SermonStudio

The Development Of Character In Sermons That Retell Biblical Stories

Another way to add things to a biblical story in order to preach by retelling it is to present more of a psychological portrait of a biblical character than the scripture usually gives us. Anita Diamant's recent best-selling novel, The Red Tent, aptly demonstrates the power of retelling biblical stories in this way. People are hungry for these kinds of stories. How do you as a preacher retell a biblical story emphasizing psychological aspects of its character(s)? Do you have to be a famous author or a licensed psychologist? Can you twist or obscure or diminish the gospel by assuming the motivations and thoughts and feelings of ancient people are like our own? You can.

David Buttrick, in his classic text, Homiletic, disputes the wisdom of attempts to "listen in on the articulate consciousness of a particular biblical figure" on several grounds. Events accomplished by God, Buttrick writes, get "dissolved into inner states or attitudes." Dramatic monologues, he objects, "almost always end in Pietism ... so that the mystery of God-with-us may gradually be edged out of the narrative and replaced by psychologies of faith."2

According to Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh in their Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, people in biblical times "neither knew nor cared about psychological development and were not introspective."3 Malina and Rohrbaugh issue their own stern warning against emphasizing psychological aspects of characters: "Our comments about the feelings and emotional states of biblical characters are simply anachronistic projections of our sensibilities onto them."4 Thomas Boomershine, in his book, Story Journey, echoes these warnings: "[A] typical problem is reading our experience back into the story in ways that are incongruent with the biblical story. Appropriate connections grow out of experiencing the meaning of the story in its original historical context. To be authentic, the connection must ... relate to the meaning and life context of both."5 At least Boomershine acknowledges that it is possible to make psychological connections with characters in biblical stories with some integrity, because for Boomershine, making such connections is an essential part of retelling biblical stories.

Still, it can be tempting to use a biblical text for the purpose of illustrating a particular "modern" psychological agenda. Yet, doing so can disengage listeners/viewers from the story. The incongruity of hearing a first-century biblical character talking about liberating "the child within" could lead listeners/viewers to suspect that the preacher is using the story for his or her own purposes rather than letting the story speak on its own. The moment of awareness of this incongruity is a moment when a preacher's intent becomes transparent. After such a moment, the listener/viewer can experience the rest of the story/sermon as a mere illustration the preacher uses for his or her own agenda. The story no longer speaks its own truth but is simply being used to illustrate someone else's truth. We'll talk more about transparent intent in chapter 5.

Approaching a biblical text with the purpose of illustrating a particular psychological agenda can not only distract listeners/viewers, it can distort biblical stories. It can be a way of projecting twenty-first-century sensibilities onto first-century people. It can violate the text's understanding of people. "Modern" people are qualitatively different kinds of people. Twenty-first-century people of Western cultures are motivated far more by individual identity and desires than were people living in regions surrounding the Mediterranean in the first century.6 Malina and Rohrbaugh teach us that the identity of first-century people in regions surrounding the Mediterranean people was formed and driven entirely in reference to their social context.7 People didn't sit down and fill out personal assessment exercises to determine their course and choices in life. Their identities and choices were completely bound up with an effort to maintain (not to advance or to reverse) their family's position in their community. Because people thought of the world in terms of "limited goods," first-century peasants in regions surrounding the Mediterranean believed those who were advancing their family's economic status by accumulating more goods than others had to have been taking those goods from others.8 Those who were thought to be taking goods from others could bring dishonor upon themselves and their families. The rich, in a peasant's point of view, were always robbers. A man might want to be rich and might have the skills to accomplish this, but among peasants, a man would not normally desire to bring suspicion and dishonor upon his family by doing so. A woman might be brilliant at trade, but among peasants, a woman would not normally consider a business career, because women could bring dishonor to their fathers or husbands were they to act so independently in public. Perspectives about wealth, the role of women, and other issues varied between rural and urban areas. Still, total submission to concerns about family honor held sway in the regions surrounding the Mediterranean in ways completely foreign to twenty-first century people in Western cultures.

People Are People

People are people, however. Richard Jensen makes this point in his book, Thinking In Story. Jensen argues that it is possible to make a "correlation between the human world and the biblical world" simply because "the world of the Bible is not some other world! ... God's revelation in Jesus Christ is correlated precisely with human needs. God's work in Christ is the answer to the problems of life as we experience it."9 There must be some connection "between the human world and the biblical world," Jensen claims, otherwise Jesus and the gospel would be completely irrelevant. God certainly couldn't have wanted that!

Furthermore, in limited ways, people today still do act based upon an understanding of the social consequences of their action. In regards to ethical decisions, many twenty-first-century people do not weigh the social consequences of their actions at all: I don't care what my parents or the rest of my family or my neighbors or my pastor thinks; I'm going to live with my boyfriend. However, if it were to be a matter of keeping a job, twenty-first-century people do understand very well what it would mean to act based on an understanding of social consequences of their actions: my particular corporate culture demands a particular form of behavior; I'll toe the line and behave properly, because it's a tough job market or I need to feed my family or I like the money. The similarities between the psychology of first-century Mediterranean peasants are as important as the differences. Twenty-first-century people do have references for understanding the struggles of ancient people in the proper psychological perspective, if such a perspective is accurately re-presented. This is the proper exegetical burden of those who would preach by retelling biblical stories in such a way as to emphasize psychological aspects of biblical characters.

Connecting With The Story

Here Boomershine's concept of "connecting with the story" is instructive. In his book, Story Journey, Boomershine believes that "generally our tellings of biblical stories are disassociated from human experience," and so throughout his book, he offers suggestions about how to connect our experiences of life with biblical stories.10 For example, in order to make emotional connections with Luke's story of the birth of Jesus, Boomershine recommends that we remember or learn or share stories about births, or stories about opportunities we have had to tell someone some good news, or stories about political and economic oppression. Boomershine emphasizes however, that "in the absence of historical study, the connections people make with the stories are sometimes inappropriate ... Appropriate connections grow out of experiencing the meaning of the story in its original historical context. To be authentic, the connection must mutually relate to the meaning and life context of both. The story journey requires, therefore, that we listen closely to these ancient tales."11 Our emotional experiences elicited by biblical texts have to be examined in light of the "historical study"of the text and what Boomershine calls "norms of judgment."12 Automatically connecting romantic feelings with biblical stories about marriage, for example, could be a drastic misunderstanding of the norms of judgment of a biblical text. Because it was a norm that practically all marriages between first-century people were arranged by families, feelings of romantic love were not necessarily present in those marriages.13 At the same time, there are many twenty-first-century people who could associate the path to marriage with feelings of having been forced to marry because of social pressures. Yes, we can make psychological connections with marriage stories in the Bible. But exactly what kind of marriage is the text about? The text must be the final judge of any connections we make with it.

Exceptions To The Rule

There are also many exceptions in biblical stories to the sort "honor maintenance behavior" among first-century Mediterranean peasants. Lydia was a woman who was brilliant at trade and who apparently pursued this gift to the point of being able to establish and/or sustain a business in a lucrative luxury item trade (Acts 16:14-40). Even among Galilean peasants, there were members of families who found it necessary to survive by means not regarded as honorable by authorities of various religious groups. When people were not landowners, sometimes they became shepherds -- not generally regarded as an honorable profession.14 When people were ineligible to share enough of the family inheritance to make a living, sometimes they became tanners or tax collectors -- also not generally regarded as honorable professions.15 When they were stricken with diseases like "leprosy," sometimes they became beggars.16 When they engaged in sinful or shameful behavior like adultery, sometimes they became prostitutes.

Most importantly, Jesus himself encouraged people to act in ways considered shameful from the point of view of a first-century Galilean peasants and Jewish religious authorities.17 If twenty-first-century listeners/viewers become aware of the powerful grip of the influence of "honor maintenance" on biblical people's identity because a sermon has fleshed that out by "psychologizing," how mysterious it begins to seem when people break with this social system to follow Jesus! That people followed Jesus at all is a mystery, but one discovered only when one "psychologizes" informed by social science -- social science specifically aimed at understanding ancient people, not modern ones.

The sermon that follows this chapter attempts to do just that. It's a sermon in which I have tried to emphasize the psychological aspects of the character of Peter as presented in the Gospel of Mark and as understood by those who study the psycho-social make-up of first-century Mediterranean people. It's one of those dramatic monologue sermons that Buttrick discourages us from preaching. In it, I attempt to "articulate the consciousness" of Peter after having heard the first prediction of Jesus' suffering and death and after having just been called "Satan." In Mark, Jesus implies that Peter is one who "wants to gain the whole world."18 Peter's attitude is clearly an exception to the whole "honor maintenance" way of life. Understanding Peter in the psychological framework of his context, we see a less traditional understanding of why Peter was so quick to abandon his family's fishing business and follow Jesus. That Peter follows Jesus wasn't necessarily a miraculous conversion as many Christians have traditionally viewed it. Instead, Mark's Jesus understands Peter to be a fellow who wants to gain the whole world and who sees Jesus as way to do so. That Peter is a man who wants to gain the whole world is also why Peter is so aghast when Jesus first explains that he will be crucified. Peter wants to gain the whole world; he doesn't want to be associated with a common criminal, but with a conquering hero. Gary, a member of my preaching group, vividly restates this understanding of Peter's character as he heard it in my sermon: "Peter thought Jesus was quite a power figure ... [Peter thought] instead of taking it on the nose all the time, why [didn't Jesus] do something to jack these people up? We're right, [Peter thought], and by golly, show 'em!"

The "psychologizing" in which I engage in the following sermon helped Gary see Peter as Mark portrays him. Just because Mark doesn't use dramatic monologues to convey who he believed Peter was, doesn't mean we can't -- as long as what we say about Peter's consciousness is grounded in the text, not in our interest in using Peter's story to illustrate our own pet psychological theory.

Despite the psychologizing that goes on in the dramatic monologue of my sermon on Peter, the mystery of God-with-us is not explained away as Buttrick had feared it would be. When Peter finds out that he's not in for the big rewards he had been hoping for, why does he stick with Jesus? This is exactly the question that's on Gary's mind. "You do have to wonder why Christianity endured so long or grew in the first place, because you would think that what Christ was preaching wouldn't have flew at all ... Why didn't the [disciples] quit? So God's way must work ... otherwise it wouldn't have lasted this long. If [Christ] would have done the typical human thing, it probably wouldn't have lasted." Why Christianity lasted is a mystery. Why Peter stuck with it despite the fact that his human need to "gain the whole world" was thwarted is a mystery. Because I "psychologized," the listener/viewer was able to relate to the character Peter in a slightly different way and then come to wonder about the mystery of the survival of the Christian faith.

But there's more. In a "psychologized" representation of Peter, the listener/viewer can also realize in Peter's dubious and conflicted character how God works graciously with people who have the "wrong" motivations -- forebearing them, forgiving them, gradually transforming them. Listeners/viewers can see and relate to Peter's struggle with selfishness and can wonder how he overcame those struggles to become a leader in the church. Listeners/viewers can be assured that as God had forgiving patience with one as conflicted as Peter was, God can have patience with them. Listeners/viewers can hope God can work with them in their own struggles to inspire them to become more faithful themselves. And that's good news, indeed!

Buttrick doesn't like "psychologizing." He and others say it's bad exegesis and that it reduces the mystery of God-with-us to psychologies of faith. But I have found that scripturally-based character study informed by social scientists like Malina and Rohrbaugh can create the true heart of a sermon that attempts to retell a biblical story without explaining away motivations of biblical characters. Furthermore, often an accurate and in-depth understanding of the psychological dimensions of the stories of biblical characters deepens the mystery of their motivation for following Jesus, because doing so was often so counter-cultural, so unusual, so unbelievable.

* * *

Peter Talks Back
A Sermon for Proper 19
(Revised Common Lectionary, Cycle B)
based on Isaiah 50:4-9a and Mark 8:27-38
preached at Our Savior's Lutheran Church,
Pulaski, Wisconsin


People in my world don't talk back to teachers like they do in your world. But I did. Me, Peter, son of a fisherman, I talked back to Jesus, the Son of the Ruler of the Universe. I rebuked Jesus just like he rebukes demons. I rebuked Jesus because he was talking crazy, because it's not just him that this Messiah thing is all about, it's about me! If Jesus gets himself rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, if Jesus gets himself killed, what happens to me?

Jesus is how I make a living now. I left everything for Jesus. If I were to go back to my hometown, I'd have nothing. I'd be a big time shame there, dumping my family and civic obligations for Jesus as I did. I'd be worse than a joke to them; I'd be a criminal like one of those sex predators who get out of jail and the cops warn everybody where they live. Anyone who'd even to talk to me, much less buy fish from me, would shame themselves. People would yank out my beard and insult me and spit on me.

So I don't have anywhere to go except Jesus, and Jesus is talking about checking out. And that stinks.

Now let me make it clear. I don't have any regrets about losing everything. What did I lose? A really boring job. Mending fishing nets. Did you ever mend a fishing net? Did you ever sit around in the hot sun all day picking fish heads out of slimy rope? Or did you ever spend the whole day scraping the guts out of fish? You get this really profound sense of personal vocational fulfillment.

Jesus was my ticket out. Jesus was headed somewhere, I mean, with Jesus I've been all over Galilee, and now we're at the Roman villages around Caesarea Philippi, and I'm pretty sure we're headed for Jerusalem. Now, I've been to Jerusalem before. I get there once in a while, even though I know I'm supposed to be there every Passover. But you know, at Passover, there's like thousands of people there, and you're just a number, and it's crowded and noisy and stinks like burned up lamb guts. And you know, you've seen the priests cut one lamb's throat, you've seen them all. Even the prophets say that's not what it's all about.

But going to Jerusalem with Jesus, now, that's a different story. With Jesus, I'm going in one of those stretch limos with these huge crowds of Galileans following us who are gonna be full of pride about what we Galileans got. We got a guy who heals the sick! (Did you know Jesus healed my mother-in-law? Now that is a miracle!) We Galileans got a guy here who can put anybody back in their right mind! We got a guy here who can stop a tornado with a word! We got a guy here who can raise the dead! I mean, you just gotta have a little imagination about the possibilities here. We could say to Pilate or the chief priest or the emperor of Rome himself, we could say, "Hey, you want to live forever? We got Jesus. The Ultimate Insurance Policy. You treat us right, Jesus keeps you alive forever. You get your stupid army out of Israel, Jesus heals you when your friends try to poison your food." (That's what these Roman politicians do, you know. They kinda make the guys in Washington look like Big Bird and the Cookie Monster.) We could say to the Emperor, "Hey, if you invest in some infrastructure around here -- some irrigation, some nice new schools, a new football stadium -- then Jesus will keep you and your family happy and healthy forever. Work it out right, and that's what it could be. Now there's nothing satanic about that plan, is there? That's the beauty of it. Nobody gets hurt. We save our lives. We gain the whole world, and the whole world wins."

But Jesus doesn't like my ideas. When he got on his suffering and death stuff today, and I told him to get a grip, Jesus calls me Satan! Now that doesn't exactly do much for your self-esteem, does it?

But I don't see how him dying is going to accomplish anything. Why turn himself (and us) into a public humiliation? Why make us ashamed of him? We can't go around proclaiming the words of somebody who's dumb enough to get himself crucified! Man, this is just a dead end! When Jesus is outta here, he's outta here! Then what are we gonna do? What power do we have? And if they get Jesus, they can get us, too!

Though, now that I think about it, like I was saying, it really doesn't matter, does it? If Jesus is gone, they might as well string me up, too. I can't go back. All my eggs are in Jesus' basket. I'm dead meat without Jesus. So I'm gonna keep at him. Nobody's gonna tame Peter. Jesus can call me whatever he wants. I'm not gonna let him throw this away. Maybe there's something in the scriptures that can help me convince him to stick up for himself, to get him thinking about getting rid of his enemies.

(Peter picks up a Bible and opens it to a random page.)

Here. The prophet Zechariah. He's always good for stuff like that: "This shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples that wage war against Jerusalem: their flesh shall rot while they are still on their feet; their eyes shall rot in their sockets, and their tongues shall rot in their mouths" (Zechariah 14:12).

(laughing) Awesome! I'll put a bookmark in his Bible right there. That'll teach him. Let's see what else I can find. I'll just open it up anywhere. Isaiah: "The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word" (Isaiah 50:4).

(sighing) That's Jesus. That's what he does. "Morning by morning the Lord GOD wakens -- wakens his ear to listen, to listen as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened Jesus' ear, and he was not rebellious" (Isaiah 50:4-5 paraphrased).

Jesus isn't rebellious, is he? Not like Peter the fisherman. Jesus gives his back to those who strike him; Jesus gives his cheeks to those who pull out his beard; Jesus doesn't hide his face from insult and spitting. Because the Lord God helps him. Therefore, Jesus has not been disgraced. Therefore, he has set his face like flint. Therefore, he knows he won't be put to shame. Because the Lord God who vindicates him is near. Who's gonna contend with Jesus? Who are his adversaries? Because it's the Lord God who helps him (Isaiah 50:6-8 paraphrased).

That's Jesus. That'll teach me to read the scriptures. Jesus sustains the weary with a word. All the time. That's all he does. Are you weary? Are you sick? Are you the scum of the earth? Are you a couple sandwiches short of a picnic? Jesus'll sit you down, slice you a little bread, pour you a little wine, serve you up some dried fish, and then he'll tell you that you're loved and precious and forgiven by God.

And he drives the religious bigwigs nuts! He's gonna let them pull out his beard and insult him and spit on him and kill him. He thinks God's gonna vindicate him. Jesus thinks God's gonna make all his good words, all his good news, his gospel go on forever and ever. Jesus thinks we're going to be proud of the gospel and not ashamed of it. And, Jesus thinks we're going to go all around the world and say and do this gospel ourselves. He's not afraid of what others say about him or do to him. Jesus thinks God is with him, no matter what.

And I suppose that's what I'm supposed to be doing, right? Pick up the cross and follow Jesus and not worry about it and be brave and not return nasty words with worse ones and not rebuke my teacher and not ignore the study of his word, but just give it all away for his sake and the sake of the gospel, just give it all away for the sake of those words that sustain the weary. That's what I'm supposed to do: follow Jesus, no matter how inconvenient it is for my schedule, no matter how hard it is to find the time, no matter how embarrassing it is to say, "Sorry guys, the gospel comes first." Just follow Jesus -- no matter what.

I don't know. What am I gonna do?


Chapter Notes

1. The title idea is taken from Richard Jensen's Thinking In Story (Lima, Ohio: CSS Publishing Company, 1993), p. 55.

2. David Buttrick, Homiletic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), pp. 333-334.

3. Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), p. 231; Thomas Boomershine, Story Journey: An Invitation to the Gospel as Storytelling (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), pp. 20-21.

4. Malina and Rohrbaugh, p. 231.

5. Boomershine, p. 21.

6. Malina and Rohrbaugh, pp. 309-311.

7. Malina and Rohrbaugh, pp. 112-113.

8. Malina and Rohrbaugh, pp. 48-49.

9. Jensen, p. 92. See also Thomas Troeger, Imagining the Sermon (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), p. 91.

10. Boomershine, pp. 37-38.

11. Boomershine, p. 21.

12. Boomershine, pp. 20-21, 36, 49, 90; "norms of judgment," p. 75. See also Thomas Troeger, Imagining the Sermon (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), pp. 53-66.

13. Malina and Rohrbaugh, pp. 28-30.

14. Malina and Rohrbaugh, p. 296.

15. Malina and Rohrbaugh, pp. 296, 72-74, 82-83.

16. Malina and Rohrbaugh, p. 315.

17. Malina and Rohrbaugh, pp. 78, 313, 334-336, 345.

18. Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, transl. William F. Arndt, eds. F. Wilbur Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 429.