, Fred Buechner, Fred Craddock, John Vannorsdal, and others who know how to tell stories with precision and power. By their use of language, some of these writers demonstrate how to tell the biblical story in more interesting and involving ways. Elizabeth Achtemeier singles out one among them as a model for preachers:
[P]erhaps Frederick Buechner is the most widely known among such preachers. Buechner's genius as a writer is the ability to recast the biblical literature into new forms of narrative and biography, sometimes successfully recapturing the original impact of the Scriptures, sometimes missing the full dimensions of their certainty, but nevertheless introducing us to a compelling homiletical model.8
When we understand how Buechner and the other tellers of The Story have mastered the art of biblical storytelling, we should be on the way to mastering the art of the biblical story sermon ourselves.
There is a bonus in all of this study of story, storytellers, and The Story: the combination reveals most of the secrets of holistic preaching that complement the worship (the Song) of the people gathered for thankful and adoring response to God's actions in Christ. We learn to rethink and relive stories and The Story in apposition to each others, and this enables us to rethink and retell The Story in the pulpit with spontaneity and freshness. If telling The Story does not come together in the pulpit, in the delivery of the sermon, it won't come together at all. Except, of course, for dialogue, the storyteller does not recite stories by memory. Instead, he or she rethinks and relives them so that they come alive again as they are told. The Story - because it is a story that must be told - is a call to the conception, construction, and communication of the gospel, which can change people's lives and build up their faith in God - through a narrative sermon. Then The Story (as told by God's preachers) and the Song of God's people, in response to that Story, will be heard throughout the land.
Postscript on Collecting and Retaining Stories
and Illustrations
All the preachers I know who have made extensive and effective use of secular story in their sermons have developed some kind of system for collecting and filing the sermon materials that their reading, observation, and perception have discovered. Such systems vary from the use of notebooks and journals to complicated files set up according to the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress system of classifying illustrations, quotations, and stories. It is of fundamental importance that preachers have a system; that system must be personalized so that it is of maximal usefulness to the individual preacher.
Such a system ought to be simple in concept and utility. A notebook or a recipe box with 3x5 cards - or several topically indexed file folders - will do for a start. As one's perception increases, the system can be revised and expanded. An audio tape recorder is essential in this process and ought to be utilized for "making notes" on reading and observations which can be used later or even transcribed into a written record. Some pastors are already making use of video recorders, and the time will come when computers will be the tool to employ for storing sermonic materials, and perhaps word processors will play a part in sermon preparation.
It ought to be a rather compact system that is kept up to date. Otherwise, the preacher will collect all manner of items for use in preaching that will never find use. The collected materials ought to be culled out from time to time and extraneous illustrations discarded. Better yet, the preacher who is working with a long-term plan for preparing sermons, who has some idea what sermons he or she will be preaching during the coming year, and who is attuned to the church year's cycles, will be able to collect stories and other materials with selectivity. Those illustrations which are timeless and pertinent, dramatic and gripping, will be those worth retaining for future use.
Select and collect sermon materials with care. The use of copying equipment makes the task of collecting illustrations from newspapers and magazines a relatively easy one. And a usable filing system assures that the preacher will not run out of sermon-stories but will usually have the needed illustration readily available. Story sermons then become feasible as a weekly sermonic reality within the Song sung by the people of God.
