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The Art of Preaching: the Folly of Beauty and the Beauty of Reality

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The Art of Preaching: the Folly of Beauty and the Beauty of Reality start page: 325 Stellenbosch Theological Journal Supp. 2019, Vol 5, No 2, 325–346 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17570/stj.Supp. 2019.v5n2.a17 Online ISSN 2413-9467 | Print ISSN 2413-9459 Supp. 2019 © Pieter de Waal Neethling Trust The art of preaching: The Folly of Beauty and the Beauty of Reality Meyer, Ockert Charles Sturt University School of Theology Uniting Theological College, Sydney [email protected] Abstract “An orator”, Cicero famously said, “is a good man, trained in the art to speak well.” The difference between orators and actors, he continues, is that orators are “players that act real life” whereas, actors are “players who only mimic reality”. Preaching is not only an oratorical skill but also a theological art. All of this suggests a deep awareness and sensitivity to aesthetics. Both preachers (or orators) and actors usually have, or should have, something of this sensitivity. Both preachers and actors are intent on weaving words into patterns that both make sense and stimulate the senses. The often-quoted idea that “beauty will save the world” (from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot) feeds into a perception that somehow aesthetics in itself has some or other redemptive quality. Or translated into the context of preaching: that it will somehow by itself elevate, enhance or redeem the act of preaching. There is no doubt that this idea is a misrepresentation of what Dostoevsky had in mind. The decisive factor in preaching is not the reality of beauty but the beauty of reality. Both preaching and beauty are deeply grounded in reality. However, preaching as a theological art is not only grounded in the reality as our senses experience it, but more so in the reality of Jesus Christ. Keywords Aesthetics; reality; preaching; theological art; awareness 326 Meyer • STJ Supp. 2019, Vol 5, No 2, 325–346 1. Introduction Preaching is an art. Or at least that seems to be the claim of a countless number of titles pertaining to Homiletics.1 Whether “art” here always means much more than simply a rhetorical skill, technique2 or perhaps the ability to craft an imaginative speech or presentation, is another question. Some3 speak of the “aesthetic of preaching” that includes things like the aspects of architecture, rhetorical form of the sermon and liturgy. Others, and more often, give no indication of exactly what they understand under the “art” of preaching, even if the word “art” occurs in the title of the book.4 Whatever the individual understandings of “art” in this context might be, at the very least the use of the word implies that preaching has its own kind of aesthetic. There’s a certain kind of beauty that underpins it, that shapes it, that gives preaching the ability to please, persuade and to move an audience, in more or less the same way as the ancient orators were able to do. From most of the literature one could conclude that this “art” of preaching pertains to either method (rhetoric) or content (theology) or both. I would like to draw attention to another, perhaps the most important aspect that constitutes preaching as an art. This has to do with the nature of art itself, but even more important for my purposes here, something that profoundly informs all preaching. What constitutes preaching as an art 1 A quick search of our local theological library catalogue yielded more than twenty titles of books, articles etc. Some use it in the context of making use of art in and during the liturgy, e.g. Charles L Rice: The Embodied Word: Preaching as Art and Liturgy, (Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 1991); others like the medieval Alan of Lille (The Art of Preaching, trans Gillian R Evans, Cisterian Publications Inc: Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1981) specifically reject too much rhetorical beauty but instead wants to restore the world to beauty and peace through the art of creating a more moral humanity. 2 It is fascinating to note that in Richard Viladescau’s book Theology and the Arts: Encountering God through Music, Art and Rhetoric (Paulist Press: New York, 2000), in his chapter on “Theology, Aesthetics and the Art of Preaching”, the “art” of preaching seems to be entirely conceived in terms of the aesthetic of rhetorical skills. Even the section on “Theology and the Art of Preaching” begins with the comment: “A significant part of the art of preaching, as of any art, is the mastery of technique.” (197) 3 Virginia Purvis-Smith, “Gender and the Aesthetic of Preaching” in A Reader on Preaching: making connections, eds David Day, Jeff Astley and Leslie Francis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2005), 224 4 See Thomas H Troeger & Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, A Sermon Workbook: Exercises in the Art and Craft of Preaching, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013) Meyer • STJ Supp. 2019, Vol 5, No 2, 325–346 327 is the nature, the texture, the power – in short, the “aesthetic” of reality. Preaching, just like art, is about what is real, not only in the sense of being grounded in reality but especially in the sense of being able to penetrate, reveal and ultimately transform reality. 2. The Folly of Beauty In order to understand the value and beauty of reality in preaching, one has to begin by understanding something of the suspicion of aesthetics or the folly of beauty. Viewing the architectural magnificence of the cathedrals that dominates the cityscapes in many European cities and the biblical and theological themes in many of the world’s greatest art works, it is easy to forget that significant elements of the Judeo-Christian tradition has had a tense relationship with aesthetics over the centuries. Whereas the suspicion towards aesthetics in the Protestant tradition (especially in the wider Reformed tradition5) and the Jewish tradition has much in common, especially in reference to their caution or even fear of idolatry, in the Jewish tradition that suspicion also centres on something else, something that is crucial for this conversation. In almost every one of his five-part series on the Pentateuch, Covenant and Conversation, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks comes back to the theme of why Judaism did not value the visual arts in the same way as ancient Greece did. He points out that in rabbinical literature it is rare to find any positive references to art. It is of course easy to trace that back to the biblical prohibition against idolatry. However, underpinning this prohibition is not only the caution against worshipping an image of the real thing, an imposter so to speak, but the general unreliability of the eye to see things or people or even events for what they really are. 5 There is no doubt that what is considered by many to be the “Reformed view” of aesthetics, is really more caricature than reality. For a more nuanced view, see Christopher R. Joby, Calvinism and the Arts: A Re-Assessment (Leuven, MA: Peeters, 2007), Belden C. Lane, Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) and Paul Corby Finney, ed., Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999). 328 Meyer • STJ Supp. 2019, Vol 5, No 2, 325–346 Taking his cue from five scenes in the Joseph-narratives of Genesis6 where clothes play a key role, Sacks shows how all these five stories have one common goal: to show that things are not as they seem. To show that appearances could be deceptive. In fact, nothing articulates this better than the fact that the Hebrew word for “garment” (beged), is the same word for “betrayal”. This same betrayal in how the eye perceives we also see in the ways the bible uses the positive physical descriptions of both Joseph and Saul to make a point about their moral flaws. This is again emphasised in the Joshua narratives in Deuteronomy when the spies are sent out to explore (latur) the Promised Land7. In these stories the word latur appears thirteen times; a repetition that yet again links sight and betrayal. For the word latur, means both “to see” and “to be led astray”.8 This brings Sacks to the crucial observation: “Appearance and reality were opposites.”9 It is this deceptive character of observation and perception that lies at the heart of the Jewish suspicion of aesthetics. The folly of beauty is that it could mask reality, that it distorts reality and hence even that it could fabricate or betray reality. What this means when it is played out in actual events, is nowhere better illustrated than the testimonies of survivors of the holocaust. Both Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi, in their autobiographical accounts, refer to the presence of music in the camps. The concentration camp of Auschwitz- Birkenau had its own orchestra that was stationed at the entrance of the camp, so that prisoners could hear classical music as they were marched into or out of the camp.10 The main camp of Auschwitz had several 6 Jonathan Sacks: Essays on Ethics, A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible (Maggid Books: Jerusalem, 2016), 59–63. 7 Jonathan Sacks: Covenant and Conversation. Numbers: the wilderness years (Maggid Books: Jerusalem, 2017), 162. 8 Sacks, Covenant and Conversation. Numbers: the wilderness years, 166 9 Sacks, Essays on Ethics, 63. 10 “Auschwitz-Birkenau: History of a man-made Hell.” https://www.scrapbookpages. com/AuschwitzScrapbook/History/Articles/Birkenau01.html Meyer • STJ Supp. 2019, Vol 5, No 2, 325–346 329 orchestras,11 a library, as well as a museum where art works were displayed. Clearly beauty here had no redemptive capacity; it couldn’t save the world.12 But even more pointedly, it shows how beauty could be used to both mask and betray reality.
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