SermonStudio

David Buttrick claims in his book Homiletic,

Preaching reaches for metaphorical language because God is a mysterious presence-in-absence. God is not an object in view. Therefore, preaching must resort to analogy, saying, "God is like...." The language of analogy is profoundly related to fields of lived experience.1

We read in Thomas Long's book The Witness of Preaching,

In a simple metaphor, we call something familiar by an unfamiliar name. We liken much talking to "a blizzard of words." In a simile, one thing is compared to another thing. In a metaphor, something is unexpectedly summoned to stand for something else. A metaphor seeks to create new meaning, to help us experience the reality of something in a new way. A simile is the tool of good teachers; a metaphor is the instrument of poets. There is mystery at the heart of the metaphor. It continues to tease our minds into active thought, urging us to discover more and more ways to revision what we thought we already saw well. Many of the parables of Jesus are metaphors in story form.2

While we all understand the use of a single simple metaphor to illustrate the truth we are trying to communicate in our sermon, we often do not realize the tremendous edge a metaphor has for communication when it is extended throughout the entire sermon.

An extended narrative metaphor begins with the real world. (See chapter 19 for an example sermon: "Judah's Song of Victory.") This is one of the most important reasons for using this speech technique to communicate the Gospel: We begin where people live. We begin where their minds are as they are seated after the hynm and watch us move into the pulpit for the proclamation. Instead of starting with camels, deserts, or fishermen around Galilee, we begin with the present real world. "We were all shocked last Tuesday as CBS announced that mother Linda Smith had murdered her own sons ..." or "A huge ferry, Estonia, homeward bound to Stockholm, sunk off the coast of Finland in the Baltic Sea last week. 140 survivors, 820 drowned. Where was God?" or "I only had one pastor in my 60 years of life, Rev. Christian C. Wessel. He baptized me in that little Greenville, Ohio, congregation...."

It's necessary to build a case here for narrative form in preaching. Narrative is so much of what the Gospel is about, it is the most effective instrument to gain and continue interest all the way through the sermon. Listen to Richard Jensen: "Story preaching is related to the helping power of the Gospel in still another way. It doesn't teach me about help (didactic). It doesn't offer me help directly through a word hurled into my existence (proclamatory). Rather, I hear a story in which help happens. As a listening participant in the life of the story I recognize that this same sort of help is offered to me."3 Notice how many of our national television networks have spawned television programs which are simply narratives strung together. Sixty Minutes, 20/20, Eye-to-Eye, American Journal, Prime Time Live, Unsolved Mysteries, 48 Hours, all use the narrative because they know it communicates and it's what people are interested in and will continue to watch.

The extended narrative metaphor that I'm advocating is actually redescribing reality. We certainly can find these metaphors in many of the biblical stories, in the newspapers of our day, the television shows mentioned above. Most helpful is the practice of keeping a homiletical journal in which we can write down those things that we see which are intriguing and of great interest. "To begin with, your best illustrations will come from your daily observation of men (sic) and things. Some ministers, I notice, possess books of illustrations neatly indexed under headings. If you have a 'noting eye,' you will find a much better and more living book in the first village and congregation where you are settled."4

While the extended metaphor is in the language of analogy, it is more than a simile which says something is like something. In a strong metaphor we move beyond just saying what it's like and into an area that is more poetic, creative, and experimental.

The extended narrative metaphor is much more than an illustration which makes more clear a truth. It is the vehicle that transports the listener and the preacher through the entire sermon. Only one is used in this kind of sermon so that there is no mixing of metaphors or distraction for the original one.

The correctly constructed extended metaphor sermon will keep a tension of that which is similar and that which is different in the comparison throughout the entire message. This tension can be handled in a playful way and sometimes even with good humor that will make the sermon contents sparkle. Henry Mitchell writes:

Just as it is true that figures or metaphors may be used in either the textual or the expositional sermon, and just as it is true that a whole sermon may be built in a single story, it is also true that a whole sermon may use a single metaphor.... The moves would simply be based in several parallels between the figure and human experience. I recall sermons on fishing - studying the fish habits, choosing the bait to match the taste of the fish sought, waiting with patience, and pulling in the fish - which acknowledged that to be caught for Christ is life, not death. The text, of course, would be "I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19).5

Please allow the metaphor to carry itself throughout the sermon and refrain from any or very little explanation of it. Notice that when Jesus told his parables which were smaller metaphors, he hesitated to explain them at all. It was only on one occasion when he was really pressed that he did so and that may have not have been with the best results!

Hear the words of Charles E. Miller:

Jesus loved analogies and metaphors. That is why he asked himself while preparing to preach, "What is the kingdom of heaven like? To what shall I compare it?" Analogy is based on the principle that we proceed from the known to the unknown. It points out the similarities between what is already understood, appreciated, persuasive, or evident and what is not. An analogy makes an explicit comparison: "the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet thrown into the sea." A metaphor makes only an implicit comparison, as when Jesus said, "I am the light of the world."6

Story is at the heart of the extended narrative metaphor. It seeks more and more ways to revision what we thought we saw well in the first place. This keeps the thought alive and brings it home over and over throughout the text. The mystery is obvious and thus keeps the listener attentive to hear it solved.

The extended metaphor is more poetic than other ways of speaking in the pulpit. It talks about a different way and a different world than is our present situation. The language of the metaphor is carried throughout the entire sermon. For instance, if the metaphor is about hunting geese on the Missouri River, hunting terms would be used throughout the entire sermon. Or if the story is from Time magazine about someone in Ohio seeing a vision of Christ on a corn crib wall, the language of corn crib and farm would be used throughout the text. Mitchell continues: "The advantage of figures or metaphors is not only the clarity of ideas as visualized, but also the possibility that the hearer will feel very close to the sport of fishing, for instance, and therefore become deeply involved in the message."7

What we're talking about is quite different from a sermon illustration and even a sermon illustration which is referred to several times throughout the sermon. It is an experience for the preacher and the listener. The sermon becomes an event and something that is experienced as well as understood. The preacher will often begin with a portion of a story and then will keep
returning to that story and extending it further until it is told all the way through the sermon and concludes the sermon with a nice frame as it began.

One might say that this type of preaching gives a glimpse of God's kingdom and that we experience how it shall be and how it should be in the kingdom Jesus proclaimed. Arndt Halvorson puts it: "A sermon is a call to the depths of the human heart from the depths of the human heart."8

The story and metaphor is told in such a way that the hearer is invited in. One almost might say that it is seductive and that you simply cannot resist listening to it and wondering how it will come out as it carries you through the sermon event. The extended metaphor varies from an extended narrative in that the metaphor carries also the "is like" all the way through the message.

Someone has said that Christ is the "God with us" metaphor and I suspect that that would stand up if tested. I simply believe that because God is not visible in our presence we need metaphor and narrative to experience (not just learn about it!) God's presence with us now.

There are some risks in this type of preaching. The success of the sermon will rise or fall on the art of the preacher to tell story. The metaphor can also be so strong and call attention to itself that it nearly crushes the gospel truth and obscures the message that you're trying to communicate.

This kind of sermon simply cannot be read. A manuscript should not be taken into the pulpit when we're trying to do this kind of captivating storytelling and weaving of metaphor throughout it all. Ralph L. Lewis rolls out the big guns in Persuasive Preaching9 to make the point.

American church goers long ago proved their preference for extemporaneous speaking. They want their preachers to prepare, but they do not want sermons read to them. The verdict is in favor of the spoken and against the read sermon; and it is no use arguing about it.

Many objective studies have tested listener reactions to reading from a manuscript versus speaking extemporaneously with no more than notes for reference. Early tests revealed that listeners retain 36% more of the content when the message is delivered in extemporaneous speech. Tests repeatedly have found audience reactions more sympathetic and more attentive when speakers use direct extemporaneous speaking rather than manuscript reading.

"In most churches," says Buttrick, "a manuscript even dramatically read would be a barrier between preacher and people."10

The pew is unanimous in favor of extempore delivery, and the pew is right.11

The American people overwhelmingly favor the extemporaneous method. Most speakers forfeit effectiveness who choose any other.12

I would betray my strong feelings for not taking a manuscript into the pulpit unless I continued the argument a bit further using the words "Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, with standing room only for forty years, said: 'a written sermon is apt to reach out like a gloved hand; an unwritten sermon reaches out the warm and glowing palm, bare to the touch.' "13

We must be careful lest the scripture is being forced to fit the analogy or that it actually distracts from the scripture. In other words, we have it all backwards if we find a clever metaphor we want to use and then try to force scripture to fit it.

Another risk we take in this kind of preaching is that it would lead to such free association that our listeners would be so involved that they would miss the focus of the sermon. Invariably when we tell story and metaphor from the pulpit the listeners engage in likening what they hear to their own life experience. That can be good most of the time but it can also lead to a sort of daydreaming that can't be penetrated by the preacher's finest art.

There are many more pluses in using the extended metaphor than there are negatives. Certainly the major reason for it is that it keeps interest and it invites our hearers into the experience of the Gospel. It begins where people are and it moves the message along subtly, coaxing and convincing the hearers. It provides a way to organize and remember the sermon content. It is a very persuasive way to preach.

I like it because I believe that much of the pulpit work in my own denomination has too much "head" and not enough "heart." I think that this kind of preaching appeals to the heart as well as the head.

It also aids in the listener internalizing the truth that we're trying to proclaim. When it's experienced as well as articulated with a memorable vehicle transporting it, the listener is more apt to believe it and remember it and apply it in daily life.

Sallie McFague claims that parables are extended metaphors. "That is what a reasonably good story will do: It will engage the reader or hearer in a metaphoric process in which reality is redescribed, a new world is disclosed, a challenge to transformation is extended by way of an invitation to enter this world, to see reality this way, and to adopt an appropriate way of being."14

Here is an actual copy of an extended narrative metaphor sermon outline which I took into the pulpit:

Introduction: Sabbatical in Liberia, West Africa
Meeting Old Man Mopolu and Mama Gana
"Wear the skin" metaphor
What's our belief about Jesus and God?
Incarnation - Bethlehem to Jerusalem - Spirit
We are called to wear skin of Christ
Text Colossians 1:25 - Read from Bible
Wear it as servants
A congregation that does it
All God's people have a ministry
Saint Paul - Priesthood Luther - Reformation - Old Man
Pastor more than Holy Person
Church = meeting place for ministers - Mama Gana
Paul adds: proclaim Good News
Heartbeat of discipleship - witness
Side benefit of witnessing
So What? Put on, serve, witness, celebrate skin
Frame:
Old Man and Mama Gana

1. David Buttrick, Homiletic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), p. 116.
2. Thomas Long, The Witness of Preaching (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), pp. 172-173.
3. Richard A. Jensen, Telling the Story (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing, 1980), p. 185.
4. James Black, The Mystery of Preaching (London: Marshall, Morgan, and Scott, 1977), p. 45.
5. Henry H. Mitchell, Black Preaching: The Recovery of a Powerful Art (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), p. 89.
6. Charles E. Miller, C.M., Ordained to Preach (New York: Alba House, 1992), p. 41.
7. Mitchell, p. 119.
8. Arndt L. Halvorson, Authentic Preaching (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publication House, 1982), p. 9.
9. The following four citations are from: Ralph L. Lewis, Persuasive Preaching Today (Litho Crafters, Inc., 1979), p. 235.
10. Buttrick, op. cit., pp. 162-163.
11. Watson, op. cit., p. 271.
12. Abernathy, op. cit., p. 271.
13. Arthur S. Phelps, Speaking for Ministers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1964; Revised by DeKoster), p. 128.
14. Edward R. Riegert, Imaginative Shock Preaching andMetaphor (Burlington, Ontario: Trinity Press, 1990), p. 102.