storytelling

Jewish Storytelling

by

Christian storytelling is rooted in the ancient Jewish tradition of telling stories. In telling the story, its reality and power are made present to the hearers, so that by entering into the story they experience its significance and power to shape their perspectives and the living out of their own stories of faith.

The Old Testament Background of Jewish Storytelling

Jews have always loved a good story. The Old Testament itself embraces hundreds of stories of every kind, and, almost without exception, they are told well. Plots are carefully worked out, there are surprises and clever turns, there is a relish for description and for fine points of psychology and motivation.

The story of stories was the Exodus, Yahweh’s liberation of Israel from Egypt. Many books of the Old Testament (and the New Testament, for that matter) recount or allude to this central event in Israel’s constitution and self-understanding. The rescue from Egypt and the crossing of the Sea was the great saving act of God that made Israel a people. It was an event through which all subsequent acts of Yahweh would be understood and reflected on, and it would affect Israel’s own response to God as his covenanted people.

The story of the Exodus and what Israel’s response to such salvation should be was to be repeated from generation to generation with loving fidelity. No detail of the story was to be lost. “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them” (Deut. 4:9). “In the future, when your son asks you, ‘What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees, and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?’ tell him: ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes, the Lord sent miraculous signs and wonders—great and terrible—upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household’ ” (Deut. 6:20–22).

The Role of Anamnesis: The Remembered Story

Deuteronomy: A Biblical Paradigm of the Remembered Story. This retelling of the story constitutes one feature of anamnesis (Hebrew: zikkaron, “remembering”). There are many elements to anamnesis. The Exodus was not conceived of as only a past event. It was somehow an everlasting event that continued to operate in Israel’s history, and each succeeding generation was called on to “witness” for itself this event as a living reality.

The book of Deuteronomy is the best Old Testament example of this reality. In an atmosphere of growing despair, the Deuteronomist preached reform and renewal to the people. The book says, in effect, that the covenant made in Sinai with Yahweh after the passage through the Sea never really took hold, that the promises of the covenant had not been fulfilled by Israel. Instead of asking the people to return to remembrance of the Exodus and to the fidelity that should have sprung from that experience of Yahweh, the author brings his hearers directly into the events themselves, saying that it is now happening in their midst and that they must respond to an activity of God that is present, not past. The Deuteronomist takes his listeners up Mount Nebo in Moab, on the border of Canaan, side by side with Moses, looking down into the Promised Land and demanding a response.

The words he puts into the mouth of Moses are not necessarily meant to record Moses’ preaching to the Hebrews of old. They are his own preaching to these people about their own lives, and he means to strike a response deep in their hearts to stories that he and his people really believed were the words of Moses. When the Deuteronomist has Moses speak to his people about being eyewitnesses to the Exodus, he also means for the people of his own time to see themselves as eyewitnesses of, and participants in, this saving event, since for him the redeeming power of Yahweh in the Exodus remains a present and urgent reality (Deut. 11:2–5, 7).

Present and Future Reality of the Remembered Story. Part of anamnesis, then, is not just a recollection of the past, but a drawing of past events into the present as still effective. As Johannes Betz puts it, “Anamnesis [in the biblical sense] means not only the subjective representation of something in the consciousness as an act of the remembering mind. It is also the objective effectiveness and presence of one reality in another, especially the effectiveness and presence of the salvific actions of God” (“Eucharist I,” Sacramentum Mundi [New York: Herder & Herder, 1968], 2:264).

One sees something similar in Joshua 24. When Joshua meets the Hebrews in Shechem who had not been in captivity in Egypt, nor experienced the Exodus as Joshua and his people had, he draws them into the covenant by making them acknowledge that the Exodus is an event for them, too—not just a thing of the past that they must accept as part of their own history, but an ongoing event that they now profess to, and witness in, their own lives. They become, by free choice, the dramatis personae of the constitutive saving act whereby Israel draws its being as a people. “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes” (Josh. 24:16–17).

This pulling up of the past into the present takes on greater definition in Isaiah 40 and the following chapters. While bringing the people the message of consolation that there will be restoration after the terrible experience of the Exile, the author tells the people that they must not think about the Exodus as merely a remembrance of the past. No, they must realize that the power and reality of the Exodus is still present and working in their midst and is forging their restoration. The coming restoration is but an extension of the Exodus itself. “This is what the Lord says—he who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together, and they lay there, never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick: ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland’ ” (Isa. 43:16–19). He is not telling the exiles to forget the Exodus—he is urging them to see the Exodus as still working in their present. Indeed, he goes on to describe the return and restoration precisely in terms appropriate to the Exodus.

The Incarnation of the Remembered Story. There is one final aspect of biblical anamnesis, the reenactment of the event, a bringing of the past into the present, not just in memory but also in ritual, a sort of reincarnating of the event in symbol—or better, allowing the event to continue its incarnation forward in space and time. “You shall observe this as a perpetual ordinance for yourselves and your descendants. Thus, you must observe this rite when you have entered the land that the Lord will give you as he promised. When your children ask you, ‘What does this rite of yours mean?’ you shall reply, ‘This is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord [Yahweh], who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt; when he struck down the Egyptians, he spared our houses’ ” (Exod. 12:24–26, nab).

This ritual reenactment of the Exodus was gradually built on an earlier agricultural festival, which was then given a new meaning—the idea of “transignification,” which is used in contemporary eucharistic theology. This ancient feast was called the pesach in Hebrew and originally, apparently, was an ancient celebration that marked the spring yeaning, or birthing, and in which a lamb was killed as a sacrificial act.

This ritual was taken over as a structure to celebrate all events of the Exodus, and the individual rites were modified and given new meaning such that their original meaning was lost from consciousness, and they became symbolic reenactments of different facets of the great story. They were made into an anamnesis of the Exodus. The word pesach, which seems to have meant “leaping” and which possibly referred to a liturgical dance, now was given the meaning of “leaping over,” the “passing over” by Yahweh of the houses of the Hebrews when he visited the firstborn of the Egyptians with death.

The killing of the lamb no longer was a yeaning sacrifice, but a symbolic substitution for the firstborn of the Hebrews, who were spared. Similar embodiments of the Exodus story were attached to the ancient symbols of the unleavened bread—“there was no time to make leavened bread in the flight from Egypt”—the bitter herbs, the wine, etc. Anyone familiar with the contemporary Passover service will instantly recall the questions “Why is this night different from every other night” and “The unleavened bread which we eat, what is its reason?”

The Passover service is called the Haggadah, “the prayerful recital,” or the Seder, “the ritual order.” The ritual is an anamnesis, a zikkaron. It involves not just a recital of a past event, the Exodus, but brings it into the present, symbolized through liturgical reenactment. We read in the Haggadah, “In each and every generation, it is a man’s duty to regard himself as though he himself went forth out of Egypt.… Wherefore we thank him who performed all these miraculous deeds for our fathers, but also for us. He brought us forth out of bondage.” At the raisings of the second cup, this is recited: “Blessed are you, Lord God, king of the universe, who redeemed us and redeemed our fathers from Egypt, and enabled us to reach this night whereupon to eat unleavened bread and bitter herbs.”

Thus the saving will of God, prototypically incarnated in the Exodus, reached into the present day as an ongoing saving reality. What is more, it will reach into the future: “So also, God of our fathers, may you enable us to reach holidays and celebrations to come, when we partake again of the Passover offerings.”

The Exodus reaches upward in history and expands its effect by further realizations in changing circumstances—the restoration after the exile, the rebuilding of the cities in the Promised Land, liberation in any struggle or darkness. These are all the Exodus at work in the midst of Israel. By ritual reenactment of the event and by the remembrance of it, the partakers of the Passover feast celebrate the continuance of Yahweh’s saving grace.

Jesus’ Use of Anamnesis/Remembered Story. In the New Testament, Jesus’ passage from death to life in his passion and resurrection are not only frequently described by means of Old Testament paschal typology, they are explicitly called an exodus. In the Transfiguration scene, Moses and Elijah appeared in glory and spoke of [Jesus’] exodus, which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem (see Luke 9:31). In the Last Supper, Jesus, of course, celebrates precisely the Passover service with the disciples. One by one he takes up the elements of the exodus-anamnesis and proclaims that his approaching passion, death, and resurrection are the renewed exodus, just as the return from exile was for Isaiah. As the earlier Hebrews transfigured an earlier rite, now Jesus takes the exodus-anamnesis and makes it his own story. The tale is not of what has happened; it is the story of what is now happening. He himself is the paschal lamb that is killed so that others might live. The wine is no longer the sign of the sprinkled blood to seal the Sinai covenant; it is his own blood in a new covenant.

This thanksgiving of Haggadah, or Eucharist, becomes for the covenanted people formed by Jesus’ death and resurrection the celebration of the Exodus from Egypt precisely as this grace from the Father was at work in Jesus, leading from bondage to freedom. But as the Jews celebrated the Exodus as a continuing event in their own time, so Christians celebrate the passion and death of Jesus not as a past reality, but as the Passover of Jesus, as a present reality, extending from Jesus to the believer through the power of Jesus’ Spirit. Those who partake of this paschal banquet celebrate Jesus’ exodus from death to life as working in their own lives, and they proclaim his death until he comes again in glory. They confess that it will reach its fulfillment even in the future when they sit with the Lord at the heavenly banquet.

Developing the Art of Storytelling

by

Storytelling is an art that needs to be developed in today’s churches. Storytellers succeed through using dialogue, developing action and plot, opening up the imagination, and learning how to tell the story well. The following entry is one pastor’s account of the transforming power of story in his own preaching. Its original title, “Spinning Yarns,” suggests the necessity of retaining the first-person perspective because the best stories are our stories—stories told from personal experience.

Spinning Yarns

Throughout his conquests, Alexander the Great read the Iliad, a book that kindles martial zeal. He often placed his copy, annotated by Aristotle, under his pillow at night alongside his dagger. It’s not stretching it to say this one story’s effect on Alexander may have changed the course of history.

I confess I had been preaching for years before I realized that well-told stories wield this kind of power, that they can actually change people’s lives. I happened onto that realization the hard way. My college degree was in accounting, and I’ve always felt at home with facts, analysis, and principles—the abstract and conceptual. I would have been embarrassed to simply tell a Bible story in a sermon; that was for children. I thought adults needed a quick summary of the story followed by cogent lessons from it.

But then I became pastor of an inner-city church in Chicago. I began to notice my sermons had less impact than in my previous location, a college town. I wasn’t shirking on preparation. I painstakingly studied and outlined each text. But my people too often had blank looks. So I set a goal to learn how to communicate to my people, none of whom were college graduates, and a few of whom couldn’t read.

Other inner-city pastors emphasized oratory and delivery, so I bought a book on classical rhetoric and tried becoming a flame thrower. Blank looks became surprised looks.

Then I read Triumphs of the Imagination, by Leland Ryken, which discusses the nature and value of fiction. Frankly, I hadn’t read fiction in eight years. But Ryken argued that a story has power—in itself. Hearing one, we enter the experience of others, feel what they feel, learn firsthand.

So I tried recounting Bible stories in my sermons, accenting dialogue, building suspense. I began woodenly, then loosened up and found I actually enjoyed telling the stories. Best of all, my people now had interested looks. They were enjoying the stories, too.

Since then I’ve read many more books on storytelling and fiction writing. I’ve found the same principles these yarn spinners use to make characters appealing and to heighten suspense have aided my preaching.

Characterization

People love people. Many magazines exist solely because of this fact. We are inspired by others’ accomplishments. We are curious about their secrets. We are attracted by their virtues and repelled by their flaws. For good or ill, we are never neutral about people.

Fiction writers know that, and they labor to create characters that will bond with the readers’ interests. If we care about their character, we will keep reading their book.

God has filled his Book with fascinating people: Joab, a no-holds-barred pragmatist; Abigail, an unflappable crisis manager; Jonadab, a crafty schemer; or Jonathan, the greatest friend someone could have.

In order to spotlight characters in a Bible story or modern-day illustration, I must come to know them. Fiction writers spend days imagining their characters’ habits, emotions, weaknesses, abilities, ambitions, and fears. As I prepare to tell a story, I take the time to ask myself, Were these people extraverts or introverts? What was their relationship to God? Were they assertive or passive, impetuous or controlled, can-do or defeatist? Because people are complex, that sort of thinking takes time. But if I don’t do it, I end up with cardboard figures that are indistinguishable from each other and boring.

One way to bring biblical characters alive in my mind is to find contemporary parallels. Recently Jeroboam took off his sandals and put on black wingtips for me. Here is the consummate one-minute manager, high on the list of corporate headhunters. He is ousted from management only to return to claim the presidential suite. Yet he compromises principles and loses out with God.

Another way to ensure the characters in my sermons are vital is to concentrate on the universal elements of their personalities: ambition, loss, romance, unfulfilled desires, success, stress, and so on. Last year I preached an expository series through the life of David, and I wrestled with the text where David feigns insanity. Then I spotted the common denominator—when facing a crisis, David was resourceful. The text sprang open.

I have also found that Bible characters are more interesting if I portray their possible thoughts and motivations. My listeners know the complexity of their own inner lives. They identify with the Bible character when they discover his or her personal struggles.

For example, I imagined Sarah’s reaction when the Lord promised Abraham, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son,” something like this:

“Sarah was speechless. Then came a sudden association, a memory sadly pushed to the back of her mind years ago: God had promised they would have offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky. She had never known what to think of that. And now, at this word from these strangers, she did think, “After I am worn out and my master is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

It’s easy to slide into the rut of characterizing by adjectives only. Though adjectives are useful, especially when time is short, fiction writers use many means to make each person in the story vivid and memorable.

• Dialogue. We get to know others by overhearing what they say.
• Actions. Play-by-play is perhaps the easiest way to inject life into a sermon.
• Thoughts. “As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man” (Prov. 27:19).
• What other characters say. One person brings the best out of our character; another the worst. Together they give the whole picture, like a statue viewed from different angles.
• Description of appearance. We discern much about others just by looking at them.

Dialogue

Of those methods for enlivening a character, dialogue is perhaps the most powerful. Some fiction writers advise that dialogue should make up one-third of the novel.

Some of the most memorable words in the Bible come from dialogue. What preacher would want to do without Moses’ answer to God at the burning bush: “O Lord, please send someone else to do it”? or Abraham’s words to a curious Isaac as they climb a mountain of Moriah: “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son”?

I have found using dialogue in my sermon stories helps in several ways.

Dialogue Invites Immediacy. It beckons the listener to eavesdrop on each conversation. The storyteller gathers the listeners and the characters into the same room by using direct quotations rather than indirect. If I quote only indirectly, I put myself between the listeners and the scene: “Jesus then told Nicodemus that unless a man is born again … ” However, when I quote directly, I let the character do the talking: “I tell you the truth unless a man is born again … ” A subtle change, but a noticeable improvement in immediacy.

Dialogue Heightens Emotion. Which has more drama: to say, “Elijah sat down under the broom tree and felt depressed,” or “Elijah sat down under the broom tree and said, ‘I have had enough, Lord. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors”?

Dialogue Reveals the Person. We learn much about Naomi through these few words: “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.” In a sermon, I could say, “Naomi had been through great hardship and felt self-pity and bitterness,” but her own words reflect that truth much more powerfully.

Because my listeners intuitively gauge the character from his or her words, I am particularly careful how I paraphrase and deliver a Bible character’s dialogue. Slang and regional accents can add humor and contemporaneity, but they can also mislead or distract when used indiscriminately.

Action and Plot

When we recount a Bible story in a message, we obviously do not write the plot, nor do we alter it. The same thing applies to illustrations from books, news events, or our own lives. But learning what makes for a good plot has attuned me to the crescendos and decrescendos of a story. I want to be like the pianist who interprets a song more sensitively because of his or her grasp of music theory and composition.

When I was a teenager, I bought a classical music album entitled Fireworks, a marrow-throbbing collection of zeniths from various pieces. We owned other classical music, but I got every last spark out of Fireworks. My tastes have matured; I now enjoy the quiet and subtle movements as much as the grand finales.

My storytelling has followed a similar path. At first, I told stories like one long finale, trumpets blaring from beginning to end. But I’ve grown more sensitive to downs and ups. Now I reserve my highest intensity for the climax.

The key to understanding a story’s plot, and where the climax falls, is identifying the conflict. Whenever I prepare to tell a story, I consider: What problems is this person trying to solve? What adversity is there to overcome?

I had told the story of Isaac’s birth many times before I recognized and developed one of the subsidiary conflicts: Would Sarah ever laugh again? Would her life ever take on joy? This problem isn’t verbalized until the end of the story. At the birth of Isaac, Sarah says, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” I decided to tell Sarah’s story, basing it on the problem of her lack of joy.

Since conflict sparks interest, I usually begin my story with it. Normally I don’t launch the story with an eloquent description of a person, landscape, or background events; I unload that cargo as the plot progresses. With Sarah’s story, I had to establish from the start her lack of laughter, unstated in Genesis until the end. I imagined her reaction to someone else’s celebration:

“A new mother giggled with her family and friends. Sarah smiled too, but she couldn’t laugh; she hadn’t really laughed in years. She was glad for the mother, but it was a hollow gladness and a Mona Lisa smile. Would Sarah ever laugh again?”

Sometimes, feeling pressure from the clock, I rush the beginning of the story to get to the climax and make my point. Taking time to establish the person’s struggle is difficult for me, a get-to-the-point person. But by slighting the conflict, I defuse the climax, leaving myself with an emotional dud.

For example, the parting of the Red Sea is a moving climax, but only if you’ve been through Pharaoh’s repeated refusals and the ominous charge of the Egyptian cavalry. So when I told the story during a series in Exodus, I didn’t skip a single plague. The greater the struggles, the more powerful the victory.

Sensory Description

The doorways into the imagination are the five senses. By appealing to the senses, the storyteller takes the listener by the hand and leads him across the threshold into the scene. Notice how the following sensory-filled introduction involves you in Joseph’s experience.

“Joseph’s head pounded as he looked at the crowd of buyers and wondered, Which one will be my master? He wanted to get off his feet, blistered by the desert trek. Raucous, foreign tongues filled his ears, but he longed for the voice of Jacob.”

During my sermon preparation, I close my eyes, place myself in the scene, and use my imagination. What do I see? What do I hear? What do I touch, smell, taste? When I put myself into Elijah’s place at the ravine of Kerith where he was fed by ravens, the brook didn’t just run dry. Stones hurt the back of my cupped hands as I pressed them into the riverbed for the trickling water. In the message, I won’t use all these perceptions, just enough to satisfy a healthy imagination.

Of the five senses, sight is the most influential. Storytellers are like filmmakers, who search for meaningful, emotive images: David twirling his sling; Abraham lifting a knife over his son; Adam hiding in the bushes from God.

Lengthy descriptions slow a story, so whenever possible I embroider descriptions with action. For instance, instead of saying, “Goliath’s sword was heavy,” I would say, “David strained to raise Goliath’s sword over his head.”

When we taste, touch, sniff, observe, and listen, we tell the story freshly even to those who have heard the story ninety-nine times before.

Delivery

Rushing a story is like gulping down a Sunday dinner. It takes time to set the mood, to expressively speak the dialogue. Our listeners will not get emotionally involved in thirty seconds, nor can we build suspense in that time. We need pauses … silence.

There are occasions to speak rapidly, to increase the sense of fast action. But in general, a hurried story says, “Just get the facts.” A slower pace says, “Feel this; live this.” I used to balk at spending a large amount of time on a story because I wanted to get to the point. Now I realize the story gets the point across better than my factual, declarative statements.

By trial and error, I’ve developed a storytelling style that works for me. I write out the story in my own words, then read as little as possible, because when eye contact is broken, the mood evaporates. And I tell the story without pausing for principles or application. I want people to experience the story itself in a powerful way first.

Telling a story well requires extra preparation, and when a story is long or I don’t manage time well during the week, I read more during the sermon. And I’ve faced those dreaded moments in which I am a few feet from the pulpit, with solid eye contact, and can’t remember what’s next. But those blunders are forgotten when a story hits home.

Surprises

As I increased the amount of storytelling in my preaching, I didn’t have to jettison principles and propositions. But instead of the traditional format of ideas, then illustrations, I first tell the story or paint the image, proceeding from known to unknown, concrete to abstract. This gives the listener a solid box for storing sometimes wispy principles.

Recently I preached on how we often push God to the side during the week and live for our own pursuits. But I began by telling of King Ahaz, who was charmed by a pagan altar he saw in Damascus and then carved a copy in Jerusalem. He took the liberty of moving the furniture in God’s house, sliding his new altar into the center and the bronze altar to the side. Ahaz instructed the priests to sacrifice on his altar. At God’s altar, he would seek divine guidance.

Only then did I raise the question, “Aren’t we like Ahaz if we devote time, energy, and thoughts to personal ambitions but seek God only when we can’t pay the bills?” Weeks later a member confessed, “Pastor, that story showed me exactly what I was doing.”

A second surprise to come out of my increased yarn spinning is that Bible stories have become my main resource for illustrations. The Bible is packed with stories—adventures, mysteries, romances. It has heroes, villains, suspense. I never had enough illustrations before. Now I’ll often use Bible stories to open windows on a subject.

Through these stories, Bible events and characters are becoming symbols for my people, things by which they interpret their lives. Recently Mary told me, “I used to complain a lot: ‘Why do I have to go shopping today?’ ‘I hate to clean the bathroom.’ But when you preached on the desert wanderings, and I saw the Israelites grumbling all the time, I just couldn’t complain anymore. And if I catch myself complaining, it hurts me inside because I don’t want to be like them.”

As I tell stories, I am affected as deeply as the listeners. Some time ago I sat with my boys at bedtime reading the story of David and Goliath from a children’s book. I came to David’s famous line: “All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

For the rest of the story I fought back tears … just reading a children’s book.

I’m not given to tears, but pastoring in Chicago, toe to toe with Goliath, I identified deeply with David. Suddenly I was ready to fight again.

Progressive-Emotive Preaching

by

Progressive-emotive sermons are generally classified either by their relationship to the source material (topical, textual, expository) or by the method of their argument (inductive, deductive, dialogic). The progressive-emotive sermon, however, is defined by its intended impact on the listener.

Preparation

Change in behavior, attitude, or understanding never occurs in a vacuum. It is produced by three things: psychological interaction with a variety of sensory experiences; a clear understanding of a preferred way of thinking, acting, or believing; and a viable means by which to move in that direction. The progressive-emotive sermon seeks to bring these three elements of motivation together.

There are several major decisions to make in developing the progressive-emotive sermon. The first is to select an extremely clear and precise idea of the psychological movement desired in the emotions and will of the listener. This idea must be specific enough to shape all the materials considered for inclusion in the sermon. For example, a sermon entitled “Putting Your Heart Back Together,” based upon the letter to the church in Pergamum (Rev. 2:12–17), reads that passage as indicative of the manner in which people live with the dissonance of motives and values that splinter hearts and sap spiritual energies. Only when Christ, by his Spirit, restores singular unity to one’s existence does a person find life in its fullest sense, both now and for the future. Using the metaphors of broken hearts, splintered lives, mixed motives, and the idea of putting one’s heart back together, the sermon keeps its direction true and refuses to get sidetracked by exegetical details, word definitions, or excessive historical background. Historical and grammatical studies help the preacher understand the passage more fully, but they don’t necessarily communicate the meaning or intent of the scriptural text to others in the homiletic development itself.

The second decision to make in preparing the progressive-emotive sermon is that of choosing to read broadly, to observe minutely, and to experience life meaningfully. Since one apprehends reality through constant reception of images created by a multitude of sensory experiences, the progressive-emotive sermon draws from a vast array of ideas, pictures, stories, facts, statistics, and the like as the raw material of preaching. People are rarely moved by rational argument alone. Rather, they are taken along the path of a rational argument in a convincing manner only as they see it surrounded by familiar images that attract and pictures defined by colors and sounds that direct them away from other possible walks of life.

Thirdly, the progressive-emotive sermon relies heavily on gifted storytelling. The progressive-emotive sermon does not use illustrations; it is itself an illustration, a moving picture, a living metaphor. That doesn’t mean that the progressive-emotive sermon is merely a lengthy narrative. It may be that, but it is often more rapid succession of word-pictures, incidents, common experiences, and the like, which together shape a passageway along which listeners will be encouraged to move.

Construction

In a sense, the progressive-emotive sermon is constructed visually. It attempts to see reality through the eyes of the listener and engages him or her in a quest, illuminated by Scripture, toward a new identity, a deeper knowledge, or changed behavior. Thus the idea of one path among many is always at the heart of the sermon. Sometimes the message marks progression down that path; sometimes it uncovers the glory shaping that path, and sometimes it stops at intersections where that path needs to be more clearly distinguished from other possible paths. But the outcome is always the same: movement in the inner life of the listener that produces outward changes in thought and action.

In order to achieve this, the structure of the progressive-emotive sermon depends more on the type of “moves” that David Buttrick identified in Homiletic (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987) than it does on traditional “points” and subpoints. For instance, the short tale of Simeon’s role in the Christmas story (Luke 2:21–35) might be shaped by the familiar idea of “Home for Christmas” and then carried along by a number of specific “moves”: (1) We all like to be “home for Christmas.” (2) But, surprisingly, Jesus, who stands at the heart of our celebrations, wasn’t himself “home for Christmas.” (3) Come to think of it: often, spiritually, neither are we! (4) Actually, Jesus, being away from home on that first Christmas, made it truly possible for Simeon to go home! (5) And in the restless homelessness of our lives, Jesus also gives us the opportunity to go “home for Christmas” in the truest spiritual sense.

The first “move” in this homiletic development serves as an introduction, identifying our existential place in the rush of the Christmas season. Then scriptural elements of the Simeon narrative are used as illuminated markers to guide the other “moves” of the sermon: (2) Jesus’ circumcision in the temple (2:21–24); (3) Simeon’s words to Mary about the character of her child (2:33–35); (4) Simeon’s words of praise to God (2:29–32); and (5) the spiritual journey of Simeon’s life (2:25–27). As the message unfolds, the listener journeys toward a new experience in understanding and celebrating Christmas.

A similar approach is possible for theological ideas that seem, at first, static and unmoving. They also can be made dynamic within the lives of the listeners. For example, John’s encounter with Jesus in Revelation 1 defines the manner in which the vision of the book ought to engage its readers. A progressive-emotive sermon might begin with an introduction that finds each person encountering the reality of the divine presence in his or her life in some experiential way. What does that encounter do to the person? (1) It shakes (see John fall to the ground); (2) it shelters (sense how this stronger presence protects him from the powers of the world that placed him in exile on Patmos); (3) it shapes (feel the changing contours of John’s perceptions); and (4) it sends (walk with John in his new mission).

The procedure may vary significantly with different scriptural texts or topical ideas, but these things are always necessary: keep the normative change of thought, perception, or behavior clear and central, shaping every element of the sermon’s development; and design the moves as a logical sequence of steps aimed at discovering and journeying toward the intended passageway.

Tools

A number of tools seem particularly suitable to use in enhancing the contact between the progressive-emotive message and the listener. Often these are in some way extensions of the preacher, aspects of his or her communication style already in place through personality traits. Still, the progressive-emotive sermon draws heavily on the following tools:

Clear and Contemporary Language. For the most part, the progressive-emotive sermon contains short sentences and a vocabulary that is up-to-date without being trendy or shocking. Language in the sermon should never call attention to itself by being too academic, too vulgar, too theological, or anything of the kind; rather, it ought to serve as a vehicle by which the listener and the message are connected.

Sensory Speech. Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, touching, sensing, holding, experiencing, and the like, draw the listener in. The sermon talks in pictures; it visualizes experiences of life. It does not explain but instead seeks to take the listener by the hand and show him or her what is happening.

Threes. For some reason, most people feel most comfortable in communication with groupings of three: three similar repetitions of an idea, three supporting stories, three examples. One thought moves past too quickly, two thoughts leave one wishing for just a bit more, and four thoughts seem tedious. Three is not a number to tie oneself to slavishly, but invariably it produces a bridge of communication that is stronger than those built on fewer or greater connecting supports.

Spoken English. Spoken language precedes written language. Sermons need to be spoken aloud again and again before they are preached. If a sermon is prepared at the study desk and uttered for the first time in the pulpit it is rarely likely to carry with it the impact of a sermon that is prepared orally.

Manuscript. The volume of material needed for the journey of images and pictures in the progressive-emotive sermon suggests the writing of a full manuscript. Clarity, precision, and storytelling technique do not occur typically without reflection mined laboriously from the preacher’s consciousness and refined in mental sweat at the creative fires of trial and selection.

Patterns of speech that arise from the preacher’s mind without extensive preparation tend to become repetitious and stale. Over time, manuscripts, whether well-read or memorized, give freshness and vitality to one’s preaching.

Pace. Students of communication suggest that persons tend to be drawn toward and believe more readily the speech of a person who talks rapidly. Rapid speech engenders confidence and keeps pace with the listener’s thoughts. Yet variety in pace is also needed to reflect the variety of pace in normal speech and thus avoid jarring the listener.

Adaptable. The progressive-emotive sermon may be expository or topical, inductive or deductive, but it is primarily designed as a means of communication. It stays in touch with the movements of the listener’s heart and uses that psychological development as the normative force in shaping its thoughts and images.