GIVING SCRIPTURE ITS VOICE: THE TENSIVE IMPERTINENCE OF THE LITERAL SENSE OF THE PERICOPE, METAPHORICAL MEANING-MAKING, AND PREACHING THE WORD OF GOD.

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE AND THE PASTORAL DEPARTMENT OF THE TORONTO SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY AWARDED BY EMMANUEL COLLEGE OF VICTORIA UNIVERSITY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO.

BY

HENRY JOHN LANGKNECHT

COLUMBUS, OHIO APRIL 2008

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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission.

In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these.

While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada Unless otherwise specified, all biblical quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved. To Shirla, Adam, and Jake ABSTRACT

This dissertation will argue for a homiletical hermeneutic that starts with the pre- referential literal sense of the pericope. Such a hermeneutic will a) preserve the affirmation that the word that God speaks to us through the pericope is a living Word from God; b) affirm that every encounter with Scripture is potentially revelatory and new; c) overcome the temptation to favor settled, received, or accommodated meanings; and d) move candidly, clearly, and persuasively from the pericope (in the context of liturgy and audience), through a metaphorical process to reference, identification, meaning, and revelation. This approach to the pericope is simultaneously unapologetic and apologetic: unapologetic in that the pericope is not stripped peremptorily of its potential oddness, offense, or particularity; apologetic in the sense that the preacher's management of the movement from the literal sense of the pericope to homiletical reference and meaning is open, clear, and fully acknowledges the diverse, disparate entities gathered at the homiletical roundtable. Further, this dissertation experiments with the metaphor of the preacher as a "performing book reviewer" who, like any reviewer of books, knows and is committed to the significance of the text and also wishes to be instrumental in managing the conversation between that text and his or her audience. The sermon, in a way analogous to a book review, imagines and responds to the conversation that unfolds as pericope, liturgy, and worshipers encounter one another in the reading of Scripture and the preaching inspired by it. CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vi

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION 1

2. METAPHOR AND THE INTERPRETATION OF TEXTS 26

3. THE LITERAL SENSE 48

4. CONTEMPORARY TREATMENTS OF THE LITERAL SENSE: HISTORICAL, LITERARY, AND THEOLOGICAL 78

5. THE LITERAL SENSE AND MEANING-MAKING 103

6. THE BIBLE AND NORTH AMERICAN HOMILETICS PART ONE: COGNITIVE AND EXPERIENTIAL HOMILETICS 127

7. THE BIBLE AND NORTH AMERICAN HOMILETICS PART TWO: EVENTFUL HOMILETICS 164

8. A HOMILETIC OF SURPRISE 192

Appendix .....233

Reference List 240

v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and final thanks to our blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for my life, my community, my vocation, and the gift of adventure- and terror-filled freedom in Christ. I rejoice for all the days when God was able to draw me forward into the adventure of that freedom in order to claim my calling; I ask God's forgiveness for all the days when I resisted because the terror of it overwhelmed me. I am grateful to the entire community of Trinity Lutheran Seminary who called me, an academically untested parish pastor, to teaching ministry and who supported my doctoral studies, and has made generous bits of space available to me (including a sabbatical year) so that I could work on this dissertation. Special thanks to Bob and Carolyn Haman whose generous support of the seminary and vision in providing funding for the Haman-Pfahler Chair in

Homiletics and Christian Communication were instrumental in bringing me to this point. I am fortunate to have had Dr. Paul Scott Wilson as doctoral and thesis advisor; even more fortunate to have had him as mentor, colleague, and friend. And thanks to my family, my wife Shirla and my enigmatic and brilliant sons Adam and Jake for following me as I followed this. I trust that the cost of the time and energy that I diverted from you toward this work is balanced by the fact that we enjoyed the journey together.

VI The viewer paints the picture, The reader writes the book, The glutton gives the tart its taste, And not the pastry cook.

Allen Kurzweil, The Grand Complication CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Before the preacher preaches in the Christian worship assembly, Scripture is read. The reading may be a single verse chosen by the preacher, it may be an extended passage from a biblical book picking up where the preacher left off last week, or the reading may be in the form of three or four peri copes assigned by a lectionary. In any event, Scripture is read; read because it is God's Word for us and is trusted to be an authoritative reflection on and witness to God's ongoing will for the cosmos. How Scripture comes to be God's Word and how its authority is educed and applied are ongoing matters of conversation and debate across the time and space of the Church catholic. That Scripture is read in some relationship to Christian preaching is a near universal.

So, when the Christian preacher rises to preach in relationship to the just-read Bible passage and in that preaching to make assertions about God and God's activity in the world, there is an expectation on the part of hearers, and presumably on the part of the preacher, that

such assertions are not only "meaningful but true,"1 that they will refer to the hearers' "real world" in a way that is comprehensible and existentially rich. In fact, there is a double expectation of meaningful reference in the biblically grounded sermon: not only do hearers

expect the words of the preacher to make meaningful reference to the world in which they live,

1 James Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics: Paul Ricoeur and the Refiguring of Theology, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 1. 1 2 they also expect the words of the Bible itself to be meaningful and true, or at least to be made meaningful and true in the preaching—language and life, word and world, are expected to correlate.

The Problems

It is this second expectation, of the Bible's capacity to refer to the real world, that is the more important and the more difficult. It is important, at least in most Protestant traditions, because in various ways the Bible is confessed to be the "only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers alike must be appraised and judged."2 It is difficult for many reasons, two of which are of interest to me. The first has to do with the shortcomings of two means of articulating the Bible's meaning that dominated Protestant hermeneutics for preaching well into the latter part of the twentieth century (and continue their influence today): literalism and interpretation rooted in historical critical methods. The second difficulty has to do with the practical reality that what is read prior to the sermon in the context of worship is never the whole

of Scripture or even a whole book of Scripture—rarely is it even a complete chapter of a book.

What is read is a portion, a nuance, a sliver. Admittedly, there are times when a single verse of

Scripture can be accommodated more easily than the chapter, book, or canon from which it is

taken.3 But it is also true that single verses or passages present difficulties when removed from

the context of longer development, plot, or argument.

The Bible is a diverse collection of writings of various genres (among them history, legal

2 Theodore Tappert, ed. and trans. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 464. This expression comes from the Epitome of "The Formula of Concord" One would find similar affirmations in the formal and informal teachings of other Protestant bodies. 3 One thinks, for example of Job 19:25, "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth." This verse is easily accommodated by Christians as an affirmation of the return of Jesus Christ even though the subject matter of the entire book of Job creates multiple problems for contemporary believers. 3 code, poetry, proverb, genealogy, and parable) representing diverse world-views such that biblical texts do not always present easy or obvious reference to the world(s) or worldview(s) of their modern hearers. The challenge of hearing the diverse texts of the Bible and additionally, interpreting them for each new age, through preaching and teaching, has been with the Church from the beginning and it is beyond the scope of this study even to sketch the history of its interpretation. For my purpose it suffices to say that in the North American Protestantism of the last half-century, the problem of the Bible's referential capacity has been solved by primary reliance on two interpretive methods (or some combination of the two): historical criticism and literalism.

In the case of the first strategy, that to which the Bible refers is found by uncovering, through methodical exegesis, the direction of reference intended by the original author. So if, in the encounter with a passage, a referential difficulty arises, preachers using historical critical methods assume that the difficulty can be resolved by recreating the author's original context, posing a hypothesis about the author's intended reference (and means of reference), and then drawing possible analogies between that author's world situation (and intent) and our own. It is significant to note that in this strategy the text itself no longer bears its own direct referential meaning to the contemporary world. Instead, reference to the contemporary world is made by analogy from the preacher's reconstruction of the ancient world to which the text does refer.

The strategy of literal interpretation is similar in that it assumes that the Bible refers to

something that really happened in the original author's time or is a past event of specific interest to the author. It differs from the historical critical approach in two important respects. First, preachers operating from a literalist perspective assume that what really happened, happened in

4 One survey is Robert M. Grant and David Tracy, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1984). 4 an ostensive, scientifically verifiable way that corresponds to the text's description—that is, the real world and the text's world are the same. Second, the literalist perspective, to the extent that it insists on continuity between the text's own world, the "real world" of the author, and the real contemporary world, demands of contemporary hearers some suspension of their understanding of their own world in order to accommodate the reality of the described event. So instead of making analogies in order to accomplish some coherent point of reference between text and world (and ancient and modern worldviews), the literalist preacher might insist on subordinating the modern to the ancient. We see evidence of this subordination in contemporary discussions about creation and evolution.

James Fodor describes these two modern approaches to the problem of biblical reference in this way:

Historical-critical interpreters and fundamentalist readers ... alike were convinced that the meaning of the Bible was its literal sense. Both distinguished between what the narrative depicted and its true referent—i.e. what had actually, historically happened. When the two matched—when the narrative depiction was isomorphic with its actual referent—then the text literally read made literal sense. However, when the two did not match, what invariably happened was that the literal-actual referent—rather than the literal-written form—was presumed the 'true' meaning of the text, and the narrative form was turned into 'a detective's clue to the discovery of that referent'. In either case, the literal sense of the text became aligned with, and acquired its meaning from, its historical referent. The net result was that the content of biblical narrative became separated from its textual form while questions of textual meaning became more and more obscured until they were ultimately eclipsed by questions of veracity and historical reliability.5

As Fodor suggests, lost in these methods is any sense that meaning and reference can be drawn

from the text itself or that the text can make unanchored or unmediated reference to the listeners'

5 Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, p. 263. Fodor here speaks of the fundamentalist approach in what is probably a more nuanced and fair manner. It is true that many literalists do acknowledge the presence of figurative and even fictional material in the Bible; such interpreters would proceed along the lines of the historical critic. I drew my caricature more sharply in order to highlight the difficulties of the approach and to acknowledge that extreme 5 contemporary world. Were narrative texts considered in their textual form as narratives, the possibility of immediate access to texts might be increased.

The frustration for listeners in the case of the historical critical sermon arises because even well conceived analogies are still analogies made to a distant, ancient world and raise the question of relevance. (Is it not the biblical text that is authoritative rather than the situations of the "biblical world"?) The challenge for listeners in the case of the literalist sermon is the implied command to suspend what they understand to be true about the nature of their own world in order to accommodate a meaning anchored in the worldview of ancient authors. (Might not

God speak and act within the confines of our modern social and linguistic world as easily as within the ancient one?) In addition, not only do both approaches undermine an appreciation of the text as such—of the Bible as a literary work—they risk destroying or belittling whatever meanings listeners themselves have derived from their own experience with the text. Christian storyteller Ralph Milton, in a fanciful way, captures the problem by saying, "Reacting to the fundamentalists, the scholars [historical critics] dug in with their detailed explanations. Reacting to the scholars, the fundamentalists claimed more and more for the Bible. First infallibility. Then inerrancy.... Ordinary folks simply felt more confused, more left out."6 We can state the problem even more sharply by suggesting that both historical critics and literalists imply that texts have only one meaning (the one that makes the clearest reference to what "actually happened") and that it takes an expert exegesis or an expert act of anachronism to uncover it. What the Protestant

Reformation gave to the Church—the assumption of the Bible's perspicuity and the end of the magisterial authority of the clergy—it now, under these modern methods, threatened to take

literalism does exist in the Christian world. Ralph Milton, Is This Your Idea of a Good Time, God? Discovering Yourself in Biblical Stories (Winfield, British Columbia: Wood Lake Books, 1995), 10. 6 back. Lost, as Fodor suggests, is the imperative to keep truth and truthfulness together so that preachers preach with authority, from the Bible, but without believing that their claims are inviolable.7

The Sermon as a Fragment

The second difficulty of interest to me is the fragmentary nature of the peri cope8 vis-a-vis larger units of Scripture. Richard Lischer writes that the sermon "as the projective function of theology, contains all, but only in nuce. It is a fragment, a nuance of the whole, yet contains the whole." This intuition of the sermon's fragmentary-yet-whole character suggests a certain holophonic10 quality where, given just the right acoustics and a well-tuned ear, one can hear in the rhetoric and theology of the sermon echoes of its biblical and theological origins. Perhaps one can also "listen forward" and anticipate how the words of the sermon might resonate with future expressions of God's eternal Word. Were one able to carefully record the sounds, the echoes, the reverberations from a preacher's whole corpus, one might be able to compose a preacher's complete theology, if perhaps not the Church's. Without denying the importance of the accumulating theology that a congregation splices together from its preacher's weekly

sermons, the "sermon as fragment" must also be the "sermon as whole": a composition, a preached work that stands on its own merits in terms of theological coherence and rhetorical

composition.

7 Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, p. 36. 81 will use the word pericope in a loose sense that refers to any selected passage from Scripture for worship and preaching irrespective of whether the excerpt was appointed by a lectionary or selected by the preacher. 9 Richard Lischer, A Theology of Preaching: The Dynamics of the Gospel. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1981), 29. What Lischer seems to mean by "the whole" is the preacher's entire understanding of the Christian faith. 1 The neologism "holophonic" is intended to be the aural equivalent of the visual "holographic," which refers to the photographic technique that allows an image to be recorded in three dimensions. The sermon is part of the larger entity of a preacher's life and theological thought unfolding in time. Yet it comes into being not as an isolated or representative fragment of that larger theological project; it is composed as a whole work in response to an anticipated meeting of other such fragments that gather at the homiletical roundtable.11 That is, the sermon is not the only element of Christian worship with this fragmentary-yet-whole character. Gathered in conversation around the homiletical roundtable are other projections—fragments of larger entities. We might name several, but of specific interest for preaching are Scripture, theological tradition, and human culture(s). Scripture is at the table because of the symbiosis between the pericope and the sermon; theological tradition is there because most sermons are preached into a context of nested theological traditions—worship itself, liturgical forms, congregational history, seminary education, and denominational affiliations, etc.; human culture is present because of the living context of both the sermon audience and the world toward which the Church's mission is ultimately focused.

The Pericope as a Fragment

To adapt Lischer, a reading of Scripture, a pericope, is also a fragment yet contains the whole. Entering through the pericope, the Church can hear traces of the broader narrative or theological sweep of the book from which it is drawn, and behind the book, echoes of the canon.

Or one might discern—or seek through historical inquiry—more distant traces of the pericope's or the book's pre-Scriptural origins (in fact, some insist that such discernment is an ingredient of any claim to adequately interpret the fragmentary pericope). And yet, even in the light of such insistence (and in apparent disregard for laments about biblical illiteracy in the Church) the

" We shall speak more about this metaphor of the "roundtable conversation" below. 8 fragmentary pericope stands as the de facto genre through which the Church at worship receives its Scripture—and has done for most of its life.12 In practice, the Church at worship treats the pericope as a discrete work in its own right.13

Similarly, the day's liturgy—sacraments; creeds; appointed readings; rites; and seasonal colors, collects, prefaces, and hymns—is a performed projection; it is an ostensive fragment through which one has liminal access to the Church's theological traditions and the mission of

God in the world to which the Church is witness. Yet we still welcome the first-time visitor, confident that the day's liturgy is a complete work with a conceptual coherence and a theological shape sufficient unto itself.

The individual worshiper, too, (whether visitor, member, or preacher) is a fragmentary representative of family, race, class, profession, culture(s), subculture(s), and language(s)—a coordinate in a matrix of relationships and associations, a living tile in a mosaic of shared current cultural events. Individuals are nuances who nonetheless contain the whole of their history in the

sense that their identity and world view, how they hear and how they understand, are all formed

and shaped in part by those cultures from which they come. And these various cultural identities

are expressing themselves and being understood in light of the particular and changing events of the day. Yet the individuals in worship are discrete persons to whom we comfortably relate as

individual entities. Around the homiletical table, these fragments-yet-wholes—pericopes,

12 Cf. John Reumann, "A History of Lectionaries: From the Synagogue at Nazareth to Post-Vatican II," Interpretation 31 (April 1977), 116-130. Reumann cites evidence of lectionary use in the Church as early as the fourth century. Certainly the reading of scriptural excerpts in worship goes back farther. 13 And this is by no means universally lamented. Reumann (Ibid.) applauds the use of lectionaries as does Marjorie Proctor Smith in "Beyond the New Common Lectionary: A Constructive Critique," Quarterly Review 13 (Summer 1993): 49-58, especially p. 49 where she considers the lectionary to be the Church's way of plotting its own narrative and creating its own identity. I have elected not to discuss lectionaries as works in their own right though they clearly are. For my purposes, any awareness of the selection strategy of a lectionary can be counted, along with the genius of the liturgical year, as aspects of the larger liturgical context. 9 elements of liturgy, individual worshipers, the nuances, respectively, of Scripture, Christian tradition, and human society and culture—gather for conversation.

The Unavoidability of Fragments as a Source of Revelation

That the preacher meets Scripture, Christian tradition, and culture represented only by these representative fragments of their entireties is as it must be. No single hour would suffice to contain the fullness of any one of these entireties, let alone all of them. Nor would an hour be adequate time for managing even a rough sketch of the dynamics of the meeting of these assembled fragments, let alone for trying to develop a comprehensive portrait of the true relationship of their totalities. In fact, we can only imagine a time when or place where the perfect acoustics would allow us, through the meeting of these projected nuances, to extrapolate

anything like the entirety of any of these entities or of their relationships to each other.

If there is such a time and place, only God stands there. But we worship believing that

God, by virtue of divine breadth and depth of hearing and speaking, can reveal God's self in the

meeting of these nuances, these fragments. We worship and preach believing that when God's

creativity and imagination come together among the nuances, it is revelation in nuce. It is a

fragment, a nuance of the whole revelation of God's vision of reality; a means of grace created in

response to the unique combination of fragments that have been assembled, yet it contains the

whole. God creates a revelation from the fragments at hand and it is sufficient; it is sufficient that

a fragmentary revelation from God comes during the day's conversation as the liturgy moves to

the reading of the pericope, followed by the sermon, then followed by the Eucharist in light of

the peculiar circumstances and conditions of the congregation's context that day. We testify that 10 in this gathering of fragments, all the fullness of Scripture, tradition, history, theology, culture, and society are mysteriously present; but only the projected nuances are literally at the table.

The practical inevitability of having to deal with projected nuances brings us back specifically to the sermon, which has a character different from the other fragments. While nuances of Scripture, Christian tradition, and cultural context meet in worship, these entities are not dependent on this meeting nor are they pointed toward worship only. Scripture is read, studied, and used in many venues; the Christian theological tradition is busy in mission, ecumenism, personal faith walks, and the care of souls; and human societies and cultures have plenty of ways to be occupied outside of worship. The sermon, by contrast, comes into being in specific anticipation of the roundtable conversation between pericope, liturgy, and congregation in worship—nuances of Scripture, tradition, and culture(s) respectively. The preacher composes the sermon while imagining and anticipating the specific engagement of the elements; the preacher intends the sermon to capture, manage, and respond to that engagement in a

meaningful, constructive, relevant, and true way.

The Preacher as a Fragment

Preachers' strategies for critical management of the homiletical conversation will vary

depending on their theological commitments, pastoral sensitivities, and personal temperaments—

that is, the preacher on any given occasion is also a fragment, a nuance of a whole person

fulfilling his or her vocation. A preacher's knowledge of Scripture, tradition, and the community

to which he or she preaches will be filtered through his or her priorities to determine how the

inaccessible entireties of Scripture, theological tradition, and culture are understood in and of

themselves and in relation to each other. The preacher will make judgments about whether or not the present nuances are accurate or appropriate metonymies for their respective entireties. And the preacher will measure how the present nuances are to be evaluated in relation to each other.

One of the charisms of the preacher must be a critical synthetic imagination—a distant distorted echo of that creative power of God—that allows the preacher to evaluate, understand, and address the meeting of the fragments in a meaningful way. By this charism the preacher imagines how the apparent and present qualities of those fragments will engage one another. By virtue of his or her gifts and vocational training the preacher will also be able, through the gathered nuances, to trace backward through Scripture and tradition toward contexts, histories,

and origins and forward toward implications, possibilities, and fulfillments. In this way preachers honor the diachronic, the ways in which the present fragments proceed from and then lead back into those entireties. And yet, the preacher will take care not to move so far backward or forward in time or space so that the ostensive pericope, liturgy, and gathered audience are eclipsed in

importance. It is these theological nuances that are literally gathered; it is to these fragments of

their respective wholes that a preacher may confidently, practically, or unambiguously refer.

Fragments as Complete Realities

We come to an important observation, even an article of faith: This meeting between

pericope, liturgy, and worship audience, while a fragment or nuance of a comprehensive

relationship between God's Word, the Church, and human culture, should not be thought of as a

poor representation or mere intuition of the whole. True, what God accomplishes through the

sermon as preacher and audience participate in the roundtable gathering is a nuance of a greater

cosmic meeting, but the meeting of fragments is all that is available to us. It must be, as we have

noted, a sufficient means of grace for the time being. In this way, the sermon in its temporal and 12

spatial particularity shares a metaphorical character with the sacraments—material revelations that are not shadows of reality, but rather are, even in their proleptic character, complete realities themselves. Every sermon, because it arises in response to a unique combination of elements,

contributes a unique coloring and shading to the grand design. Every sermon both elucidates and

helps shape God's revelation of the totality. Every sermon is fully an event of God's creative

Word and is, therefore, a matter of fundamental theological importance.14

We find a parallel in the daily comic strips: Artist Lynn Johnston must know that some

readers have followed for years her serial comic strip For Better or For Worse. After a quick

scan of the morning paper, experienced readers will be able to identify and recall the strip's

characters, their "life" stories, and the relationships they have to other characters and events

represented that particular day (and even to those not represented). Those readers know the

entirety of which the daily strip is but a nuance. Newer readers can begin with today's strip and

elect over weeks and months to enter Johnston's world or they can purchase anthologies15 of past

strips in order to become familiar with the plots and subplots and the relationships between her

characters. But, while Johnston may delight in knowing that she has such committed and

knowledgeable readers, she will rarely fail to make each day's strip coherent, sensible, and

amusing in its own right. She must give full care and attention to making as rich as possible

today's apparent elements—characters, conversations, settings, or interactions—so that today's

reader is satisfied (and perhaps teased into considering a long-term engagement with the ongoing

story). But even as she attends to making today's apparent elements rich and deep, she must do

14 Charles Bartow makes a parallel point in relationship to the reading of Scripture. He maintains that every performance of a passage of Scripture contributes to the Church's understanding of it; "... it is a type of public criticism that brings fresh understanding to the work, and so contributes to the body of knowledge concerning it." Charles Bartow, God's Human Speech: A Practical Theology of Proclamation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), 90. 15 In fact, there are at least twenty of them! 13 no violence to story lines that extend forward and backward from today's strip, though today's strip may interpret, reinterpret, color, or shape those story lines—perhaps even taking them into surprising new directions.

The Creative Function of the Preacher

This analogy between preaching and the comics is imperfect because the preacher authors neither Scripture, the Church's theological tradition, the biographies of the gathered hearers, nor the cosmic narrative that contains them all. But preachers are yet authors: the day's sermon is a nuance or fragment of a preacher-authored constructive theology, or a preacher-authored homiletical strategy in relationship to a particular congregation. What I want to highlight, however, is the preacher's creative critical function as he or she, through the sermon, manages or moderates this day's conversation between the nuances: pericope, liturgy, and audience.

Also, the preacher is an agent of God's authorship of the unfolding encounter between Scripture,

Church, and world. Elizabeth Achtemeier describes the unfolding this way:

The voice that speaks through the chosen text is that of the living God, and our God is one who, amazingly and mercifully, has stooped down from his majesty to enter into conversation with human beings. Thus the preacher does not want to ignore such conversation.... First, God has entered into conversation with his people Israel and with the New Testament church. That is, the chosen text is set in the context of the entire canon.... [Second, God is] speaking through the text to the congregation gathered on Sunday morning. ... The preacher is the meeting point, therefore, between that speaking of God through the biblical text and the gathered congregation. ... The preacher, by struggling with [existential and critical questions of the text and the events behind the text] on behalf of the people, becomes the wrestling ring where the Word of God engages the church.16

We hear from Achtemeier that the preacher is the meeting point who acts as a moderator, a

manager, a critic, of the conversation between pericope, liturgy, and audience. Here we also get a 14 glimpse of the preacher as "book review critic." The preacher is one who knows the larger stories (of theology, Bible, and congregation) and who knows his or her hearers and the ways in which they are open for engagement with the Word in their current context.

The position I am taking here that the pericope should be protected, to the degree possible, from its various histories and contexts so that it has a chance to speak meaningfully and freshly on its own terms—and to speak as a pericope, a fragment, a nuance. To a greater degree than is customary, the sense and meaning of the pericope should be revealed to and produced by the worshiping community and the preacher free from the history of its interpretation in the

Church (including its interpretation as history); free from direct traditional links to core theological convictions; from popular connotations; and even from its historical or literary origins.

A Realistic Approach

This is, of course, impossible. All of these and more elements of a pericope's life history

are present as Scripture is read. They are present in the knowledge and memories of the hearing

congregation, in the scriptural influence on liturgies and hymns, in unpredictable allusions to

aspects of the wider culture, and (we trust) in the educational training and faithful weekly toil of

the preacher. Prior knowledge of a text, recent research, historical discovery, cultural

connotation, and devotional memory inevitably form part of the matrix surrounding the hearing

of a pericope and into which it is interpreted by the preacher. But, there is a difference between

influencing a hearing and determining an interpretive outcome. Simply put, I am asking for

enough latitude, enough "protection" so that history, context, and memory are not allowed to

1 Elizabeth Achtemeier, "Canons of Sermon Construction," in Sharing Heaven's Music: The Heart of Christian Preaching. Essays in Honor of James Earl Massey, ed. Barry L. Cullen (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 57-60. 15 eclipse the meaning-making that occurs during the current event of the reading of the peri cope and the sermon that arises from that reading. Let today's reading be anticipated as a potentially new, revelatory event rather than as an event of automatic confirmation, echo, or nostalgia.

When I began this study I was interested in debunking popular literalist understandings of what it means to "take the Bible literally." What I have come to appreciate is that embedded in most understandings of the literal sense is a desire to take the text seriously and on its own terms.

This seriousness was confirmed by phenomenological hermeneutics and biblical studies that were moving toward literary categories. This dissertation also grows out of an encounter between homiletics and philosophical hermeneutics. To put my argument into terms of two concepts from philosophical hermeneutics that have become popularized: the meaning of the pericope that is the sermon text should be sought "in the text" and, even more, "in front of the text" rather than

"behind the text" or "around the text."17 And preachers and worshiping communities should take the "naivete" of the "second naivete" seriously.18

There is an impulse here that is at the same time apologetic and unapologetic. For the sake of the apologetic task of preaching (especially preaching to seekers and skeptics) this project counters preaching strategies whose subtext seems to be, "In spite of what this reading from Scripture seems to mean, here is what it really means." Such strategies honor neither the first or second naivete but rather offer the fruits of critical engagement "behind" or "around the

17 These prepositional phrases will be discussed in more detail below, for now it suffices to say that in popular understanding they refer to the location of authority with respect to determining a text's truest meaning. Those who look "behind the text" look to those meaning(s) realized or intended in the original context; "around the text," those realized in the history of the text's interpretation (popular, ecclesiastical, or academic); "in the text," those realized by the text as it stands; and "in front of the text," those realized by current hearers. 18 This concept is part of a three-fold process of interpretation. It was coined by Paul Ricoeur in The Symbolism of Evil and is a foundation of his hermeneutical program. In chapter three we will look particularly at Ricoeur's The Rule of Metaphor. Briefly, "first naivete" describes an initial non-prepared encounter with a text as text; "critical distance" or "critique" describes a stage where the text is examined, exegeted, and analyzed; "second naivete" is a new encounter with the text, informed by criticism, but re-opened to the literary or poetic power of the text. My 16 text." The unapologetic impulse is the obverse; it is a way of saying, "We take Scripture seriously enough to wrestle with it on its face and we take you seriously enough to show you that wrestling." Similarly, and for the sake of the baptized, this project counters the power-sapping sentiment that, "we already know what this Scripture really means; it means the same thing that it has always meant." There may indeed be times when the pericope will "mean what it has

always meant." But that confirmation may be achieved through an unapologetic and honest

conversation between the (sometimes difficult) pericope and the present context.

The Purpose of this Study

The purpose of this study, is to identify an interpretive strategy that a) affirms the Bible's

ability to speak in its own voice and to make direct reference to the contemporary world (without

the detour through reconstructed history); b) affirms the gathered community's participation in

the construction of meaning; and c) promises enough flexibility both to accommodate the variety

of world views within any given community and to bend with the inevitable changes in a

community's understanding of its world.

This project will explore the character of one specific reading of Scripture: the out loud

reading, the reading in the context of worship, the reading directly related to the sermon. As we

will see, the temptation to "anchor" meaning comes from the modern era and there are times

when the anchored meaning is at odds with what is heard as the text is read. The pericope's

integrity is "protected" in the belief that the story that is the Gospel is secured not only by

Scripture, but also by the liturgy and the kerygma that is passed on by ordination on the one hand

and by apostolic teaching and catechization on the other. One gift of postmodernity is the

implication is that the "naivete" of the "second naivete" is too often eclipsed by interpreters being "armed" rather than merely "informed" by the fruits of their critique. 17 dissolution of the confidence that we can (or even should) anchor the Bible's reference and meaning in history, doctrine, or literature, but can rather give it freedom to speak. A key issue is authority and what we may be questioning now is whether authority is going to be found in interpretation. Luke Timothy Johnson, in this excerpt from a radio conversation with Krista

Tippett highlights that we do indeed need one sure thing, but that sure thing is the canon itself and not the interpretation of it.

TIPPETT: What did the church lose and what did the church gain from creating a canon, from closing the canon? JOHNSON: One of the things that it gained, I think, is the possibility of an open history of interpretation. TIPPETT: You know, you write that, but what do you mean? I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean when you say that. JOHNSON: Texts and interpretations, not everything can be variable. Something has to stand still. If feminists, for example, want to have an open canon, as some of them argue, then they have to have a closed system of interpretation. So Rosemary Ruether says only those texts which lead to the liberation of women are to be regarded as authoritative. In other words, something has to be constant. You can't have an open canon and read texts as authoritative which lead to the oppression of women. Correct? My argument is that when you have a collection of texts as various as the 27 writings of the New Testament are, plus, by the way, all of the writings of the Old Testament, which Christians also read, what that enables is a historical conversation across centuries, which is at once consistent and yet always changing. Because if we believe the living God is at work in people's lives, leading them into new understandings, into new insight, then these texts can be made theologically to yield new things. But this is only possible if that 12-inch ruler stays a 12-inch ruler. TIPPETT: Right, if everyone across time is conversing with the same material. JOHNSON: That's right. And the function of tradition is not to live in the past, it's to secure the future. And when we play with these basic instruments of self- definition, when we say, "Oh, let's bring in these other texts, and we'll read these in the assembly," and so forth, or "Let's take the Lord's Prayer and call God mother, father," and so forth, we know what we mean. Right? Because we grew up in the tradition. And it does us no harm, because we are actually troping a consistent, fixed tradition. But the next generation will not know what it means. And so what happens is that we cut off the conversation with us. We are the end of history.19

19 Luke Timothy Johnson and Krista Tippett, "Deciphering the Da Vinci Code," from Speaking of Faith® with Krista Tippett, June 1, 2006. Transcript accessed on January 15, 2008 at http://speakinsoffaith.publicradio.ors/prosrams/davinci/transcript.shtml 18

Three Homiletical/Hermeneutical Principles

There are three major impetuses behind this project: allowing the text as read and heard to be prevalent in the interpretive conversation, reclaiming the revelatory potential of the preaching moment, and understanding the congregation's perspective.

1. Allowing the actual text to be prevalent in the interpretative process

David Bartlett writes that "when we are in conversation with Scripture, Scripture is still the senior partner in that conversation."20 This first impetus is the desire to claim (or reclaim) the unprocessed voice and "textiness" of the peri cope. By textiness I mean a quality of reading

(leading toward meaning) that stays mostly "in the text" and a) allows the literal sense of the text to predominate and b) continues to keep the words, images, concepts, and characters of the text

alive as the reading moves into preaching. In the first place this means claiming that the pericope has the capacity to function in its relationship to worship and sermon as a theological-literary

work by revealing, through means of the metaphoric process I will explore in chapters two and

eight, new meaning in each context. Implied in this claim is a sense that each reading of and

preaching from the pericope is, in principle, a primary event of revelation and not merely a

derivative event that reports on prior revelation of meaning. Each reading is an adventure where

one resists homiletic habits of predetermined reference.

In the second place, affirming the textiness of the pericope means affirming that the text

for the sermon is the pericope and not some other text. Candidates for this status as other text

abound. Sometimes the other text is commentary on the text known to congregation and preacher

(e.g., past sermons, lessons learned in congregational Bible study, or liturgies and hymns based

2 David Bartlett, Between the Bible and the Church: New Methods for Biblical Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 13. 19 on the pericope). Alternatively, this other text might be discovered by the preacher alone during sermon composition and be known only to the preacher. For example, during the composition process a preacher may consult a scholarly or homiletical commentary, read a paragraph, and think, "This will preach." Though in fairness to the homiletical instincts of the preacher it may

"preach," the question arises as to whether what preaches is the senior conversation partner—

Scripture—or the engaging commentary.

As we shall see in chapters six and seven, a standard of homiletic instruction is that biblical texts should not be used as pretexts—mere scriptural veneer for planks in a preacher's own platform. Here I mean to extend that principle to say that the pericope should not be scriptural veneer for planks in any platform, including those of biblical commentators, systematic theologians, or even denominational confessions. In the most extreme cases of what we may call

"pretext-ualization" the relationship between read text and interpretation in the sermon is so dissonant one wonders why the pericope was read at all.21 This concern for the text against the history of commentary and extrapolation is related to the conflict between "literature against philosophy"22 that has raged at least since Plato banned poets from his Republic. Here, I want to call for a renewed appreciation for literary art as it stands. There is no need always to seek for another realm of discourse or meaning to which the pericope faithfully refers (at best), of which it is a metaphorical or allegorical representation, against which it is a foil, or (at worst) for which the text before us is an utter embarrassment.

For example, in their book Preaching the Hard Sayings of Jesus, John T. Carroll and James R. Carroll reduce Jesus's saying about "hating" our families to a call for single-minded vocational dedication (46). In their treatment of "The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus" they conclude that if the rich man had been a nicer fellow, he would have gone to heaven (101) while the literal sense of the text is that the rich man went to Hades simply because he was rich. John T. Carroll and James R. Carroll, Preaching the Hard Sayings of Jesus (Peabody Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1996). 22 We shall more about this in chapter five. A recent treatment of the conflict is Mark Edmundson's Literature Against Philosophy, Plato to Derrida: A Defence (sic) of Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 20

2. Reclaiming the Revelatory Potential of the Preaching Moment

The second principle for this thesis is a theological corollary to the first. Here I want to claim the revelatory potential of every reading-preaching moment—the notion that Scripture, even in the fragmentary pericope, continues to be a living Word of God. In terms of space and time, the myriad reading-preaching moments occurring at worship everywhere in the world are simultaneously universal and local, diachronic and synchronic. On the one hand every preacher preaches the universal Gospel while standing on the shoulders of generations of preachers extending back to the women's first proclamation from the empty tomb, a form of apostolic succession. On the other hand, every preacher also preaches a particular Gospel while standing in the midst of a local worshiping community. I assert that in principle at least the routine Sunday

encounter between the nuances of Bible, theology and culture is the theological equivalent of

every other one of the myriad encounters between Church and text spanning space and time. We may lament that some preachers or congregations are ill-prepared for a revelatory engagement

with the Word; perhaps they are. The reparation for that ill-preparedness should not be

proclamation borrowed from some other encounter. In spite of laments about poor catechization

or biblical illiteracy, the ideally-catechized, biblically-literate Church is not the Church; the

randomly-equipped local assembly where two or three are gathered is the Church and its

conversation with its Scripture is an event of theological sufficiency.

Where does authorization for scriptural interpretation lie? Does it come to us

diachronically from behind the text or from around the text moving in succession from past

moments in history? If so, then getting Scripture "right" may mean getting history "right." Or

does authorization of interpretation reside around us in the present, in the synchronic reading of

23 One ramification of this claim will become an impetus for a project that will address the sorry state of the ministry of lector in our congregations. 21

Scripture in light of lived experience? If so, then getting Scripture right means our being made, in some way, "right" readers and hearers. Reception and interpretation are always both: "through time" (diachronic) and "at the same time" (synchronic) and this dissertation will argue that there are good reasons to turn up the volume on the synchronic or what I will call short view. That is, the pericope is a theological-literary work, given to the specific Church at worship on this day by

God through the Church. It is not received as a repository of words that make reliable and unambiguous reference to "theologies that have worked before" or "theologies that are right"

(orthodoxy as "theology of glory"). Rather, the pericope is received as a theological-literary work by the Church of this day. The Church is anchored by its belief in Jesus Christ and trusts the presence of the Holy Spirit in the rich context of liturgy and community. The critical and historical data, which form part of the reading-preaching context, will shape the reception of the text (its characters, language, images, and ideas) and this encounter has proven capable of revealing God's Word from apostolic times through weekly conversation with the living Church in all days.

3. Understanding the Congregation's Perspective:

The third principle behind this project is my desire to account for some important aspects of the reading-preaching moment for listeners as understood by twentieth-century homileticians in North America. These will be treated in more detail in chapter five. Briefly, they are: a) the aforementioned random nature of an audience's hearing of Scripture caused in part by the complex nature of the pericope as a theological-literary work and in part by the variety of

competencies among the hearers in any given congregation, b) an account for how the nature of the sermon as an oral work favors the synchronic or short view, c) a brief theological rationale 22 for the short view, and d) an appreciation for changes in how the authority to interpret Scripture is understood and granted by hearers.

Under the press of these three principles and using the metaphor of the sermon as conversation at the homiletical roundtable, my belief is that the preacher's job is to moderate the conversation between read pericope, theological tradition, liturgy, and audience. My two-fold thesis prescription will be that preachers a) receive (and then present) the pericope literally and b) allow insights from contemporary metaphorical theory to inform how they moderate the conversation and move from the pericope's literal sense to theological reference, meaning, and revelation in the sermon.

Statement of the Thesis

This dissertation will now proceed to describe a way to understand how the voice or sense of the pericope—the nuance of Scripture—is brought to the homiletical conversation and how the preacher moderates the pericope's participation in that conversation, even as he or she manages and critiques the conversation in the sermon. To that end, this dissertation will argue the thesis that a homiletic that uses the literal sense of the pericope as a starting place can help preachers: a) preserve the affirmation that the word that God speaks to us through the pericope and the sermon is a living Word from God; b) affirm that every encounter with Scripture is potentially revelatory and new; c) overcome the temptation to favor settled, received, or

accommodated meanings; and d) move candidly, clearly, and persuasively from the pericope (in

the context of liturgy and audience), through a metaphorical meaning-making process toward

revelation. In this, the dissertation will argue for an approach to the pericope that is

simultaneously unapologetic and apologetic. Unapologetic in that the pericope is not stripped

peremptorily of its potential oddness, offense, or particularity; apologetic in the sense that the 23 preacher's management of the movement from the literal sense of the peri cope to homiletical reference and meaning is open, clear, and fully acknowledges the diverse, disparate entities whose fragments are at the table.

Further, this dissertation will experiment with the metaphor of the preacher as a

"performing book reviewer" who, like any reviewer of books, knows and is committed to the significance of the text and also wishes to be instrumental in managing the conversation between that text and his or her audience. That is, the sermon is not primarily an explanation or criticism of the pericope, though some of that may be involved. Rather, the sermon, in a way analogous to a book review, imagines and responds to the conversation that unfolds as pericope, liturgy, and worshiper gather at the table. This thesis further argues for a hermeneutical relationship to the gathered nuances; the preacher brings all of his or her commitments and the preacher reads the

"texts" of other people's commitments in a literal (evident) way and honors them. Finally, this dissertation will argue for a broadly conceived role for the preacher and a warranting of the preacher's imagination as a local theologian of the Church. Because the homiletical moment for that local theology proceeds from a literal sense of the pericope while surrounded by the conservative function of liturgy, we can hope to mitigate suspicions of hearers that preachers are using the sermon to further narrow agendas. This moves also into an implication for the Church's mission: the extent to which the Word of God is spoken from a sermon's honest, plain, engagement with the fragments at the table might also be the extent to which the Word can go out in the minds and voices of the congregation since they have seen it unfolded in practical,

concrete terms. 24

The Structure of the Thesis

This project will unfold in eight chapters. In chapter two I will explore Paul Ricoeur's

The Rule of Metaphor and the application of Ricoeur's rule for literary criticism. In chapters three and four I will consider the Church's understanding of the literal sense of Scripture. Here I will propose a shift in the meaning of that phrase from one that tends to limit, direct, or frame

textual reference to one that supposes the literal sense to be pre-referential and so open to many

possible references. Chapter five will examine some exigencies of the preaching event that

support my making the proposal for preaching that moves the literal sense of the peri cope toward

reference through metaphorical meaning-making. In chapters six and seven I will review some of

the North American homiletical literature of the last one hundred forty years so that in chapter

eight I can show how my method relates to and contrasts with that homiletical tradition. The real ideas of a poem are not those that occur to the poet before he writes his poem, but rather those that appear in his work afterward, whether by design or by accident. Content stems from form, and not vice versa. Every form produces its own idea, its own vision of the world. Form has meaning and, what is more, in the realm of art only form possesses meaning. The meaning of a poem does not lie in what the poet wanted to say, but in what the poem actually says. What we think we are saying and what we are really saying are two quite different things.

Octavio Paz, Alternating Current CHAPTER 2 METAPHOR AND THE INTERPRETATION OF TEXTS

It may seem odd to start with metaphor when talking about the literal. But as we shall see, the sermon text is not "the black marks on the page of the Bible" the sermon text is the encounter between text, audience, and liturgy. The pericope keeps its voice by being apprehended first in its literal sense. That sense creates a world of the text—a landscape—that is a relatively fixed element that is able to enter into negotiation with the audience and liturgy. This process of negotiation is informed by the metaphorical meaning-process discussed in the next two chapters.

The primary text chosen for consideration of metaphor here is Paul Ricoeur's The Rule of Metaphor.24 This chapter will proceed as follows: first there will be a brief presentation of the theory proposed by The Rule of Metaphor; second, we shall engage the work of Mario J. Valdes, who has applied Ricoeur's insights to the activity of literary criticism; third we will briefly develop some implications of Ricoeur's theory—and the applications made by Valdes—for contemporary Christian preaching. I intend to show, in light of these investigations, that the metaphor of preacher as a "performing literary critic" offers some creative possibilities for the preacher's work of making assertions with and about the Bible which are both "meaningful and true."

4 Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary studies of the creation of meaning in language, trans. Robert Czerny with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello, S.J. (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1977). 27

Ricoeur's The Rule of Metaphor Paul Ricoeur's The Rule of Metaphor is a collection of eight studies each of which deals with a discrete historical or theoretical aspect of philosophical consideration of metaphor. Portions of each study are dedicated to Ricoeur's dialogue with the work of other theorists (and frankly, many of these arguments ranged well beyond my linguistic and philosophical expertise) and to showing how Ricoeur's own theory of metaphor collects and adapts aspects of each. Two assertions about metaphor that provide the chief foil for Ricoeur's work are the classification of metaphor as a simple trope of substitution (the position of so-called "classical rhetoric") and the practice of locating metaphorical meaning at the level of the sign (or word) with its subsequent rejection of extra-linguistic reference (the position of Structuralism). For Ricoeur the metaphor is an event of the sentence, not the word, and always refers outside itself to the world. What Ricoeur will finally propose is a three-fold movement in metaphor (considered in detail below): there is first a "semantic impertinence" in which the combination of terms in a sentence stifles a literal reference or interpretation. This impertinence leads to a "split reference" as the thwarted literal reference gives way to and is held in tension with alternative metaphorical reference. Finally, the hearer constructs a new meaning which does not resolve the tension but rather holds the tension within the completed meaning.

Ricoeur spends most of the eight studies building this case, though it becomes clear by the important seventh and eighth studies that Ricoeur intends his understanding of metaphor to extend beyond even a semantic figure to, as Mario Valdes puts it, the use of "metaphor as a paradigm for all creativity through language."261 will not gloss Ricoeur's entire journey here; my purpose is to highlight some major aspects of his theory and to build a case for how it might inform the art of biblical preaching in relation to the literal sense.

Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 119. 26 Mario J. Valdes, "Paul Ricoeur and Literary Theory" in Lewis Edwin Hahn, ed., The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, Volume XXII of The Library of Living Philosophers (Chicago and La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1995), 267. 28

Confusion in Aristotle The first of the eight studies ("Between rhetoric and poetics: Aristotle") identifies a confusion, rooted in the work of Aristotle, about the nature of metaphor. Ricoeur notes that on the one hand, Aristotle affirms that a metaphor is a figure where a substitution is made for a noun, but on the other hand, Aristotle defines metaphor in terms of movement back and forth— epiphora—between the tenor and the vehicle27 in a way that suggests a deeper, interactive understanding; clearly the direction Ricoeur wants to take.28 Ricoeur is dissatisfied with Aristotle's noun substitution theory because it fails to allow metaphor to create or carry new information or meaning. Substitution would then be mere shorthand for a description that could be accomplished in prose given sufficient time.29 If metaphor is to be a paradigm for creativity in language, then metaphoric constructions must offer new information and create new meaning and engage hearers in a new understanding of their world. And in doing so, the metaphor must be understood to be irreducible. As Fodor expresses it, Ricoeur believes that metaphors "create new meaning by redescribing reality, by bringing to language aspects and values of reality which cannot be captured in direct description."3

At its root, therefore, Ricoeur's theory of metaphor moves from a focus on the noun (semiotic) to the inclusion of noun and predicate, indeed the entire sentence (semantic).31 That is, "in all metaphor one might consider not only the word alone or the name alone, whose meaning is displaced, but the pair of terms or relationships between which the transposition operates." It is the sentence that carries the complete and finished meaning, and so, at the beginning of the

I will use the terms "tenor" and "vehicle" to denote the two parts of a metaphor. The "tenor" is the underlying idea of the metaphor (the poetic referent); the "vehicle" is the idea under which the tenor is apprehended. So, for example, in the simple metaphor "my father is a bear," "father" is the tenor—the principle term under consideration and "bear" is the vehicle, the term which is being laid along side the tenor in order to bring greater understanding to it. These terms are suggested by I. A. Richards, cf., Ricoeur, Rule of Metaphor, 80. 28 Cf. Ricoeur, Rule of Metaphor, 16-20 for the full discussion of Aristotle's theory. 29 Cf. Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 157 where he states, Ricoeur "claims that the new emergent meanings of an interactive metaphor do not have some ready-made ensemble of traits and properties waiting there, more or less dormant, as a kind of supplement to the dictionary and from which metaphor can readily draw." 30 Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 119. 31 Ultimately, Ricoeur will widen the focus to the whole discourse (hermeneutic). 32 Ricoeur, Rule, 21. 29 third study ("Metaphor and the semantics of discourse") Ricoeur states, "Hence, we will speak from now on of the metaphorical statement.'"

As part of this move from semiotics to semantics, Ricoeur resonates with the work of I. A. Richards in noting that it is the sentence (or even the whole discourse) that must be the locus of meaning. Without semantic context there is no way even to talk about the meaning of a word. Simply put, until a predicate is applied, it is impossible to determine whether any impertinence has occurred at all. "Words have no proper meaning, because no meaning can be said to 'belong' to them; and they do not possess any meaning in themselves, because it is discourse, taken as a whole, that carries the meaning, itself an undivided whole."34

Ricoeur captures the semantic impertinence and the resulting drive toward split reference in his theory of "tension" suggesting that "to the extent that it seems enigmatic, metaphor invokes a 'tension' theory more than a theory of substitution."35 A metaphorical utterance can be located at any one or all of three levels of tension within a sentence: tension within the statement between tenor and vehicle; tension between two interpretations, namely "between a literal interpretation that perishes at the hands of a semantic impertinence and a metaphorical interpretation whose sense emerges through non-sense" ; and tension in the reference between "is and is not." Later, he expresses the tension in terms of the gravitational pull of two referential fields, that is, the fields of the tenor and of the vehicle:

Two energies converge here: the gravitational pull exerted by the second referential field [that of the vehicle] on meaning, giving it the force to leave its place of origin; and the dynamism of meaning itself as the inductive principle of sense. The semantic aim that animates the metaphorical utterance places these two energies in relation, in order to inscribe a semantic potential (itself in the process of being superseded) within the sphere of influence of the second referential field

33 Ibid., 65. 34 Ibid., 77. Even when considering whole discourses there are additional considerations for determining when a semantic impertinence has been encountered. Two that will become important below are the genre of the pericope and some agreement (often related to genre) about how the discourse is understood to make reference to the real world. 35 Ibid., 48. 36 Ibid., 247. 37 Ibid., 298. 30

to which it relates.

How Metaphor Works: Threefold Movement

As to how a metaphor operates, there is the threefold process of semantic impertinence, split reference, and reconstructed meaning. What follows is a brief discussion of each of these three concepts.

1) Semantic Impertinence The metaphor event begins when a hearer confronts a semantic impertinence; a juxtaposition or combination of the words in a sentence that represents a departure from the way in which words are put together in literal discourse.

It is the "clash" on the literal level that leads one to seek out a meaning beyond the lexical meaning; while the context allows one to maintain the literal sense of certain terms, it prevents one from doing so for others. However, metaphor is not quite the clash itself, but rather its resolution. One must decide, on the basis of various 'clues' provided by the context, which terms can be taken figuratively and which cannot. One must therefore 'work out' the parallelism between situations that will guide the iconic transposition of one to the other.39

The key tension in the theory is between what Ricoeur calls the "yes and the no" of metaphor or the "is" and the "is not." Where the semantic impertinence provokes the hearer to declare "no it is not this way" (dissimilarity), the fact of the discourse itself (insofar as discourse implies a desire to communicate) presumes that the metaphor contains a meaningful "and yet, it is this way!" (resemblance). It is the nature of this tension, and the "ontological vehemence" of language that keeps the hearer bound to complete the meaning of the metaphor. "Thus, one and the same tensive theory gives equal status to dissimilarity and to resemblance. Perhaps the modification imparted by the vehicle to the tenor is even greater because of their dissimilarity than because of their

38 Ibid., 299. 39 Ibid., 190-1. Ricoeur's reference to "context" here assumes the context of the discourse. In the case of a pericope—a passage of Scripture—the clues for context consist of the ways that words and images from Scripture are used, for example, in worship and liturgy. 31

resemblance." This last remark is interesting for two reasons. First, the natural predisposition to understanding things literally keeps hearers folly aware of the "is not" so that the crafter of metaphor can be bold in declaring the "is."41 Ricoeur points out that it is the semantic impertinence and the declaration of the "is" in the face of the "is not" that makes metaphor superior to simile, "the direct attribution causes surprise, whereas simile dissipates this surprise" because simile allows both tenor and vehicle to make literal reference.42 Second, crafters of metaphors must always be on guard against banal, trite, or "dead" metaphors in which the dissimilarity is of too low a degree to even create the tension. As Ricoeur puts it,

"Reflective lucidity applied to metaphorical talent consists in good part in locating the 'ground' of the metaphor, its underlying 'rationale.' Whether the metaphor concerned be dead (the leg of the chair) or living (an author's metaphor), our procedure is the same: we look for its ground in some shared characteristic.43

As we see from this last remark, and in keeping with Ricoeur's "semantic move," the resemblance is not only (or even primarily) at the level of the word, but can be in suggestions made at the level of sentence or discourse of shared characteristics, predications, or relationships.44 Nor does this shared characteristic have to lie in a "direct resemblance between tenor and vehicle; it can result from a common attitude taken to them both."45 Ricoeur cites Max Black who goes so far as to suggest that in a good metaphor, the metaphor itself "creates the similarity rather than expressing a pre-determined similarity."46

Metaphor relates to reality It is important to note, as we move toward a consideration of the "split reference" toward which the "semantic impertinence" leads, that Ricoeur is committed to the thesis that "a//

40 Ibid., 82. 41 Ibid., 255-6. 42 Ibid., 47. An analogy to this insight of Ricoeur will be considered below when we consider historical critical and literalistic habits for making meaning from the biblical text. 43 Ibid., 81-82. 44 Cf. ibid., 193f. 45 Ibid., 82. 46 Ibid., 86. 32

discourse, written or spoken, just because it is discourse, bears the distinctive trait of making a reference to reality."47 So while it is true that metaphor causes a disjunction in literal reference, that "suspension of literal reference is the condition for the release of a power of second-order or second-degree reference, which is properly poetic reference." When we apply Ricoeur's rule of metaphor to biblical preaching it is important to say—against both historical critical and literalist forms of interpretation—that a discursive sentence need not be scientifically or historically true in order to have meaningful reference.

My whole aim is to do away with this restriction of reference to scientific statements. ... the literary work through the structure proper to it displays a world only under the condition that the reference of descriptive discourse is suspended. Or to put it another way, discourse in the literary work sets out its denotation as a second-level denotation, by means of the suspension of the first-level denotation of discourse.49

2) Split Reference

First- and second-level denotation are the two sides of the "split reference" which

Ricoeur distinguishes as 'the situation of discourse' (first-level denotation) and 'the world of the text' (second-level denotation).50 First-level denotation is the immediate, ostensive, literal reference to which text and hearer alike can point because of their

shared conception of the world. Second-level denotation, made necessary by the semantic

impertinence, is that which emerges from "the world of the text' [and] constitutes, for

Ricoeur, both an extension and a modification of the type of reference common to 'the

situation of discourse."51 So, while metaphorical discourse seems, in light of the tendency

toward the literal, to be non-referential, in fact "the attenuation of ostensive reference

47 Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 148, italics in original. 48 Ricoeur, Rule, 6. 49 Ibid., 221. 50 cf. Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, n. 76, 145. 51 Ibid. 33 does not necessarily entail the complete abolition of all reference."52 Second-level discourse can access a complex layer of reference with respect to motives, relationships, points-of-view, potentialities, and meanings the expression of which would stretch first- level discourse beyond its limitations. Reference is not abolished in metaphor, it is split, and, it must be admitted, made ambiguous.53

According to the tension theory, once the hearer has been led by the text into this split-reference, there must continue to be interaction or oscillation between the literal and metaphoric. The metaphorical interpretation of a text, in fact, depends on this oscillation.

Metaphor does not simply replace or stand in for literal reference, but transforms literal reference, in part by creating ambiguity and competitive interpretations. Hence, "what appears as a disaster from the positivist's point of view shows itself, from Ricoeur's perspective, as a highly productive possibility."54 This possibility is brought to actuality as the hearer works to resolve the split reference and move toward metaphorical meaning.

In metaphorical discourse, "referential power is linked to the eclipse of ordinary reference; the creation of heuristic fiction is the road to redescription; and reality brought to language unites manifestation and creation."55 That is to say, a metaphorical text becomes referential as the hearer learns to hold both halves of the split reference together and through that tension learn to see or understand the world in a new way. This referential power is what allows the literal sense of Scripture to be counter-intuitively generative of multiple meanings.

Ibid., 134. Ibid., 149. Ibid., 154. Ricoeur, Rule, 239. 34

3) Reconstructed Meaning The final stage of Ricoeur's three-stage metaphoric process is the movement from the tension of the "split reference" toward the production of new meaning and of seeing the world anew. We have already seen that Ricoeur's program moves beyond metaphor as a trope of substitution and into an interaction of elements in sentence and discourse that makes metaphor a paradigm for creativity in language. He asserts that "since [prose] substitution for an interactive metaphor is impossible, it also cannot be translated without 'loss of cognitive content'. Being untranslatable, it carries new information; briefly, it tells us something."56 More specifically, the "convergence of the author's configuration of the text and the reader's configuration is the dynamic merger that makes possible the net gain of new meaning in metaphorical writing."57 But when we make the "reader's configuration" part of the meaning, we implicitly acknowledge that each reader or hearer (and even the same individual on a different occasion) will, in some sense, create a new meaning from the metaphor. This does not mean that any meaning is possible, for as Ricoeur himself points out, the first-order discourse places some limitations on the range of second-order meaning, "as we read a poetic sentence, we progressively restrict the breadth of the range of connotations, until we are left with just those secondary meanings capable of surviving in the total context."58 Still, "metaphor involves a distinctive intellectual operation in which both reader and hearer participate," and it is constituent of Ricoeur's theory that

one must adopt the point of view of the hearer or reader and treat the novelty of an emerging meaning as his work within the very act of hearing or reading. If we do not take this route, we do not really get rid of the theory of substitution.59

For Ricoeur, the meaning of the metaphor is not the semantic impertinence in itself, nor the tension between split-references; it is "the solution of the enigma, the inauguration of the new semantic pertinence."60

56 Ibid., 87. 57 Valdes, "Paul Ricoeur and Literary Theory," 264. 58 Ricoeur, Rule, 96. 59 Ibid., 98. 60 Ibid., 214. 35

Semantic pertinence

But, to what does this new semantic pertinence refer? To deal fully with this question of reference and its related question of ontology (what quality of being does the metaphoric referent possess?)61 would take us far beyond the scope of this project. It is possible to give here a hint of

Ricoeur's ontological direction. For Ricoeur, metaphoric reference belongs to the general area of denotation—of talking about and pointing to real things.

The distinction between denotation and connotation is not a fruitful principle of differentiation with respect to the poetic function, if connotation is understood as a set of associative and emotional effects without referential value. As a symbolic system, poetry has a referential function just as much as does descriptive discourse.

The sensa—sounds, images, feelings—are representations and not descriptions, which exemplify instead of denoting and which transfer possession instead of retaining it by primordial right. Qualities in this sense are no less real than the descriptive traits that scientific discourse articulates; they belong to things over and above being effects subjectively experienced by the lover of poetry.

So, under the umbrella of denotation, there are two ways of referring: denotation and exemplification. Broadly speaking, denotation is the mode of reference of tropes of substitution. Interactive, poetic metaphors refer in the mode of exemplification, the mode of reference that compares or shows what something means by way of transfer or analogy, "the meaning or property of something that exists ... linked by transference of a relation, which itself is the inverse of denotation."63 In other words, by Ricoeur's rule, a metaphor has the ability to denote

Fodor suggests that ontology (and meaning) can be conceived in the "transitive" connection between self, language, and world. By this he means that being is neither objective alone (the thing in itself), subjective alone (one's appropriation of the thing), or linguistic alone (the diremption of language and reference). Therefore one must speak of "testimony [and thus reference] as exhibiting a twofold movement: a centrifugal impulse which distinguishes the self from the world and from other people, but also of a centripetal thrust which 'pours language back into the world' and thus binds us to one another." Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 1. And then, further, "It is simply not the case that linguistic assertions first of all occur in a mental domain which then require some sort of ontological confirmation to be admitted as true. Rather, the self, language, and world coexist in relations of mutual implication. They can only be conceived together, the reality of one being contingent upon the reality of the other two." Ibid., 11. 62 Ricoeur, Rule, 238. 63 Ibid., 234-5. 36

or exemplify, among other things, hidden or subjective qualities of the referent, relationships that the referent has to other things, potentials which dwell within the referent, or how the referent ought to be seen (as opposed to how it is commonly seen). Or, as Fodor puts it, metaphor can bring "to light aspects of our being-in-the-world which might otherwise be overlooked or forgotten. A poetic text, then, does not describe the actual world as it already exists; rather, it opens up or discloses a possible world."64 This "possible world" is the world of second-order reference, access to which is the particular function of literature.65 By holding the possible world in tension with the ostensive world, the function of metaphor, we see our world in all its complexity, and therefore more fundamentally, deeply, and indeed anew.66

Expansion of Ricoeur's Theory into Literary Criticism

Metaphoric process relates not only to the sentences of texts, it also relates to how entire texts are approached and understood. One literary critic who brings Ricoeur's work to bear on literature in a cogent way is Mario J. Valdes. Although Ricoeur's The Rule of Metaphor occasionally hints at analysis at the level of entire text, in the main it is restricted to semantics. Ricoeur intends his work in metaphor to be a paradigm for all linguistic creativity so it is my wager that shifting the focal frame of inquiry will be both valid and valuable.67 Three key terms from Ricoeur's later work (particularly Time and Narrative )— prefiguration, configuration, and refiguration—are important to Valdes's work. With help from Fodor and Valdes we can interrelate the new language with the old and lay the groundwork for a "Ricoeur-based mode of literary criticism" : Prefiguration is whatever state of affairs is assumed to be shared by the text and the hearers prior to the text's performance. It is the "pre-

64 Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 134. 65 Valdes, "Paul Ricoeur and Literary Theory," 268. 66 Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 153. 67 In fact, Fodor, in his introduction gives warrant for drawing clear analogies between Ricoeur's semantics and hermeneutics. Cf. Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 12-15. 68 Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, Three Volumes, translated by Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1984). 69 Valdes, "Paul Ricoeur and Literary Theory," 278. 37

narrative life-world." The confidence that assumptions are shared may be based on many things—among them shared language, subject matter, or purpose—but without this commonality, there is no engagement of the text. Configuration is the world presented by the text. In addition to the text's content (characters, images, plots, etc.) it also includes all formal and historical elements of the text's composition. The configured world of the text may be congruent, even isomorphic, with the "real world" of the hearers or listeners (as, for example, in the case of a newspaper story); it may be incongruent (as, for example, in the case of a science fiction novel); or there may be a combination of congruence and incongruence. In any event, the narrative equivalent of semantic impertinence occurs when the text's description of its world creates tension with hearers' assumptions about what they and the text held in common. Refiguration refers to the creation of meaning accomplished by hearers and listeners as they hold the text's world in tension with their own (a process which parallels the creation of meaning

70 and reference in metaphor). At least some grasp of two other terms from phenomenological hermeneutics will also be helpful here. First is explanation, which is "an intentional strategy dependent on deductive or inductive reasoning to present some issue to another person;" the other is understanding which is "a temporary conclusion in a process of inquiry."71 Any given literary critical approach could be described in terms of its relation to these two points. For example, both the historical critical and literalist approach discussed above would tend to be explanation-centered, basing meaning on a complete as possible examination of the author's context, and only then suggesting possible understandings.72 Philosophical approaches, which would include the phenomenological critical approach, favor (as we might guess from Ricoeur's theory of tension) a movement back and forth between understanding (temporary conclusions about meaning) and explanation (providing information about the world of the text). To venture an application of the terms of figuration,

70 Ibid., cf. also, Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 208. 71 Mario Valdes , Phenomenological Hermeneutics and the Study of Literature (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 58. 72 Cf. ibid., 58-9. 38

phenomenological hermeneutics locates meaning in the move from configuration to refiguration, favoring the latter and using explanation to clarify the former in the latter's service. From his hermeneutical perspective, Valdes offers five principles for phenomenological literary criticism73: a) the task of hermeneutic interpretation is focused "neither exclusively with the writer's text nor with the reader, but in the encounter between the two." So a text's meaning is not located primarily in the past (as it is in historical critical or literalist interpretations) but in the present, though it must always stand in relationship to a text from the past, b) Any attempt to reduce or remove tension brings about premature and/or arbitrary closure. This correlates directly to Ricoeur's insistence on "split-reference" where both sides of a metaphor must be held open, c) Interpretation must "bring forward both the historicity of the writer's text as well as the historicity of the reader so that the interpretive encounter can engage the two spheres of discourse." For Valdes there is an appropriate place for explanation (including historical critical investigation) but it must not come at the expense of the hearer's understanding. Similarly, the critic must be prepared to perform, as it were, a historical critical exegesis of the community of hearer, d) "The interpretation itself must be dialectical and produce on a higher level of conceptual meaning the meaning of the reader." That is, lively metaphoric discourse always presses us toward the creation of new meaning, e) Interpretation is never completed. Valdes summarizes by saying,

Every reader achieves meaning and does need the critic to expand or enhance it. The essential aim of this mode of literary criticism is not to establish objective truth about any aspect of the text, but rather to elucidate the shared experience of reading the text with the essential claim of refiguration—the redescription of the world—that the only form of truth we have is self-truth on an inter-subjective level.74

This reference to the "shared experience of reading," the "inter-subjective" nature of truth, and the "redescription of the world," helps us anticipate the turn we shall now make toward the peculiar task of biblical preaching where Christian truth-claims and meanings are made in the

Valdes, "Paul Ricoeur and Literary Theory," 270ff. Ibid., 278. 39

context of the community.

The Preacher and the Literary Critic Before we explore how the metaphor of the preacher as performing literary critic might be made meaningful, it will help to review how the reading of the Bible and the sermon are related in a typical Protestant worship service. It is common practice for the preacher or other worship leader to read portions of the Bible. In some traditions it is common to read only one pericope while in others, guided often by a lectionary, as many as four pericopes are read— pericopes vary in length from even a portion of a single verse to as many as forty. Following the reading, the preacher preaches in some relation to one or more of the read texts. The analogy to the situation of a literary critic and a community of readers is a bit crude but still apt. Instead of a community of readers there is a congregation of hearers of the text read aloud and instead of a book critic there is a preacher. What follows here is an exploration of how a sermon informed by phenomenological hermeneutics might proceed; what special problems it must overcome; and what possibilities it provides. My concern is not with the composition of the sermon, as such (although some ideas may emerge), but on the hermeneutical and critical assumptions that inform the preaching.

Although not necessary to my purposes, it is worth noting that the authors under consideration in this chapter speak of the Bible as a type of poetic discourse. Fodor comments that, the "power of the biblical text, therefore, resides in its poetic or revelatory function" in that it invites us to consider a world other than our own.75 Later he remarks that all religious discourse can be seen as a subset of poetry in that it is "marked by an intensification of the metaphorical function inasmuch as there is a kind of extravagance or transgression that modifies it" and that it is marked, as poetry is, by a sense of "play."76 This warrants our application to the Bible of Valdes's maxim concerning literature's function: "The reading of great works of

Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 39. 76 Ibid., 135. 40

literature contributes to the making of our world in so far as they oblige us to remake our world- view through their power of redescription and force us to take a stand in our response to their truth-claims."77 Of course, in the case of Christian reading of the Bible there is a dogmatic layer of authority in addition to the book's own claims on us as literature. But for preachers it should be no less exciting to think that the reading and interpreting of the Bible as literature in its own right might lead to the creation of new worlds.

The Preacher as Performing Literary Critic

What follows here is an application of Valdes's five principles to the task of moving from the pericope's literal sense toward reference and meaning in the sermon.

1) The task ofhermeneutic interpretation is focused neither exclusively with the writer's text nor with the reader, but in the encounter between the two. As we have seen, in order for a text to generate the process of metaphorical meaning- making envisioned by Ricoeur's rule, the encounter between text and hearer must involve a semantic impertinence. As noted above, one of the impediments to such an impertinent encounter is the temptation of hearers and preachers to assume that "the Bible means what it has always meant." Such assumptions both reduce the transformative or refiguring potential of the encounter to one of mere accommodation to or confirmation of the reader's world and rob the text of its voice. A first task of the preacher—and one could extend this task back to the reader of the text—is to encourage as rich an encounter between hearer and text as possible. This dissertation argues that it is the literal sense of the peri cope that offers an effective avenue to that richness. In the case of pericopes that are ultimately accommodated or that do confirm the prefigured world, attention to the literal sense assures that what is accommodated or confirmed is the text as it stands. In the case of many, perhaps most, pericopes, attending to the literal sense will help hearers encounter the pericope in its metaphorical impertinence. Whether because the

77 Valdes, Phenomenological Hermeneutics, 56-57. 41

Bible's metaphors have become over-familiar ("dead metaphors") or because of the positivistic (or, in some cases, pietistic) overtones of the Protestant community, it is not always easy to encourage such an encounter and to keep biblical language from becoming part of the faithful lexicon in service to a status quo ideology.78 Ironically, one strategy for restoring metaphorical impertinence is to reassert the literal sense.

Under this rubric, it is also necessary for the preacher/critic to undertake for himself or herself a "theology of prefiguration and refiguration." Such a theology affirms both that the hearer's world is worthy of being held in tension with the world of the biblical text and that the refigured world is a creative act of God through the encounter around the homiletical roundtable. This "theology of prefiguration and refiguration" must counter not only certain literalist tendencies to subordinate the modern worldview to the ancient, but also biblical interpretive strategies which posit no extra-linguistic reference.79

As the reader must first construe [the text] in the context or world the reader knows, it is not true that the "text alone" is sufficient to establish a world of meaning for a reader because the reader brings a world of meaning to the text on which the text may act.80

2) Any attempt to reduce or remove tension brings about premature and/or arbitrary closure

Ricoeur's rule depends on the tension between two levels of reference, the "destroyed" literal reference and the metaphoric. And as Valdes suggests, it is important to hold the tension between them open. In preaching, the temptation to reduce or remove the tension is related to the positivistic or ideological motives noted above. A second task of the sermon is to keep the tension alive by employing the text in the sermon such that tension-producing elements remain somehow central. One speculative strategy for keeping the tension alive is to mimic the strategy

Cf. Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 154. 79 E.g. Fodor, in his chapter entitled "Ricoeur versus Hans Frei: Extra-linguistic Reference and the Absorbing World of the Bible," argues that in Hans Frei's hermeneutic "meaning is not about reference, but the semiotic relationships within the text." Ibid., 294. 80 Terrence W. Tilley, "Incommensurability, Intratextuality, and Fideism', Modern Theology, 5/2 (1989), 89. Cited by Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 295. 42

of the biblical prophets. Fodor makes connections between prophecy and Ricoeur's rule in asserting that "prophecy, by disrupting the narrative meanings and casting us into a temporary abyss ... inspires us to discover surplus meanings."81 A parallel process in a sermon might be to focus hearers' attention on the literal sense of elements of the biblical text that have been accommodated through familiarity—taking on, therefore, the character of "dead metaphors." Even such accommodated metaphors as "shepherd" or "sovereign" can be re-tensioned through focused attention.

3) Interpretation must bring forward both the historicity of the writer's text as well as the historicity of the reader so that the interpretive encounter can engage the two spheres of discourse.

This rubric deepens the focus on both "writer's text" and reader. To the extent that the historicity of the writer's text corresponds to the diachronic and the historicity of the reader corresponds to the synchronic, this rubric calls for balance. I have already argued in chapter one that preaching built on critical exegetical methods tends to favor the historicity of the writer's text at the expense of the historicity of the reader so this dissertation is arguing that in order to restore the desired balance, preachers should turn up the volume on the synchronic. In principle, most homiletical methods do encourage a balance by calling for thorough and thoughtful exegesis of the biblical text, the preaching audience, and the context in which the sermon will be heard.

One of Ricoeur's observations brings some light to the issue in this rubric. He notes that critical approaches like the historical critical sometimes rely on tracing etymology as part of their philological investigation, believing that in so doing, the fundamental, intrinsic meaning of a word can be revealed. While on the one hand dismissing such a strategy, he revitalizes it by declaring that what it yields is not "an explanation, but a new metaphor" since the "explained" historical meaning does not supplant what hearers heard but remains in tension with it.

1 Fodor. Christian Hermeneutics, 231. 82 Ricoeur, Rule, 290. 43

This highlights the importance of the interpretive community (for preaching, the hearing congregation) to Ricoeur's hermeneutic. In Ricoeur's response to Valdes's Philosophical

Hermeneutics he writes,

Next it is important to stress, as Mario Valdes does, that the capacity of redescription or refiguration of the world by the text does not occur unless it becomes a 'shared meaning'; the presumed truth of the redescription of the world can, therefore, only be intersubjective. Criticism exists because this shared meaning among readers is not self-evident. The critic then becomes the arbitrator of the conflict of interpretations, if only as the educator in taste and aesthetic judgment.

While we might, in the case of preaching, want to substitute "theological judgment" for "aesthetic judgment," the insight holds that the preacher-critic can honor the hearers' appropriation of the text while helping the hearers to clarify and especially move toward a world- view altering or transformational meaning in it. Valdes expresses a similar insight this way, the true aim of criticism (preaching!) "is the elucidation of the critic and his readers. Elucidation is accomplished by the critic and his readers when they put into play the knowing appropriation of the literary work."84 What is important here is that the preacher-critic and hearers both are placed under the authority of the text. While the understanding of the text's authority articulated in this dissertation is different than a literalist's understanding, it is still a strong affirmation to say that this text is our literature and we trust there is power in our engagement with it to reshape our world.

4) The interpretation itself must be dialectical and produce on a higher level of conceptual meaning the meaning of the reader.

This principle involves the creation of new meaning (refiguration, in the broader terminology). Two aspects of Ricoeur's understanding of how metaphor serves as a paradigm for meaning-making can be developed under this rubric. The first is Ricoeur's own use of the

Paul Ricoeur, "Reply to Mario Valdes" in Lewis Edwin Hahn, ed., The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, The Library of Living Philosophers Vol. XXII, (Chicago: Open Court, 1995), 283. 84 Valdes , Phenomenological Hermeneutics, 65. 44

"scientific model" as a metaphor for metaphor. "The model belongs not to the logic of justification or proof, but to the logic of discovery."86 The model serves as a mnemonic device for grasping complex relationships. Not only does a model give the hearer something to view mentally, it allows one to "operate on an object that on the one hand is better known and in this sense more familiar, and on the other hand is full of implications and in this sense rich at the level of hypotheses."87 For the preacher-critic this affirms the interpretive power of extended metaphors or metaphor families. If the tenor of a biblical passage can be connected with the vehicle of a memorable image or family of images a rich array of meanings can be displayed. For example, St. Paul uses a cluster of legal metaphors as a vehicle for the tenor of the God/human interaction of salvation. As the hearer considers the complex relationships between the judge, guilt, defendant, and pardon, the understanding of the God/human interaction is enriched and made new.

A second aspect of Ricoeur's understanding of metaphorical meaning-making is worthy of noting here. There are a variety of figures of speech and interpretive tropes that can create enough semantic impertinence to require negotiating through to refiguration; among them are metaphor, catachresis, analogy, typology, allegory, personification, and simile. While it is important to affirm that all these devices do generate metaphorical meaning-making, Ricoeur distinguishes between those that require no suspension of plain or literal reference and those that do. And for Ricoeur those, like simile, that require no suspension of literal reference are inferior in so far as they present less challenge to the prefigured world. A similar distinction can be drawn between methods of negotiation with and interpreting texts. There is an extent to which homiletical development from the pericope that is rooted in historicist or literalist models inspires only simile-like impertinence. When texts are understood to refer only to history, contemporary encounter with those texts and their meaning tends toward explanation and

85 A common example of such a model is the representation of the atom as a "solar system" with the nucleus serving as the "sun" and the electrons as the "planets." 86 Ricoeur, Rule, 240. 45

analogy. We shall investigate this distinction further below when we consider sense, reference, and meaning.

5) Interpretation is never completed. Given the unfolding understanding here that interpretation is a dynamic interactive process between the world of the text and the world of the reader/hearer, it should be clear that the meaning of texts is never fixed. And it is important to assert that this principle does not mean to say, "Interpretation is never completed in practice, but could be in theory if we just had more historical information." In the phenomenological preaching-criticism I am proposing here, the principle is much more lively. Interpretation is never completed because the lived existence of the hearer and of the preacher (from one time to preaching on a text to the next), the conditions of the world in which the community of hearers is located; and our knowledge about the historical circumstances of the text are all in a state of constant change. Depending on these and other factors of change, the nature of the semantic impertinence can change, thus rendering a different metaphoric meaning-making process from the same text.88 Again, it is important for the preacher-critic to articulate a "theology of indeterminacy" so that, in view of our cultural bent toward positivism, the community's ongoing play and the continuing metamorphosis of understanding can be affirmed. Of course, even the most rudimentary Christian theology affirms that where "two or three are gathered" in the name of Jesus there Jesus is present; it should not be too difficult to affirm that part of his spiritual presence is dedicated to joining the play of ongoing interpretation. "The model of revelation that Ricoeur adumbrates, therefore, is not one which specifies a reference to a sealed-off occurrence in the past, or even a straightforward 'lifting of the veil', but one which is, in its movement, hermeneutical, dialogical, conversational."89 The truth precedes us and goes after us, occasionally as revelation it breaks through and engages us in conversation.

88 Consider, for example, how the impertinence in the beatitude "Blessed are the poor ..." might be caused, before an upward change in fortune, by the word "blessed" and by the word "poor" after that change. 89 Fodor, Christian Hermeneutics, 39. 46

My thesis is that when the metaphorical meaning-making process is applied to biblical preaching, the tenor and vehicle are the world configured by the peri cope and the world of the hearers. In order for the pericope's world to be a true dialogue partner it must in some way be fixed. I propose that a nuanced understanding of the literal sense can help preachers establish the pericope as a fixed voice in dialogue. It is to the literal sense, then, that we now turn. As to the meaning of the Snark, I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense! Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I'm glad to accept as the meaning of the book. The best that I've seen is by a lady (she published it in a letter to a newspaper), that the whole book is an allegory on the search after happiness. I think this fits in beautifully in many ways—particularly about the bathing- machines: when the people get weary of life, and can't find happiness in towns or in books, then they rush off to the seaside, to see what bathing-machines will do for them.

Lewis Carroll, The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll CHAPTER 3

THE LITERAL SENSE

Against the backdrop of this understanding of metaphor and metaphorical meaning- making we turn now to a consideration of the literal sense of Scripture as it relates to preaching.

While my goal is to focus narrowly on the literal sense of the pericope for preaching, much of the literature referred to in this chapter is not focused in this way; most of it refers to the literal sense and other senses of Scripture as they relate to scriptural interpretation in general. It is not my goal to propose a general hermeneutical strategy to be used on Scripture in all cases or for all purposes. Rather I intend to allow these more general descriptions of Scripture's sense(s) to illuminate my focus on the literal sense of the pericope for preaching in the context of worship.

Resistance to the Literal Sense

Even with the promise here that attention to the "literal sense of the pericope" will be followed by a process of "metaphorical meaning-making," this call to preachers to attend to a pericope's literal sense will be unsettling for some. The notion of the literal sense has been with the Church virtually as long as Scripture. And for much of the Church's history, the literal sense was honored as a foundational sense—even in times when other, figurative or allegorical senses were considered more important theologically. The Reformation established that there was only one sense of Scripture and that was the literal, yet this was in effect a dual sense. At one level it

48 49 was the historical grammatical sense of the text and at a higher and more important level it was the divine sense.90 Since the late 1800s with the increasing accessibility and popularization of modernity's fruit, especially in psychology, cosmology, evolution, historiography, and critical

exegetical methods, Christians have been challenged to clarify how they understand Scripture's ways of referring to the real world. At this point, I still mean "real world" to refer, in a modern way, to the material, ostensive reality in which we live and which is confirmed and understood by rational deduction, empirical observation, physical laws, and historical reconstruction.

However, insofar as this dissertation agrees that the universal, material, and rational foundations

of modernity are giving way to the local, relative, hermeneutical non-foundations of

postmodernity, "real world" will come to refer to what David Lose calls "dialogical realism."

Living between modernist foundational totality on the one hand and fideism (it's real because

God says it is) or emotivism (it's real because I say it is) on the other, dialogical realism

acknowledges that we confidently "talk about reality all the time."91 But we talk in a pragmatic,

modestly courageous way that is open to conversation with others whose worldviews, while not

commensurate, are comparable to our own. In dialogical realism we admit our "own position and

passionate involvement in the act of knowing," rely on the critique of others, and offer "enough

stability for speakers and hearers to meet, converse, and form consensus about their common life

and thereby avoid the deafening silence of postmodern maximal fideism." 2

Gerald Sheppard notes that in responding to the challenges of modernity, especially those

brought to the fore by history and historical criticism, Christians in North America were divided

into two warring philosophies: liberalism and literalism. While Sheppard notes that the two terms

90 Cf., Paul Scott Wilson, God Sense: Reading the Bible for Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 45-50. 91 David J. Lose, Confessing Jesus Christ: Preaching in a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 53. 92 Ibid., 58. 50 do correspond to a "specific debate about the nature of the Bible," he doubts that the terms have ever been adequate to define their proponents' positions.93 That is, through the debates in the

Church, which were largely focused on the way the Bible refers to the real world and to history, it became clear that adequate labels were not so much the point as was having provocative terms that could "label for political advantage and, in some cases, libel certain groups within the church." Lost in this polemic is the realization that both terms—liberalism and literalism—have the potential to "signify live options of insight into scripture, biblical preaching, commentary, or theology."94

One could argue that in this age, when texts may be viewed from many perspectives with each angle rendering new meanings, one might be better to abandon a notion of the literal sense of a text. Since texts are polyvalent, at the very least one should perhaps speak in the plural of literal senses (though as we shall see, polyvalence is more a matter of reference than sense).

Alternatively, one might try to recover the literal sense of a previous age or attempt to resolve the literalism/liberalism split. The route that will be taken here is none of these. Rather I will argue for recovering not the literal sense of Scripture as popularly understood, but rather a modified literal sense of the peri cope for preaching.

One intent here is to honor the worship practice of the Church and in particular the reception of the Word of God in and through the reading and interpretation of Scripture. As noted in chapter one, the conditions surrounding the reading of Scripture in worship represent something considerably less than an ideal laboratory for communication of Biblical truth. Only fragments of Scripture are read and whatever power their literary contexts may have wielded on the meaning derived from their hearing, that power is often usurped by the season of the year and

93 Gerald T. Sheppard, The Future of the Bible: Beyond Liberalism and Literalism (The United Church Publishing House, 1990), 4. 51 events in the world. Often those listening, at least in the current age, have little or no biblical background. Preachers may try to make up for this lack of background through teaching in the sermon, but all of this may mask how the congregation actually hears Scripture and benefits from it in receiving its truths as revelation.

Instead of advocating recovery of the traditional literal sense, and instead of resolving issues between the liberal and literalist camps, this dissertation invites the possibility of recovery of a literal sense of the pericope that is, as we shall see, pre-referential. Rather than providing a fixed or rigid notion of how the Bible refers, this approach takes account of the context and the circumstances of the listeners and provides a foundation for new revelation in preaching through the creative process of establishing a referent through metaphorical meaning-making in the sermon.

In fact, my decision to focus on the literal sense of the pericope is made intentionally and precisely to be provocative, just as use of the literal sense of the pericope will be provocative when it is employed in the sermon. That is, using the phrase "literal sense"—knowing that it is introduced into a milieu where its connotation of "literalism" will seem impertinent—has an effect similar to that of employing the literal sense of the pericope with listeners.

A Personal Note

To be more concrete: I am a pastor and teacher in the theological mainstream of a mainline Christian denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. While a minority on our leadership rosters and among our members may understand themselves to be (to use

Sheppard's terms) literalists when it comes to biblical interpretation, the majority view in the

94 Ibid., 5. 52

ELCA—as reflected in its publications and the teaching in its seminaries, etc.—is more liberalist, employing a wide range of critical tools and interpretive strategies to establish what the Bible says, what it refers to, and what it means. When a person of my ilk elects to use the term "literal sense" (even for such a small unit as the pericope and under the specific conditions of preaching), that term becomes a source of confusion and even offense insofar as it connotes the interpretive strategies associated with literalists. At the same time, to the extent that my hearers know me and understand me to be in the mainline mainstream, they are bound to reexamine their assumptions either about me ("Has he become a literalist?"), about the nature of my decision to use the term ("Is he kidding?"), or about the phrase "literal sense" itself ("Is there something to it?"). Whatever my hearers ultimately decide, it is in that moment of confusion or offense that an invitation can be extended to refigure what the "literal sense" means from the perspective of divine truth.96

Proposals for Recovering a Literal Sense for Preaching: Sense, Reference, and Meaning

In fact, that invitation to reconsider the phrase "literal sense" offers the chance to assert and sustain distinctions between sense, reference, and meaning—concepts that are elided in the popular, and certainly the political and polemical, uses of the phrase. One aim of this dissertation is to dissect this common elision so that the assumptions and understandings of the discrete operations can be examined and understood.

For example, I contend that it is possible to attend to a text's literal sense while setting aside the question of how or in what way that "sense" makes "reference." Further, many of the

95 It is for this reason of "challenge" that I have elected to mostly use the English phrase "literal sense" rather than the Latin sensus literalis. adjectives often applied to the word "sense"—literal seme, figurative sense, metaphorical sense, allegorical sense—are more helpfully applied to "reference." Use of the phrase "literal sense," can be distinct from its common use which usually connotes "literal sense combined with literal reference." In the polemics alluded to by Sheppard, idiomatic use of the various biblical senses— as in, for example, one's claim to "always take the Bible literally"—assumes but rarely specifies inclusion of a particular means of reference. This failure hides an embedded assumption that the nature of a text's sense, the trajectory of that sense's reference, and even the text's meaning are intrinsic to the text itself and not a function of interpretation.

The terms sense, reference, and meaning are important ones in the fields of biblical hermeneutics and literary criticism, and while I hope that my stipulations about their meaning are respectably resonant with more technical and philosophical meanings, my use of the terms is intended to be pragmatic, resonating more with their popular usage. Through the next two chapters, I will work with these concepts and the distinctions between them; an initial explanation here will lay the groundwork for that development.

The Sense of a Text

Narrowly and literally, the literal sense is the capacity of the letters (Latin littera) of a text—as arranged into words, syntax, paragraphs, and literary units—to be perceived in intelligible, coherent, and potentially meaningful (Latin sensus) ways. The sense of a text is a function of appropriate juxtaposition of words, phrases, and clauses within the sentences of a text, and also of appropriate relationships between the sentences of a text such that a hearer is able to discern the unfolding of coherent, meaningful, expressive discourse. The sense of a text

In the first chapter I briefly outlined the movement from first naivete, through critique, and to second naivete. This description is an example of that movement. 54 functions to enable that discernment and to confirm that coherence; it is the "what it is" of the text, what Ricoeur calls the "objective" meaning of the text.97 In many, perhaps most, cases, the encouragement to believe that a given collection of marks on a page is a sensible text comes from the text itself. In other cases, hearers may be encouraged by authority or community to find sensibility in a text, even a text that may appear nonsensical.

The sense of the text also creates a "world of the text" by stipulating and establishing entities and their character (nouns, pronouns, adjectives); activity or states of being and their nature (verbs, adverbs); relationships between entities (prepositions, conjunctions); and development of these elements and their interrelation (argument, plot). About this world of the text, two things must be said: First, the nature of the world of the text is determined by the text itself. Second, while hearers (including preachers) inevitably use their experience, knowledge, or understanding of other worlds (including their own "real world") to enrich their perception of the world of the text, such enrichments (be they drawn from science, theology, history, common sense, or fancy) must give way to what is specified by the text. Similarly, while it would be futile to stipulate that hearers must refrain from assuming points of rudimentary reference or identification between elements in the world of the text and elements in other worlds, such identifications should be made only tentatively. Except for references the text makes to itself

(e.g., through pronouns referring back to antecedents and in the coherent development of ideas, plots, and other relationships between elements), the sense of the text is pre-referential.

In this dissertation, the term "literal sense" will be used to mean this basic, pre-referential sense of the text. Later in this chapter I will describe and enrich this simple definition with some thoughts about how preachers should treat and work with this sense, but at root, this is it. In the

97 Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth, Texas: The Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 19-20. Ricoeur credits Gottlob Frege with the distinction between sense and 55 fields of literary criticism and hermeneutics, this basic pre-referential understanding of "sense" is denoted by such terms as plain sense, grammatical sense, "steno sense,"98 "letteral sense,"99 and, of course, "literal sense."100 Although texts are customarily intended by authors and understood by readers to make reference to the "real world" (the ostensive historical world of people and events or the internal world of ideas and emotions), the literal sense of the text is pre-referential and potentially multi-referential; it is the fundamental configuration from which all reference and subsequent meaning are derived.

In fact, the sense of the text as just described also corresponds to the literal sense of the

Latin phrase sensus literalis. From sensus (sensation, feeling, or understanding) is drawn the assumption that the words of the biblical texts were composed, edited, or presented with the intent to communicate; to "make sense." From literalis (of the letters, that is the alphabetic characters themselves) is drawn the assumption that the sensus is dependent on the text as concretely written.101

An Example

For example, Matthew 10:5-8 reads, "These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: 'Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, "The kingdom of heaven has come near." Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.'" reference; I am relying on Ricoeur's description only. 98 Philip Wheelwright, Metaphor and Reality, (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1964), 16. Gerard Loughlin, "Following to the Letter: The Literal Use of Scripture" in Literature & Theology 9:4 (December 1995): 370-382, 372. 10 I have no quarrel with these terms but I favor "literal" in part because it forces me back into the ongoing conversation between literalists and liberalists. Using such neologisms as "steno," or "letteral" has the advantage that no connotations are associated with them but it sidesteps the conflict. 56

The literal sense (as I am using and defining the term) of this pericope establishes, among other things, characters ("the twelve," "Jesus," "Gentiles," "Samaritans," "lost sheep," "the sick," etc.) and geographic locations. The literal sense also includes a set of imperatives which define a relationship between Jesus and the twelve and then with the sick, the dead, lepers, and demons:

Jesus is apparently authorized to command them to—and we discover later in the narrative that they are able to—cure, raise, cleanse, and cast out, respectively. But the literal sense of the text does not specify the way in which these commanded actions refer to people, places, conditions, or relationships in any world beyond the world of the text (including the past of our "real" world

... that is, including the realm and life of the "historical Jesus").

Contemporary hearers may choose to believe that Jesus and the "twelve" were historical human men and hearers will naturally and appropriately use their practical knowledge about human nature and abilities to animate these characters as they picture or construct the world of the text. Honoring the literal sense of the text, though, means that even this common-sense animating of the text must be tentative. So while contemporary practical knowledge about human abilities does not include the ability to raise the dead, the text specifies that these twelve humans have that potential. To insist that human characters in the text conform to human nature and ability as understood in the "real" world is to attempt to force a manner or means of reference onto the text's literal sense.

The Reference of a Text

The reference of a text is the "about which" of the text; through reference the hearer

relates the sense of the text to a world other than the world of the text (which is established by

' ' Insofar as the focus is on words, sentences, and pericopes, it might be most appropriate to label this pre- referential sense the "semantic sense" or "syntactic sense." But such terms, while more precise, do not enjoy the 57 the literal sense).102 While it is possible to suppose the existence of non-referential texts (e.g., totally euphonious, nonsense, or expressive texts that seem to exist only for the sound quality of their syllables, words, or phrases),103 we commonly conclude that texts are able, intended, and received by readers/hearers to refer to things, actions, ideas, conditions, or emotional states that pertain to worlds other than the text's own. As a result, hearers work to urge meaning from texts: first through the assumption or discernment of the text's sense and then—almost simultaneously—through the determination of reference.

Several aspects of the relationship between sense and reference are important for this project:

1) Polyvalence and the Literal Sense.

A first observation is that the literal sense of any given text may be taken to refer to more than one layer or sphere of reference. We shall consider below the various factors that might prompt a given reference, but for the sake of example: the sense of the word "Jesus" in a pericope might be taken to refer to the character described in Scripture, the historical man from

Nazareth (in any one of the versions of him that have been constructed by Church and culture), the cosmic resurrected Christ, or the one whom many hearers trust is a living presence in their lives today. One could maintain that the "Jesuses" who dwell in these various spheres of reference are one discrete entity, but likely most would acknowledge that some of the "Jesuses" are mutually exclusive of others. What they have in common is that they are referred to by the

long usage or provocative power of "literal sense." Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, p. 20. 103 On the one hand, we could claim that texts such as these have no "sense," yet even then, we might infer from the quality of those sounds some reference to an emotion, impression, or state of mind. 58 same word: "Jesus."104 In the language of hermeneutics, when one speaks of a text's polyvalence one is in part suggesting that the literal sense of the text can refer by various means into many different layers or spheres of reference. Of interest to preaching is the fact that this polyvalence is itself polyvalent: because of the haphazard constitution of a hearing audience, the text may, at the same reading/hearing, be echoing into different spheres of reference for different people.

And, because contexts change, any given person or group may experience the same text sounding into different referential spheres on different hearing occasions.

2) Context Influences Reference and Ultimately Meaning.

The literal sense neither determines nor rules out any of the numerous choices for establishing the manner or direction of reference. This understanding of the literal sense, insofar as it champions the sense-making of the letters, words, and sentences of an ostensive, material text, insists that the entire text always remain a constituent part of meaning-making. Until a word is fully located in context its possible reference and meanings cannot be narrowed. If the literal sense is generated by reading the text as a whole, some modes of reference may be ruled out.

Even so, were one to employ every possible strategy of moving from sense to reference— including, for example, numerological calculations of equidistant letter sequences, allegory, historical critical exegesis, lectio divina, or the employment of ideological filters—one might be overwhelmed by the possibilities and conclude that any given text could be made to say anything—or everything. Consideration of whether this is true (and whether it constitutes a problem) is beyond the scope of this project, but at times when a text's unrestrained polyvalence

1041 have made what I believe to be a warranted assumption here with respect to the word "Jesus": in the context of a reading of the pericope in Christian worship, no one will take the word "Jesus" to refer to someone other than Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ (e.g., any one of thousands of men named "Jesus"). Similar assumptions are not warranted in every case. 59 is perceived as a threat, the Church has responded by articulating scriptural senses that include specified trajectories and spheres of reference. This seems to be the case with contemporary political or polemical uses of the phrase "literal sense" insofar as the use assumes literal reference—which usually means reference to the ostensive, historical entities and events that the text describes or to the sphere of reference intended by the original author.105

3) The Separation of Sense and Reference.

Any wedding of sense to a specific manner of reference serves to restrict meaning.

Ricoeur assumes that texts do intend to refer to some reality outside their language. Reference theory has been challenged by postmodernists who deny that this is possible. Nonetheless, as noted above we pragmatically do function as though reference is possible. However, insisting on a "procedural" or "methodological" separation of sense from reference allows us to examine and claim the assumptions or stipulations we make about how Scripture refers and means and whether the restriction of meaning is warranted. This separation also allows for the surprising result that the literal sense, rather than restricting meaning serves as a fixed foundation for multiple potential meanings. Hence we may refer to the literal sense as pre-referential.

4) The Ongoing Role of the Literal Sense.

Again, even apart from its wedding to a specified manner of reference, the literal sense plays an ongoing role as sense moves to reference and reference to meaning. In Ricoeur's Rule of Metaphor the tenor and vehicle must remain in tension and Valdes's application of that rule stipulates that any attempt to reduce or remove tension between the world of the text and the

105 In fact, literalists—in addition to eliding literal sense and literal reference—might also intend to stipulate the way in which the literal reference of the literal sense leads toward (presumably) "literal meaning," but that does not 60 world of the reader/hearer brings about premature closure. The literal sense—for our purposes of the read-out-loud pericope—is the text as experienced and received. The text remains a fixed benchmark against which reference and meaning are assessed. How this benchmark is employed will depend, like almost everything having to do with interpretation of Scripture, on the hermeneutical and theological commitments of the interpreter. What can be affirmed is that the written and read text in its given linguistic form establishes the literal sense (and maintains some influence as the text is taken to refer and mean) for, in James Barr's words, the Bible's

"linguistic form, far from being something antithetical to its 'real meaning', is the means by which the meaning is conveyed. ... If the verbal form of the Bible were different, then its meaning would be different."106 And, I would add, the impact of any change in the linguistic form would be discernible as reference is determined and then as meaning is made.

The Importance of Sense and Reference for the Literal Sense

In biblical interpretation, it is crucial to distinguish between sense and reference for three reasons. First, because the Bible is confessed to be God's Word and authoritative Scripture, how it refers to the real world shapes doctrine, attitudes, practices, and preaching. Claiming the literal sense powerfully connotes access to a text's essence—even in traditions where authority is shared between Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. By insisting that the move from literal sense to reference be as transparent as possible, we have means to hold interpreters to account for clear and consistent meaning and interpretation.

Second, the Church reads its Scripture in many settings and for various appropriate purposes (e.g., private devotion, historical or literary study, worship, preaching). Most readings

concern us here. 106 James Barr, The Bible in the Modem World, (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1973), 178. 61 comprise less than the whole canon, testament, or book, and are sometimes merely portions of verses, so context (or lack of context) has considerable impact on the literal sense of the pericope. The literal sense even of a short reading configures a world of the text and provides a ground for reference—though most would agree that longer readings enrich configuration and strengthen the persuasiveness of reference. Nearly all understandings of the literal sense consider a passage's nested biblical contexts (e.g., chapter, book, author's corpus) though opinions vary as to how much context is necessary and how that context is to be weighted. Many passages "taken out of context" (that is, their literary context) have been accommodated profitably by the Church into contexts where they yield new and often unexpected revelation (e.g., John 3:16 is often cited apart from the narrative of the meeting of Nicodemus and Jesus that dominates the chapter).

Undisclosed assumptions about the breadth, depth, or nature of Scripture's proper context muddle clarity about the literal sense, modes of reference, and textual meanings.

Distinguishing sense from reference helps to isolate the assumptions and criteria used in correlating the literal sense with the real world. We can see how these various assumptions about sense, reference, context, and interpretive filters interact by considering the Church's deliberation about homosexuality focused on Leviticus 20:13 ("If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.").

The initial literal sense of this verse is reasonably clear. Some take the verse as a discrete unit (i.e., considering no broader textual context), take the words "man" and "male" to refer unambiguously to all men in all circumstances, and thereby condemn all male homosexual behavior (even while employing filters that allow "they shall be put to death" to refer hyperbolically to the severity of the offense or metaphorically to eschatological judgment). Some 62 might take the verse as a discrete unit, refer the described action directly to today's world while allowing "man" and "male" to refer by analogy to any same-gender couple, thus also condemning female homosexual behavior. Some place the passage into its historical cultural context and assert that the verse condemns pederasty and therefore does not refer to consensual adult homosexual behavior. Some may place the passage into the historical literary context of the

Holiness Code in Leviticus; consider the Code's exigencies (e.g., the need for the Hebrew people to set apart from indigenous Canaanite practices); honor habitual analogical references (Hebrew people are a type or analogy for contemporary Christians; Canaanites for secular culture); and then qualify the reference to homosexual behavior by asserting that the prohibition of a different contemporary secular cultural practice would more effectively honor the sanctifying intent of the

Code.

Still others might place the passage into broad canonical context and assert that any condemnation of contemporary actions is chronologically and theologically superseded by such dominant Scriptural themes as the prophetic shift from holiness to mercy or Paul's proclamation of our freedom from the law. Some might conclude that the plain sense is clear and contemporary homosexual behavior is condemned because that is how the Church has customarily understood the reference from the passage. Each of these various interpretive moves can credibly claim to be an implication drawn from the literal sense of the passage.

Why the Literal Sense is Important

Ironically, though no consensus exists in the Church about the literal sense of the literal sense of Scripture the concept remains important for several reasons. First, the literal sense honors that the Bible is a literary text. Even given the wide variety of interpretive practices, the 63 agreed-upon text of the Bible provides a relatively fixed artifact in relation to which conversation about reference, meaning, doctrine, and practice can occur. Because the literal sense includes the

Bible's unique elements and the world they configure, it preserves the Bible's express voice in conversation with other sources of Church authority.

Second, because the literal sense of the text configures the world of the text by establishing that world's entities, images, relationships, themes, and plots, it constrains— according to the logic appropriate to any given stipulations about context or reference—what the text can refer to and ultimately mean. If the words of the text were different or were configured differently, the reference or meaning derived from even the most fanciful allegorical interpretation would have to be different in some corresponding way.

Third, the literal sense is the Bible's public sense. The Church has the right to stipulate how its Scripture is read and interpreted. But the Bible is also a cultural artifact and is read and heard in uncatechized ways in unexpected contexts by those to whom the Church must present a persuasive case from the text in real-world evangelism, apologetics, and preaching.

The literal sense's gift for preachers is its focus on the elements of the text and the worlds they configure. Here preachers will find a treasure of vocabulary, imagery, and themes for preaching—and those able to defer or resist habitual reference will find fresh and surprising insight for sermons. The challenge for preachers is to respect the complex assumptions under which audiences hear the text—each exerting influence on hearers' wagers about reference. As preachers strive to be faithful to the influence on the literal sense of theological commitments, customary interpretations, literary context, and history, they may hold supremely to the belief that the Church reads Scripture in worship expecting it to refer principally to God, human relation to God, and God's action in our world. 64

Three Entities That Affect the Move from Sense to Reference

I asserted above that the literal sense, in the specific manner that I am using that term here, neither determines nor rules out any of the numerous choices for establishing the manner or direction of reference. Contexts and texts themselves do, however, exert influence on how sense moves to reference. Here I want briefly to consider how the three entities whose nuances gather at the homiletical roundtable might pressure or shape the move from sense to reference, namely:

Scripture through the pericope, theological tradition through the liturgy, and contemporary culture through individual listeners.

1) Scripture through the Pericope.

The pericope might suggest a sphere of reference when it is exemplary of a discernible genre. A narrative passage may suggest reference to ostensive history—that is to things that

"really happened"; a poetic passage may suggest figurative reference to external, ostensive entities or to expressions of internal experiences or emotions. Other pericopes make overt suggestions about how reference might be made. For example, Matthew 13:31 begins, "[Jesus] put before them a parable ... ." To the extent that this identification of the genre or form

"parable" is meaningful to hearers, the identification might influence the sphere of reference for the parable that follows (even as the declaration "Jesus put before them ..." might be taken to refer literally to a moment in ostensive history when the man Jesus spoke to a group of people).

Luke 1:3 reads, in part, "I decided to write ... an orderly account ... so that you may know the truth ..." If hearers take "truth" to refer to "factual accuracy," they may be persuaded to read the

Gospel of Luke as a kind of historical reporting such that the sphere of reference is material 65 history; however, should hearers take "truth" to refer to "spiritual truth," the passage and the gospel that follows may be taken to refer to different spheres than history only. Even acknowledging that the brevity of some peri copes will obviate the influence of the genre from which they were taken, clues of this sort may still influence the direction of reference.

2) Theological Tradition through the Liturgy.

The liturgy can also influence reference, both because its elements are nuances of a

community's broader theological tradition and because it envelops the reading of the pericope with familiar words, actions, and images. For example, many congregations regularly use the text of Numbers 6:24-26 ("The LORD bless you and keep you ...") as the liturgical benediction.

When those verses are read as part of a pericope it is easy to imagine that in the mind of hearers

the referent of the pronoun "you" might toggle back and forth between the "Israelites" (who are

identified as the recipients of the blessing by the literal sense of Numbers 6:23) and the hearers

in worship themselves—because they have been the referent of the word "you" at the end of

many successive worship services. Biblical passages relating to baptism read on a day when a

baptism occurs might be taken to refer toward both the issues revealed by the sense of the text

and this day's baptism. Some words, names, and concepts (e.g., sin, Jesus, righteousness), while

originating in Scripture become emblematic of major themes in teaching, preaching, or personal

piety independent of their appearance in Scripture. Hearing those words in the pericope might

draw reference toward the particular contexts or spheres in which those words have special

meaning. For example, the phrase "born again" (John 3:3) might operate in this way for

Arminian Evangelicals for whom it is emblematic of believers' decisions or conversions. The

phrase "they are justified by [God's] grace ..." (Romans 3:24) might operate in this way for 66

Lutherans for whom justification by grace is dogma. In both cases, hearers might struggle to allow the sense of the text to refer to any other sphere than that of their contemporary piety or theological construction.

3) Contemporary Culture through Individual Listeners.

As already intimated, individual worshipers may have their own preferences or habits toward certain spheres of reference. Optimally, these habits are formed by hearers' thoughtful and faithful catechization regarding Scripture's sense and reference. In some communities the means of reference is specified in advance—these types could span from extreme "literalists," who might insist that Scripture refers literally to ostensive events in past or future "real life" history, to extreme "liberalists," who might insist that Scripture refers figuratively to spiritual truths only. In some communities the sphere of reference (or in some cases even the final meaning of Scripture) is specified in advance so that the means of reference may be adjusted until the desired outcomes are achieved. Hearers may expect the Bible to refer to a spiritual realm where its meaning will be for edification, uplift, and moral instruction. Other communities may teach that the Bible tells the story of God's love for us or reveals the character of Jesus

Christ. While preachers' work would be easier if they could assume catechetical reception of the

Bible's sense and faithful application of reference, such reception would make for boring

conversation around the homiletical roundtable.

Contemporary hearers may draw sense toward reference to the spheres of the vaguely

spiritual and generally moral, but our modern-postmodern culture also places a premium on

realism, pragmatism, and utility. As individual nuances of contemporary North American

culture, worshipers might well draw the Scripture's sense toward reference to what really 67 happened or to whatever has practical value and can be replicated in their lives. Cultural shifts, current events, community affairs, and individual crises—the changing contexts whose weekly encounter with the Bible make homiletical conversation necessary—are borne to the table by individual members of congregations and help shape their listening and hearing. Even faithfully catechized hearing individuals for whom a biblical passage would normally be taken to refer to a theological system or the praise of God, might draw the sense of a text toward more personal spheres of reference when grappling with massive troop deployments, bumper harvests, family weddings, or imminent death.

These examples are only meant to be suggestive. The point is that these and other pressures toward reference are active as the pericope is read and heard. And it must be iterated that such pressures and influences are neither unilateral nor unambiguous; even the most overt stipulation about how the literal sense of a pericope should move toward reference and meaning depends on some collusion between text, context, and hearer and on the degree to which hearers

(including preachers) accurately interpret or respond to that stipulation.

From Reference to Meaning

The literal sense is not usually connected with creativity, but in our understanding it has much to do with making meaning. Meaning is the "so what" or "therefore" of the text. The sense of the text establishes the world of the text, a world filled with characters, relationships, and plots. By means of reference the hearer brings the sense of the text into encounter with worlds other than the world established in the text by its sense. Meaning-making is the process by which the sense of the text as referred is then configured and understood so that it may influence or shape the world(s) in which hearers dwell. More specific to preaching, meaning is something that 68 the sermon teases out or helps to unfold from the encounter between the Bible and the audience in the context of worship and for the contexts of life.

In chapter two I outlined the three-step process of meaning-making suggested by Ricoeur and Valdes; here I want only to briefly imagine the hearing and meaning-making process that might occur during the reading of a pericope. A full consideration of how and what the Bible means would take us far beyond the scope of this project; my hope is that the distinction I have made between "sense" and "reference" is useful even for those whose commitments stipulate a particular relationship between them. I recognize that the move toward meaning-making is even more bound (than is reference) by theological commitments and traditions and, as was the case with the determination of reference, meaning-making is open to many influences and exigencies, even in addition to stipulations by theology or ideology. So, for example, even among those who agree that the literal sense of Scripture should be taken to refer to ostensive history—meaning that everything in the Bible "really happened"—the "so what" of meaning-making might take different shapes, depending upon how elements in the text are identified with elements in the hearers' world(s). In this enumeration of key steps in meaning-making, I am assuming no givens for either the determination of reference or the making of meaning. In this abstract version, each of the steps or elements should be thought of as tentative since at each step there are multiple choices. In brief, the key steps or elements of meaning-making can be understood to be these:

1. As the text is read, hearers begin (literally) to "get a sense" of the text; they are introduced to settings, characters, elements, relationships, and plots.

2. As the literal sense of the text begins to unfold, hearers will establish one (or perhaps more than one) likely sphere of reference.

3. As more of the text is read, the world of the text is enriched as elements are further 69 described, characters interact, and elements are put into increasingly complex relationships with one another as plots or arguments unfold. At the same time, the choices about reference made by hearers are in some cases confirmed and in others challenged by impertinences—instances where some aspect or configuration of the world of the text seems not to apply comfortably to the supposed sphere of reference (as in the discussion of Matthew 10 above, where the twelve's ability to "raise the dead" in the world of the text was dissonant with human ability when the sense was referred to human ability in our material world).

4. Meaning-making begins as hearers claim identifications between their own world(s) and the chosen sphere(s) of reference (which are continuing to be shaped and enriched by the unfolding of the sense of the text). These claims of identification may be firm (as when stipulated by authoritative tradition or habit) or occasional (as when drawn by contextual exigencies) and, in either case, transitory (when relationships between elements of the world of the text fail to survive their transport to selected spheres of reference). And even when one claim of identification between an element of the text and an element in a hearer's world is firm, impertinences may arise between other elements as the hearer attempts to put them into relationship (in his or her world) according to the relationship they have in the world of the text.

The result is that in the process of making-meaning, elements of the text (especially the nouns, but also the states of being of, actions of, or relationships between nouns as attributed to them by verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) may be taken to refer in different ways to different spheres, even in the course of the same peri cope.

For example, as Matthew 10 is read, a hearer might suppose a firm identification between

"Jesus," the character in the text, and "Jesus," the risen one, thus supposing that the sense of the 70 word Jesus in the text should be taken to refer to the Jesus in his or her world. However, the pericope as a whole cannot sustain that same referential strategy because "the twelve" (the disciples in the text) are not alive in the hearer's world at all. This impertinence might be resolved by claiming a tentative identification—by virtue of an analogical relationship to Jesus in the two worlds—between "the twelve" and "contemporary Christians," thus supposing that the sense of "the twelve" should be taken to refer figuratively to "Christians," even as the relationship between "Jesus" and "the twelve" (insofar as it includes Jesus's authority to command followers) refers literally to the relationship between "Jesus" and "contemporary

Christians." However, while the command to "proclaim the good news" might be taken to refer literally to contemporary Christians (the "figurative twelve"), the mandate to "raise the dead" might be identified with—and taken to refer figuratively to—some other activity consistent with human ability.

5. As the text is read and continues to unfold, hearers continue to assess the chosen means or spheres of reference and the claims of identification by overlaying the ever-emerging

I struggle with whether to label this a "literal" reference from the sense of the word "Jesus." On the one hand it is not a "literal historical" reference; a reference of that sort would be to Jesus in his earthly ministry in the first century. But on the other hand, Christians affirm that the resurrected Jesus and the historical incarnate Jesus are the same Jesus (though the former is resurrected and glorified). I believe, however, that this sort of universalized reference (Jesus in any text being taken to refer to Jesus of all times and places) is a common component of the popular understanding of what it is to "take the Bible literally." (A similar phenomenon occurs with the words "God," "Holy Spirit," and potentially with any nouns from the text that are taken to refer to entities that continue to exist in the contemporary real world—including, for example, "world," "Church," or "the Jews.") The mischief of "taking the Bible literally" in this way is twofold. First, even though entities in the text share a name and (in many cases) a presumed continuity with entities in our real world, the automatic assumption of a universalized literal reference is impertinent when the characters or natures of the two entities are incompatible. For example, the literal sense of "the Jews" in the world of the Gospel of John is of a parochial, one-dimensional group unambiguously hostile to Jesus. To suppose a universalized literal reference to people in history or in our contemporary real world who are also referred to as "the Jews," is impertinent (if unfortunately common, perhaps inevitable). Second, other entities in the world of the text that do not have a similar continuity with entities in the contemporary real world are, nonetheless, implicitly assigned referents. We have just seen one example where "the twelve" is taken to refer (automatically?) to "contemporary Christians." A more mischievous, automatic, implicit habit of reference occurs when "Israel' or the "Hebrews" are implicitly taken to refer to "contemporary Christians" or, worse, a modern nation-state so that God's special protection and political prescriptions (which are aspects of the literal sense of the text) are taken to be "in force" for the assumed reference. Such automatic, often ideological—and in many cases 71 world of the text onto their real world(s). What the text will finally mean is a function of the resolutions (whether tentative or final) of the tensions caused by the various impertinences encountered along the way.

This encounter between the world of the text and the world(s) of hearers, the ongoing assaying process, the claiming and testing of identifications, the recognition of impertinences, and the resolution of tensions—all part of the urge toward meaning—are the raw materials of the conversations that take place around the homiletical roundtable. It is in anticipation of this conversation that the preacher composes the sermon.

The Role of Scripture: Three Scenarios

This consideration of the Bible's sense, reference, and meaning is only necessary because the Christian Church is resolute in including in its worship the reading aloud of pericopes from the Bible. Our continuous performance of these same pericopes (whose literal senses present the same worlds of the text at every reading) in countless contexts in communities around the world—each community undergoing its own constant changes across time—means that we invite the Bible to speak and to create its worlds in our ever-changing midst. Let us consider three scenarios:

1) Determine that Sense and Reference are Fixed

Presumably a Christian community could elect to declare all theological, historical, and moral issues settled, in effect canonizing certain determinations of reference and meaning. Such a community would thank the Bible (even revere the Bible) for its inspired contribution but would instruct its leaders to teach and preach from the community's systematic theology or

unstated—means of reference point to the need for a separation of sense from reference so that interpreters (including preachers) have the opportunity to take responsibility for each application of reference. 72 confessions, digested from but now untethered from the ancient texts. In the course of time, though, these confessions would become ancient texts themselves brought into life in new contexts and changes; the struggle for sense, reference, and meaning would begin anew.

2) Locate Authority in Narratives or Theological Themes

Alternatively, a Christian community could argue that the Bible's authority lies in the major narrative sweeps or theological themes that emerge when it is taken as a whole work.

These themes could then be woven into theological systems, canons of correct interpretation, creeds, and catechisms. Lectionaries and liturgical years could be devised to bear those themes so that the texts selected for reading in worship would serve as holophonic markers or metonymies, destined for faithful reference into the thematic spheres provided. Here, the preacher's role in the homiletical conversation is rehearsing the Church's logic for connecting sense and reference to meaning, texts to themes. But as time and contexts change, the connections between texts and "major themes" slacken and what were, in one time and place, self-evident are, for a later time and place confounding or impertinent. Even supposing that new communities gladly receive the Bible as canonical text, we can wonder whether they should appreciate having to adopt the worldview, epistemology, or language necessary to make the stipulated connections between sense, reference, and meaning sensible.

3) Invite the Pericope to Speak as it Will in Various Ways

While both these scenarios respect the authority of Scripture, neither accounts fully for the implications of inviting the pericope to speak in the context of worship to haphazardly catechized, autonomous, contemporary Christian communities. In both the previous two 73 scenarios we "take the text, fresh and yeasty like a ball of dough, and put it under the rolling pin of our systematic theology and flatten the text into the shape of a favorite theological theme."108

Or again, in the more violent image of Brian McLaren, "we sometimes tie the biblical text to a chair and start flogging it with a hose until it breaks down in tears and says what we want it to say."1 The position of this dissertation is that Christian communities ought not assert the importance of reading and hearing the document that is the rule and norm of their faith and life without also allowing it to speak in its own voice and to create its own world(s) in our midst, even at the potential expense of having theological or liturgical equilibrium upset by the idiosyncrasies and oddities of that voice. This voice is the peri cope's literal sense.

The Impertinence of the Literal Sense

Even without romanticizing the fact that the books of the Bible were authored by people of distant times and cultures, with worldviews, epistemologies, and languages different from our own, the worlds of the biblical texts are foreign to us. And even resting secure in the knowledge that we do not receive Scripture directly from distant alien antiquity but rather from the familiar and still sensible Church of yesterday, which survived its own encounter with the Bible before passing it forward to us, the literal sense of the Bible can create worlds of the text that are jarring and impertinent. In chapter eight, we shall investigate in some detail how preachers might understand their role in the homiletical conversation, helping to negotiate and resolve the impertinences and jarrings occasioned by the literal sense of the peri cope.

108 Ronald J. Allen, Contemporary Biblical Interpretation for Preaching (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Judson Press, 1984), 14. 1 Brian McClaren and Gary W. Moon, "A Postmodern View of Scripture: Interview with Brian McLaren." Conversations: A Forum for Authentic Transformation 3:1 (Spring 2005), p. 13. McClaren's quip is a gloss on a portion of Billy Collins's poem, "Introduction to Poetry" in Billy Collins, 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (New York: Random House, 2003), 3. 74

In what remains of this chapter I want to articulate some questions that arise from the encounter between the literal sense of the peri cope and the world(s) of contemporary hearers.

Then, in the next chapter, I will discuss some recent treatments of the literal sense and attempt to enrich the basic understanding of the pre-referential literal sense with some principles preachers might adopt as they prepare to converse with the pericope and the people gathered at the roundtable in the context of liturgy.

When the Pericope and Contemporary Worlds Collide

Issues arise as hearers work to bring sense through reference to meaning in the overlay of the world of the text and their own world(s), particularly when these worlds collide. For example, in the world configured by the literal sense of Matthew 10, human beings can raise the dead; in the world as understood and inhabited by (most) people in twenty-first-century North

America, humans cannot raise the dead. Should the literal sense of Matthew 10 be referred literally to the ancient real world—the real world that is diachronically connected to our own real world? If so, what accounts for the change in human abilities between then and now? Why could humans raise the dead in the first century? Because most twenty-first-century Westerners are largely amateur empiricists and modern pragmatists, who believe that the sensory world is real, that history is understood to be what really happened (and therefore could really happen), and who trust as true what our senses and common sense tell us, our assumption is likely to be that humans have never had the ability to raise the dead.

On the one hand we might conclude that the world configured by Matthew 10 is the product of a pre-modern author who was attempting to give an accurate account of his or her own world in his or her own terms—in which case he or she was nai've about human abilities or 75 the causalities of healing. The task in this case is to discover the true, humanly possible, referent for Jesus command, which in the world of text is rendered as "raise the dead." On the other hand we might conclude that the world of Matthew 10 is the product of a pre-modern author who intended to create a literary fancy, being just as aware as we that humans cannot raise the dead.

Our task in this case is to imagine the humanly possible activities to which the command might refer metaphorically. However, a pragmatic, empiricist, historical epistemology might have us balk at the idea that our Scripture, on which we depend for reliable norms on which to anchor doctrine, faith, and life, could be cast in the inherently polyvalent genres of literature. A reactionary option in that case might be to return to the assertion that the world of the text created by the literal sense of Matthew 10 should be referred literally back to the ancient real world that is in diachronic contiguity with our own real world and conclude that our common sense about human abilities must be wrong.

The debate between Sheppard's literalists and liberalists traffics in questions, distinctions, and options such as these, even though both argue from a worldview saturated with optimistic modern preferences for the empirical and historical (i.e., the settle-able). So, while the issue is sharply drawn when discussing a command like "raise the dead," which resists literal reference into our real world, it is important to recall that the issues remain even when the text's command is "to proclaim the good news" or "love one another"—commands that we can take to refer literally to our real world with no impertinence, no crisis of worldview or epistemology.

The issues remain because the Jesus of Matthew 10 is never talking to us until the literal sense of the peri cope is drawn toward reference and we meaningfully identify ourselves with

"the twelve." The gift of postmodernity is the opportunity—indeed, the challenge—to parse and evaluate our habits of reference and meaning-making so that we can edit faulty assumptions and 76 inconsistencies on the one hand and fully enter and dwell within the inevitable impertinences as we negotiate them toward meaning. As we shall see in the following consideration of three contemporary treatments of the literal sense, the collision of worlds and the crises of reference and meaning are managed by strategies of stipulating either the means of reference, the spheres of reference, or the parameters of meaning—all attempts to identify some aspect of the biblical- interpretive process as firm ground beneath our feet. The Bible is a book that has been temporarily killed for us, or for some of us, by having its meaning arbitrarily fixed. We know it so thoroughly, in its superficial or popular meaning, that it is dead, it gives us nothing any more. Worse still, by old habit amounting almost to instinct, it imposes on us a whole state of feeling which is now repugnant to us. We detest the 'chapel' and the Sunday- school feeling which the Bible must necessarily impose on us. We want to get rid of that vulgarity—for vulgarity is what it is.

D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse CHAPTER 4

CONTEMPORARY TREATMENTS OF THE LITERAL SENSE:

HISTORICAL, LITERARY, AND THEOLOGICAL

In this chapter I will examine three contemporary treatments of the literal sense of

Scripture. As noted above, these treatments are broader in scope than mine: for the most part they deal with the Church's reading of the Bible as a whole and for all purposes.110 I have elected to focus on these three contemporary treatments (rather than to trace the full development of the literal sense through the Church's history111) because they are modern or postmodern, that is, they assume similar worldviews to those of the postmodern Church using language that is intelligible to it.

The first treatment I have labeled the historical literal sense and it divides into two types: literalism, where the means and sphere of reference are stipulated by the interpreter; and historical criticism, where the means of reference is determined by an educated reconstruction of the author's situation so that the literal sense is taken to refer into the sphere and by the means intended by the author. The second treatment is the literary literal sense where the means and sphere of reference are not stipulated but are left to the interpreter. The third treatment is the

110 In chapters six and seven I will survey homiletical texts where the focus is on the use of Scripture for preaching. "' For two brief, clear surveys of the history of the literal sense see chapter three of Paul Scott Wilson's God Sense: Reading the Bible for Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), p. 40ff, and Brevard Childs, "The Sensus Literalis of Scripture: An Ancient and Modern Problem" in Beitrdge zur Alttestamentlichen Theologie: Festschrift fur Walther Zimmerli, Herbert Dormer, Robert Hanhart, and Rudolf Smend, eds. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977, pp. 80-93. 78 79 theological literal sense where the sphere of meaning of the Bible is stipulated (in various ways) by the interpretive community. Each of the three has something to offer contemporary preaching even as each has limitations. My construction of the literal sense of the pericope for preaching, which draws some elements of all three, will follow.

The Historical (Literalist and Historicist) Stance 1 Recovering God's Revelation in the Events of History

The understanding of the literal sense most closely identified with popular notions of

"taking the Bible literally" are two related approaches that each stipulate a relationship between religious meaning and historicity. Both approaches also stipulate the extent to which a literal sense derived from within the text is still possible in light of—or in tension with—the tendency to find the literal sense either behind the text in the history to which the text refers or in front of the text in the theological presuppositions which the text must support.

We shall consider first the approach of conservative evangelicals for whom the literal sense of Scripture lies behind the text in the recovery of God's revelation to God's people in the events of history. But contrary to any naive caricatures, the primary concern of more moderate conservative evangelicals is not for protecting God's inclination or ability to act in history in supernatural ways, but rather for establishing an objective, and therefore useable, basis for belief and doctrine. (While that impulse is laudable, the faith question is whether history is needed when the text itself—assuming it is read into the faith community—is already an objective artifact.) The prominent evangelical conservative theologian Carl F. H. Henry expresses the evangelical understanding this way,

To imply that evangelicals are wooden-headed literalists who cannot distinguish between literary types is a resort to ridicule rather than to reason .... The evangelical rule has been to opt for the literal sense of the Bible where the 80

language does not preclude it. All thinking aims to say what is actually the case— we cannot even recognize the distortions of metaphor and parable unless literal truth is the context of the discussion. Figurative language provides no basis for ignoring the ontological questions. Without a literally true ingredient, allegorical language cannot insist on a rationally identifiable referent. Otherwise symbols would collapse into emotive preferents, and this would raise the specter of illusion. If none of our statements about God is literally true, is God truly known

The tenor of Henry's thinking is revealed in several turns of phrase. He characterizes metaphor and parable as "distortions" which must be "recognized" so that "what is actually the case" can be established. In other words, what really happened or what was really said must be reconstructed by decoding the obscurities of the figurative language. It is in this necessity, to decode and reconstruct an objective account of what really happened or was said, that the close kinship is revealed between the conservative evangelical and the historical critical approaches.

The key to the difference between them lies in Henry's assumption that emphasis on the figurative necessarily means "ignoring the ontological" thus implying a hesitance to surrender the historical referent of the biblical narratives. (As we shall see, the historical critical method seeks a different referent.) In fact, Raymond Brown's critique of Henry's style of literalism is precisely that it reduces the whole Bible to one genre, history.11 More to the point, George

Hunsinger labels Henry's position "systematic consubstantiation." He writes,

although [for Henry] faith is independent of historiography, it makes systematic use of it in two ways. First, it makes a negative case that events depicted by biblical narratives ... have not in fact been disconfirmed by historical critical method; and second, so far as possible, it makes a positive case (by means of that method) for the historical factuality of those events.114

In other words Henry's primary assumption (and here is where the modern emphasis on the

112 Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, Vol. 4, God Who Speaks and Shows, (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1979), 109-110. 113 Raymond E. Brown, "Hermeneutics," in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1990), 1156. 114 George Hunsinger, "What Can Evangelicals and Postliberals Learn from Each Other: The Carl Henry/Hans Frei Exchange Reconsidered," Pro Ecclesia 5:2 (Spring 1996), p. 168. 81 empirical and historical is seen) is that the literal sense must be joined to historical reference because doctrine and faith can only be established upon what is true; that is, upon what really happened.

Henry's position can be further critiqued on a practical level through the loophole opened by his phrase, "where the language does not preclude it." Henry wishes for a literal sense rooted in history so that it can provide the objective building blocks for strong doctrine. However, opinions about which elements of biblical language "preclude" a literal reading will vary, even among conservative evangelicals. And so Elliott E. Johnson issues this caution to those tempted toward a figurative interpretation of one apocalyptic image:

... though the language is expressive, it does not exclude specific reference; and though the genre includes symbolism, it does not negate actual and historical reference through the symbol are the horses coming from heaven [in Revelation 6:1-6] actual horses with different colors or simply symbols of divine agents with the colors symbolizing their function and identity? Best not to answer ... take the text as it stands and keep it in mind. That way when the end comes, you'll be in good position to answer the question then.115

While few would join Johnson looking for real horses of a different color, the point is that some conservative evangelicals do take literally what others might preclude.

This difficulty in achieving a consensus literal sense drives most conservative interpreters to value the inerrancy of Scripture over its literality. In James Barr's words, the literal sense is precluded "when a fully literal reference would mean a crisis of credibility and a consequent admission of error in the Bible. In order to avoid this, the conservative evangelical interpreter moves over to a non-literal exegesis; only this will save the inerrancy of the Bible.""6 To the extent that this observation is sound, Henry's own words threaten to turn back upon him, for if

115 Elliott E. Johnson, "Apocalyptic Genre in Literal Interpretation" in Stanley D. Toussiant & Charles H. Dyer, eds., Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), pp. 204 and 209, italics added. 1' Barr, Bible in Modern World, 169. Sheppard also notes that inerrancy more than strict literalism drives the conservative evangelical position, cf. Sheppard, Future of the Bible, 10. 82 there is no agreed upon historical referent, then "symbols would collapse into emotive preferents."

To press the issue further: Who adjudicates differences in opinion about whether or not the biblical language of a passage precludes a literal reading? Where the medieval Church would turn to dogmatic theology, and Luther would turn to whatever reveals Christ, Henry's principle is extra-scriptural and thoroughly modern: The Bible must be inerrant, which is to say, it must be internally consistent and coherent, and it must not grossly offend the common scientific and historical understanding of the modern hearer.117 The trouble for Henry's position is that scientific and historical understandings vary from one modern hearer to the next and certainly change as new discoveries become accepted over time. Each change would seem to require an adjustment in the judgment about when a literal reading is precluded. For an approach that depends on an objective, and presumably stable and reliable "ontological" referent, such adjustments are too high a risk.

The Historical (Literalist and Historicist) Stance 2: Authorial Intent

Another approach understands the literal sense to be grounded in historical reality but avoids the problems raised when that reality is defined so narrowly as what "really happened."

This second approach is the one taken by biblical interpreters who gladly inherited the interpretive traditions of historical criticism. For these interpreters, the literal sense is located behind the text in the context of the human author and the author's original intent. "According to this view, the literal meaning of the text is perfectly stable and univocal, and its meaning in the past is its only meaning" (and that meaning is determined not by the interpreters of the text, but

Cf. Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine discourse: Philosophical reflections on the claim that God speaks (Cambridge: 83 by the authors).m Exegetes in this stream employ historical methods to determine the literal sense which refers not, as with conservative evangelicals, to what really happened, but rather to what the historical author really meant to communicate to the original audience.

Historical critical scholars have provided mountains of useful information about the contexts from which the books of the Bible were written. The historical critical method also has a certain scientific respectability in that it is highly technical and seemingly objective. So, for example, when confronted with Joshua 10:12-13119 where the sun reportedly stands still in the sky, historical critics can affirm that, whatever "really" happened that day, the author's description is bound by his ancient understanding of astronomy. Certainly, if the same phenomenon were to occur today, our explanation could and would be quite different. This sensitivity to historical context serves an apologetic purpose in that it does not require modern seekers to believe what they "know ain't so." While this group might choose to explain miracles in natural terms, they may also determine that the author intended fiction or fancy; either way, the literal sense is the author's intent.

Weaknesses

The strengths of the historical critical method for deriving the literal sense are also its weaknesses. First, as the exegetical and critical techniques available for determining the author's intent grow more and more sophisticated, this literal sense becomes less and less accessible to the ordinary Christian hearer. The technical nature of the method undermines any confidence that the non-expert, yet still faithful, community of believers (including its pastors and teachers!) can

Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 221. 118 Sandra M. Schneiders, The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture, Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 721. 119 The passage reads, "On the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the 84 interpret the Bible in a valid way.120

Second, the firm fixation on historical context raises questions about the use of the Bible as a modern religious text; 'How do we move from then to now in a meaningful way?' For instance, it is one thing to explain away as primitive astronomy the description of the miraculous behavior of the sun in Joshua 10, but what then is the religious significance of the passage? A typical move might be to say that the literal sense of the passage ought not to be taken to refer literally but is rather metaphoric hyperbole that still expresses the belief that God fights with

Israel against its enemies, or that God is sovereign over creation. But such an explanation, even if partially accurate, is not sufficient on its own because Israel's beliefs were affirmed precisely by the narration of this miraculous event; without it, the reconstructed literal sense is reduced to banal religious truth. A similar move might be made when a biblical author's intent clearly violates modern ethical sensibilities.

A third and more subtle difficulty with identifying the literal sense of Scripture with the intent of the original author has to do with the investigation of pre-scriptural origins of texts in the belief that "every text which can be reconstructed in the pre-history of the Bible should be called a 'biblical tradition.'"121 So, for example, when the Easter pericope from Mark (16:1-8) is read it will often be pointed out that verses 9-20 were "not in the original." The effect is that the literal senses of the canonical Mark and the reconstructed pre-canonical Mark are at odds. In a more general way, this ability to reconstruct the authorial intent of pre-scriptural (and in some cases pre-pre-scriptural) phases of the textual tradition leads Sheppard to note that,

the designated human authors of scriptures in all of the major world religions did not originally think they were writing scripture. Their prophecies, wisdom,

LORD; and he said in the sight of Israel, 'Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the valley of Aijalon.' And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies." 120 Childs, Sensus Literalis, 90-91. 121 Sheppard, Future of the Bible, 30. 85

advice, dreams, and hymns became recognized as 'scripture' later, in ways that exceeded their original intent,ni

That is, even before the questions of reference and meaning are raised, the mere reading of a passage of the Bible as Scripture violates the authors' intents. The problem is particularly interesting when pre-textual research indicates that the original author did not share even the same faith as the community using the Bible as Scripture. Sheppard cites the example of Psalm

29 whose original Canaanite author likely intended to extol the attributes of Ba'al; one could also include the creation narrative of Genesis 1 which has its genesis in Babylonian creation

123 stones.

Similarities and Differences: Conservative Evangelical and Historical Critical

As noted above, the Enlightenment view of history (in which what really happened provides the only objective basis for establishing and developing what is true) controls both the conservative evangelical and the historical critical approaches to the literal sense, though in slightly different ways. What the two views share is the belief that the literal sense lies "in the historical reference and the issue of historical factuality. Revelation is not in words, but in the subject matter to which they referred."124 The difference between them lies in whether the ostensive referent is a sequence of historical events or the intent of a historical religious author reconstructed through the critical process. In both cases the reconstruction requires specialized skills and must be followed by the significant step of making the reconstructed literal sense meaningful for today.

This problem of fixation on the past so evident in these historical approaches was

Ibid., 30, italics added. 'Cf., ibid, 31. fchilds, p. 89. 86 addressed in part by the biblical theology movement. This movement of the middle part of the

1900s recognized that "biblical texts were not primarily concerned with the recording of historical data but with proclaiming faith convictions to a faith community."125 The concern is still with the author's intent, but with two helpful refinements. First, because that intent is seen as primarily theological there is a new way to understand historical anomalies or contradictions. So, for example, instead of needing to harmonize the four gospel narratives in order to preserve a reconstructed historical referent, the differences can be understood to issue from the theological intents of the four evangelists; intents which reflect the (historically reconstructed!) diverse contexts, theological issues, and struggles in which they found themselves.

Second, this recognition that "theological concerns were an integral part of the literal sense of the text both fostered and was fostered by the development of redaction criticism."126

That is to say, the theological purpose of the redactor supersedes the original author's intent, thus mitigating the confusion caused by oddities in the pre-scriptural transmission of material. So, to answer the question raised in connection with Psalm 29, it doesn't matter that the hymn originally lauded Ba'al; the only intent of importance to us now is that of the redactor who

shaped it for inclusion in the Scripture of our theological community.

The Literary Literal Sense

The literary literal sense is a response to the growing awareness of the difficulties of historical approaches. As scholars considered the ramifications of redaction criticism, they also became

increasingly aware of the importance of treating the Bible as literature first and history second. Consequently, they were becoming somewhat more comfortable

125 Schneiders. Revelatory Text, 723. 126 Ibid., 723. 87

with the idea that multiplicity rather than unanimity in interpretation corresponded better to the nature of what they were studying and derived legitimately from the methods appropriate to the study of that object"127

Ironically, this appreciation for the literary nature of biblical texts is also better history. Raymond

Brown notes that when it can be established (or when it is self-evident, as in the Psalms) that a biblical text is poetic, figural, or even totally fictional it is not good history to read it as history; it is, so to speak, literalism against the literal sense.128

Northrop Frye proposes that the Bible be read as literature (though he admits it seems not to be literature as such) because "many of the central doctrines of traditional Christianity can be grammatically expressed only in the form of metaphor." The Bible belongs to an "area of language in which metaphor is functional, and where we have to surrender precision for flexibility."129 So where Carl Henry believes that figurative language must be decoded to reveal the literal sense as historical referent, Frye asserts that the referent for the figures is the world of the text itself; they therefore make up the literal sense. So Frye, in an excerpt that seems to address both the conservative evangelical and historical critical over-emphasis on historical reference writes,

What does the Bible literally mean? It means literally what it says .... But some verbal structures ... are set up as counterparts of external events, like histories, while others, like stories, exist for their own sake and have no such counterpart. The first group consists of ... descriptive or non-literary structures; the second group, of literary or poetic structures. As the Bible seems not to be literature even though it has all the characteristics of literature, its literal meaning has traditionally been regarded as the simply descriptive meaning. The Bible means literally just what it says; and in the traditional way of applying this principle, that means that what it says, in the historical area, for example, is a definitive transcript of actual events. [But such] externalized literalism, which subordinates words to "real" things, is the kind of "natural man's" comprehension that Paul rejected ...."13°

127 Ibid., 722. 128 Raymond Brown, "Hermeneutics," 1152. 12 Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (Toronto: Academic Press Canada, 1982), 55. 130 Ibid., 59-61. (The last remark is a reference to 2 Corinthian 3:6c.) 88

For Frye, and those who understand the literal sense to be the literary sense, concern for history behind the text must give way to consideration of the text as it stands. Frye essentially brackets off the historical-critical and treats the text as myth which for him is not fiction but plot.

A clear strength of adding this literary understanding of the literal sense is that it honors the fact that "the Bible has always been studied as literature because, after all, that is what it is— scriptures or writings. The field of biblical criticism knows no methodology that circumvents the

I'll act of reading or hearing the text." The literary approach, in moving the literal sense from some reconstruction of what lies behind into the text as it stands, mitigates (though does not eliminate) the obvious need for technical expertise; all hearers are able to make literal literary sense from the Bible in the same way they do when hearing any text.

Two immediate concerns surface. First is the question informed by the continued influence of the Enlightenment view of history, If the literal sense resides completely in the text, does that mean that biblical faith is no longer rooted in what really happened! I will address that concern below. Here I can say that the use of literary approaches does require a specific adjustment to the historical methods' location of the literal sense in what really happened then: we must also add what really happens now in the hearing and interpretation of the text. So instead of using the text as a window through which historical events or author's intent can be seen, literary approaches encourage the use of the text as a mirror which reflects from within the text meanings which are relevant and coherent to the modern hearer. This reveals the second concern: whether the literal sense derived from literary readings can be objectively evaluated for

131 Dan O. Via, Jr. gen. ed., Guides to Biblical Scholarship, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), What is Narrative Criticism? by Mark Allan Powell, p. 1. This common window/mirror illustration is similar to the Northrop Frye's use of centrifugal/centripetal. Cf. Frye, Great Code, 57-58, and Schuyler Brown, "Reader Response: Demythologizing the Text," New Testament Studies 34 (1988), pp. 232-237. 89 validity. It is true that some literary approaches emphasize the total subjectivity of the hearer as determinative for meaning.133 But in the main, the tools for evaluating literature and rhetoric are ancient, going back at least to Aristotle's Poetics, and have been tested by application to centuries of data.134 It is possible to determine the relative validity and coherence of a given sense derived from a given text; literary interpreters do recognize the 'veto power' of the text with regard to interpretations that can not be sustained.135

Even with the assurance that valid interpretations are possible from a literary literal sense,

Gerald Sheppard criticizes literary approaches (and historical critical approaches) for failing to appreciate the full implication of the scriptural nature and function of these texts. The Bible is a historical artifact, a book that comes into being through the agency of historical human beings so understanding it does involve the use of historical tools and insights. The Bible is a literary artifact (even if, as Frye contends, it is not literature) so understanding it does involve the use of literary critical tools and insights. But the Bible has a particular function as literature in its use as

Scripture for the Church. Sheppard hints at this function when he writes,

By neglecting [the] form and function of scripture, theologians who use historical criticism, on the one hand, often fall prey to the temptation of venturing only pious interpretations of reconstructed historical events in the pre-history of the Bible, instead of offering robust historical and theological interpretation of a constructed scripture. On the other hand, scholars who use primarily literary- aesthetic approaches often miss the religious dimension of the Bible entirely by focusing only on isolated elements or structural features within the text as a whole.136

As noted by Fodor in chapter one, the Christian community expects Scripture to be meaningful and true. One way to articulate the religious dimension of the Bible is to say that when it is read

' Brown, "Hermeneutics," 1161. Brown here uses the example of Walter Wink. Cf. also Powell, What Is Narrative Criticism? 95. 'Powell, What Is Narrative Criticism, 1-10. 1 Ibid., 96. ' Sheppard, The Future of the Bible, 29. 90 as Scripture it is being read into a community that knows, apart from the Bible's telling, both the climax and denouement of the story. The narrow literary expectation is that someone reading/hearing, for example, the narrative of Jesus's trial and crucifixion from the Gospel of

Mark would know only what the author or narrator has revealed and, perhaps, what the characters in the narrative know: Jesus has by the time of his trial predicted three times that he will die and be raised (Mark 8:31; 9:31; and 10:34). The literary reader reads through chapters fourteen and fifteen wondering whether those predictions will be borne out by the events of chapter sixteen. But when the story of the trial and crucifixion is read from the Bible as Scripture in worship it is read into a community that knows and confesses that Jesus is raised, that Jesus continues to dwell with the Church through the Spirit, and that he will come again so that his victory over sin, death, and the devil will be made manifest to all creation. This knowledge and confession are part of the world of the hearer and are therefore part of the criteria through which semantic impertinence is determined. Wilfred Cantwell Smith muses into this mystery in this way,

Modern historical critical methods have taught us how to read the Bible pre- biblically, while modern "Bible as literature" approaches teach us how to read the Bible post-biblically. The only thing we no longer know how to do is to read the Bible biblically.137

This dissertation asserts that part of what it means to read the Bible biblically is to honor the literal sense of Scripture especially as it is encountered in its reading by the Church in worship.

The Theological Literal Sense

Without losing the positive contributions of the historical or literary approaches, we turn now to consider the theological literary sense. This is an approach that finds the literal sense

Cited without reference in Sheppard, The Future of the Bible, 30. 91 residing in the text, but with the specific and important in-front-of-the-text recognition that this text must be read biblically because the Bible exists for the specific function of serving as

Scripture for an ongoing, historical community. In other words, how the texts are used by the community that calls them Scripture contributes to the appropriation of the Bible's literal sense.

As Sandra Schneiders puts it (echoing Smith's comment above),

The problem with fundamentalism is not that it fails to take account of the distinctions and precisions of technical exegesis; it is that it fails to take seriously the faith context of the text and seeks security in the words, as if the latter were not part of a living language tradition. The problem of excessive liberalism is not that it fails to adhere to the words of the text, but that it fails to interpret within the perimeters of the community's faith.

What both approaches ignore is the ongoing mutually transforming dialogue between the Bible and the community that uses it as Scripture; a dialogue whose purpose can be argued to be the establishment of a coherent literal sense. And this is particularly true for preaching which uses the Bible for a particular function within its ongoing function as Scripture.

Schneiders moves to this theological approach while still respecting the significance of the historical critical method for the community. Consequently, she labels this approach

"theological exegesis" and sees that what interpreters of this type have in common is the task

not only to explain what the original author meant to say to his original audience, but also to explain in contemporary terms what the Word of God says, through the text, to people of every age .... It is at this point that the question of the "literal sense" must be raised again, for obviously the theological exegete is concerning himself or herself with something beyond the explicit concern of the human author.139

The success of deriving an integral literal sense through the use of theological exegesis hinges on two questions. First, is it proper to expand the "meaning of the literal sense to include a content really 'in the text' but available only from some higher or wider perspective than that

Schneiders, Revelatory Text, 735-736, italics added. 92

commanded by the human author"?140 The obvious objection to finding such "higher or wider" meanings is whether it is possible to demonstrate why or how this interpretation issues from this pattern and collection of words on the page and is not imposed on them. Second, to what extent

does such "higher and wider" meaning depend upon either a supernatural explanation for thematic unity or special technical skills; both of which call into question the accessibility of a

usable literal sense to the non-expert hearer.

Schneiders argues that such obstacles can be overcome through the application of the

hermeneutical theory of Hans-Georg Gadamer. There is no need to relate all the details of her

application here, the salient point is that in this hermeneutical theory, the literal sense of texts

like the Bible is not deposited in the text, but is mediated through the text to the consciousness of

each hearer. But unlike either the more fanciful allegories of history or the results of more

extreme forms of literary criticism, this

does not mean ... that a text can have any meaning .... The text functions like a musical composition, which cannot be rendered except by genuine fidelity to the score but which will be rendered differently by each artist. [And here is an important point which addresses the question of expertise] Indeed, both the fidelity and the originality of the rendition increase in proportion to the educated talent of the artist.141

It is possible to say, therefore, that even non-expert readings yield a true meaning, even

as it is important to say that some readings can be judged to be more "faithful to the score" than

others.142 Each hearer engages the text and converses with the text (and, some would say, with

the author of the text) and brings something of creative value to the enterprise. The most

significant difference between this approach and historical critical approaches is this: In the

former method, the literal sense, "at least theoretically, is finite ..., pre-exists the understanding

140 Ibid., 725. 141 Ibid., 731. 93 of the interpreter, and is waiting to be uncovered." In Schneiders' application of Gadamer's hermeneutic "the understanding of the reader [hearer] is ... constitutive (although not exclusively so) of the meaning of the text, as the interpretation of the artist is constitutive of the music."143 A similar approach is articulated in the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic document "The

Interpretation of the Bible in the Church,"

The literal sense is, from the start, open to further developments, which are produced through the 'rereading' of texts in new contexts. It does not follow from this that we can attribute to a biblical text whatever meaning we like, interpreting it in a wholly subjective way. On the contrary, one must reject as inauthentic every interpretation alien to the meaning expressed by the human authors in their written text.144

While Schneiders moves to the theological sense from a continued use of historical criticism, Hans W. Frei proposes a theological literal sense in terms more reminiscent of the literary approach. What Frei shares with the literary approach is the desire to bracket out most behind-the-text questions of historical reference and author's intent in order to concentrate on the text as it stands. Frei, and others, introduce the theological (or in Frei's language case-specific) aspect by asserting that it is the prerogative of the community using the Bible as Scripture to determine how the literal sense refers and comes to meaning. As Frei puts it,

what we have in the sensus liter alls is a ... case-specific reading which may or may not find reduced analogues [in other sorts of reading with respect to the relation between "meaning" and "truth"]. Second, it is not only case-specific but as such belongs first and foremost into the context of a sociolinguistic community, that is, of a specific religion of which it is part, rather than into a literary ambiance.14

This hearkens back, in a way, to the consideration of comic strips by new readers and established readers. All good-faith readings are "true" though experienced readers will render "true" readings that are more "expected." 143 Schneiders, Revelatory Text, 731. 144 Pontifical Biblical Commission, "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church" in J.L. Houlden, ed., The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1995) p. 53.

145 Hans Frei, "The 'Literal Reading' of Biblical Narrative in the Christian Tradition: Does it Stretch or Will It Break?" in The Bible and the Narrative Tradition, ed. Frank McConnell, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 67. 94

Kathryn E. Tanner puts it similarly, "The plain sense of a scriptural text in specific would ... be what a participant in the community automatically or naturally takes a text to be saying on its face insofar as he or she has been socialized in a community's conventions for reading that text as scripture."146

It is immediately obvious that such a view of the literal sense gives the contemporary community a great deal of interpretive freedom. Again some questions must be raised about the validity of interpretation, adjudication of competing interpretations, and whether any minimal historical referent is necessary. Frei's response is to insist not on true or false methods of reading, but rather on ways of reading that are more or less beneficial.147

In the tradition of Christian religion and its communal life, scripture has played many parts .... The informal set of rules under which it has customarily been read in the community, in the midst of much disagreement about its contents, has been fairly flexible and usually not too constrictive. First, Christian reading of Christian Scriptures must not deny the literal ascription to Jesus [of all New Testament references to him] .... Second, no Christian reading may deny either the unity of Old and New Testaments or the congruence of that unity with the ascriptive literalism with the Gospel narratives. Third, any readings not in principle in contradiction with these two rules are permissible.148

It is in this last point that Frei, like Schneiders, keeps the door open to the insights of the historical and literary approaches. One could even say that as long as conservative evangelical interpreters were willing to grant the third point, their contributions could also be welcome even to more liberal interpreters. In other words, to the extent that Christians are willing to suspend the equation of history and truth, it becomes possible to enter into the world of the text and consider its meaning.149

Kathryn E. Tanner, "Theology and the plain sense," in Garrett Green, ed., Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 63. 147 Cf. Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse, 221. 148 Frei, "The Literal Reading," 68-69. 14 Cf. Powell, What Is Narrative Criticism? 89. George Hunsinger observes that Hans Frei needs only two things from history: "first, that Christ's resurrection has not been historically disconfirmed; and second, that a man, Jesus, who proclaimed the Kingdom of God's nearness, did exist and was finally executed." George Hunsinger, 95

Here is the key to Frei's approach to the literal sense, this community reading is not critical in the sense that hearers stand apart from the text and apply extra textual or worldly standards to it in order to evaluate it. Instead, as the text functions in the community as Scripture, the members of the community must rather evaluate the extra textual world—and its doctrines— from the point of view of the world of the text. As Hunsinger puts it,

Frei thinks that biblical truth is primarily narrative in form and that this form of truth demands more than just our cognition. In particular, though the doctrines and the stories are inseparable, Frei thinks that in the end the doctrines are understood through the stories rather than holding, with Henry, that the stories are finally understood through doctrinal propositions.

Frei argues for the total sufficiency of Scripture not only to provide the clues for its own literal sense, but also to allow those in its community to properly exegete what we naively call the real world. While Carl Henry would undoubtedly agree, one suspects that Henry would celebrate differently from Frei should some explorer find the wreck of the ark in Turkey.

A further aspect of finding the literal sense in the Bible as it functions as Scripture is an observation of Rowan Williams that the liturgical use of Scripture—the physical act of hearing it read in worship—plays a part in establishing its meaning for the Church. It is in the hearing that the community is most opened to the "deeper movements and rhythms, relationships between whole blocks, tensions in its progression, strategy of the text, world of the writer and text's intent

.... All this belongs to the literal reading of the text."151

Not all the questions about where the literal sense of biblical text resides can be addressed by this investigation. It is easy to say that to the extent that members of the Christian community are committed to assuming that truth can only be drawn from the Bible by wedding

"What Can Evangelicals and Postliberals Learn From Each Other? The Carl Henry/Hans Frei Exchange Revisited," Pro Ecclesia 5:2 (Spring 1996), 173. 150 Hunsinger, "What Can Evangelicals," 172. 151 Rowan Williams, "The Literal Sense of Scripture: Reconceived as a Call to Communal Unity and Dissonance," 96 the literal sense to historical, literal reference, such members will be constantly at battle with the mainstream both of Christian interpretation and the modern world's notions of cosmology. But the theological approach to establishing the literal sense must likewise contend with suspicions both inside and outside the Church about giving interpretative authority to the Church. But interpretive authority must be located somewhere and the theological approaches outlined above are attuned to the sensibilities of modernity insofar as they locate that authority at the most accessible level: the level of the people of God gathered in worship where the Bible, read aloud, functions as Scripture.

To spell out the ramifications, it is possible to imagine a Christian community at worship.

The lector reads the story of Jonah. Though we would reject the notion that the literal sense of the story could refer in all its elements literally or historically to the real world we enter the story gladly, secure that our worldly knowledge is no impediment to deriving meaning from the story.

Later, the sermon re-enters the world of the text and draws implications from the story, for example about God's call, God's mercy, or human inability to understand God's mission. And whether those implications are doctrinal, or missiological, or relational, we hear those implications as meaningful because they issue from the world of the biblical story and from the perspective of their arrangement in the plot of the story we can see implications for the world outside the story—we can refigure our world in light of what we experience from the text. We grant this meaning not because the story of Jonah and the sermon related to it are so convincing or satisfying but because we have been convinced that by entering into them and by seeing the real world from their perspective, we will come to understand the one who has already come to us in front of the text, our savior Jesus.

As we have seen, the literal sense of a biblical text involves grappling with the

Modern Theology 7 (January 1991), p. 123. 97 interrelated questions of authorship, reference, and (the hearers') determination of meaning. In the understanding of the literal sense of the two strands of historical sensibility authorship is assigned directly to the original author who is understood to be making direct reference to historical events—whether internal or external to the author. These events, which lie behind and motivate the text, are the keys to the text's meaning. The hearer's task is to recreate the author's original situation in order to understand what the "text meant then." It is assumed that this investigation is undertaken objectively with as little as possible of the hearer's own context rendering influence. Should it be necessary to determine what the text means now (as in the case of teaching or preaching from the text), a bridge—for example, of analogy—is built that can allow the original, literal meaning to travel forward in time to the world of the hearer.152

In both the literary and theological literal senses, some fundamental shifts occur in this relationship between author, referent, and meaning. In both cases, the historicity of the text recedes in importance—whether that historicity is expressed in terms of the author's Sitz im leben or of the historical events that the text narrates. The modern hearer's own context, far from being blocked out, becomes a constituent player in the determination of meaning. Meaning in the literary and theological literal senses is found not behind-the-text, but in-the-text and in-front-of- the-text.

The following exchange—from a radio conversation between Ms. Terry Gross (the show's host) and actor, director, and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard—is emblematic of this shift from behind to in front of the text. While Ms. Gross focuses on the importance of the original author's intent, Mr. Shepard—in this case, the original author!— credits the reader's contribution to the text's meaning:

152 We have bound together here two quite diverse ways of reading: the fundamentalist and the historical critical. What binds them together is their shared reliance on behind-the-text constructions. 98

GROSS: When you're writing dialogue for a play, do you ever hear a certain musicality in a line, like where you hear the accent; where you hear the emphasis as being, and then the actor does it completely differently than that and ... SHEPARD: Oh, yeah. GROSS: ... and maybe it works, but maybe it doesn't work for you. Maybe you feel like your intention was kind of lost. Will you say something to the actor about that, if you do feel that the music you're hearing is lost? SHEPARD: Well yeah, but I think more often, particularly if you have good actors like for instance Malkovich and Ed Harris ... great actors that I've had the good fortune to get, they often will learn things in an unexpected way that's not only surprising, but right. You know, I mean, much more right than you could have intended. You know, in other words, they bring the intention of the writing into another dimension—another domain.153 Without supposing that we can construct all the nuances of Mr. Shepard's hermeneutical theory, it is clear that he validates the contribution that the reader makes to the sense of the text.

In the same way, the literary and theological approaches to the literal sense give prominent consideration to the role of the hearer in making literal sense.154 Broadly speaking, in every reading, the prefigured world of the hearer is brought into contact with the world of the text (not the world of the author, but the world of the text). To put it into Mr. Shepard's milieu: we can suppose that he composes a character's dialogue (and indeed everything about his plays: stage directions, set and scenery specifications, etc.) from the context of his own experiences of the world. While the raw materials he mines in order to create the dialogue are the common currency of his culture (language, the norms of interpersonal interaction, coherence of narrative, etc.) his appropriation of those currencies and the meaning he strives to communicate through his work are wholly personal and are re-presented on the page to the best of his ability. When Mr.

Malkovich takes up the script, he does so from the perspective of his own world. While some of the textual representation of Shepard's internal world might very well resonate with Malkovich's internal world this is by no means necessary—nor, if we take Shepard at his word, necessarily

Shepard, Sam and Terry Gross, typed transcript of conversation from NPR's Fresh Air (March 31, 1998). And here we mean the word "reader" to carry the immense weight of the reader's culture, language, world view, 99 desirable. The literal sense of the text comes to life as Malkovich interprets the dialogue through his own personal appropriation of those same common currencies of language, direction, and action. In other words, a negotiation takes place between Shepard's re-presentation of his world and Malkovich's world the result of which is the meaning of the play performed. It is this negotiation that lies at the heart of the literal sense-making of both the literary and theological

approaches. And while various theological and literary approaches might appraise differently the nature of the hearer (whether an individual or a member of a community) and the importance of the hearer's competence (or indeed how to gauge that competence), they share in common this understanding that in the reading act the literal sense of the text moves from in-the-text to meet the hearer who comes to the text from in-front-of-the-text.

Summary

The "literal sense" has been a key interpretive category throughout the Church's history,

though as even this cursory examination of three contemporary understandings indicates, there is

no consensus about its precise meaning or application. Imbedded within various formal uses of

the phrase and also in such idiomatic expressions as "taking the Bible literally" are implicit,

habitual, and complex criteria for combining a passage's literal sense with various modes of

reference. Most formal historical and contemporary uses of the phrase favor one of five such

constructions:

a. Literal sense assumes whatever mode of reference the community customarily

considers sensible and authoritative for that passage (the view articulated by Frei and

Tanner). This understanding is distantly rooted in the Hebrew plain sense (peshat), is

operative in most devotional and non-technical readings, and spontaneously employs

on the one hand and the reader's particular personal context within that world view on the other. 100

whatever theological, cultural, or common sense filters render the text accessible or

relevant. b. Literal sense assumes direct reference to ostensive historical entities and events. In

pre-modern interpretation this sense was commonly eclipsed by figurative—or

"spiritual"—modes of reference. In its most severe modern form ("literalism") this

sense eschews figurative reference. c. Literal sense assumes whatever mode of reference points toward major canonical

themes or the Bible's essential subject matter (e.g., for Luther the literal sense reveals

Christ). d. Literal sense assumes the mode of reference intended by the historical human author

(the dominant formal understanding of Protestantism since the nineteenth century

especially as influenced by historical critical exegesis of the Bible). e. Literal sense insists on no fixed mode of reference but refers in whatever way the Holy

Spirit guides it through the hearing community. Here we might also include the double

literal sense of history, which while valuing the grammatical or historical sense adds

the stipulation that God may intend or empower new reference in new contexts. Steven

Fowl describes Aquinas's version of the literal sense as being double and beyond: a

passage's literal sense is that which the author of Scripture, the Holy Spirit, intends in

each new setting. One "should not constrict the meaning of a text of Scripture in such

a way as to preclude other truthful meanings that can, without destroying the context, 101

be fitted to Scripture for who can deny that the Spirit is capable of intending far more

things ... than we could comprehend?"155

Stephen E. Fowl, "The Importance of Multivoiced Literal Sense of Scripture: The Example of Thomas Aquinas" in A.K.M. Adam, et. al., Reading Scripture with the Church: Toward a Hermeneutic for Theological Interpretation, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 44-45. Screwtape writes, Only the learned read old books and we have now so dealt with the learned that they are of men the least likely to acquire wisdom by doing so. We have done this by inculcating The Historical Point of View. The Historical Point of View, put briefly, means that when a learned man is presented with any statement in an ancient author, the one question he never asks is whether it is true. He asks who influenced the ancient writer, and how far the statement is consistent with what he said in other books, and what phase in the writer's development, or in the general history of thought, it illustrates, and how it affected later writers, and how often it has been misunderstood (especially by the learned man's own colleagues) and what the general course of criticism on it has been for the last ten years, and what is the "present state of the question". To regard the ancient writer as a possible source of knowledge—to anticipate that what he said could possibly modify your thoughts or your behaviour—this would be rejected as unutterably simple-minded.

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters CHAPTER 5

THE LITERAL SENSE AND MEANING-MAKING

The literal sense of the pericope for preaching is the pre-referential sense of the text that is read in the context of the Christian worship service. Theoretically, at the point of the reading of the pericope, reference is indeterminate though it is likely that many hearers in a modern congregation will assume a literal reference to history, some may assume metaphorical reference, and some may assume a theological reference. Meaning is also indeterminate (or multi- determinate) because there is still the step to be taken of suggesting (in the sermon) how we are to identify with one or more of the referents.

To return this to the terms of Ricoeur and Valdes from chapter two, at the point of reading the prefigured worlds of pericope and hearer have encountered one another and to the extent that the configuration of the text's world results in some tension with the world of the hearers, a metaphorical event is afoot. As I suggested above and will discuss later in this chapter, habitual manners of reference and identification can make it difficult for any tension to arise; there are ways in which the lectionary's relationship to the themes of the liturgical year contribute to these habits. My argument is that when both the lector and the preacher attend to the literal sense and the world configured thereby, it is possible to draw tension into the light.

The sermon, in this scheme, serves the resolution or refiguration. As hearers begin to lead the text's sense toward reference—under the impact of context—the metaphorical meaning- making process begins. The preacher may at times be the one who unfolds the

103 104 meaning-making process by endorsing, playing on, or embellishing the expected identifications with the literal sense. More exciting is when the preacher becomes metaphor maker, when the sermon plays on reference/identifications that are plausible but not expected, often by attending to the literal sense and keeping the literal sense before the congregation.

It should be clear by now that this dissertation is not arguing for the recovery of the traditional notion of the literal sense. In the previous chapter I identified a range of possible meanings of the traditional literal sense that might include: whatever the community customarily considers authoritative for that passage; a "literalism" that eschews figurative reference; major canonical themes or the Bible's essential subject matter; whatever is intended by the historical human author; or whatever the Holy Spirit illuminates for the hearing community.

As we have seen, the traditional literal sense commonly assumes direct reference to ostensive historical entities and events. From a practical point of view concerning the contemporary congregation this seems simply not possible. It may be desirable that every listening audience would hear Scripture with sufficient knowledge and background to be able to receive it within its historical setting and context, but that is not the case. If one is to value the act of reading and interpreting Scripture in the life of the Church one must account for how the

Church actually hears its Scripture. In fact, what we have is an imperfect reading to haphazardly prepared (if not unprepared) listeners. At the point of reading a text in worship, the reference of that text is commonly open to a host of options, not locked into a few informed or educated ones.

Nonetheless it is through the reading and interpretation of Scripture in the sermon that the Word comes to the people and that act of the hearing Church needs to be honored.

So, instead of advocating recovery of the traditional literal sense, I am proposing a modified literal sense of the pericope, a pre-referential literal sense. It is based in the fragmentary 105 nature of the contemporary interpretative act. This chapter will provide a basis for how the literal sense of the pericope might be a foundation for new revelation in preaching through the process of metaphorical meaning-making.

The Congregation and Interpretation

As already noted, my primary concern in this dissertation is one aspect of the meeting point between Scripture, preacher, and congregation: how to understand the nature or sense of the pericope's voice and the preacher's management of that voice in the homiletical

conversation. And my position is that the pericope should, in some ways, be protected from the interpretive press of any of its various broader contexts or history. Before we continue this

discussion of the literal sense and a reflection on one-hundred years of homiletical thinking, I want to return to Lischer's insight and deal further with four issues that press upon contemporary preaching because of its fragmentary-yet-whole character: the haphazard hearing the pericope

receives from widely divergent members of any given preaching audience; my perspective on how sermon form limits the scope of what a sermon can accomplish; a brief theological rationale

for the synchronic short view, and some cultural shifts related to postmodernity that have an

impact on our understanding of authority in the reading-preaching event.

1. Haphazard Hearing

Here we will consider the significance for preaching of the fragmentary-yet- whole nature

of the pericope. The pericope, whether selected by the preacher or appointed by a lectionary, is

extracted from multiple contexts. First there are layers of contexts from the Bible itself; the

pericope is taken from a given chapter, a particular book, a literary genre, the corpus of a 106 particular author, a testament, as well as from the canon as a whole. As the text is read, individual hearers may hear the holophonic pericope referring backward or forward into any one or more of those biblical contexts. This is one aspect of the haphazard hearing that a pericope receives. To take a simple example, when hearing the name "Jesus" in a pericope from the

Gospel of Matthew, some hearers might think of "Jesus" as the character whom they know only through the pericope itself. Others might create in their hearing "Jesus" as they have come to know him only through the Gospel of Matthew while others will create a composite character of images from all Gospels, or even from the whole New Testament. Still others will imagine the

Jesus who is their companion in their practices of personal piety and prayer.

Second, while the pericope is taken from these layers within the context of the Bible itself, the Bible has its own context within the whole Christian tradition. In chapter one, pericope and liturgy were introduced as independent entities gathered at the homiletical roundtable (a similar independence was granted to the Bible and Christian tradition, their respective entities).

The truth is more complex. The pericope is a part of the liturgy156 just as the Bible is part of the

Christian theological tradition. It is not unusual to think of the Bible as its own entity—and this separation is important for our purposes—but the pericope can be understood to be a nuance of a

Christian context that goes beyond the covers of the Bible. It is not necessary to decide whether

"Scripture forms the Church" or the "Church forms Scripture" in order to say that the pericope might echo areas of theology or tradition that are beyond the scope of Scripture as such. The symbiosis of Scripture and Church suggests that we will not want to dismiss those reverberations out of hand.

This is especially true of pericopes appointed by such lectionaries as the Revised Common Lectionary that choose passages in part because they resonate with seasons of the liturgical year. 107

There are many examples of such echoes that come from beyond the covers of the Bible but still within the Church. Taking that same word "Jesus" from a pericope from Matthew, it is possible that the "Jesus" who comes to some minds' eyes will be a composite of biblical images

of Jesus that is then combined with Matthew Fox's "cosmic Christ,"157 Warner Sallman's "Head

of Christ,"158 or John Dominic Crossan's "Mediterranean Peasant."159 Echoes to contexts beyond

the cover of the Bible are also sounded when pericopes, especially those that contain narrative

passages, are taken to refer to the "real life" history of God and God's people. Suffice it to say

that when audiences hear the pericope and assume that they are hearing how it really was during

the time of the New Testament Church, the life of the historical Jesus, or of ancient Israel (not to

mention the opening moments of creation!) this is an instance where the pericope becomes a

nuance of Christian (or even cultural) tradition and not only of the scriptural context itself.

Similarly, when hearers hear in a pericope nuances of a doctrine or practice not fully developed

in Scripture but rather in the ongoing history of the Church (e.g., the dogma of the Holy Trinity

or the practice of ordaining women), it is clear that the pericope is reverberating beyond the

covers of the book.

Third, as already suggested, some hearers may hear the pericope refer to aspects of wider

culture(s) apart from those of the Bible or Church. Just as there is a degree to which the Bible is

an element of Christian tradition and is appropriately dependent on it there is also an extent to

which the Christian religious tradition unfolds within human culture and is appropriately

dependent on it.160 The Bible, because it is a book that contains texts in a language understood by

157 Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance, (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988). Sallman's Head of Christ is the iconic portrait of Jesus that hangs in countless Sunday School rooms, fellowship halls, and sanctuaries. 159 John Dominic Crossan, "Jesus as a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant" in Roy W. Hoover, ed., Profiles of Jesus, (Santa Rosa, California: Polebridge Press, 2002): 161-168. 160 The most obvious evidence of this is the fact that the Church commonly uses the language of the ambient culture. 108 the culture, can be heard and understood by anyone. Through myriad contacts and intertextual weaving between Bible and culture it happens that language, imagery, stories, and concepts from

Scripture make their way into cultural consciousness. This means there are times when cultural familiarity with—or, pejoratively, cultural cooptation of—the Bible will mean that the fragmentary pericope might be heard to make reference to culture rather than Scripture or theology. For example, when a citizen of the United States of America hears the words from

Leviticus 25:10: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," his or her hearing may reverberate more with contemporary patriotic fervor than with the biblical Year of Jubilee.161 And given that individual hearers are nuances of more than one layer of cultural identity, the reading of a pericope might set off sympathetic—though haphazard—vibrations through complex layers of nested personal, scriptural, theological, and cultural spheres.

Knowing that a pericope may inspire various meanings at different layers and levels of reference, the preacher is confronted with a critical decision: into which of the many possible spheres of reference shall the sermon proceed? Whether the range of meanings and connotation inspired by the text is wide or narrow, it is not possible for a sermon to address them all. For a sermon on Leviticus 25:10, the preacher will have to decide where (and when!) the "land" throughout which "liberty is to be proclaimed" lies—is it biblical Canaan, the contemporary

Middle East, the United States of America, or the whole world; is it archaic, contemporary, metaphorical, historical, material, political, or spiritual? We have already heard from Elizabeth

Achtemeier the traditional homiletical wisdom that the three most important spheres of reference are the pericope's immediate biblical context(s); the historical events or situations to which the pericope points; or the community's theological superstructure.

This text from Leviticus is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 109

Two cautions are attendant to such decisions. The first is the potential for automatic

devaluation of the current audience's hearing and meaning-making; I will address this concern below. The second caution arises when the preferred sphere of reference adds to the din by

introducing referential spheres that are not already present in the consciousness of the listening

congregation. Trying to direct the sermon's (and therefore the hearers') attention to certain

broader contexts, especially if those contexts are not part of the matrix or mosaic of hearings,

poses some problems for the literal sense and for sermon composition.

2. Homiletical Rationale for the Short View

A synchronic or short view of Scripture attempts to engage it an immediate level,

speaking directly to the moment, in contrast to a diachronic approach as laid out in traditional

biblical exegesis. The compositional problems of a sermon have to do both with audience

capacity and rhetorical style. The communication medium of the sermon imposes limits on how

much material a preacher can introduce and develop. Because sermons are not infinitely long and

because audiences have a finite capacity for the reception of content, preachers must weigh how

much (if any) background material can be added to (without eclipsing) the material already on

the table. Those who have endured the agony of hearing someone try to share the impact of a

favorite movie scene by tracing every character development and plot line that leads up to it will

have a sense of why extensive context development creates practical and aesthetic problems in

oral communication.162 In addition, the oral-aural medium of preaching makes certain rhetorical

162 Indeed, such development presents problems in written communication as well. Author Stephen King warns, "We need to talk a bit about research, which is a specialized kind of back story. And please, if you do need to do research because parts of your story deal with things about which you know little or nothing, remember that word back. That's where research belongs: as far in the background and the back story as you can get it. You may be entranced with what you're learning about flesh-eating bacteria, the sewer system of New York, or the I.Q. potential of collie pups, but your readers are probably going to care a lot more about your characters and your story." Stephen King, On Writing: The Memoir of a Craft, (New York: Scribner, 2000): 227. 110 demands (e.g., the need for repetition, recapitulation, and the deliberate, unhurried unfolding of material) that limit the amount of content a sermon can hold. The pericope and its ostensive elements—characters, vocabulary, images, ideas, and plot or argument—combined, perhaps, with similar elements from liturgy and the audience's multiple contexts (with the haphazard echoes they provoke) provide more than enough material for the preacher to manage and critique.

If a preacher is confident that he or she is preaching to an audience familiar with the narrative or theological sweep of the Bible, he or she can profitably make broader allusions to traditional biblical themes; though even here the preacher must be concerned with the potential loss of compositional focus. But contemporary preachers are not confident about audience familiarity with broad biblical themes; laments about the biblical illiteracy in the Church, whether founded or not, are common. An additional and trickier problem arises when the biblical literacy that does exist is built on assumptions different from those assumed by the preacher, the community's theological tradition, or the broader context of Scripture to which preachers might be tempted to refer. The impulse to use sermon time for clarifying contexts and assumptions is understandable, but the homiletical results are often unsatisfactory. Such sermons can seem more like extended Bible studies than proclamation. Or worse, the clarifying of assumptions can become an instance of the preacher using a bully pulpit to condemn the experiences, ideologies, or interpretive strategies of others.

3. Theological Rationale for the Short View

In addition to these compositional issues, attention paid to the larger contexts from which a pericope is drawn presents a cluster of theological problems as well. I have already suggested Ill that the pericope is the de facto genre through which the Church in worship receives Scripture and have noted the received wisdom that proper understanding of the pericope involves proper understanding of its meaning in its broader literary and historical contexts. Preachers discover these meanings by the application of various critical or exegetical methods or through the study of the Church's history of interpretation. I argue that these methods represent the potential eclipse of the pericope's authoritative voice or substitute for it an alternative received voice.

Such methods raise questions about the relationship between the pericope and the Word of God.

Or to put it another way, which is the real text for the sermon: the Bible or some commentary on the Bible? If the apparent message of the pericope is in accord with broader scriptural, traditional, theological, or interpretive trajectories, it makes no practical difference whether the preacher treats the revelation as having come from the pericope or the broader context. When the pericope's sense stands in contrast to a meaning imported from behind or around the pericope and when that larger meaning then eclipses the apparent meaning of the pericope, real problems emerge. I am not suggesting that methods and meanings from tradition and interpretive history are to be silenced; they are important and help to safeguard the text and the teachings of the

Church. However, they should be brought into conversation at the homiletical roundtable, not granted the automatic authority to eclipse what is plainly before us.

Such eclipsing of the pericope's voice is troubling on three levels. First, the textiness of the pericope may be lost. The particularity, the specificity of the meeting of the nuances of pericope, liturgy, and the day's current events is theologically important. To defer habitually to the larger, the more general, or the received, is to dismiss the adventure of dealing with the particular. And, in fairness to historic or contemporary scholars, they might well be shocked to 112 hear that their interpretations (whatever the purposes of their production) have been elevated in this way in the sermon.

Among the troubling effects of this dismissal is a corollary devaluation of the public reading of Scripture so that the conclusion of worshipers is, "we don't need to listen to the Word read, the preacher is going to explain what it really means anyway" (or, more cynically, "the preacher is going to tell us that it doesn't mean what it says, anyway"). This dismissal of the power of the reading is an invitation to an ennui brought on by the inertia of familiarity, the tendency of hearers (including preachers) to tune their reception of the peri cope until it reverberates with something known and comfortable. About this, Frederick Buechner quips,

When a minister reads out of the Bible, I am sure that at least nine times out often the people who happen to be listening at all hear not what is really being read but only what they expect to hear read. And I think that what most people expect to hear read from the Bible is an edifying story, an uplifting thought, a moral lesson—something elevating, obvious, and boring. So that is exactly what very often they do hear. Only that is too bad because if you really listen—and maybe you have to forget that it is the Bible being read and a minister who is reading it— there is no telling what you might hear.163

If Buechner is right, the proper literary, poetic, and theological potential of the read Word of God is threatened. Nicholas Lash argues forcefully for the revelatory importance of the public reading of Scripture when he writes,

some texts ... only begin to deliver their meaning in so far as they are "brought into play" through interpretive performance. [Firstly], although the New Testament ... can be read by anyone ... the fundamental form of the Christian interpretation of scripture is the life, activity and organization of the believing community. Secondly, that Christian practice, as interpretive action, consists in the performance of texts which are construed as "rendering," bearing witness to, one whose words and deeds, discourse and suffering, "rendered" the truth of God in human history. The performance of the New Testament enacts the conviction that these texts are most appropriately read as the story of Jesus, the story of everyone else, and the story of God.164

Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat, (New York: The Seabury Press, 1979), 10. Nicholas Lash, Theology on the Way to Emmaus, (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1986), 41-42, italics in original. 113

A second, related, difficulty of allowing the meanings from the broader scriptural, theological, or cultural context to eclipse the apparent meaning of the peri cope is the devaluation of the current congregation's hearing and the current roundtable conversation. A preacher composes a sermon in an attempt to manage a living conversation between pericope, liturgy, and worshipers. It is my position that these nuances (and the entireties of which they are fragments) are as wholly capable of bearing the theological weight of God's revelation as the corresponding nuances of other times and places. When Matthew 10 was read to a first-century Galilean convert to Christianity—someone, for example, who knew someone who knew Jesus of Nazareth—the referential echoes that sounded in his or her mind at the name "Jesus" would resonate in a way quite different from those that sounding in the head of a twenty-first-century North American born into the Christian faith. And the ensuing conversation at the homiletical roundtable would be vastly different in the two contexts. It is not necessary that the latter conversation be evaluated against any representation or reconstruction of the former. It is one thing to welcome the fruit of previous revelations into the homiletical conversation, it is quite another to assume that some previous analogous conversation is definitive or final and should therefore eclipse the current one.165

A third concern is the implication that the broader theological contexts (which admittedly are established by and also help establish Scripture) are immune from critique or challenge by the pericope. It may well be that many of the haphazard meanings inspired by the pericope should be censored or nullified by the wisdom of the Church's historical reflection, but for that nullification to take place prior to the homiletical conversation does nothing to raise

1 Less dramatically, this is a primary concern about the use of copious quotation from biblical commentaries. Whether the commentary attempts to represent the original impact of the reading on an original audience or to stipulate as "normative" the impact the passage had on the commentator himself or herself, the current conversation is devalued. Commentators and their commentary may have a seat at the table; they should not be allowed to 114 understanding about or respect for the authority of the larger theological superstructure that

supports the Church. To favor Scripture as a whole or traditional Church interpretation over the

ostensive pericope is to risk sapping the strength of Scripture as it must come to us: as a portion

read in worship, a theological-literary work in its own right, brought into the conversation on this

day in this cultural context. This may be the day when the conversation around the table is

intended by God to surprise us, to reveal through the offensive particularity of the pericope that

the broader contexts need shaping, coloring, or even reform! If so, over-reliance on the results of

previous conversations is a sign of our lack of openness to God's creative Word.

4. Postmodernity and the Shift in Authority

We have briefly considered some of the homiletical/rhetorical and theological difficulties

posed by giving too much homiletical attention to the long, or diachronic, view of the broader

contexts of Scripture and tradition. I now want to consider how the current cultural milieu might

also warn against this practice. Here we shift our focus a bit toward apologetics, preaching to

seekers, skeptics, and the haphazardly catechized—many of whom are longtime members of

congregations! As noted above, the metaphor of roundtable conversation has become a part of

the vocabulary of contemporary homiletics especially among those homileticians who have taken

seriously the cultural phenomena of postmodernity and the attendant challenge to our

understanding of authority.

commandeer the conversation. Even more troubling is the potential, mentioned above, that a passage of the commentary will operate as the sermon text instead of the pericope from Scripture. 115

Roundtable Authority

There is no way to enter into conversation about preaching without talking about authority—the authority of Scripture (nuanced by the peri cope), the authority of the Church

(nuanced by the liturgy), the authority of the preacher, of the hearer, and of God's Word, which has authority over them all. This metaphor of roundtable conversation evokes a new conception of how authority operates in preaching. It contrasts with caricatures of preachers standing in hierarchical dominance over congregations, talking at them or down to them from the pulpit, or

conceptions of preaching where elements of authority, including the meaning and authority of

Scripture, are brought to the conversation by the preacher alone. My adoption of the metaphor of roundtable conversation does not suggest acquiescence to all that others have said about it but it

does signal an appreciation for its recognition that the context for preaching has changed.166 At the least, roundtable conversation suggests an attitude of respect toward everyone gathered at the

table and a shift toward the realization that all participants bear some measure of authority in

God's communication of the Word and the reception of that Word.

This authority shift is not peculiar to preaching, or even to the Church, but is related to

the wider encounter of Western culture with postmodernity. The root term "postmodern" and its

permutations are used in different ways by different people. Here I would stipulate the simplest

meanings suggested by their etymology—their literal sense. If "pre-modern" describes a cultural

orientation toward the optimistic, unexamined acceptance of settled truths rooted in revelation

and tradition, which are communicated by those authorized to interpret the tradition-bearing

"meta-narratives"; and if "modern" describes an enlightened cultural orientation toward the

optimistic unexamined acceptance of "settle-able" truths rooted in the true and univocal nature of 116 things (e.g., cosmos, culture, language, the human being, and even divine mandate and meta- narrative) as ascertained by objective, scientific measurement, human reason, or historical investigation; then "postmodern" describes an orientation that emerges from or after the modern.167 In fact, postmodernity is the condition that prevails when the analytical tools of modernity are turned back upon modernity and its assumptions. As Douglas John Hall observes, postmodernity is "precisely the flowering of human skepticism concerning all triumphalistic systems, above all modernity itself—a skepticism that was brewing throughout the modern period, and was conspicuously vindicated by the failure of so many ... systems in the latter part of the previous century ..."

In postmodernity there is still acceptance of truth, but that acceptance is not likely to be modified by such words as "optimistic," "unexamined," or "settled." Postmodern means neither that we are truth-less nor that all truth claims are equal nor that we are consigned to an un- adjudicated relativism; it does insist that the paradigms and presuppositions by which truth claims are authorized must be acknowledged and opened to examination and interpretation even as they continue to shape and control the truths that control and shape our lives.

Postmodern Hermeneutics

This last comment points us toward the hermeneutical dimension of postmodernity that interests me in terms of reading Scripture texts and preaching in relationship to them. This

166 Two works representative of this thinking are Lucy Atkinson Rose's Sharing the Word: Preaching in the Roundtable Church (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997) and John McClure's The Roundtable Pulpit: Where Leadership and Preaching Meet (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995). 167 Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001), 431. Douglas John Hall, The Cross in Our Context: Jesus and the Suffering World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 18-19. William Grassie expresses the view this way: "There is a powerful, all-encompassing form of rationality that undergirds [postmodernity], such that it might well be presented as a hyperphilosophical extension of 117 dimension is the sense that the truth claims of postmodernity depend in part on how the subject reads and interprets the data of experience, intuition, and culture (and then, how the subject rereads and interprets the means by which that reading and interpretation were done!).169 The postmodern orientation is described this way by Stanley Fish, "We have to live with the knowledge of two things: that we are absolutely right and that there is no generally accepted measure by which our tightness can be independently validated."170

But preaching is an endeavor that deals with questions of the right, the true, and the authoritative. God, Scripture, Church, and preacher are each traditionally vested with authority and any sketch of the complex transaction of communication that is the roundtable conversation of a Christian sermon must account for how those authorities relate to each other, to the hearer, and to a new appreciation of the authority of'th e hearer. Were we to sketch a caricature of pre- modern preaching, we would sketch neither a roundtable nor people in conversation. Rather, we might construe the relationship between elements in this way: hearers of preaching accept that

God's revelation lies imbedded in the meta-narratives of Scripture, the Church's tradition, or both. God, through the Church, ordains or anoints preachers with authority to interpret and communicate these revealed, settled truths. Scripture's place is with God at the head of the table and there is no questioning the authority of God to ordain and reveal, of Scripture to bear univocal truth, or of the preacher to communicate that truth.

A roundtable conversation does not characterize modern preaching, either. In modern preaching, hearers of preaching accept that a called preacher, through his or her mastery of scientific realism and logical positivism." William Grassie, "Postmodernism: What One Needs to Know." Zygon 32:1 (March 1997): 84. David Lose writes, "... in this central repudiation of [objective knowledge] we perceive most perspicuously the abandonment of the idea of any truth independent of specific communities of knowers and a consequent shift in attention from epistemology to hermeneutics that has characterized the age." David Lose, Confessing Jesus Christ, 20 118 modern methods, has the ability to study Scripture and discern settle-able truths. These are truths that are witnessed to by the authors of Scripture and are rooted either in the reconstruction of the historical events behind the text in the circumstances surrounding the text's authoring; in the interpretive history around the text in its use in the Church; or in the way that Scripture's truths resonate with parallel or cognate truths in the natural or scientific realms. And even though in the modern orientation the authority of things rooted in the supernatural or divine realms are suspect, the modern table is still not round; God may still be at the head, but Scripture has been moved, as it were, to the human end of the table. Marcus Borg represents this position forcefully when he writes that the Bible is "a// a human product, though generated in response to God.

Thus it is we who must discern how to read and interpret, how to hear and value, its various voices."172

These broad generalizations are caricatures. Clear distinctions, even between pre-modern and modern are difficult to make. First, it is likely that in a purely modern orientation controlled by rationalism or empiricism, some form of deism or humanism would prevail. Second, in some cases modern devices (e.g., historical investigation or the use of scientific tools) are used not to establish settle-able modern truths, but rather to endorse pre-modern assumptions in a modern

1 *T\ way. Third, by way of contrast, modern scientific discoveries are sometimes adopted and then

"baptized" by showing how they are presaged by a pre-modern reading of Scripture or tradition

(e.g., the chronological order of life in Genesis 1, from fish to bird to beast to human, is used as a

170 Stanley Fish, "Postmodern Warfare: The Ignorance of Our Warrior Intellectuals," Harper's Magazine 305:1826 (July 2002): 37. 171 By this I mean that there is a hint at least that by virtue of their having been discerned by modern methods, such truths could, in principle, have credence beyond the confines of the Church. 172 Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 27. 173 For example, the Institute for Creation Science (cf. http://www.icr.org) uses various sciences to prove that the creation timeline presented in the book of Genesis is historically accurate and also to explain how people in antediluvian times lived so long. 119 type for the order of evolution).174 At some point in the investigative program of modernism, the scientific and philosophical pursuit of the true nature of things turns to examine what it means to glibly suppose that there is a true nature of things. Certainly, the naive, pre-modern acceptance of authority rooted in a divine meta-narrative falls under suspicion, but so does the modern presupposition of the existence of objective truth and the objectivity of those who seek to find and examine it. Modernity values investigation motivated by suspicion; postmodernity values the suspicion of whatever it is that motivates the investigation, suspicion of the methods used in the investigation, and suspicion of the fruits of the investigation.

The Postmodern Turn to the Hearer

Fred Craddock recognized in 1971 that this postmodern cultural value of suspicion should be of concern to preachers in his book As One Without Authority. Here, Craddock challenged North American preachers to take seriously that they preached in a culture suspicious of authority and no longer inclined to accept either the unquestioned authority of preachers to interpret Scripture and tradition or the assumptions, institutions, or methods from which that authority was derived. By his own admission, Craddock's presentation of the solution, to preach as "one without authority," while evocative, was only the traditional, deductive method "turned upside down."177 That is, Craddock did not question the preacher's authority (especially that

We shall explore later how this is really a function of the hermeneutical reality of postmodern thinking. That is, it is a short step to remove the notion that the pre-modern language "pre-sages" anything and rather to say that we, from our point of view, take these pre-modern texts to mean these things regardless of what the author (human or divine) may have intended to presage. 1751 recognize that there is a radical wing of postmodern thinking that could be dubbed "postmodernism" and is dedicated to the deconstruction of every a priori foothold on meaning and reality (e.g., Jacques Derrida). While I acknowledge the contribution of this radical wing, I find Fish's maxim and Lose's reflections more practical. 176 Fred Craddock, As One Without Authority: Essays in Inductive Preaching (Enid, Oklahoma: Philips University Press, 1974 [1971]). 177 This is the assessment of Jeffrey Bullock, citing Craddock's Overhearing the Gospel ([Nashville: Abingdon, 1978], 153) in Bullock's Preaching With a Cupped Ear: Hans-Georg Gadamer 's Philosophical Hermeneutics as Postmodern Wor[l]d (New York: Peter Lang, 1999), 56. aspect of authority rooted in modern exegetical methods) so much as he encouraged preachers to

adjust the language and form of their sermons so that preaching would sound less authoritative. All the same, Craddock's work has proven prescient and useful as a way of beginning to understanding postmodernity's impact on preaching in North America.179 As the

field of homiletics develops through the late twentieth century, it becomes clear that questioning the nature and reach of the authority of God, Scripture, and tradition behind the preacher means

also examining and reformulating the nature and reach of the authority of hearers of preaching.

Given that in pre-modern and modern orientations authority is vested in the preacher, this

questioning and reformulation inevitably means the mitigation of the preacher's authority and

discovery and awakening of the authority of the hearer.180

From the same conditions that motivate this "turn to the hearer," the metaphor of

roundtable conversation arises. This shift in focus is developed, for example, by liberation

theologians as part of their suspicion of political structures and the way that the institutional

Church colludes to keep oppressive structures in place, in apparent contradiction to the Bible's

concern for the poor and powerless. Ernesto Cardenal, a pastor in Solentiname, Nicaragua

models a form of preaching as conversation where the priest and the people talk together from

the authority of their own experience. For them, the roundtable conversation is no metaphor; it is

literally how preaching is done.1 l The metaphor of roundtable conversation is further developed

And this may be as far as most mainline preachers are willing and able to go. That is, it may be appropriately beyond us to really "open the floor" to any and all opinions. On the other hand, it may not be necessary to do that if our preaching is transparent. 179 In part because Craddock relied heavily on narrative and metaphor, forms that are less "authoritative" on their face than didactic discursive preaching. The "revolution" here often referred to as "the turn to the hearer" is replicated in other fields as well, including literary criticism through reader response criticism. 181 Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1976 [Volume 1] through 1982 [Volume 4]). 121 by feminist homileticians as they call for an examination of the patriarchy of Scripture and the doctrines and structures of the Church and the resultant devaluation of women's voices.182

Such scholars as John McClure, Tom Rogers, and Jim Nieman, and O. Wesley Allen invite us to turn our attention to the presence and experience of other previously under- acknowledged or misunderstood voices at the roundtable that come with the authority of their own experience and cultural expressions.183 Finally, such thinkers as David Cunningham, Lucy

Lind Hogan, and Robert Reid, having taken seriously this shift in authority in the overall context of postmodernity, invite us to consider how classical rhetoric's focus on persuasion might make a new contribution to preachers as they seek to converse with those around the table. For whether the goal is to assert one's proper authority or to move a group toward a decentralized consensus, an awareness of how persuasion operates is critical.184

Postmodern Preaching

Were we to sketch a caricature of postmodern preaching, we would first note, with Rick

Barger, that "postmoderns do not come into the church's arena as totally trusting souls ready to have the church fill them up with truth that will enter into their consciousness uncritically."

Rather, postmodern hearers of preaching gather at the roundtable prepared to converse with the preacher while bearing questions and authority of their own. They may acknowledge the preacher's authority as being vested in many things (e.g., training, ordination, charism,

182 E.g., Lucy Rose, Sharing the Word and Christine M. Smith Weaving the Sermon: Preaching in a Feminist Perspective (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989). 183 See McClure, The Roundtable Pulpit; James R. Nieman and Thomas G. Rogers. Preaching to Every Pew: Cross- Cultural Strategies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001); and O. Wesley Allen Jr. The Homiletic of All Believers: A Conversational Approach (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2005). 184 David S. Cunningham, Faithful Persuasion: In Aid of a Rhetoric of Christian Theology (Notre Dame, Indiana and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991) and Lucy Lind Hogan and Robert Reid, Connecting with the Congregation: Rhetoric and the Art of Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999). 122 personality) or perhaps in nothing at all, and they weigh that authority differently in relation to different topics and truths based on the authority of their own experience. Possessed of some arrangement (or sampling) of fragments of authority gathered from various sources, the preacher then interprets variously understood and unsettled truths related to variously understood pericopes and aspects of the liturgy and address the questions and suspicions coming from empowered hearers gathered at the roundtable.

Typically, the preacher is the only one speaking aloud,186 but he or she speaks into a context of increased unsettledness with respect to revelation, authority, and truth—and into an ironic dilemma: "I must speak to persuade because the postmodern orientation no longer grants automatic authority to the language and images of the Christian meta-narrative; yet it is harder to persuade precisely because before the persuading starts I must be aware that various hearers are configured by their own meta-narratives and world views." Consistent with the second part of

Fish's observation ("... there is no generally accepted measure by which our lightness can be independently validated"), Christian preaching becomes a matter of proposals, wagers, negotiation and persuasion—of the nature of conversation at the roundtable.

Our caricature of the postmodern Christian preacher is of a figure who comes to the table with some vestige of vested authority to bring a word to hearers who might possess anything from an uncritical pre-modern acquiescence to all that is said to a postmodern willingness to be in conversation and perhaps persuaded. The preacher in this postmodern caricature is one who must be an imaginative hermeneut, rhetor, critic, and manager of worldviews and of Scripture and of audiences and of the homiletical encounter between them. And, as noted above, preachers

185 Rick Barger, A New and Right Spirit: Creating an Authentic Church in a Consumer Culture (Hemdon, Virginia: The Alban Institute, 2005), 54. 186 Though, of course, a preacher who is also a parish pastor would have been doing lots of listening in venues other than worship - meetings, visits, education, etc. 123 in this postmodern caricature must remain committed to valuing this day's roundtable conversation for its potential revelatory newness, even at the considerable risk of holding in partial abeyance their commitment to the accrued results of previous conversations (what we know as our theological tradition, including the history of scriptural interpretation).

The Direction from Here: Literal Sense and Metaphorical Meaning-Making

In light of these four factors (the haphazard hearing the peri cope receives, how sermon form limits the scope of what a sermon can accomplish; my brief theological rationale for the synchronic short view, and the cultural shifts related to postmodernity) I argue for turning up the volume on the synchronic short view of the pericope so that it can become more than a mere literary marker, laden with meanings from its diachronic movement through Christian and cultural history. On the one hand attention paid to the textiness of the pericope (that quality of reading that savors the very words, images, concepts, and characters of the text) can guard it from being treated primarily as a mere fragment of Scripture or of the broader Christian tradition.

On the other hand the literal sense of the pericope can affirm that the pericope, in its theological- literary particularity, has the potential to lead the homiletical conversation into some adventure— even danger—in relationship to settled matters of Scripture, Church tradition, and culture(s).

This is not intended as a call for radical iconoclasm or for some specific reformation. Even if it were possible to posit a completely unfettered, synchronic pericope, such a voice would still be only one participant in the conversation.187 The other conversation partners (liturgy, hearers, and the preacher herself or himself) are nuances of larger entities (theological tradition and culture[s]) that play their own roles and stake their own claims. I want to introduce the adventure 124 and danger of the unfettered, literal pericope even as I recognize the essential conserving role played by the wisdom of the tradition and the Christian community. Or, as Craddock puts it,

"because the liturgy is not full of surprises, novelties, and gimmicks, the sermon is set free ... to be unsettling and disorienting, as conditions and the gospel warrant."188

Implications for Preaching

Playing again off Lischer's evocative words about the sermon-as-nuance, the pericope, read in worship, is a fragment or nuance of the entire canon, a portion that gives liminal access to several definable layers of context ranging from the immediate literary context of the chapter from which the pericope comes to the whole canon. But the pericope's extraction from the Bible is no simple matter; the pericope is taken from contexts within Scripture (e.g., chapter, book, author's corpus, testament, and whole canon) to layers and spheres that lie beyond the limits of the Bible (e.g., liturgy, history of the text's development, history of interpretation, theological tradition, various degrees of local cultural familiarity with the Bible, and the library of world religious literature). These layers and spheres are real, possible conceptual contexts to which the pericope makes reference and from which hearers (and preachers) may draw insight into a pericope's meaning as it is read in worship.

Preachers may be tempted to give privilege—even absolute privilege—to certain spheres or layers asserting that when it comes to determining reference or the meaning of a pericope these layers and spheres are more faithful, expected, or fruitful than others. But such privilege must be given with care so that the homiletical conversation a) honors the literary potency of the pericope, b) honors the theological significance of the current context of its hearing, c) builds on

187 It is worth mentioning again that I am not proposing that the synchronic short view or the literal sense dominate scriptural interpretation in general, only for the specific hermeneutical event of the reading-preaching moment in worship. 125 connections to the meaning-making undertaken by the haphazardly catechized audience that is the Church receiving its Scripture, and d) avoids compromising the effectiveness of the sermon as an event of oral communication by lading it with excessive orientation or back story.

In light of these concerns, the position of this project is that the preaching pericope itself should be understood as a special kind of theological-literary work, as a "whole" of its own first, and then—perhaps, though not always—as a nuance of any of those larger contexts or wholes.

The same thing has often been acknowledged in the exegetical process for the preacher reading the text carefully before going to commentaries and completing exegetical study before determining sermon directions. Preaching pericopes should be read, heard, and received in their literal sense, which, for my purposes, includes protecting them from meanings and understandings that might properly and helpfully accrue to them in their broader contexts but not be appropriate or useful for preaching. This protection of the pericope does not mean dismissing those accruals out of hand or barring them from the homiletical conversation; it does mean holding them in check until the literal sense of the pericope has a chance to speak. My goal is to articulate the conditions and character of this literal sense of the pericope for preaching and to bring my construction into conversation with historical and contemporary articulations, understandings, and uses of the literal sense.

Fred Craddock, Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985): 42. Criticism is tradition defending itself against the three armies of the Goddess Stupidity: the army of amateurs who are ignorant of tradition; the army of conceited eccentrics who believe tradition should be suppressed by a stroke of the pen in order that true art may begin with them; and the army of academicians who believe they maintain tradition by a servile imitation of the past.

W. H. Auden, De Droite et de Gauche CHAPTER 6

THE BIBLE AND NORTH AMERICAN HOMILETICS

PART ONE: COGNITIVE AND EXPERIENTIAL HOMILETICS

Our task in this chapter is to examine how homileticians and preachers conceive the homiletical hermeneutical move from the biblical text to the sermon, in most of its stages. The survey begins with John Broadus's A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, first published in 1870. This starting date was chosen because key homiletical writers, whose work is still referenced today, wrote in that decade.189 This study represents a survey of only those writers to the present whose work relates most closely to our topic and who made what may be deemed significant contributions to the discussion.

The Historical Setting

Two great streams of preaching—rationalistic and revivalistic—dominate the North

American (and European) scene well into the 1800s. Though the two streams are clearly distinguished, both are in accord with St. Augustine's sentiment that while "the faculty of eloquence, which is of great value in urging either evil or justice, is in itself indifferent, why

In fact, in 1981 when James Garland Tilley conducted his survey of the twenty-one most-used homiletics texts in North American homiletics programs, Broadus's Treatise was on the list. James Garland Tilley, "An Analysis of Homiletics Textbooks" (M.A. thesis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1983), p. 36ff. Tilley surveyed 201 seminaries and graduate religion departments in December 1981 asking for full bibliographic information on the primary and required supplemental texts in the basic preaching course. 127 128 should it not be obtained for the uses of the good .. .?"190 That is, both rationalist and revivalist preaching make full use of the genius of classical rhetoric with respect to the five canons

(invention, division, style, memory, and delivery) and the three means of persuasion (logos, pathos, and ethos). Both styles of preaching share a commitment to sermons constructed in the classic form where the theme or topic is announced, the divisions are enumerated and addressed, and then application is made to the contemporary audience or world—what Ann Hoch refers to as the arch-model for "propositional preaching."191 The distinction between the two streams is perhaps best conceived in terms of the primary means of persuasion used and in the way in which ethos was understood in each.

In rationalistic preaching, the primary means of persuasion is logos—appeal to the intellect—and the preacher's ethos is established by demonstrations of erudition. This stream of preaching is a logical development of the modern age with its emphasis on empirical sciences, its distancing from the Church's "mythic" influence, the rise of a better educated mercantile class, and the philosophical move away from revelation toward dependence on human reason alone.192

In such an intellectual economy, rationalistic preaching sought to present the faith in a way that is defensible in the marketplace of reason.193

In contrast to rationalistic preaching, revivalistic preaching, especially as characterized by the preaching of the Great Awakening, relied on persuasion by pathos, the appeal to emotion. So while revivalist sermons would bear formal similarity to rationalistic preaching, the content

190 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine Book IV, trans. D. W. Robertson, Jr. (Indianapolis, New York: The Bobbs- Merrill Company Inc., 1958), p. 118. 191 Ann I. Hoch, "Jean Claude" in William H. Willimon and Richard Lischer, eds., Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 80. Hereafter, citations from the Concise Encyclopedia will be shortened to CEP. 192 O.C. Edwards, "History of Preaching," CEP, p. 212. 193 This is certainly an example of an element that remains with us even to this day. We will see that preaching had to compete in the marketplace of ideas during the early 1900s, and not a few note that the need to negotiate with the ideas of competing ideologies characterizes preaching in the late-twentieth-century postmodern era. 129 might bear the influence of such nineteenth-century rhetoricians as Campbell, Blair, and Whately whose "approaches demonstrated an interest in the audience," an interest "which has carried into contemporary approaches to rhetorical theory."194 Under this influence, a strong ethos would likely inure to preachers who were able to speak plainly and show concern and sensitivity to the real lives of the audience.

The Romantic Influence

During the nineteenth century, the marriage of preaching and rhetoric within both major streams continues to strengthen. Overlaid on both is the influence of Romanticism. Growing naturally from the humanism and idealism of the Enlightenment, but in contrast to stark rationalism and empiricism, Romanticism calls forth from all human arts and endeavors a heightened sensitivity to emotions, imagination, organic unifying forms, and a common triumphant humanity. Rationalistic preachers (as we shall see with Broadus) were inspired by

Romanticism to use imagination, especially in the representation of biblical stories. In the revivalist stream, Romanticism combined with the continued emphasis on personal conversion of revivalism to inspire an increased concern for ethos centered in the piety and personality of the preacher.195

As the settlement of North America progresses through the nineteenth century, and as denominations become less European, seminaries are built for the training of indigenous pastors.

Don Wardlaw notes that even with the enrichment of Romanticism, homiletics is still conceived as an art akin to ancient and modern rhetoric. "Since exegesis relegated sermon matter to predictable biblical and doctrinal themes, homileticians devoted much of their energies to

194 Craig Loscalzo, "Rhetoric" CEP, p. 411. 195 Wardlaw, ""Homiletics and Preaching in North America," CEP, p. 245. 130 communication of those topics."196 Without losing this basic concern for classic rhetorical forms or its commitment to plain speech, preaching bends in the direction of Romanticism only as the

"scholastic method of shaping a sermon in a complicated sequence of divisions and subdivisions" begins to give way to a growing emphasis on "the single thought and natural speech."197

A Distinct Voice

By 1871, homiletics in North America can be said to have discovered a distinct voice: almost as many books on preaching appeared during the last half of the nineteenth century as in the two centuries prior. Wardlaw and Conrad Massa both note that as the century draws to a close, two distinct streams of homiletics—clear descendants of rationalism and revivalism—can be discerned. On the one hand there were those descended from rationalistic preaching who treated homiletics as a species of rhetoric and were driven to treat the sermon as an opportunity to argue the noble truths of the faith. We may call this the cognitive (rationalistic, propositional) stream;198 notable in this group is John A. Broadus. On the other hand were those descended from the revivalistic preachers who treated homiletics as a species of theology and were driven more to use the sermon to interpret the hearers and the times and to proclaim the faith clearly and

Ibid. Susan K. Hedahl notes some important trends that affect the homiletical world, generally. Particularly interesting are the "changes in the nature of American speech education at the close of the nineteenth century. By then, the remnants of classical rhetorical theory ... had splintered into several different areas of concern.." She cites the work of Donald C. Stewart who detected five such areas of rhetorical approach: classical, elocutionary, psychological-epistemological, belletristic, and practical. The subject of Hedahl's work is "inventional theory" and while its relationship to our subject here is tangential, the implications of these five trends on homiletical approaches are important. Susan Karen Hedahl, "The 'Pure Word of God': The Americanization of Lutheran Homiletical Invention Theory, 1893-1922," Ph.D. dissertation, The Graduate Theological Union, 1989, 59-60. 1981 am borrowing these two categories from David Lose, "The Need and Art of Biblical Preaching," Word & World 26:2 (Spring 2006), 207-213. Lose's third category, eventful preaching will be the concern of chapter seven. 131 plainly for the hearers' situation.199 We may call this the experiential (liberal theology) stream, notable in this group are the liberal theologians Philips Brooks and Henry Ward Beecher. In the preface to his history of the Lyman Beecher Lectures in Preaching at Yale University, Edgar

DeWitt Jones further shades this period in homiletical history.

When Henry Ward Beecher gave the first lecture series in 1872, the large part of the battle over Biblical criticism was still ahead. The preacher was still speaking in what was in many evident ways still an "age of faith." ... In rough figures, the date 1890 can be used a great watershed separating an age of confidence in nearly every realm to one of skepticism and disillusion.200

Along with these influences, the sermon itself underwent great transformation. In the

1870s "there were still sailing the homiletical seas as approved sermon models, many of the old three-tiered sermons, formidable frigates and imposing, if difficult to manage. As the series goes on, we can trace the changes from more formal, traditional oratorical forms to direct, conversational speech."201

By the end of the 1920's, we will see a new back-to-the-Bible era emerging. In

Wardlaw's view this return is comprised of two different homiletical responses to the growing humanism and secularity that characterized preaching in the early 1900s. Both responses were

199 Wardlaw, "Preaching in North America," CEP, p. 245. Cf. also Conrad Harry Massa, "Homiletics, Teaching of," CEP, p. 256. Cf. also Austin Phelps who distinguishes between "Two methods of discussion are practicable to an instructor in homiletics. They are called, not very accurately, the practical and the scientific methods. These terms are open to the objection, that, on a theme like this, a scientific treatment must be infirm, if it is not also practical; and a practical treatise must be equally infirm, if it is not also scientific.... By the one, homiletics is treated chiefly as a science, and is developed chiefly by scientific analysis, and in its relation to kindred sciences. The resulting treatise is valuable to a student mainly as a means of mental discipline. It would be formed, ultimately, on the model of Aristotle's system of rhetoric. By the other method, homiletics is treated, not unscientifically indeed, yet with regard chiefly to its practical uses.... Thus defined and developed, it would form a treatise valuable to a student chiefly as a practical guide and help to the work of the pulpit. The one of these methods of treatment is the more apt to the study of the science for the purpose of liberal culture only: the other is the more necessary to the study of the art of a professional seminary." Austin Phelps, The Theory of Preaching: Lectures on Homiletics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1881), pp. iii-iv. 200 Edgar DeWitt Jones, The Royalty of the Pulpit: A Survey and Appreciation of the Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), p. xiv. 201 Ibid. 132 concerned with grounding faith and truth in something more enduring and rich than intellectual fashion.

The first preaching trend was "evolutionary, resulting from over a century of the historical-critical approach to biblical exegesis."202 In this critical approach, preachers embraced historical exegesis which rooted meaning in history, whether the history of authors and their communities or the actual history of the events narrated by Scripture. Bolstered by the scientific feel of their forays into biblical philology, form and redaction criticism, and recreation of the Sitz im Leben of the biblical authors, preachers could, with some confidence, expound upon the true meaning of texts; that is, the meaning intended by the original, inspired human author. A strong contribution made by this critical stream is the explicit awareness of the hermeneutical problem—biblical times and modern times are {contra Romanticism) not essentially the same.

Consequently, biblical texts cannot be read uncritically, as though what they "mean now" is self- evidently what they "meant then."

The second trend of this third epoch was "revolutionary ... like a trumpet blast from

Switzerland in the form of Karl Barth's theology of the Word of God."203 In this kerygmatic approach, reliability and endurance are assured through the confession that the Bible is the Word of God, and that God clearly means to be revealed in it. In contrast to the critical approach, the kerygmatic approach assumed a coherent, unified biblical theology;2 4 in contrast to the secular humanism of the age, the kerygmatic approach assumed that this was not known by any correlation to human experience, but only by means of God's desire to be revealed. In this view,

"the preacher ... is little more than a mouthpiece for God."205 For purposes of the survey we will

202 Wardlaw, "Preaching in North America," CEP, 247. 203 Ibid. 204 Edwards, "History," CEP, 221. 205 Wardlaw, "Preaching in North America," CEP, p. 247. 133 consider both of these Bible-based trends as a third stream that we will call eventful

(kerygmatic).

Our three streams, cognitive (rationalistic, propositional), experiential (liberal theology), and eventful (kerygmatic) are convenient ways of managing a discussion among so many voices.

Cognitive Homiletics

The homileticians in this category strive for strong intellectual appeal; they are rationalistic and advocate the use of sermon outlines, points and subpoints. For them, truth is propositional, and sermons are designed to communicate the faith in logical, measured ways.

It is appropriate that we begin our survey with mention of the role of rhetoric in the work of John A. Broadus (1827-1895) and others. Broadus's A Treatise on the Preparation and

Delivery of Sermons, first published in 1870,206 is one the most comprehensive homiletics texts written in the latter part of the nineteenth century and indeed is a model of one genre of homiletical texts to follow. In A Treatise, Broadus deals with all aspects of the preaching task even as he accounts for various strands of rhetoric noted above—classical, eighteenth-century

(Whately and Campbell) rhetoric and even a touch Romanticism through a discussion of imagination in light of the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.207 The overall format of the text,

and the establishment and division of categories provide a template for homiletical textbooks

into the next century.

A Treatise exemplifies the marriage of homiletics to rhetoric. Much of the introduction is

spent reviewing the importance of eloquence and discussing the "Relation of Homiletics to

206 John A. Broadus, A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, (New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son, 1870). The Tenth Edition (1887) is cited here. 207 Homiletics will not fully embrace the creative power of imagination for another century. Broadus's reflection on the distinction between fancy and imagination is still important. In his work imagination helps the preacher construct 134

Rhetoric"208 As he notes, "eloquence is so speaking as not merely to convince the judgment, kindle the imagination, and move the feelings, but to give a powerful impulse to the will."209

This last, of course, is critical for preaching. Further, the major parts of the Table of Contents are the canons of classical rhetoric: Part I. Materials of Preaching (invention); Part II. Arrangement of a Sermon (division); Part III. Style (style); Part IV. Delivery (memory and delivery).

He says, "homiletics may be called a branch of rhetoric, or a kindred art."210 But within that characterization, Broadus should be thought to represent the rationalistic stream of preachers who allow the biblical text to control the topic, which is then developed rhetorically. Later in homiletical history, homileticians from confessional, neo-orthodox, and then later, literary and phenomenological points of view will express uneasiness and even derision toward allowing the sacred speech to be manipulated by rhetorical categories. But for Broadus and others of his time, as long as attention to rhetoric did not mean thinking "more of the form than the matter" or of

"artificiality,"211 common sense, plain-style rhetoric provided the best means for arguing the tenets of the faith in the modern marketplace of ideas.

The Role of the Bible

Broadus deals thoroughly and fairly with the various issues in textual preaching of his day. For him, sermons are to be biblical, though not all of his categories imply exploring the

Bible. He categorizes three types of "biblical sermons ": subject-sermons (also known as topical sermons), text-sermons, and expository sermons. In subject-sermons, we "draw from the text a discourse, penetrate to the heart of theological meaning, produce images and illustrations, and provide detail for vivid retellings of biblical narratives. 208 Broadus, Treatise, 17-37. Broadus includes an extensive bibliography which includes all the major classical Greek and Latin rhetoricians, as well as contemporary English and French rhetoricians, Whately, Campbell, Coleridge, Fenelon, and Vinet. 209 Ibid., 20. 210 Ibid., 30. 135 certain subject... and then the text has no further part in the sermon."212 The subject is then divided according to the rhetorical sense of the preacher. In text-sermons, the topic (or, in some case, a collection of topics) is derived from the text, but here, the topic is divided according to the logic of the text. The advantage of a text-sermon is its clearer and more intimate relationship to the text.213 If the text seems to present several topics, a text-sermon may also deal with the topics in the order of the text. While Broadus gives both these types a fair treatment, his clear preference is for expository sermons; preaching that "is occupied mainly ... with the exposition of Scripture" by which he means explaining by successive verses what the text means.

Broadus is quite aware that in the hands of many preachers, the expository method suffers from lack of unity; but this is due to the fact that such preachers use expository preaching as an occasion to avoid preparation—"if he is persecuted in one verse, he can flee to another."215

Broadus reminds us that expository sermons are still sermons and not Bible study alone; that is, they must still push for a theological or moral purpose. He includes in the category of expository preaching creative, rich retellings of biblical history, issuing the warning that exposition of the theological topic must not be lost—the preacher "must always subordinate narration to the object of his discourse, the conviction or persuasion which he wishes to effect." In our contemporary terms we might say that Broadus is not prepared to advocate for the transformative power of story for its own sake!

The Lutheran professor Johann Michael Reu (1869-1943) taught homiletics at Wartburg

Seminary (Iowa). His Homiletics: A Manual of the Theory and Practice of Preaching was first published in 1924 and though it was written and published in North America, it was written in

211 Ibid., 28-9. 212 Ibid., 289. 213 Ibid., 294. 214 Ibid., 303. 136

German. He deals only with "congregational sermons," those preached to believers by a

fellow believer called to ordained ministry. "The whole of our common service, of which the

sermon forms an organic part, is built up on the assumption of the existence of a congregation of

believers." The first requirement of sermon in such a gathering is that it be and proclaim the

Word of God. "Apart from the Word of God there can be no sermon ... it is a particularly vicious

misconception of its nature when the evangelical sermon ... is turned into a discussion of political, social or similar problems."219 This strong affirmation of preaching's purpose stands

beside a remarkable apologetic for the theological independence of homiletics. Against those

who consider homiletics to be a derivative discipline Reu responds by suggesting that preachers

are

constantly taking into consideration the specific character of the hearers ... [who] ... must exert a determining influence upon the theory of the form of the sermon. If that is true, then Homiletics cannot be merely a rhetorical appendage tacked on to the rest of theology, but is, despite its many points of contact with other disciplines, an independent discipline within the complex of theology.220

Note, however, that this awareness and focus on the audience must never compromise the Word

of God. In an obvious response to unnamed liberal preachers on the question of "relevance for

today" Reu, in language echoed by Barth and later by Paul Scherer, is uncompromising: the

Word of God is relevant because it is the Word of God, not because the preacher makes it

relevant. "That the word spoken or written in the past has a meaning for today, follows from the

fact that it has become under divine guidance a part of Holy Scripture and is thus perpetuated for

215 Ibid., 301. 216 Ibid., 148. 217 J. Michael Reu, Homiletics, translated by Albert Steinhaeuser (Columbus, Ohio: The Lutheran Book Concern, 1944). 218 Reu, Homiletics, 13. 219 Ibid., 44 (emphasis in original). 220 Ibid., 27. 137 all time."221 The preacher need not worry about inventing new ways to say what has already been said. "He must, on the contrary, take the Word of God, whose meaning in the past he has ascertained, set it unaltered and unabridged, with all its winsomeness and all its severity, in the midst of the present, and let it say to the men of today what it said to the men of the past. "222

Topical Preaching

In spite of his approval of the subject or topical sermon, Broadus makes it clear that the primary issue is proclamation: "Our business is to teach God's word."223 It is from this

"business" that he enumerates six reasons why biblical texts should be used in Christian preaching. According to Broadus, we use texts because a) they keep us rooted in God's Word; b) a well-chosen text awakens instant interest; c) it aids the hearers in their understanding of the

Bible; d) we are given opportunity to explain Scripture; e) we are prevented from wandering and giving merely our own view; and f) there is no greater source of a variety of topics than the

Bible.224

Considerably less approving of the topical sermon is R. Ames Montgomery (1863-1945),

Professor of Homiletics at The Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Chicago. For him, expository preaching is the preeminent form; topical preaching does not succeed in bringing biblical truth to the fore. He strikes a strong note against liberal or even quasi-liberal theology in preaching. "Preaching without a text and, more often, the misuse of a text in preaching is

221 Ibid., 361. 222 Ibid., 361-2, italics in original. 223 Broadus, Treatise, 39. 224 Ibid., 40. 138 sometimes an impertinence. ... Many preachers are more familiar with current philosophy, current literature, or the scores and characters of the national leagues than with their Bibles"225

Though it is damning with faint praise, he makes the point that in liberal circles it is only liberal preaching's concern for the piety and power of the preacher that has kept the faith alive.

"Their preaching value depends upon the Biblicalness of the preacher's mind. ... Since topical preaching has dominated ... it is complimentary to the sound Christian character and Biblical- mindedness of our preachers that they have kept the Christian consciousness alive and have effectually promoted the word of truth to the saving multitude."226

To be fair, Montgomery does not absolutely exclude topical preaching, though it must still be strictly biblical. It is "the Bible background, the Bible atmosphere, the constant appeal of the Bible, the application of the Bible ... that make the people attach to the utterance of the pulpit a value they do not put on utterances from any other platform."227

Preaching of Doctrines

Doctrines are like creeds in the teaching of the Church, they arise out of Scripture and both govern its reading and are governed by it. Doctrinal preaching is thus commonly understood to be thoroughly biblical. Lutherans, because they arrived in North America in the late nineteenth century after the era when English rhetoric dominated education, placed the emphasis in preaching not on rhetoric but on doctrine and confessional faithfulness. The first Lutheran homiletics text in English was a summary of the class lectures of Jacob Fry (1834-1920) of the

Mt. Airy (Philadelphia) Seminary. Though aware of basic rhetorical sensibilities, his work is

R. Ames Montgomery, Expository Preaching (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1939), p. 7. Ibid., 39. 139 geared, like Reu's, toward teaching preachers to edify the faithful as opposed to converting the heathen.228 In the main, Fry's approach to selection of texts and the derivation of topics and divisions is similar to Broadus and Austin Phelps (whom we shall consider below). But in a manner similar to experiential preachers whose work we will consider below, Fry insists that the

"design and purpose of preaching is the proclamation of the Gospel, and not merely the moral improvement of men."229

Perhaps we see most clearly the confessional or theological leanings in Fry's contribution to the question of accommodation. Fry is quite comfortable placing the larger sweeping doctrinal themes of Scripture above literal grammatical readings of particular texts. He observes that it has long been considered appropriate to preach typologically from the Old Testament and to use "the cure of Bartimeus as an illustration of the cure of those spiritually blind, etc."230 While we cannot be sure whether Fry was affirming the plurivocality of texts, we can hear shades of that understanding when he says, "Where texts are chosen by way of accommodation and used cautiously and wisely, there is force in the argument in its favor that it opens up the historical parts of the Bible as a rich field for suggestive texts. And it really does no violence to God's

Word, provided the truths presented and illustrated thereby are really taught in other parts of the

Bible."231

Choosing a Text

Of the various cognitive authors, Broadus is clearest about the process of choosing a text.

In selecting texts we should a) avoid obscure texts; b) be careful about "employing texts marked

228 Jacob Fry, Elementary Homiletics or Rules and Principles in the Preparation and Preaching of Sermons, Second Edition (Philadelphia: Board of Publication of the General Council, 1913), p. 15. 229 Ibid., 204. 230 Ibid., 32-3. 140 by grandeur of expression" (because they may promise more than we are able to deliver!); c) not choose texts that will seem too odd (his concern is with people finding texts ridiculous or funny in the reading); d) not necessarily avoid familiar texts; e) seek to choose from all of Scripture; f) avoid spurious passages;232 g) avoid the "sayings of uninspired men, recorded in Scripture ... unless we know from other teaching of Scripture that they are true, or unless we propose to find instruction in the fact that those men made the statement given ..."; and h) exercise personal and pastoral discretion.234 This last point involves three considerations: the present condition

(and needs) of the congregation; the character of the texts recently discussed (to guard against monotony); and, that we select texts that interest us deeply, otherwise "we shall not deeply interest others."235

Exegesis of Texts

Johann Michael Reu's work in 1924 gives unusually detailed attention to exegesis. His four-part exegetical method is important because it demonstrates a thoroughly theological and homiletical approach to exegesis; that is, the final purpose of the preacher's movement into the

Bible is always foremost in the preacher's mind. We have already heard Reu's strong commitment to the Word. We should note also that in his approach to Scripture Reu is true to a

Reformation tradition that imposes a theological thematic cast to the meaning of the Bible. So while preaching materials

231 Ibid., 33. 232 By this Broadus does not mean (as some later authors will) texts whose authenticity is called into question by manuscript evidence, but rather texts that can be refuted by interior evidence. He adds a footnote (p. 48) assuring readers that "There is no more occasion for uneasiness at the fact that errors are found in the common text of Scripture, than in the current translations ... [no errors exist such] as would alter or modify any doctrine of Scripture." 233 Broadus, Treatise, 49. 234 Ibid., 43-50. 235 Ibid., 50. Note that while Broadus has been identified as a member of the rationalistic camp, his concerns here 141

must be drawn from the Holy Scriptures alone, as the witness-bearing and authoritative presentation of the divine revelation in act and word. ... The sermon ... is the presentation of the divine Word in its essential content, which is Christ crucified, His forgiving and sanctifying grace; and its purpose is edification, that is, a growth in grace, upon this foundation. Hence, whatever does not in some degree present Christ nor lead to the true edification of the congregation cannot serve as material for the sermon.236

Reu's four part exegetical method is as follows:237 First, the preacher must, with the aid of grammar and lexicon, ascertain the literal meaning of the chosen text paying close attention to the biblical usage of words and to the context of the passage. Second, "it is necessary to gain an

accurate picture of the situation which the text sets forth or in which it was originally spoken or written."238 This step is important both for establishing the author's intent, but also for enabling the preacher—and then the congregation—to enter fully into the complex of meaning that

accompanies the words of the text. "Here is the place where the historical imagination comes

into play. Not fancy, which evolves pictures out of touch with reality and reads its own whims

into the text, and is therefore an enemy to exegesis; but imagination, which fuses the materials of

the text into a living and concrete whole."239 Then, third, having found the literal meaning and

reconstructed imaginatively the situation portrayed, the preacher "will now approach the scope

or purport of the passage; that is to say, he will determine what is the main thought and what are

the subordinate or auxiliary thoughts."240 Then, finally, we see Reu adopting his method to the

needs of confessional preaching. The text must then be interpreted from the viewpoint "of its

connection with the whole of God's saving revelation. Without in any way depriving the

particular text of its characteristic features, this view of its larger relationships will indicate its

signal a clear interest in and concern for the hearer. 2 Reu , Homiletics, 254-5 (emphasis in original). 237 Ibid., 339-344. 238 Ibid., 340. 239 Ibid., 340. Note here the echoes of Broadus on the issue of fancy. 240 Ibid., 342. 142 comparative position in the organism of saving truth."241 This last move reminds us that texts in the Lutheran tradition are always interpreted in light of the prevailing theological theme of

"justification by grace, through faith, apart from works of the law."

Along with this theological, homiletical exegetical work, Reu insists that the preacher apply a personal, pastoral dimension to the sermon's preparation. The preacher should ask what message the text has for the preacher's own life, "... what it contains for him of reproof, comfort or incentive; how his natural reason reacts to the text; what objections his old will advances; with what subterfuges it seeks to evade the force of the truth ..." This dialogue is followed "by a dialogue between preacher and congregation. Here the preacher will inquire how far the particular trend of the text answers to the specific need of his hearers, and how he may best bring it home to their hearts."242

Reu also acknowledged the doctrinal significance of the liturgical context and its influence on how one reads a text. "Since the liturgical life of the congregation is controlled by the Church Year, the question, What message has this text for my congregation? receives the further modification, What message has it for my congregation in this particular season?"243

Attention to the liturgical year and to the worship service help insure that the sermon will be confessional, that is, in accord with the confessions of the Church.

Meaning of Texts

Most authors in the cognitive stream are clear about the meaning of texts that preachers pursue. For them texts have a correct meaning, one might speak of many meanings but one seeks the correct one, the objective meaning. Broadus felt that there is a certain obvious quality to the

241 Ibid., 339-344. 242 Ibid., 382-3, italics in original. 143 task of interpretation: texts mean what they mean. He was a Southern Baptist, and while his work predates those who rigidly apply such terms as literal, inerrant, or infallible, he has a strong (if tautological) sense of respect for the meaning of texts: When "using a text, and undertaking to develop and apply its teachings, we are solemnly bound to represent the text as meaning precisely what it does mean."244 His main concerns are that preachers not use texts as pretexts

(mottoes) or twist them so that they support the preacher's own views. Those who defend this practice might say,

But the language of Scripture is so rich, its pregnant sayings often mean so much, that I think perhaps this expression may convey, among other things, the sense which I propose.' If it really does, there is no objection whatever to using it so. But a vague 'perhaps' is a slender and tottering excuse for a preacher ... who is supposed to have studied the text and to know its meaning.245

Discovering the correct meaning of the text is hard work and for Broadus means studying the original languages, the context of the passage, and staying with the literal, grammatical sense as long as possible. He endorses the use of concordances and English and foreign language translations in order to shed fresh light on the meaning of the words. In addition, we are to interpret logically, historically, and to use our common knowledge of geography, customs, manners, and human nature—feeling free to take account of the opinions and state of mind of the persons addressed in or by a text.

In the case of figurative passages, which really have a spiritual meaning, he warns against pressing the figure too far; that is "of fancying a spiritual sense in aspects or details of the figure which are not really within the scope of the inspired writer. When our Lord says, 'Take my yoke upon you,' we have no right to hunt up all manner of details as to yokes and oxen, and run a

243 Ibid., 383-384. 244 Broadus, Treatise, 51. 245 Ibid., 52, italics in original. I have enjoyed trying to imagine what tone of voice Broadus had in his own head as he pens this dialogue! 144 fanciful parallel as to each particular."246 He also warns against applying figurative interpretation simply because the literal sense "seems to conflict with doctrinal prejudices ... or with hasty inferences from imperfectly established scientific facts"—a clue that Broadus is quite aware of the threat posed by modernity.

Ozora S. Davis's (1866-1931) 1924 book, Principles of Preaching, offered his understanding of textual meaning. While many homileticians make reference to exegesis, the use of scholarly commentaries and to the fruits of higher criticism, Davis is the first explicitly to narrow the meaning of the text to the meaning that the original author intended. Where other homileticians have been content to find the self-evident or grammatical meaning, Davis states that "the first principle to be preserved is fidelity to the writer's meaning.''''211'1 Following from this, and in contrast, for example, to Jacob Fry, Davis insists that texts contain one principle meaning: "The second principle is selection of the essential truth in the passage. Nearly every text contains several factors; but there is always one of central significance. This is the truth to be developed and discussed in the sermon."248 However, Davis's third principle does not seem to follow. Once the central and vital truth of the text is "released," the preacher is free to develop and divide it apart from the direct influence of the movement or development of the text.249

Haddon Robinson, professor emeritus of homiletics at Gordon Cromwell Seminary is important to this survey as a strong supporter of propositional, expository preaching in our own day. His book, Biblical Preaching15 is in its fourteenth printing, and is one of the most widely used homiletics text today. The trademark of Robinson's method is the "Big Idea" by which he

246 Ibid., 69. Ozora S. Davis, Principles of Preaching: A textbook based on the inductive method for class use and private study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924), 196 (italics in original). 248 Ibid., 196 (italics in original). 249 Ibid., 196. 250 Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980). 145 means a single proposition, drawn from the text.251 The extraction or positing of a single proposition has been an element of preaching throughout its North American history. We highlight Robinson's employment of the concept at this point as an emblem against developing

schools of homiletics that will counsel precisely against ideational or propositional preaching.

Robinson defines expository preaching thus: "Expository preaching is the

communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to

the personality and experience of the preacher, then through him to his hearers. " Robinson

advocates the traditional exposition/application model, heavily dependent on the historical

critical approach. The preacher begins by searching "for the objective meaning of a passage

through his understanding of language, backgrounds, and the setting of the text."253

From Text to Sermon

Some homileticians in the cognitive stream give clear guidance for moving from a

biblical text to the sermon. Three things characterize R. Ames Montgomery's approach: First is

the use of lectio continua (in the style of Luther and Calvin)—preaching through entire biblical

books over successive occasions. This insures that all themes, all topics, and all information

come from the text alone. Second is attention to the grammatical sense of the text; he warns

against spiritualization or allegorization of "definitely historical portions."254 In connection with

this, Montgomery warns about the higher critical methods, "The critical studies of previous

generations sadly affected the attitude and interest of the general public in the Bible ... the

1 In fact, a recent Festschrift to Robinson is entitled, The Big Idea of Biblical Preaching: Connecting the Bible to People, ed. by Keith Willhite, Scott M. Gibson, and Haddon W. Robinson (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1999). 252 Robinson, Biblical Preaching, 20 (italics and gender specific language in original) 146

Bible's sacrosanct character was lost."255 Third is the imaginative application in plain style, appealing to the direct needs of the audience. "The Bible, which leads all human documents, deals with people, with the business and bosom of man, with affairs of state and the talk of firesides and tables, with war and diplomacy, with hunting and fishing, with farming and marketing, with life and death and the resurrection after death."256 The ability to apply the text is the result of a preacher's total and absolute immersion in meditation on the book, text, passage, and message. Though he doesn't speak in these categories, per se, we can infer that Montgomery assumes a fairly direct identification of biblical situations and our own.

For Haddon Robinson in our own time, once the objective, original meaning is established, the preacher seeks to travel "the road from text to sermon"—the application phase of composition. There are two laudable nuances to Robinson's method. The first is that he asserts that preachers must be experts in three worlds, the world of the text, the world of world culture, and also the preacher's "own particular world. A church has a ZIP Code [or Postal Code] and stands near Fifth and Main in some city and state." By this Robinson suggests that the Big Idea need not be conceived as a heavy, doctrinal millstone, but should be a proposition that the preacher shapes by asking such hearer-oriented questions as "What Does This Mean?", "Is It

True?", and "What Difference Does It Make?"257

In the second place, Robinson suggests the application of an analogical method to the

"big idea" drawn from the text. "In order to apply a passage accurately, we must define the situation into which the revelation was originally given and then decide what a modern man or woman shares, or does not share, with the original hearers. The closer the relationship between

253 Ibid., 23. 254 Montgomery, Expository Preaching, 57. 255 Ibid., 43. 256 Ibid., 49. 147 modern man and biblical man, the more direct the application."258 Robinson does not deal specifically with what strategy should be employed when no analogical relationship is found.

However in his examples, he demonstrates some nice shadings of meaning when the "big idea" is "zoomed" in and out and applied to different settings.

Preaching for a Decision

At first glance, Ozora Davis might not seem to be in the cognitive stream of homiletics because of his emphasis on inductive method, something championed by Fred Craddock in recent years to counter propositional preaching. However, Davis was writing in 1924 and his understanding of inductive was not ours. His book was entitled, Principles of Preaching: A textbook based on the inductive method for class use and private study. "Inductive" here does not refer to the form of the sermons included, but to the fact that "the principles of preaching are drawn from an inductive study of typical sermons."259 Even with this explanation, it must be said that the word "inductive" is stretched beyond its sense in that the sermons were clearly chosen because they could all be analyzed according to a typical rhetorical division of introduction, series of divisions (with minor divisions), and conclusion. In other words, he used a deductive method to select sermons that were then examined inductively and that then (surprise) confirmed the original propositions.

An important contribution Davis makes to the cognitive stream is his emphasis on preaching for a decision. He names this as the exact purpose of rhetorical persuasion. "A sermon is an oral message, incorporated into an order of worship, on a religious truth, directed to the popular mind with a view to a decision of the hearers which shall lead them into the Christian

Robinson, Biblical Preaching, 81 -90 Davis, Principles, 90. 148 experience, individually and socially." To this day, preaching in fundamentalist and revivalist circles stresses preaching for decision: the specific decision to accept Jesus Christ as one's Lord and Savior.

Experiential Homiletics

The preachers in this category stress the importance of experience for homiletics. They follow the lead of Friedrich Schleiermacher whose On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultural

Despisers261 conceived of religion in the dimension of feelings. It has to do with the inner self and an experience of that which is unknowable. The issue of the Bible and preaching becomes dependent on one's theological starting point: is it with the Bible or experience? Preaches in this category tend to be anthropocentric, putting people at the center of the homiletical enterprise.

In the same way that John Broadus serves as a starting place for our consideration of the cognitive stream, (i.e., those who find homiletics to be a species of rhetoric), Phillips Brooks serves the revivalistic stream, (i.e., those who find it to be a species of theology). Classical rhetoric is concerned with persuasion, thus the listener is always in view. While Brooks in his

Lectures on Preaching262 (the Beecher Lectures of 1877) attends to basic rhetorical common sense (including the five canons, and three means of persuasion), his homiletical approach clearly leans toward theology and psychology.

259 Ibid., vii. 260 Ibid., 184, italics added. 261 Friedrich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers, translated by Richard Crouter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 262 Phillips Brooks, Lectures on Preaching, (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1877). The Person of the Preacher

Brooks' classic maxim exemplifies the pairing of logos with ethos: "Preaching is the communication of truth by man to men. It has in it two essential elements, truth and personality.. ..preaching is the bringing of truth through personality."263 The appeal to pathos which we would expect in this stream is added in the further assertion that the purpose of preaching "is the persuading and moving of men 's souls."264 Just as many of Broadus's lists of rules and distinctions will be shaped and molded by later theorists, so too will this definition by

Brooks be shaped and expanded.

The 1879-80 Beecher lecturer Howard Crosby (1826-1891) maintains the experiential concern with the personality of the preacher but mixes it with a conservative approach to

Scripture more akin to the approach of Broadus. The topic of Crosby's lectures was "The

Christian Preacher"265 so much of his time is spent discussing the person of the preacher rather than homiletical hermeneutics. But Crosby echoes Brooks' concern about "truth through personality" which might be called an incarnational view of preaching. "Why is there any preaching? Why are we not satisfied with the reading of God's Word? Is it not because we need a personal contact of soul with soul, which the Word by itself can not furnish? So that (with reverence be it said) even the Sermon on the Mount can not take the place of human discourse in the ministrations of a preaching ..."

David James Burrell's (1844-1926) The Sermon: Its Construction and Delivery1^1 is the published text of the first James Sprunt Lectures, delivered at Union Seminary in Virginia. The book contains "for the most part ... material used in Princeton Theological Seminary, where the

263 Phillips Brooks, Lectures, 5. 264 Ibid., 110. 265 Howard Crosby, The Christian Preacher (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, 1879). 266 Crosby, The Christian Preacher, 49-50. 150 author recently supplied a four years' vacancy in the chair of Homiletics."268 He directly challenges the definition of preaching rendered by Brooks. As Burrell puts it: "It is not enough to say, with Phillips Brooks, that a sermon is 'the communication of truth by man to men.' This, as a definition, is lucus a non lucendo. It opens the homiletic category to all sorts of literature."

Following the homileticians Austin Phelps, whom we consider below, Burrell defines a sermon as "an address to a congregation on the subject of religion, from the standpoint of the Scriptures, with the purpose of persuading men."269

Even with that strong affirmation of Scripture, Burrell is clearly more committed to the person of the preacher than with any conscientious use of texts. In fact, he uses Jesus himself to support both the use and non-use of biblical texts. In one lecture he notes that "The use of the text is purely conventional. The preacher, should he choose, is quite at liberty to dispense with it

.... For the most part, the discourses of Christ were not textual but distinctly topical."270 In addition, the text may "hamper the freedom of the preacher in the freest and broadest treatment of his theme."271 But in a later lecture he warrants the use of texts saying, "we preach on texts because that is what Christ did ... The Law and the Prophets were ever on His lips. ... It is not strange that our Lord, whose preaching was so faithful to Scriptures, should have prescribed the same method for us."272

While perhaps not the most careful of writers Burrell does provide an interesting explicit focus on an aspect of preaching that has been implicit in the other homileticians (especially

Brooks): the presence of "pulpit power." This power is exemplified by a preacher who is pious,

267 David James Burrell, The Sermon: Its Construction and Delivery (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1913). 2 Burrell, Sermon Construction, 5. 269 Ibid., 11. 270 Ibid., 26. 271 Ibid., 30. 272 Ibid., 318-319. 151 steeped in the Word, committed to the Gospel (presumably using the text in whatever way serves this end), and who can "give himself with utter abandon to the business at hand. Self-

consciousness is our arch-enemy."273

One final homiletician who has a deep concern for the ethos of the preacher is Charles R.

Brown (1862-1950), the dean of the Yale Divinity School who presented his The Art of

Preaching as the Beecher lectures of 1922-23.274 Key for him is the preacher's own intimate relationship to the Bible. He speaks of this aspect of the preacher's life as eloquently as anyone.

The preparation of a sermon then is really the preparation of a man who prepares and preaches sermons as the highest exercise of his functions. You will prepare a great many sermons—it will be one of the main tasks to which you will address yourself—but you will be all the while doing that more fundamental and vital thing, preparing a man who can take those sermons and preach them so that they will communicate spiritual life.275

Brown departs from the "scientific" extraction of themes and topics from texts asserting that "the

best sermon themes are suggested mainly by the habitual, thoughtful, devotional reading of the

Scriptures."276

273 Ibid., 291. Although not directly on point, I feel compelled to cite Burrell's diatribe against the pulpit: "How and where did it originate—this cage, this palisade, this homiletic refrigerator? In the time of Nehemiah? Oh, no. The alleged 'pulpit' which he erected by the water-gate was merely 'migdol,' i.e., a raised platform. And there is no other mention of 'the pulpit' in Holy Writ. In point of fact, the origin of this thing was contemporaneous with the clerical arrogance which ushered in the darkest period of church history. It marked with a peculiar emphasis the increasing dignity and pretension of 'His Reverence' over the unshod people. The platform was too low; it was raised higher and higher on the cathedral pillar, as clerical dignity went up; and it must needs be fenced around, lest the incumbent should fall out. But why should we perpetuate it? The minister of Christ has long since found his proper level. His medieval grandeur is gone. Let us be thankful that he is no longer regarded as 'a little tin god on wheels.' The pulpit has this triple excuse for being: (1) It holds a manuscript; which it has no business to do. (2) It hides the preacher's inferior parts, on the false assumption that the congregation takes no pleasure in the legs of a consecrated man. And (3) it exalts and separates the preacher from his flock. He stands before them like an angel leaning out of a balcony. But this is precisely what he should not seem to be. For, in the logic of events, he no longer 'sits on a hill retired, in thoughts more elevate,' but has come down among the people. This is the mind of the Master; He became one among us that He might win us." (254-255). 274 Charles R. Brown, The Art of Preaching, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922). Brown, The Art of Preaching, 28. 276 Ibid., 34. 152

The Role of the Bible

Brooks further shapes his homiletical maxim of truth through personality by encouraging preachers to avoid uniformity and to express the depths of their individuality. Like Broadus, he reminds preachers that the preacher is "above all to preach Christ."277 This proclamation differs from Broadus's though in that Brooks' Christ is one who meets the particular needs of today's hearers. In "Christ's personality the bewildered soul must find its own personal life."278

Attending to our particular area of concern, Brooks does believe that every sermon topic must be grounded in the biblical text, but his actual approach to choosing topics is non-textual. He notes the same three considerations for the selection of topics as Broadus—the preacher's inclination, the symmetry and scale of his sermon corpus, and the needs of the people27 —but in contrast to

Broadus, for Brooks the topic always comes first.

We can see Brook's difference from a conservative view of Scripture when he expresses his opposition to the tendency of earlier preachers to preach from a single verse. "There was a time when to many people the Bible stood ... as a succession of verses, all true, all edifying, all vital with the Gospel. ... The result of such a feeling was, of course, to clothe the single text with independent sacredness and meaning."280 For Brooks, the liberation of the Bible involves linking longer texts with the "heart and spirit of the Bible ... estimating the great streams of tendency, the following of great lines of thought, the apprehension of the spirit of great spiritual thinkers who 'had the mind of Christ.'"281 Brooks' liberal approach is nicely summarized by Warren W.

Wiersbe who wrote the Introduction to a later reprint of Brooks' lectures. "Breadth of outlook

277 Brooks, Lectures, 136. 278 Ibid., 224. 279 Ibid., 153. 280 Ibid., 161. 281 Ibid. 153 was always characteristic of him, and he sought to learn all he could from whatever sources were available. To him, all truth was God's truth."282

When Howard Crosby in 1879 finally gets away from the preacher to speak of exegesis, he excoriates preachers who take no time for "scientific study" of the Scriptures.

A preacher with this defect is apt to take a text without any regard to its context, or the conditions under which it was written ... is readily deceived by a word. ... He regards hell as hell, whether it be yeewa or &8r|<; ... Everywhere his want of critical acumen confounds things that differ, and by his clumsiness he often, instead of implanting truth, sows the seeds of doubt in the minds of discriminating hearers.283

Austin Phelps (1820-1890) first published his Theory of Preaching in 1881.284 It is similar in scope and design to Broadus's Treatise, giving full treatment of the application of rhetoric to homiletics and to the full range of rhetorical interests characteristic of nineteenth- century homiletics. Undoubtedly both in deference to and in response to the prevailing culture of rationalism, Phelps offers a rhetorical definition of preaching that will resurface in other forms by later preachers: "A sermon is an oral address to the popular mind, upon religious truth as contained in the Scriptures and elaborately treated with a view to persuasion."2*5

Much of Phelps' Theory reiterates common homiletical practice but, contra Broadus and

Brooks, he is unequivocal about the need for a biblical text as the starting place for the sermon.

"It is the presence of the text that separates preaching from rhetoric since, oral discourse as such need not have a text ... in the pulpit the text is a necessity."286

282 Warren Wiersbe, "Introduction" in Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, introduction by Warren W. Wiersbe (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1989), 11. 283 Crosby, The Christian Preacher, 35. 284 Austin Phelps, The Theory of Preaching: Lectures on Homiletics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1881). 285 Phelps, Theory, 21 (italics in original). 286 Ibid., 31. From Text to Sermon

Austin Phelps added to the homiletical taxonomy the "inferential" sermon, which is

"used to make direct application of the text to life." It is like the textual sermon in that the theme is derived from the text, but instead of allowing the text to provide theme and divisions, here,

"the text is the premise, a series of inferences is the conclusion"; that is, the division of the topic is a series of inferential applications.287 This suggests the influence of a more Brooksian approach.

Phelps speaks in fascinating ways of the issue of scriptural "accommodation," where in the sermonic application, the text is made to say something it clearly does not say. We properly infer from this that Phelps favors a grammatical historical reading of Scripture. Of the various types of accommodation he treats, the only one that finds approval is what we would commonly call typological. That is, "a text may be a biblical fact; that fact may illustrate a principle; that principle may be susceptible of other illustrations; of those illustrations, one which is not expressed or implied in the text may be the theme of discourse."288 Harmful accommodation occurs when a theme is established simply because of a resemblance between text and theme— as, for example, when the text "I have eaten ashes like bread" is used as the pretext for an Ash

Wednesday sermon.289 Such a use is "puerile." A second destructive form of accommodation occurs when elements in a literal narrative are taken metaphorically or when a scriptural metaphor is used as "figurative of a different sense than that of the original" both uses we might loosely classify as "allegorical."

Finally, Phelps spends time discussing the related topics of pertinence and congruency.

By these he refers to the nature of the relationship between the text, the sermon, and the

287 Ibid., 31. 288 Ibid., 115. 155 congregation. Seen against the practice endorsed by both Broadus and Brooks of mining any text for doctrines and propositions, Phelps' insights are especially intriguing. In short, the style of the sermon must be modeled according to the style and genre of the text and also according to the associations of the text in the minds of the audience.

But pertinency in a text is not restricted to the sentiment. It relates, also, to congruity of rhetorical structure between the text and the sermon. "Is there not, to the eye of good taste, an incongruity between a very imaginative text and a severely argumentative discourse? Do we not feel a similar infelicity between a difficult logical text, and a hortatory address?"29 This reflects a pastoral appreciation for the fact that the biblical sermon must take account of both the audience's understanding of and emotional response to the sermon's text.

Howard Crosby brings two contributions that are worthy of note. The first is his idea of the meeting of three worlds. For effective preaching, the life of the world, the lives of the congregation, and the truth of Scripture constantly intermingle. On the one hand, experience enlivens Scripture. "The preacher's work from the pulpit ought to be a synthesis and enforcing of his work in the homes of his people ... the experiences with which he meets from house to house will fill him to running over with material for counsel and instruction from the Scriptures. Every text will have a new force and give him a new inspiration."291 On the other hand the preacher's awareness of Scripture enlivens the world: "A preacher should have his eye traversing the course of history and the great facts of human society, so as to illustrate and confirm his expositions of the Word. He should be quick to discern the various institutions of man, and to trace the actions

' Ibid., 116. 0 Ibid., 56. 1 Crosby, The Christian Preacher, 48. of human nature in their manifold forms. By such a panoramic view of life ... he sees where rightly to apply the truth that he has gathered from the Word."292

The Role of Higher Criticism

Charles R. Brown is notable for the fertile imagination and sense of humor that he brings to bear on his lectures (and one hopes his preaching). Brown in 1922 is one of the first homileticians to specifically address the use of higher criticism—note that we are within a decade of when Don Wardlaw says that Homiletics began to "come of age" from a critical and academic perspective.294 While Brown affirms the use of higher criticism in determining the meaning of texts, he warns against sharing its fruits in preaching.

It is just as well also for the young minister in a new parish not to be in too great a hurry about promulgating the very latest views which he picked up at the Divinity School or gained in his last weeks' reading of the Hibbert Journal. [He] cannot possibly tell the people all he knows in the first three months of his pastorate. He cannot do it simply because he knows so much. It will take him at least six months to tell them all he knows.2 5

It is clear from the 1928-29 Beecher lectures of Edwin DuBose Mouzon that a new epoch has begun. Though Mouzon is not an uncritical advocate of all critical tools, we can infer from his text that multiple methods are in use. A southern Methodist, he affirms historical critical method, but issues grave cautions about its use.

The historical method ... has opened a door into the treasure house of Holy Scripture which no man can now shut. The Bible to us is a much more human book, and also much more divine than it was to our fathers. Unfortunately, the

292 Ibid., 41. While this is clearly identifiable as a notion of Romanticism, we should note how it resembles the hermeneutical thinking of a century later (cf. especially, Milton Cram, below). 293 Brown dedicates an entire lecture to "Lighter Elements of the Sermon" and talks at length about the use of imagination in preaching. And while for Brown the imagination is still primarily a tool for embellishment of doctrine, he begins to hint toward a fuller appreciation that while ordinary discourse "has facts, literature (citing Coleridge here) has vision ..." Brown, The Art of Preaching, 148. 294 Wardlaw, "Preaching in North America," CEP, 248. 2 5 Brown, The Art of Preaching, 56-57. 157

wine of the new knowledge has frequently gone to the head, and some preachers, in a manner wholly academic and unspiritual, have raised doubts in the mind and brought distress to the heart where positive and affirmative presentation would have brought relief and comfort and reassurance.296

Mouzon's corrective is to remind us that while the Bible does contain history and ethical teaching, it is preeminently a book of religious experience.297 The Bible's authority lies in the truths that it teaches which are "validated in the corporate experience of the Church and the experience of all the individuals in the family of God. "2 Here is both an echo of the liberal attention to personal experience combined with a premonition that the abuse of any scientific critical methods will necessitate the Christian community's effort to reclaim its Scripture.

The liberal tradition is further enshrined in the homiletics text, The Preparation and

Delivery of Sermons, by Carl S. Patton (1866-1939), Professor of Homiletics at Pacific School of

Religion, Berkeley, California.299 His leanings can be read clearly in the Table of Contents where under Fundamental Material for the Sermon is listed first, "Experience as test." The Bible weighs in about halfway through a list of "Secondary Material." Patton expresses ambivalence about the use of the Bible in preaching primarily because of a discernible tendency to be offended by the historical particularity of the Judeo-Christian faith. He praises "higher criticism" for, among other things, desacralizing the biblical narratives especially of the Old Testament. "The higher criticism has made the Old Testament a new book for the preacher, and has turned into homiletic material vast sections of it which formerly were barren waste ... we want to make our people as intelligent as possible about religion; for this purpose nothing is more valuable than a knowledge of the history of religion."30 Once reduced to tokens of religious history, the narratives provide a

296 Edwin DuBose Mouzon, Preaching with Authority (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1929), 63. 297 Mouzon, Preaching with Authority, 80. 298 Ibid., 85, emphasis added. 299 Carl S. Patton, The Preparation and Delivery of Sermons (Chicago: Willett, Clark & Company, 1938). 300 Patton, Preparation and Delivery, 17. 158 structural service for preaching because biblical materials "almost necessarily fall into a natural or logical order." The point of biblical preaching for Patton is not exposition of the meaning of texts, but of using texts as templates for the grand themes of religion.301

The Role of Experience

The importance of experience for the preaching enterprise seemed to reach full bloom in

1932 with the publication of Joseph Fort Newton's edited volume, If I Had Only One Sermon to

Prepare?02 It was conceived as a response to a culture acutely aware of the loss of innocence after World War I, and the rise in secularism and the crisis of faith that followed. But, Newton, observes,

Anyone who studies the preaching of today must be struck, at once, by its aliveness to the issues and realities of our time. At its best it has vigor and veracity; its text is taken from life as it is lived today, and nothing human is alien to its interest. To the problems of private duty and piety, the new pulpit adds the sin of war, the duty of disarmament, racial rancor, religious bigotry, sex, marriage, birth control, complexes, a living wage.303

The preaching text—the source of topics and themes for division and application—for these authors is not the Bible, but extracted themes of human experience coupled with the general theological language of their respective denominations.

The range of denominational backgrounds is remarkable as is the consensus that experience takes precedence over the Bible. Daniel A. McGregor, an Episcopalian, remarks that,

"The message of the preacher lies in the heart of the Christian Church." 4 Fulton Sheen, the prominent Roman Catholic preacher reflects that he begins sermon preparation by establishing a

301 Ibid., 57. 302 Joseph Fort Newton, editor, If I Had Only One Sermon to Prepare, First Edition (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932), hereafter referred to as If I Had .... 303 Newton, p. 6-7 (emphasis added). 304 Daniel A. McGregor, "A Preaching Religion," If I Had ..., 19. 159 common denominator with the modern mind and then showing "how a Christian truth fits in with human life. I say 'fits in,' because the modern world has lost its capacity for solid thinking. It no longer seeks for proofs, but seems far more interested in learning just how far any truth or doctrine can be integrated with life."305 Paul Hutchinson, a layman, weighs in with an outright disdain for biblical and doctrinal preaching: "When it comes to preaching, with the exception of those whose mental habits were fixed in the Victorian period, none of them will admit any interest in the sermon of Biblical exposition which formed the staple diet of a previous generation." John Haynes Holmes writes,

My preaching is not Bible preaching. That does not mean that I do not use the Bible—I use it constantly—but I do not go to it for subjects, or even for texts. My subjects are taken from the thought, the experience, the events, the personalities, the books, the vivid life of our time, and have to do with the problems pressing upon the lives of the people to whom I preach.307

Harry Emerson Fosdick expresses no disdain for the Bible, but expresses well the clear division between preaching that is self-consciously grounded in the literal grammatical meaning of texts and preaching that takes its starting place from the culture.

My sermons may be expository, but only because the great texts of Scripture are the classic formulations of abiding human experience. They came out of experience, reflect experience, and are valuable only because they express an experimental fact of abiding poignancy and significance. ... Always, however, the preacher's major interest should not be historical or literary or theological. Everything should be but a mere instrument in his hands for his definite personal goal of doing something creative with the individuals in front of him.308

Rufus M. Jones is less optimistic about the Bible's connection to modern life experience:

I am more and more impressed with the feeling that Biblical-text preaching is antiquated and outgrown. Too much time is spent with words and phrases and too often the preacher is capriciously at the mercy of an ancient situation and setting

305 Sheen, "Ambassador of the Word," If I Had ...,29-30. 306 Paul Hutchinson, "A Voice from the Pew," If I Had ..., p. 86. To be fair, Hutchinson does allow that the Bible might serve as a source of interesting topics. 307 John Haynes Holmes unattributed quote in Newton "Offertory," If I Had ..., 97. 308 Fosdick, "Animated Conversation," If I Had ..., 111-113. 160

that do not fit our modern life and present day problems. Only by a tour deforce does the preacher get from his starting point to the vital task with which he is confronted. ... I want my whole message to be born and to spring out of life and 309

expenence.

While it is tempting (and, perhaps, in some cases appropriate) to dismiss such sentiments—with a wave of a neo-orthodox hand—as disaster signs of the Church's complete accommodation to the world, one wonders what sort of biblical preaching elicited such vitriol.

Certainly the texts we have examined, while tending to be conservative in their approach to exegesis and the development of topics from Scripture have exhibited ample concern for the lives and experiences of sermon audiences. To be charitable to these liberal voices, we must suppose that in actual practice a divide was opening between the study and exegesis of Scripture and the homiletical imperative to "bring it home."

Transitional Homileticians Who Fit neither the Cognitive nor Experiential Streams Neatly

Any typology is an instrument that allows us to see things we might not otherwise see, yet no typology is perfect. A number of homileticians belong in both cognitive and experiential streams. We can briefly mention a few books that while full and important in their own right, add texture and flavor though little of substance to our growing homiletical mosaic.

The work of Andrew W. Blackwood (b. 1882), professor of homiletics at Princeton

Seminary, who published four books between 1941 and 1953, can be described as conciliatory to both major streams of preaching. In The Preparation of Sermons310 Blackwood is generally disposed toward preaching from the Bible and gives a fair evaluation of topical, textual, and expository preaching. But in general he works from a Brooksian paradigm: "What do we

309 Rufus T. Jones, If I Had..., p. 207. 161 understand by preaching? It means divine truth through personality or the truth of God voiced by a chosen personality to meet human needs. Divine truth comes largely from the Scriptures but also from other roots."311 Even in his book Expository Preaching for Today, which is "Dedicated to the Pastor Who Enjoys Preaching from the Bible" [only enjoys'!] he shows his liberal leaning:

"In any case the wise interpreter begins with a human need today, and chooses a passage that will enable him to meet this need."312

Theodore Parker Ferris, in Go Tell the People (a publication of his inaugural lectures in the "George Craig Steward Lectures on Preaching" at Seabury-Western [Episcopal] Seminary) strikes a similar note. He commends the use of the Bible not because it is an authoritative text but because "most preachers will find that their sermons carry further when they are set against the background of the Word of God. The Biblical texts, surrounded as many of them are by associations which go far back into the memories of the people, are likely to linger longer in the minds of the hearers than any words that the preacher may say."313

Here Is My Method: The Art of Sermon Construction is another collection of essays on preaching contributed by such noted preachers as Henry Sloane Coffin, Gerald Kennedy, and

Ralph Sockman. x Although none of the essays presents a full homiletical or exegetical method, it is evident that these preachers lean toward a more conservative, exegetical approach when moving from text to sermon. A few citations will suffice to give a flavor of this volume. Eugene

Carson Blake, State Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. strikes a

310 Andrew W. Blackwood, The Preparation of Sermons (New York: Abingdon Press, 1948). 311 Blackwood, Preparation, 13. 312 Andrew W. Blackwood, Expository Preaching for Today: Case Studies of Bible Passages (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1953), 13. 313 Theodore Parker Ferris, Go Tell the People (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951), 62. Ferris does make a nice analogy between sermon and musical forms, suggesting that both the tone poem and the sonata allegro form can be used to good effect in preaching (57-59). 314 Donald MacLeod, ed., Here Is My Method: The Art of Sermon Construction (Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1952). 162 solid balance between biblical text and human need: "The beginning of a sermon with me is that moment when a spark is struck by the steel of the Word in the Bible on the flint of some human need. The spark is an idea, a fresh insight, a heightened emotional and intellectual response to a verse or passage of scripture .. ,"315 Willard Brewing, Moderator of the United Church of Canada exhorts preachers to find their chief source of matter and inspiration through their "persistent plowing of the fertile fields of the Bible—both Old and New Testaments."316 Lynn Harold

Hough, Dean of Drew University, claims that "A sermon is a man's adventure with a text for the sake of his people. That will determine everything else."317

In this chapter we have been examining the cognitive and experiential streams of homiletics. We now continue our review of the field by turning to eventful homiletics that takes us to the present day.

315 Eugene Carson Black, in Here Is My Method, p. 24. 316 Willard Brewing, in Here Is My Method, 38. 317 Lynn Harold Hough, in Here Is My Method, 85. The plainest and most emphatic denunciation of critical reductionism, and one that is generally ignored by critics, is the "Notice" posted at the beginning of Huckleberry Finn: "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." Mark Twain's point, I think, is not that his book had no motive or moral or plot, but rather that its motive, its moral, and its plot were peculiar to itself as a whole, and could be conveyed only by itself as a whole. The motive, the moral, and the plot were not to be extracted and studied piecemeal like the organs of a laboratory frog. And the reason for this is plain: The value of Huckleberry Finn is not in its motive or moral or plot, but in its language. The book is valuable because it is a story told, not a story explained.

Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle: an Essay against Modern Superstition CHAPTER 7

THE BIBLE AND NORTH AMERICAN HOMILETICS

PART TWO: EVENTFUL HOMILETICS

By the 1950s fresh winds were blowing in homiletics that had to do with preaching as an event of God's Word, a moment of encounter. This period is frequently referred to in homiletical literature as the New Homiletic, in contrast to both verse-by-verse exegetical preaching and propositional (cognitive) preaching caricatured by the cliched three points and a poem. In fact, the eventful homiletics that emerged may be seen to be a reaction against aspects of both the cognitive and experiential streams in that it reclaims the centrality of the Bible for preaching. It also carries forward the importance of experience, rooting it in the Bible's link to today. While it would be convenient to use the term New Homiletic here, the term is normally used in relation to sermon form where here our interest is primarily in the use of the Bible for preaching, and while the field is too diverse to categorize uniformly, the primary emphasis may be said to be on the

Word as event. Eventful Homiletics may be understood to be an aspect of the New Homiletic.

One thing that happens from the 1950s to the present is an increased awareness of the perceived complexity of moving from text to sermon. Not only does this reflect growing complexity in such cognate fields as hermeneutics and literary theory, it also reflects a maturing of homiletics as a critical discipline in its own right.

164 165

In this chapter, no attempt will be made to survey the entire field, though readings covering the entire field inform the selections made here. Rather, for the sake of space, choices have been made to highlight the foundations of current understandings within homiletical

literature. The entire sermon process along with sermon form becomes dynamic, organic, fluid,

and responsive to social setting.

Brief Background

Eventful Homiletics finds precedent in Phillips Brooks who stressed the need for

preaching to do something. He lamented that

Much of our preaching is like delivering lectures upon medicine to sick people. The lecture is true. The lecture is interesting. Nay, the truth of the lecture is important, and if the sick man could learn the truth of the lecture he would be a better patient, he would take his medicine more responsibly and regulate his diet more intelligently. But still the fact remains that the lecture is not medicine, and that to give the medicine, not to deliver the lecture, is the preacher's duty. l

In the mid 1950s homileticians begin to pick up on the work of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, and

Rudolph Bultmann, theologians who in Europe by then had spoken of the eventful nature of

God's Word.319 Two homileticians in particular hint at what is to come. Ilion T. Jones begins

Principles and Practice of Preaching with an enthusiastic ode to event preaching. "[In the New

Testament, preaching] was the means of starting God's redemptive work in the believer. The

rediscovery of this conception of preaching and the discussion revolving around it constitute one

of the most significant trends in contemporary Christian thought, and promise to restore

preaching to its primary place in Christianity."320 And while his text is thoughtfully and

3I* Brooks, Joy ofPreaching, 102. 319 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936), 1:1: 98-135; Emil Brunner, The Divine Human Encounter (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1943); original German Warheit ah Begegnung (Zurich: Zwingli- Verlag, 1938); Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, vols. 1 & 2, trans. Kendrick Grobel (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951 [German, 1948]), 288-306; the latter is part of his discussion of grace in Paul. 320 Ilion T. Jones, Principles and Practice of Preaching (New York: Abingdon Press, 1956), 19. thoroughly done, he seems intent merely on filling the liberal mode of prepositional preaching

(taking the topic from with human need or experience) with new life and energy.

Donald G. Miller in The Way to Biblical Preaching 21 makes a stronger case for the

event-character of preaching: "Preaching is not mere speech; it is an event. In true preaching,

something happens ... preacher and people are brought together by the living flame of truth, as

oxygen and matter are joined in living encounter by fire."322 Preaching which sets forth the

biblical story is the only kind of preaching that can imitate the New Testament preachers in not just reporting but "reconstituting" for its hearers God's deliverance through Christ.

Having established that preaching must be event, Miller then steps back in order to

describe expository preaching as it is practiced for the purpose of exposing its deficiencies; he

then reclaims the word "expository" for the revolution. In Miller's view, expository preaching

theorists stress that the passage to be handled must be relatively long (more than just one or two

verses); must exhibit detailed analysis; must explain what the text means "as though to be

expository is to follow the form of preaching which says in so many words, 'This passage means

so and so'";323 and lastly, must stress the idea of consecutive handling of verses. Miller seeks to

supplant this moribund method with his own definition:

Expository preaching is an act wherein the living truth of some portion of Holy Scripture, understood in the light of solid exegetical and historical study and made a living reality to the preacher by the Holy Spirit, comes alive to the hearer as he is confronted by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit in judgment and redemption.

However, when it comes to proposing the form this living reality should take, Miller retreats to

the traditional method of topic and divisions.

321 Donald G. Miller, The Way to Biblical Preaching (New York: Abingdon Press, 1957). 322 Miller, Biblical Preaching, 13. 323 Ibid., 20. 324 Ibid., 26, italics in original. 167

It may not be amiss at this point to suggest that sermons should have divisions of some sort. There is a cult of sermonic tricksters in our time whose aim seems to be to hide from the hearer the points at which an advance in thought is made. The reaction against the old 'firstly,' 'secondly,' and 'thirdly'—or even 'in the twenty- seventh place' of the ancient Puritans!—has led to a sort of streamlining of transition and an automatic shifting of the homiletical gears which makes it impossible for the hearer to know at any particular time in just what gear the preacher is driving.325

One interesting quirk in Miller's approach is that contrary to most theorists who encourage textual study in Greek and Hebrew, Miller maintains that study should first of all be in

"the medium of [the preacher's] tongue. This is based on the principle that the natural avenue of both impression and expression is the language to which one is born."326 It is a shame that Miller does not probe the full implications of his suggestion. For example, does he mean to affirm that to truly embody a living voice of the Gospel, the Word of God must be free to speak in all languages and to all cultures? Does this in anyway compromise the particularity of the original recorders who were bound to give expression to their witness to God's revelation in their own ancient idioms? Miller teases us toward such hermeneutical questions but does not answer them.

Word of God as an Event

Two Lutheran homileticians, H. Grady Davis (1890-1975), professor of homiletics at the

Lutheran Seminary in Chicago and Edmund A. Steimle (1907-1988) who taught preaching at

Union Seminary in New York joined the chorus of those who, by the 1960s were speaking of the

Word of God as an event. Steimle never published a fully developed homiletical theory or text; nevertheless, he was "in the middle of, and to some degree was the cause of, a major shift in

American preaching."327 He taught many of the key homileticians in this period, including

325 Ibid., 94. 326 Ibid., 37. 327 Thomas G. Long, "Edmund Steimle and the Shape of Contemporary Homiletics," Princeton Seminary Bulletin 168

Thomas Long, Charles Rice, Morris Niedenthal, and Dick Thulin. Steimle was among the first to appreciate that if preaching is the Word of God it should be understood as an event of revelation in its own right, and it must operate as a literary and communicational whole. Steimle's sermons invite participation: "The language of Steimle's sermons does not breathe 'now get this message and get it straight,' but rather 'this is true for us, isn't it so?'"328 Long credits Steimle with leading a revolution having to do with "the event" of preaching that is rooted in the conviction that because preaching is a direct form of the Word of God it does something, it performs the

Gospel, it brings the truth of God's Word to bear in a living way. Steimle affirms the authority of

Scripture, not because the Church declares the texts to be authoritative, but because the Church has always found them to be. "God has chosen to reveal himself not in a Book, but in a Person.

And he continues to reveal himself not in a Book, primarily, but in persons"329 (and, I would add, in that same Person).

While many homileticians had been speaking of the eventful nature of God's Word, perhaps nothing brought it home to the theological community with such impact as the publication of James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr., eds., New Frontiers in Theology, Vol.

II, The New Hermeneutic and the rise of the New Hermeneutic. In this volume Robinson and

Cobb lift up and develop the ideas of Barth and others. They explored how Jesus' living word is an event today; through the preaching of the Church, Jesus Christ is present.330

This idea of event is also central to Paul Scherer's understanding of the Word. He was the professor of preaching at Union Seminary in New York, and stated the matter as follows in 1965:

(11:3, 1990): 253-269, p. 255. 328 Ibid., 258. 329 Edmund A. Steimle, "Preaching as the Word Made Relevant," Lutheran Quarterly 6 (February 1954):11-22, 18. 330 James M. Robinson, "Hermeneutic Since Barth," in James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb, Jr., eds., New Frontiers in Theology, Vol. II, The New Hermeneutic (New York, Evanston, London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964), 49 ff. 169

[God's voice] is forever associated with the act by which God confronts us, in Bible or in church, in worship or history or person. He is not intent on sharing conceptual truth. That must come later. It is not some saving measure of information he wants to impart; it is himself he wants to bestow: that not having seen him we may meet him and know him and trust him and live our lives in him, freely and for love's sake.331

David James Randolph in 1969, brought more of the fruits of the New Hermeneutic to the pulpit: "The key to this approach is that its emphasis falls on what the sermon does, rather than what it is," it offers Christ. His principles for the renewal of preaching proved prophetic of what would happen in the next decades:

1. The sermon ... proceeds from the Bible as God's Word to us and connects with the situation of the hearers; it does not arise from religion in general and address the universe. 2. The sermon moves fundamentally to confirmation from affirmation, rather than to evidence from axiom. 3. The sermon seeks concretion by bringing the meaning of the text to expression in the situation of the hearers, rather than abstraction by merely exhibiting the text against its own background. 4. The sermon seeks forms of construction and communication which are consistent with the message it intends to convey, not necessarily those which are most traditional, most readily available, or most 'successful.'333

All of his terms speak of a relational quality to the preaching event, something happens in and through it by way of encounter. The Word is transformative.

We know that through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there were radical shifts and advances in biblical studies in both lower and higher criticism. It is curious that while many homiletical texts make reference to the necessity of doing exegesis, none seem to have grappled with the issues of biblical scholarship (except to join Charles Brown in pleading for preachers to resist lading their sermons with all their knowledge). We might also suspect that this statement

1 Paul Scherer, The Word God Sent (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1965), 24. 2 David James Randolph, The Renewal of Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 19. 3 Ibid. 170 by the Presbyterian preacher Donald Grey Barnhouse in 1959 reflects the sentiments of many ordinary preachers:

I glory in all that scholarship has accomplished in the lower criticism, establishing an ever more accurate text of the original languages. I give practically no consideration to anything that has been done in the field of higher criticism, although I have spent hundreds of weary hours plowing through the work of the critics, trying to find out what they are driving at, and finally rejecting their conclusions because they proceed on the false premise that the Bible originated with man and that it is the record of man's thoughts about God.334

Hermeneutical Gap

H. Grady Davis articulates what he understands as the hermeneutical problem. "We who preach and those who hear us are far removed from Bible times and from the Bible's world of thought. The texts and incidents of the Gospels frequently have to be explained by means of historical and textual studies before their real meaning can be understood."335 Encouragement for preachers to trust their ability to bridge this gap issues from two links: first, that we are "not unlike the people of the ancient world ... [but] in all the heart's realities we are the same."

Second, "we stand before God exactly as all people of all ages have stood. ... The contemporary suburbanite no less than King Saul ... has his being in the will ... of his Creator, is in peril by estrangement from that will, is dependent upon the mercy and grace of God."336 With this encouragement, preachers can enter Scripture, understand it, and communicate its ideas to sermon audiences.

Dwight E. Stevenson, Professor at Lexington Theological Seminary, in his In The

Biblical Preacher's Workshop, undertakes to "help bridge the gap between the exegetical and homiletical treatment of the Bible, i.e., to get scholarship and preaching back together following

334 Donald Grey Barnhouse, "On Expository Preaching" in Clarence S. Roddy, ed. We Prepare and Preach: The Practice of Sermon Construction and Delivery (Chicago: Moody Press, 1959), p. 30. 335 Davis, Design for Preaching (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1958), 204. 171

•5-IT a long estrangement." In clear reply to Rudolf Bultmann's famous question, one of

Stevenson's subheadings reads "Some Presuppositions in Biblical Interpretation."338 His presuppositions are worth listing here as a concise testimony to the sense at least one mainline preacher has made of the biblical-hermeneutical-theological milieu. They are: 1) that the Bible is a record of past meetings between God and men ... climaxed in the life history of Jesus ...; 2) that these events are central to all history for all peoples; 3) although the canon is closed, the story is not finished. It is a continuing story embracing the Church; 4) we live by the power of the Holy Spirit who uses Scripture catalytically, using the living history ... to stimulate a living response to God in the present...; 5) biblical interpretation enables the Bible to perform this catalytic function ...; 6) the words of the Bible are words of men ... which bear witness to God; 7) not all elements of the Bible are equally catalytic, nor do all give equal witness to the mind of Christ by which all elements must be judged; 8) Even the truth of the Bible has to be received by the hearer or reader in order to become his truth. This means that there will be variety, even conflict, in the conceptualizations of the Word as received by the same person at different times and by different persons at the same time. The Word is saved from utter subjectivism, however, by the objectivity of God's Mighty Acts, which are events in history, and also by the nature of man, who is made in God's image and who therefore has an objective requirement in his inner life; 9) the Bible calls individuals into community; 10) the Bible appeals primarily to faith, not to fact or reason; 11) when a passage becomes a channel for the Word of God it acts on the reader; 12) there are legitimate ways to read the Bible as mere literature; 13) different genres must be interpreted differently; 14) to speak to any hearer or reader the Bible must be translated into his tongue and thought forms. Until this is done it is Hebrew and Greek to him, in a double sense. This is an ongoing task that must be done for each new age; 15) as literature, the Bible is a mirror of the human condition; 16) when channeling the Word of God, the Bible wounds before it heals; 17) the Bible is not the sole channel of God's redemptive work; 18) the Word of God is not general revelation, but is a personal Word coming fresh to each in a face-to-face encounter.339

336 Ibid., 206-7. 337 Dwight E. Stevenson, In The Biblical Preacher's Workshop (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967), 7. 338 Bultmann's famous essay is entitled "Is Exegesis Without Presuppositions Possible?" in Existence and Fatih: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann (New York: Meridian, 1960), 289-96. 339 Stevenson, Workshop, 47-57. 172

From the perspective of our survey, the freshest insights are numbers eight, eleven, twelve, and fifteen which suggest a more literary engagement with the Bible allowing for plurivocality and a healthy respect for the ways in which hearers' contexts influence meaning.

This is a natural corollary to what Stevenson calls the "catalytic" nature of interpretation and is in contrast to any vestige of "scientific" interpretation that would maintain that texts have only one, static meaning. Stevenson's notion of how insight and new meaning occur resonates with such later homileticians as Paul Scott Wilson, "insight occurs when two dissociated planes of life or thought intersect—become bisociated."

J. Daniel Baumann's An Introduction to Contemporary Preaching 41 instructs us to conceive of preaching in terms of the four elements of communication: source (the preacher); message (the biblical revelation); channel (oral discourse); and receiver (congregation).

Baumann uses this schematic to remind preachers that the chasm between text and world is not the only one that needs to be bridged by homiletical skill; there is also the gap between what the preacher means to say and what the audience actually hears. 42

Baumann openly draws on Barth in naming the importance of words from God: "All week long our people hear the words of man.... Is it unwarranted to expect that when they come to church on Sunday they will hear a unique word, a word from God?" 4 Baumann also iterates a biblical theology refrain (specifically citing the twentieth-century John Knox) that it is possible to preach a textual sermon that is unbiblical and a biblical sermon that is non-textual.344

Baumann's exegetical process follows a fairly standard order: exegesis, exposition ("the task of

340 Ibid., 83. Cf. also Paul Scott Wilson, Imagination of the Heart: New Understandings in Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), 32ff. 341 J. Daniel Baumann, An Introduction to Contemporary Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1972). Baumann, Introduction, 22. 343 Ibid., 93. 344 Ibid., 94. 173 discovering what in the text stands for all time"), and application.345 He also provides a taxonomy of textual sermons that although cute in its use of transportation metaphors, still expands our growing list. In addition to topical (no text) and launching pad (by which he means textual in the usual classification), Baumann adds the garage (inductive method where the text is used at the end to give meaning and context to what comes before); railroad tracks (the classic expository, verse-by-verse sermon); and trolley wire ("transpires when there is an obvious relatedness to the source of power—the text—while at the same time allowing for movement and flexibility in terms of the changing human situation.").346

The Gospel Is a Focus

Lutheran homiletics inherited from Paul and Luther the homiletical significance of the

Word of God as both law and gospel, both judgment and grace. As we have already noted,

Lutheran homileticians were key thinkers during the early period of Eventful homiletics and gospel became a more widespread lens through which to read Scripture and later, to shape sermons. Steimle's formative principle was that the Gospel itself can be "imaginatively grasped as the totality of the biblical message"; that this Gospel has certain communicational traits; and that sermons "ought to display these traits and be patterned after this larger shape of the gospel itself."347 Specifically, the core of the Bible story is the story "of good and evil and God's grace active to bring the former from the latter." He encourages preachers to test their ideas to be sure that they are not merely "attractive but purely human bits of religious thinking" but are truly

"consonant with the gospel"348 Biblical preaching must, week after week, bring this story to life

345 Ibid., 96-100. 346 Ibid., 104-105. 347 Long, "Edmund Steimle," 256. 348 Steimle, "The Story of Good and Evil," in Steimle, et. al., Preaching the Story (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 174 until we grow to understand that the story is not simply about "what God did back there somewhere ... for the battle ... goes on ... and God's strategy for dealing with evil has not changed." Biblical preaching will always make God real in order to "evoke faith and trust in

God's faithfulness and thus make possible obedience and salvation from the anxieties which cripple us."349 We can see here an important articulation of the necessity of a theological shape to sermons.

Another Lutheran homiletician, Richard R. Caemmerer, Professor of Homiletics at

Concordia Seminary in St. Louis begins his work, Preaching for the Church with this strong affirmation, "Preaching does more than tell of this gift of life. It gives it. ... through preaching

God gives Himself to the world."350 What is critical for Caemmerer is that the Good News becomes Good News again and again. "It is this fundamental emphasis of Caemmerer's on what he calls the 'for-you-ness' of the Christian message which puts him in the company of the prophets of Israel and the preachers of the primitive church."351 Specifically, if preaching is to speak the Word of God, then it must hold three things before the hearer: "a plan that God has for him, God's judgment on his progress or failure in meeting the plan, and God's grace in Christ by which he is enabled to fulfill the plan."352 And the sermon is not to merely announce these things but to accomplish them using all the means of persuasion at the preacher's disposal.353

1980), 129. 349 Ibid., 134. 350 Richard R. Caemmerer, Preaching for the Church, Revised Edition (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1964), 1. 351 John H. Elliot, "The Preacher and the Proclamation" in Robert W. Bertram, ed., The Lively Function of the Gospel: Essays in Honor of Richard R. Caemmerer (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1966), 101. " Caemmerer, Preaching for the Church, 15. 353 Ibid., 19 and 35. 175

Black Hermeneutics

Many hermeneutical approaches emerged in recent decades, primarily out of new theological perspectives rooted in the experience of minorities or those excluded from having a political voice in one way or another. In 1970, Henry H. Mitchell, a self-declared outsider, entered the homiletical conversation. His Black Preaching was written in an effort to share with the wider Christian community the nature and experience of the preaching in the Black church traditions.354 Appropriate to our concerns, a significant portion of Mitchell's work—here and in his 1990 revision of the work—deals with Black hermeneutics. Mitchell begins by noting that the so-called "new hermeneutic" theorized by such scholars as Gerhard Ebeling is nothing new for Black congregations. "If the chief task of hermeneutics is to convey the revelation in its contemporary context, then Black hermeneutics far outstrip [the German] school, which most

Blacks never heard of anyway."355 Preachers in Mitchell's tradition have always been free to translate the events, characters, and theology of the Bible into "the forms of the Black world."356

Further, Black preachers read the Scripture and tell the story wearing the presuppositions of contemporary Black experience without reservation.357 According to Mitchell, reading the Bible for preaching according to the "new hermeneutic" involves the same two principles used by

Black preachers. First, the gospel revelation must be declared "in the language and culture of the people—the vernacular," and second, the "gospel must speak to contemporary man and his

Henry H. Mitchell, Black Preaching (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1970), hereafter cited as Black Preaching (1970). 355 Mitchell, Black Preaching (1970), 25. 356 Ibid., 26. 357 Ibid., 28. It is kind of Mitchell at this point to resist pointing out that any manner of reading that purports to be "scientific and objective" or looking only for the "author's intent" or seeking to assess "the text's original impact" is not without presuppositions; they are merely the presuppositions of Western European academically trained readers. 176 needs."358 Hermeneutic is "a code word for putting the gospel on a tell-it-like-it-is, nitty-gritty basis."359

Mitchell locates the Black approach to the Bible between the extremes of liberalism

(which in looking behind or around the text tends to take the text too lightly [too much forest, not enough trees]) and literalism (which in looking intently at the text tends to take the text too heavily [too much trees, not enough forest]). The Black approach is characterized by liberation from slavery to literal interpretation (by which he assumes literal sense tied to literal/historical reference), freedom to enter the text and then move freely within it, and to value the religious truths found.361 Critical scholarship is of great use to black preaching, but not as a way of determining the meaning of the text. The Black preacher uses scholarship "to add living details that would not otherwise be evident.... These fresh insights combined with the Black imagination often enhance the gripping realism of the message."362 This last insight makes sense in the context of Mitchell's observation that Black use of the Bible in preaching tends to focus on the personalities (and inter-personal relationships) of biblical characters, and the significance of biblical events for the people of God.363 Such attention to biblical characters and stories is not new; John Broadus's treatment of imagination includes its importance for enhancing the description of biblical persons and events.364

In one respect, Mitchell's account of Black homiletical hermeneutics is not that different from the Gospel event-centered stress of Edmund Steimle. Both Mitchell and Steimle encourage

358 Henry H. Mitchell, Black Preaching: The Recovery of a Powerful Art (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), hereafter cited as Black Preaching (1990). 359 Mitchell, Black Preaching (1970), 30. Note the echo of Steimle's insistence that the language of preaching be "secular"! 360 Mitchell, Black Preaching (1990), 60. 361 Mitchell, Black Preaching (1970), 113-4. 362 Ibid., 117. 363 Ibid., 127ff. 364 Broadus, Treatise, 399-400. 177 preachers to move imaginatively in and out of the text, and both read texts in light of over­

arching narratives. We can express the difference between them this way: Where Steimle reads

all texts as part of a universal narrative of God bringing good from evil, Mitchell (representing as

he does a disenfranchised North American minority) reads texts more personally; as God

bringing hope and liberation to God's people.

From Text to Sermon

George E. Sweazey's Preaching the Good News365 asserts that because preaching takes

place in a cultural milieu saturated with media who are savvy users of rhetoric, preaching also

must be persuasive; not superior, censorious, [or] dogmatic but with an appreciation for the fact

that every human contact is manipulative and "preachers from all sorts of pulpits work on us all

the time—politicians, columnists, commentators, ... bosses, [and] luncheon club oracles."366

From his reading of process theology and phenomenology Sweazey emphasizes how important it

is for preachers to recognize the event-character of preaching. "The sermon is not what is

transferred from the mind of the preacher to the minds of the hearers, it is something that is

going on between them"367 and which goes on between them over time. He expands Brooks'

definition of preaching to read that "preaching is 'truth through personality, in the midst of personalities.' People together are a different sort of creature from people alone ... something

electric is exchanged among clustered hearers which alters the way they operate."

More to the point of our investigation is the use Sweazey makes of communication

theory. He names five links in the chain, each of which the preacher must unlock using questions

365 George E. Sweazey, Preaching the Good News (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976). 366 Sweazey, Good News, 7-8. Ibid., 15. In this regard it is significant that Sweazey dedicates an entire chapter to "The Hearer," pp. 210ff. 368 Ibid., 6 (emphasis in original). 178 in different keys. The Word begins with God's direct communication to the Seer (by which is meant the original human recipient of the revelation) 6 ; at this link, the questions are theological revolving around God's way of entering human history. The Seer then communicates his or her experience to a Contemporary (by which Sweazey means the actual author or redactor of the text of the canon). This communication may use the same code through which the message came

(e.g. a sermon of Ezekiel would be entered verbatim into the biblical record), or may be reencoded in language or genre more appropriate for comprehension and communication (e.g. a symbolic action of the prophet is reencoded into a story about that action). In analyzing this link, the modern preacher's questions become hermeneutical.

These Contemporaries then enter what they have received into textual form (again, a process that may or not involve reencoding). As the preacher reads the text, the Contemporary communicates with the Preacher, a complex process that the preacher comes to understand by asking exegetical questions. Then by asking homiletical questions, the Preacher discerns how best to communicate his or her understanding of the text to the Hearer who in turn asks educational and evangelistic questions in order to communicate the Word to his or her

Neighbor?10

Sweazey's model is helpful in that it gives serious consideration not only to the complex and rich chain of events that lie behind the canon, but also to those which must follow the preaching of the sermon. The weakness of the model for preaching is the limiting of the type of questions one might ask at each step of the process; especially theological and homiletical questions. For example, might it not be important to ask at the reading stage the theological

369 Note that Sweazey makes a distinction between the revelation that occurs in a historical moment behind the text (e.g. God's conversation with Moses or Abraham) and the text's witness to that event. Others might prefer to start the revelatory ball rolling with the latter rather than the former. In such cases, Sweazey's model can be telescoped so that the "Seer" and the "Contemporary" are really the same person. 179 question, how is the Holy Spirit active in inspiring the Preacher's reading of the text?

Particularly lamentable is that Sweazey locates the homiletical questions only at the end—after theological, hermeneutical, and exegetical questions have been asked. This demonstrates that for all his willingness to entertain richer models of reading, Sweazey still conceives of preaching under the rubric of the "bridge metaphor."

Paul Scott Wilson has characterized the traditional approach to three homiletics terms,

exegesis, hermeneutics, and homiletics in the following way:

These three terms and the actions they represent traditionally were understood to be like three consecutive buses a preacher took between the Bible and the sermon in what we might imagine to be Sermon City. Early in the week preachers used to board the Exegesis bus and travel up Bible Boulevard through the historical district of town where they would engage historical critical exegesis. They would then transfer to the Hermeneutics bus for the trip up the newer end of town to Today Street, during which they came to understand the significance of the text for today. At this point, biblical interpretation was effectively finished and the direction for the sermon was clear. Preachers got off the Hermeneutics bus and transferred to the Homiletics bus for the rest of the journey up to the church, during which they applied their understandings to the particularities of the congregation's life and work.371

Wilson suggests an alternative model that gets away from homiletical questions only at the end

of the process:

A suitable model today is not a preacher taking three successive buses—exegesis, hermeneutics, homiletics—nor the image of a biblical scholar handing a baton to a preacher at the end of the interpretative phase of a relay race. Rather, we might conceive of a single bus filled with folks who are huddled in conversation in three groupings. The first group is having a conversation about exegesis. Another group including Bible commentators, theologians and preachers is talking about hermeneutics. A third group is talking about homiletics, including people from the congregation, and from the preacher's own circle of family and acquaintances. These conversations happen simultaneously on the one bus. The circles of conversation are not clearly divided and sometimes people in one group turn to join another. The preacher fluidly moves back and forth from conversation to conversation as

"Ibid., 49-51. 1 Paul Scott Wilson, Preaching and Homiletical Theory (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2004), 33. the bus makes its way along Bible Boulevard and Today Street up to the church. The weekly route may be the same but each journey is different, for different people are on board according to the specific text and contemporary events. In this model, homiletics shifts from being third-in-a-sequence to one element of a threefold parallel activity of exegesis, hermeneutics and homiletics.372

What emerges is more of a fluid picture of how the preacher actually comes to an understanding of what to preach.

The Bridge Metaphor and Beyond

We turn, finally to examine the bridge metaphor in homiletics. Something of a bridge is presented in most books on homiletics. The issue is: how does one span the hermeneutical gap between then and now? Plainly the Church reads the Bible in the assumption that it is not just about those people then; it is also about us now. For Sweazey in 1976, preaching involves the negotiation of a set of theological and hermeneutical processes by which (and here the centrality of the bridge metaphor is confirmed) the preacher makes "the language of faith and the Biblical witness intelligible to thoughtful modern minds."373 However, in his development of the purpose of preaching, Sweazey does expand beyond the use of the one-lane bridge model of simple exposition/application. He names nine purposes for preaching. The first is to bring the Bible's offerings to the people. In Sweazey's estimation, a sermon is biblical when it presents a major

Bible theme and attitude; is related to the Bible's central message of salvation through Jesus

Christ; explicitly refers to what the Bible says (and here he dismisses any idea that "saying what the Bible says, only in different words" counts as a biblical sermon); and "is an ellipse around the two foci of the Bible and a present need." 74 For all his attempts to draw insights from

Ibid., 36. Sweazey, Good News, 13. Ibid., 161. 181 developing disciplines, Sweazey's biblical homiletic still relies on the traditional bridge metaphor of exegesis and application. His work is important though in foreshadowing the homiletical adaptation of important hermeneutical and literary approaches in which the distance between text and world begins to collapse. "The Bible is not a book to be read so much as a territory to be lived in so that we come to feel at home."375

In 1977, Milton Crum, teacher of preaching at the Protestant Episcopal Theological

"inf.

Seminary in Virginia, published his Manual on Preaching. Like others whom we have examined, Crum draws insights for his homiletical method from cognate "secular" disciplines— in Cram's case, general semantics and communication. What makes Cram's work interesting for us is his sustained attention to the hermeneutical issues in preaching, especially the need to push beyond the "bridge" metaphor toward metaphors that express dynamic points of contact between worlds. He wants a text-to-sermon connection that accounts for three elements of text and sermon: the verbal content, the structure, and the underlying dynamic factors. For Cram, the verbal content of the sermon must "be grounded in Scripture, which will provide the words and images which help both preacher and listener 'see' what is being said."377 That is, there must be an ostensive connection between the language of the sermon and that of the biblical text that inspires the sermon.378 The use of biblical words and images alone, of course, does not guarantee a sermon's faithfulness to the text. In Cram's scheme, the words and images are important navigational markers; they help insure the soundness of and then reinforce the analogical connections between the two "territories" of text and word.

3/3 Ibid., 162. 376 Milton Crum, Manual on Preaching: A New Process of Sermon Development (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1977). 377Crum, Manual, 18. 378 Crum also dedicates an entire chapter to the Liturgical Context of Preaching in which he affirms the need for preachers to account for the language, images, and movement of worship as well (Crum, pp. 127 ff). 182

In order to achieve a coherent bridge between text and world, Crum instructs us to

approach texts with the expectation that through them we will be given some fresh understanding

of ourselves and some fresh understanding of the gospel of God in relation to ourselves. To

accomplish this, we think of biblical passages as nearly transparent, "overlay maps." As our

vision shifts from focus on the map (favoring the biblical territory) to focus through the map

(favoring the territory of our world) we see both territories in fresh ways:

We move from the "life territory of those who first heard it" to the now concrete situation of our lives as perceived through the lesson map, looking for places and relationships in the territory of our lives which are analogous to those in the then situation. The structure and movement of the lessons, and the experience of them in the Bible study, designate the structure and movement of the sermon; and the content of the life territory perceived through the biblical map designates the content of the sermon.379

Once the preacher has used the hermeneutical "overlay" to establish the structure and

movement of the text, one task remains: "if the sermon is to move the listener ... the verbal

content must also contain Dynamic Factors which facilitate the movement."380 By dynamic factors Crum refers to five existential theological conditions that fuel the narrative flow of the

sermon. In the main, Crum favors a simple two-part sermon movement: from a situation-

complication to resolution. Establishing this movement involves delving, in turn, into the

situation-complication in or behind the biblical text, into an analogous situation-complication in

the world, then returning to the text for the gospel resolution (again, either in the text or in the

Crum, Manual, 85-86. Cram's use of "overlay of maps" as a metaphor for the hermeneutical process brings to mind the metaphor "fusion of horizons" used by Hans-Georg Gadamer {Truth and Method [New York: Seabury Press, 1975] especially pp. 272ff). But even though Cram, like Gadamer, intends the metaphor to suggest that in the hermeneutical process "then" and "now" are mutually enlightening, Crum does not mention or cite Gadamer. He points instead to the general semantic theories of Alfred Korzybski {Science and Sanity, 3r ed. [Lakeville, Conn: Institute of General Semantics, 1948], pp. 750-751) and S. I. Hayakawa {Language in Thought and Action, 2nd ed. [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964], pp. 30-32.). 380 Cram, Manual, 19. 183 wider narrative sweep of the canon), and finally to an analogous gospel resolution in the world.381

At least two kinds of additional bridging emerged in subsequent homiletics, one first concentrated on the eventfulness of the text and the other the eventful nature on God. The latter is the position of Paul Scott Wilson who is akin to Cram in constructing his bridges. He chooses as a theme sentence of the sermon what he calls the major concern of the text, that answers What is God doing in or behind this text? He then transposes that to our time using analogy to form the major concern of the sermon, What is God doing today? He moves back from these (Cram's gospel resolution) to the trouble that will begin the sermon (Cram's situation, complication).382

Fred Craddock's name is synonymous with inductive and narrative preaching. He helped preachers to engage listeners in ways that are not limited to ideas and logic. A deductive sermon might start with a premise and prove it, where an inductive sermon might test possibilities and narrow to a conclusion. The bridge for Craddock is made by asking at the end of the exegetical process, "What is the text saying? In one sentence, and as simply as possible, state the message

181 Embedded in this two-part movement (akin to law and gospel), are five dynamics which, when developed effectively, inspire living responses from hearers. The first dynamic factor is "symptomatic behavior" which, when presented in a concrete way, will inspire people to respond, "That's me; I behave that way." Second is root (meaning root cause), which inspires people to respond, "That's me and now I know why I behave that way." Then follows a concrete portrayal of resulting consequences which inspires, "That's me; that's what happens when I behave that way." At this juncture, aware of the temptation to respond to human sin with the human-centered response of either moralism or idealism, Cram names the fourth factor gospel content. Here, God's power to change our "roots" is invoked, giving rise to, "Thank God for the gospel which gives me a new way of believing and perceiving." Finally, the sermon develops new results, visions of the fruits of new symptomatic behavior issuing from new roots where listeners can respond, "Thank God, who by his word both wills and works in us for his good pleasure." (pp. 20-21.) As the preacher looks through the overlay map of the biblical territory in order to gain a new understanding of the territory of his or her contemporary world, he or she does so looking specifically for those five dynamic factors (in both text and world) that will inform and enhance the narrative structure of the sermon. In truth, Cram's method is even more complex than this summary makes it sound; what makes it important is that it represents an important development in homiletics—a self-consciously homiletical reading of Scripture. That is, Cram allows the demands of gospel proclamation to have a shaping influence on the critically-sophisticated reading of the Bible for preaching. Further, Cram draws from the narrative sweep of the canon a theological movement— from fallenness to redemption—that becomes a template for a theological sermon form. This form, then, further presses the fruit of Bible study toward the theological purposes in the sermon. 382 Paul Scott Wilson, The Practice of Preaching, Rev. Ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 57-82. 184 of the text."383 Tom Long calls this a "focus statement."384 Craddock additionally has preachers ask, "What is the text doing?" Tom Long calls this the "function statement".385 In taking this step

Craddock and Long engage the rhetorical intent of the text.386For them this is a way of ensuring that the bridge is not static, that it helps preserve something of the dynamic eventfulness of the text as the meaning crosses over from then to now.

The Form of the Text and the Form of the Sermon

The text, in being an event of God's Word, has a dynamic that needs to be carried over to the sermon. The eventful nature of the biblical text needed to be reflected in the eventful nature of the sermon. H. Grady Davis spoke to the formal implications of event in his book Design for

Preaching. If the true relation between form and substance is that they cannot be divided, then the person "who is called to preach must be concerned about the form" of the sermon.387 The form of the sermon conspires with the thoughts and ideas of the sermon to accomplish the sermon's purpose. "If the form of what we say has an immediate and almost automatic power to repel or attract, and to do its work on levels of response that lie below the arguments and counterarguments, then the very nature of the gospel, as well as the nature and condition of mankind, requires us to be concerned with form."388

In order to maintain congruity between content and form, Davis counsels preachers to secure an idea from Scripture. The idea grows from an understanding of the text that is

383 Fred B. Craddock, Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), 122. 384 Thomas G. Long, The Witness of Preaching (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster Press/John Knox Press, 1989), 86. 385 Ibid., 86. The origin of Craddock's two questions may be traced to his As One Without Authority (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1979 [1971]), 137, where he has preachers ask of texts, "Who is saying what to whom and for what reasons?" 387 Davis, Design, 5. 388 Ibid., 8. 185 accomplished not by dividing the text (or extracting subjects from it) but by entering into a process of discovery where we question the text and let it reveal what it is talking about.389 The idea, when found must "be narrow enough to be sharp; have a force that expands; be true; loaded with the realities of the human heart; and it must be one of the many facets of the gospel of

Christ."390 Once the idea is secured it must then be allowed to grow, to develop, to spin out naturally from the force of its inner life; indeed, like a tree.

Edmund Steimle confirms that attention to form, in distinction to a sermon's particular subject matter, is itself a theological issue." In direct conflict to the assumptions of rhetoric- based preaching (of either the cognitive or expressive stripe) preaching, for Steimle, does not involve extracting topics or propositions from the Bible and then applying them to modern life in general. Rather, preaching involves preachers bringing texts into catalytic encounter with very specific congregations."393 In preaching, God "is actually present now making his claim and offering his grace."394 Further, for Steimle, preaching is a contemporary event of salvation.

Preaching must be biblical, not as the witness to a witness, which is what happens in an arid biblicism, but rather as the witness to an event today to which the Bible bears witness; a witness today which is forever corrected and tested by the biblical witness, but which is also a witness to an event that is happening now at this moment. The divine event is prolonged in the preaching of the Bible and in the preaching of today.395

For Steimle, the biblical character of preaching must influence preaching in terms of its language, grammar, and imagery. "The fabric or texture of the sermon, as well as its content, will

389 Ibid., 52. 390 Ibid., 43-4. In this last requirement is evidence that Davis stands in that stream of thought that places texts in service to the Gospel. 391 Ibid., 5. 392 Long, "Edmund Steimle," 255. 393 Ibid., 256. 394 Edmund A. Steimle, "The Fabric of the Sermon," in Preaching the Story, 163. Note the echoes of J. M. Reu. 395 Edmund A. Steimle, "Preaching as the Word Made Relevant," 19. 186 be determined by its biblical roots."396 Steimle specifies four characteristics of such biblical influence. First, although to twentieth-century ears the biblical witness sounds holy, it is completely and thoroughly secular. Second, it must be dialogical, by which he means the sermon must, as the Bible did, address "the questions actually being asked by the people listening."

Third, the rhetoric of biblical preaching will be in the form of a story told. And finally, biblical preaching will use language that is as "lean and spare as the fabric of the Bible ... no wordiness, no superfluity of adjective, but lean and spare."397

It is precisely the second factor, the attention to the form of preaching, that is key. What

Steimle has implied is that a sermon composed according to the conventions of classical rhetoric, no matter how artfully done, is at a formal disadvantage when it comes to creating a Gospel event. To overdraw the caricature, sermons that derive a topic from the text, then divide the topic into subtopics (whether in line with the text's movement or not) communicate through this form that the Christian faith consists of static propositions which should be asserted, argued for (or against), and then proved. Certainly, this is one aspect of the faith. But following Steimle's agenda will mean adopting forms that communicate that the Gospel is also a living, moving, dialogical, surprising force in life.

Steimle's student Thomas Long took his thought to the next stage. He said that a biblical text's literary form "should exert influence in the production of a sermon".398 He looked at the rhetorical effect of texts and sought to replicate something of that effect in the sermon. "The preacher should attempt to say and do what a portion of the text now says and does for a new and

iJb Steimle, "The Fabric of the Sermon," 164. 397 Ibid., 166-173. 398 Thomas G. Long, Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Fortress Press, 1989), 13. 187 unique set of people."399 He proceeded to identify several literary forms of the Bible and how one might preach them. Mike Graves did the same thing with additional New Testament forms.400 The strategy of recreating the text's original impact for a new audience is compelling on the one hand but it raises the difficulty of devaluing the contemporary hearing. For example, many suppose that the original audience for the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

(Luke 18:1-8) were to be surprised that the Tax Collector, a self-described sinner, went away justified while the righteous Pharisee did not. Even assuming that a contemporary audience can roughly identify the relative religious character of the two figures, they are not likely to be surprised by the parable at all. Preaching from the literal sense of the encounter between text and audience means preaching into the "not surprised at all" reality of the congregation.

The Movement of the Larger Biblical Story and Sermon Form

Another option preachers had available to them was to imitate not the literary form of the peri cope, per se, but rather the shape of the overall gospel message. This purposeful theological movement is important because it must, for Caemmerer, control exegesis of Scripture. There is nothing particularly innovative in the tools and methods he proposes for exegesis. What is striking is his insistence that the text must provide "at least one of the three primary components" noted above; and where the text does not supply them all the others "can be developed by inference from other statements of Scripture. The preacher wants to preach Christ; if the text does not speak of the redemption, this is no warrant for the preacher to omit it. Hence the preacher must seek to understand his text and to prepare a message that takes its cue from the

Long, Literary Forms, p. 33. Mike Graves, The Sermon as Symphony: Preaching the Literary Forms of the New Testament (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Judson Press, 1997). text on the basis of his total understanding of Scripture, his 'theology.'"401 This act of pressing every text into an overarching narrative of God's action is clearly reminiscent of Steimle.

Milton Cram's assertion that the oral form of the sermon—and for him this is conceived rather narrowly as a theologically informed story form—dictates how the various elements and movement of the biblical text inform the composition of the sermon. "A sermon which moves from an area of life standing in need of the gospel to that area of life as transformed by the gospel has the basic characteristics of a story."402 Cram summarizes his method by affirming that it is a) focused on the Bible with sufficient seriousness that the preacher engages biblical structures of thought; b) focused on corollary structures in the preacher's own world; and c) dedicated to ordering the preacher's thinking so that the insights of reading can be formed into a

"story" that can be told with clarity and feeling.403

Deeper than the connection of language and image are the analogies forged in the sermon to the underlying structures of the biblical texts.404 Cram's use of structures seems to imply two things about individual texts. On the one hand he is referring to the discrete elements of the text

(characters, settings, ideals, etc.) and the apparent relationship between them. On the other hand,

Cram refers to the shifts and changes in those relationships not only as the passage develops, but also as those shifts and changes reflect the larger movement of the canon. In this, Cram affirms that "all stories build movement into their structures," but not just any movement will do. Cram insists all sermons move in a way parallel to that of the larger biblical story: from "fallen

401 Caemmerer, Preaching for the Church, 69. 402 Crum, Manual 18. 403 Ibid., 16. 404 Crum's use of the word structure does not mean that he is drawing on the literary theory of Structuralism. 189 humanity to redeemed humanity, from sin to faith, from darkness to light... from alienation to

sanctification."405

Richard Lischer, another Lutheran, described the movement:

Death and resurrection—this fugal theme is at the center of Christian worship. The drama of the church year unfolds it; the Sunday service, which originated as a little Easter, reenacts it, and the Holy Communion represents it. Baptism as burial and rising in Christ, sacramentally recapitulates it, and the Holy Communion represents it. The first and only feast of the church was the Pasch, the two-day vigil that commemorated the death and resurrection of Jesus in a single, fused experience, beginning with baptisms on Holy Saturday and culminating in the Eucharist at Easter dawn. . . . [T]he church . . . orchestrate[s] its preaching, spiritual discipline, and liturgical and sacramental life according to the rhythm of death and resurrection.406

Paul Scott Wilson has advocated a single movement mirroring the single movement of

faith from crucifixion to resurrection, from trouble to grace. He has traced the historical

development of this movement in detail and finds affinity in it not only with Lutheran homiletics

in general, but also with African American homiletics that moves to celebration at the end of the

sermon. He has also surveyed the theological alternatives in diverse publications and has

concluded that what he calls the "trouble/grace" school is one of the least acknowledged and yet

largest schools in homiletics today.4 7

Final Remarks

O.C. Edwards remarks that homiletics in the last decades of the twentieth century is an

"impenetrable forest."408 Any effort to satisfactorily define where homiletics is going must

grapple with the fact that homileticians continue to recognize the importance of acknowledging

Crum, Manual, 19. Richard Lischer, Theology of Preaching, 26. Wilson, Preaching and Homiletical Theory, pp. 73-115. Edwards, "History," CEP, p. 220. 190 many (if not all) of the places we have already been. Stephen Bonnycastle in his introduction to literary theory expresses this condition nicely while reminding us that our present culture is not

"exclusively" anything.

It is made up of many different strands of thought, some of which can be traced to identifiable historical periods. Our democratic institutions find their beginnings in the Greece of twenty-five hundred years ago; our valuing of romantic love comes from the Middle Ages; the prestige of science has its origins in the Enlightenment; and our fascination with the workings of the unconscious mind become widespread in the early years of this century. All ... these traditions (as well as many others) are vitally alive today, and enrich our culture immeasurably.409

While new texts in homiletics take seriously the postmodern context, they continue to draw on

(what we hope) are the strongest and most durable aspects of past trends and methods. Let us end with some questions that should perhaps motivate the extension of this survey to the explosion of texts and methods composed in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Should the field of homiletics be

imagined as an impenetrable forest so that our task is to clear away as much underbrush as necessary to begin to see a way clearly again? Or should homiletics be imagined as a

smorgasbord of methods and approaches from which preachers select—whether once-for-all or

week-to-week—an approach that suits them. And, getting to the crux of the matter, what

understandings of truth, revelation, and authority; what theological principles will guide and

inform that choice?

409 Stephen Bonnycastle, In Search of Authority: An Introductory Guide to Literary Theory. 2nd edition (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1997), 231-2. It doesn't matter whether artists intend, or don't intend, for their works to be interpreted ... people do it.... It is always the case that interpretation indicates a dissatisfaction (conscious or unconscious) with the work, a wish to replace it by something else. Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories.

Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation CHAPTER 8

A HOMILETIC OF SURPRISE

We come to the final chapter in this exploration of the literal sense—what I have been referring to as either the literal sense ofthepericope, in order to highlight the importance of the role of the peri cope in Church worship practice, or the pre-referential literal sense, in order to capture the insight that the literal sense of the peri cope may be made to refer in different ways such that presuming a traditional or established reference is no longer possible or desirable. I have also been indicating the importance of moving, in the sermon itself, from the literal sense of the pericope, separated from external reference, to a creative construal of reference and meaning- making through metaphor in the sermon. Key to this meaning-making process is the element of impertinence or surprise that allows for revelation and for the world to be conceived anew.

In a 1928 article in Harper's Magazine, Harry Emerson Fosdick quips that only the preacher "proceeds still upon the idea that folk come to church desperately anxious to discover what happened to the Jebusites."410 Fosdick was chiding preachers—likely preachers in the cognitive stream—who "pick out texts from the Bible and then proceed to give their historical settings.. .logical meaning in the context, [and] their place in the theology of the writer...";

410 Harry Emerson Fosdick, "What Is the Matter with Preaching" in Mike Graves, ed., What's the Matter with Preaching Today? (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 10. Fosdick's article originally appeared in Harper's Magazine (July 1928): 133-141. 192 193 he accuses them of "grossly misusing the Bible."411 Fosdick's lament lives even into our own time as a shorthand critique of preachers who succumb to the temptation to pack sermons with the fruit of their study and research ("preaching the homework").412 Fosdick's lament lives on because the homiletical habit lives on. The moments spent in a sermon clarifying the political or religious dispositions of Pharisees and Herodians; explaining the subtle distinctions between the aorist and imperfect tenses in New Testament Greek; reminding congregations of what the ideal implied reader knows or does not know; or describing the imagined congregational dynamics faced by the human author whom we piously refer to as St. Matthew might all be functional equivalents of homiletical obsession with the Jebusites. From the perspective of this dissertation the precise problem is that the literary and literal voice of the peri cope, and the challenging encounter it offers on its own terms, is eclipsed in favor of an encounter with historical or theoretical explanations and constructions. It is not that such historical, grammatical, or theoretical patterns of reference are to be dismissed; they do help to ensure a standard range of meanings in the rule of faith and safeguard texts from referring to and meaning "anything." But two insights are helpful here. First, as we have heard from Mark Allan Powell, texts are not completely helpless when it comes to establishing limits on their reference and meaning. Second, as Fred Craddock reminds us, even in cases where texts do seem perilously multivalent, the context of preaching—namely, worship with liturgy, creeds, hymns, and the catechized memory of the Church—functions as a conservative guard.

411 Ibid. 412 In terms of the Ricoeurian hermeneutical journey from "first naivete" through "critical analysis" to "second naivete," preaching the homework means allowing elements of the critical analysis to eclipse the pericope as the functioning text of the sermon. 194

In further fairness to those preachers chided by Fosdick, the temptation to evade an

encounter with the literal sense of the text dangles not only before preachers. As noted in chapter

one, even as we treasure the unity of the canon, the Bible presents itself as a diverse collection of writings of various genres representing diverse world-views and whose literal sense does not

always offer easy or obvious reference to the world of contemporary hearers. And because preachers and hearers yearn to better understand their Scriptures, we are enthralled by the

historical background, the literary structures, and the grammatical nuances. And in spite of my

admitted preference for "eventful" preaching, I acknowledge that sermons both in the cognitive

stream—that eclipse the literal in favor of constructing or explaining the historical and

grammatical—and the experiential stream—that lead with human need and experience—are

salutary homiletical events.

And yet, for the reasons developed in the previous chapters, I want to argue for a

homiletic rooted in the synchronic encounter with the pre-referential literal sense of the peri cope.

This attention to the literal sense first affirms the Bible's textiness (especially at the moment of

its reading in worship when it is quintessentially Scripture for the Church) by allowing it to

present its peculiar characters, language, images, and story lines and to encounter the people of

God in its own voice. I am using this understanding of the literal sense as a platform from which

to give the text back its voice assuming with Fosdick, Fodor, Sheppard, and Frei (and others) that

too often the Bible's voice is eclipsed by other voices in the homiletical conversation.

Second, this literal-sense homiletic gives theological weight and honor to the

reading/preaching moment by asserting that the gathering of the fragments—the pericope as

fragment or nuance of Scripture, liturgy as nuance of tradition, and the preacher and individual

hearers as nuances of complex cultural layers—is a sufficient milieu for revelation. We need not 195 look to the encounter with the text enjoyed by the original hearers, gifted exegetes, great preachers, or scholarly commentators in order to determine what God might reveal to us in this hearing (though again, testimony from those encounters is always welcome into the conversation). In light of this, I have affirmed that the sermon text is not the text as encountered in the preacher's study nor as shaped by the Church's interpretive tradition, rather, the sermon text is the encounter of these fragments—the peri cope read in the context of worship into the haphazardly catechized people of God. For in spite of their haphazard catechization, the gathered hearers are the Church, the communion of saints who trust that Jesus is raised from the dead and who confess an expectation that the Bible will speak and reveal. We must trust and value the gathered community's construction of meaning.

Third, the literal sense of the pericope for preaching is pre-referential. I have elected to maintain the term "literal sense" in order (oddly enough) to honor its place in the Church's interpretive tradition but also to force a negotiation with popular understandings of the "literal sense" that elide literal sense with literal-historical reference. I have made the case that a pre- referential literal sense of the pericope is an alternative understanding of the concept of the literal sense that is sufficiently rooted in the Church's broad understanding of the concept. It is opposed in Reformed understanding to spiritual, moralistic, or allegorical readings, and in the present discussion to scholarly determined meanings that may not be the experience of the listeners. The literal sense is the sense made by the fixed entity of the canon against which and in dialogue with which reference, identification, meaning, and finally revelation are negotiated and educed in the sermon.

Fourth, in light of the character of the post-modern age, the haphazard catechization of sermon audiences, and the limits and peculiarities of the sermon as a communication form, I 196 have argued for receiving the pericope synchronically (the "short view"). Because of Scripture's, at times, alien character, resisting the urge to eclipse its voice with those of interpretive strategies that have satisfied in the past is difficult. But such resistance here is simultaneously unapologetic about the sometimes difficult content of Scripture and strangely apologetic in that hearers will experience in the sermon the struggle to negotiate the encounter between the text's world and our own. One benefit is that preaching might become one model for the whole people of God; a demonstration of how each hearer might, himself or herself, enter the world of Scripture with sensitivity to context and appreciation for theological imagination and bring meaning from

Scripture in settings other than worship.

Finally, whatever value the pre-referential literal sense of the pericope might have for biblical study and interpretation in general, this dissertation argues for the pre-referential literal sense of the pericope specifically for preaching. The broader literary and theological contexts from which peri copes are taken are important for the Church's understanding of Scripture. Each additional layer of context—e.g., chapter, book, author's corpus, and also the whole canon— casts the pericope in a slightly different light and the Church properly values each additional layer of reference and meaning. Yet there is a three-tiered question about context that is the specific concern to preachers: first, how much and what sort of context is necessary to demonstrate that a reading is faithful or responsible? Is it the literary context of chapter, book, corpus, or whole canon? Or is it the historical context of author's world or the Church interpretive history? Second, is it necessary to hearken to one or more of those layers of context even when the pericope as it stands seems to make perfect sense or is such hearkening only necessary when the reading is difficult? Third, if it is necessary to hearken back, how much contextual scene setting (of whatever sort) can the sermon bear? These are important questions 197 for homiletical method even as it is also the case that although the pericope is read apart from its literary and historical contexts, it is read as a pericope into an equally appropriate context: the

Church gathered in worship. It is the Church's prerogative to encounter Scripture in this way.

Each of the literary and historical contexts would make a different kind of claim on the ways in which the literal sense would lead toward reference, identification, and meaning. Similarly, the liturgical and cultural settings of worship make their own appropriate claims (we shall see this illustrated below).

By articulating a preference for the pre-referential literal sense of the pericope for preaching I am intending to give the preacher—in conversation with liturgy, culture, and hearers—authority with respect to reference, identification, and meaning. Many times the sermon may assume traditional or typical trajectories, but here I am laying down the wager that meaning drawn apart from usual trajectories of reference might be revelatory. Recalling Luke Timothy

Johnson's insight, the "fixed thing" is not the historical or dogmatic habits of reference, interpretation, or meaning; the "fixed thing" is the text itself which in its literal sense presents a configuration that must be negotiated toward refiguration in preaching through the phenomenological hermeneutic of metaphorical meaning-making.

Exegesis for Preaching

There is not space in this project to articulate a complete exegetical or interpretive method for homiletics based on my understanding of the literal sense of the pericope. But I do want to sketch out some methodological implications and provide two brief examples of how the move from literal sense to reference might work. Between the lines of the historical survey undertaken in chapters six and seven we saw aspects of the exegetical methods of the cognitive, 198 experiential, and eventful streams of North American homiletics. In chapter two of his Preaching and Homiletical Theory Paul Scott Wilson surveys the recent landscape more succinctly.

Traditional Method and its Expansion in the New Homiletics

According to Wilson, by the 1970s, if not before, something of a consensus was achieved in terms of a basic exegetical method for preaching. Wilson cites as an example of this consensus the exegetical steps of Otto Kaiser and Werner G. Kummel's Exegetical Method: A Student's

Handbook.^ Kaiser and Kummel's method is thoroughly historical focused on original languages, textual forms, literary context, pre-canonical history, authorial intent, redaction, and parallel sources all in order to arrive at the meaning of a text both in its original form and in the form used by the biblical author.414 Once these tools have been used to establish the meaning of the text in its original historical context, the preacher is ready to begin work on the sermon.

Something like this basic method underlies the work of many of the preachers in our survey, especially those in the cognitive stream—for example, recall Haddon Robinson's call to preachers to look for "the objective meaning of a passage through [an] understanding of language, backgrounds, and the setting of the text."415 But even in the eventful homiletics of

Miller, Stevenson, Caemmerer, Sweazey, and Cram we saw evidence of interest in original meanings and authorial intent. Wilson shows in his survey of exegetical practice in homiletics that historical research and close critical attention to the text continue to be important for homileticians into the twenty-first century. He then shows how over the last thirty years, the era

413 Otto Kaiser and Werner G. Kummel, Exegetical Method: A Student's Handbook, trans. E.V.N. Goetchius (New York: Seabury Press, 1967) [Munchen: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1963]) cited in Paul Scott Wilson, Preaching and Homiletical Theory, (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2004), 25-26. 414 Wilson, Preaching and Homiletical Theory, 26. 415 Robinson, Biblical Preaching, 23. 199 of the New Homiletic, many different understandings of exegesis and hermeneutics are adapted, adopted, and overlaid onto one another in homiletical practice.

Wilson's conclusion is that twenty-first-century homiletical exegesis stresses imagination, playfulness, the literary character of Scripture (rather than only the historical), a constant awareness of the preaching context, and an appreciation that the world of the text is not an archeological site.

Our science is more appropriately now considered an art, since we admit that all our readings include some subjectivity and that we now contend with many legitimate meanings. ... The text, far from being an object that is inert, fixed, and constant, is more like a fluid substance.416

A key insight, important for my methodological musing, is that the world of the text and the world of the preaching moment interpenetrate, they affect each other; the moment of reading is

"a moment in a process that has passing definition and relevance. It is like thrown water when the splash is caught mid-air in a photograph."417

The Place of Critical Study

Effective preachers should have facility with the original languages of the Bible and they should work to stay current, as their intellectual abilities and interests permit, with theological and biblical studies. Effective preachers should read current and traditional commentaries and theological reflections on biblical texts and themes. A discipline of reading, study, and reflection informs and enriches the preacher's understanding of the Bible's configuration of its world—its theological, geographical, social, historical, and literary landscapes. In the three-fold hermeneutical process, this ongoing disciplined study is the important critical work that takes place between the readings labeled the first naivete and second naivete. In keeping, though, with

41 Wilson, Preaching and Homiletical Theory, 38. 200 my commitment to eventful preaching and the importance of the peri cope's literal sense, I would

argue that detailed research of this Sunday's peri copes should not be taking place during the days

(or even weeks) before the sermon but should have been undertaken enough in advance that the

insights gleaned become a part of who the preacher is as a reader of Scripture.

Disciplined study appropriately changes the kind of reader/hearer of Scripture the preacher is but it is important that this change be internalized so that the reading of the peri cope

in preparation for preaching retains some sense of naivete and is not overwhelmed by the various

texts encountered in critical study. In fact, my understanding of the theological importance and

potential of the reading moment leads to the conclusion that it might be better to say that there is

not only a "second naivete" but rather an endless string of naive readings. This guards against

any misunderstanding that one episode of critical reflection suffices. Every time the preacher

leads the congregation into the landscape of the text the preacher's encounter is as naive and

organic—in its own way—as is the encounter enjoyed by the hearers in the gathered

community—in its own way(s). Doing critical work on Wednesday for Sunday's sermon leads to

the temptation of including excavated bits of critical data, which, while faithful and perhaps even

interesting and true, are not Scripture. And just as the preacher's character as a reader is changed

by critical study, one would hope that members of the whole Christian community are being

changed by their own study of Scripture. However, a sermon that proceeds from a preacher's

assumption that sense must move to reference along the trajectories stipulated by critical

commentary—in other words that assumes that all members of the congregation have

"graduated" from the same enriched Bible Study—will devalue the living hearing in the setting

of worship.

417 Ibid., 39. Before sketching a homiletical method informed by my understanding of the literal sense

I want to say something about theological perspective and assumptions. As noted above, homiletics in my Lutheran tradition inherited from Paul and Luther the homiletical significance of the Word of God as both law and gospel, both judgment and grace. In addition, the Lutheran tradition confesses, with many other reformation traditions, that preaching is the Word of God and, in Luther's understanding bears Christ to the hearer, "Therefore one should preach Christ alone and establish him as foundation, and teach the faith and those matters which are related to the faith, as Paul has said above: 'We do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord.'"418

There is, therefore, imbedded in my preaching tradition an expectation that the sermon will do more than inform, teach, or guide; the sermon will gospel hearers, will bring them directly into an encounter with the transforming power of Jesus Christ. I embrace that expectation in my own preaching and teaching and believe that my understanding of the literal sense of the peri cope serves that expectation in two ways. First, because I believe that the Bible testifies to the God who raised Jesus from the dead and is read in worship into a community that believes in the resurrection, there is an expectation that the literal sense of any pericope can be referred coherently toward the Bible's core testimony. Second, because I believe that the Word of God

(Law and Gospel) are always an "alien word"—even to believers—there is a sense in which the impertinence or surprise of the world configured by the Bible's literal sense serves as a type of the impertinence or surprise that God's Word always is to us. That said, I have tried to avoid framing this dissertation in such a way that it serves only these theological commitments. I believe that preachers from other theological traditions might benefit from a renewed commitment to allowing Scripture's own voice to be heard.

4l8Martin Luther, (1999, cl972) Vol. 49: Luther's works, vol. 49 : Letters II(J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.), Luther's Works. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. 202

Methodology

What follows here is an attempt to identify some of the implications the approach of this thesis has for a methodology for preaching. The five steps listed here are intended to be

suggestive and not exhaustive. I will note several places where these steps apply the literary

critical approach of Mario Valdes and develop ideas gleaned from the historical survey of

chapters six and seven.

1. Prayer

The call to prayer is not a gratuitous nod to piety but is an act of imagination and

supplication. Here the preacher brings the text, the community, the preaching context, and the

preacher's own self (the fragments that will be gathered around the homiletical table) before

God. This calling to mind of the fragments prepares the preacher to read the text on behalf of the

community and in anticipation of the specific encounter.

In Valdes's language, the preacher in prayer is taking time to acknowledge the rich

character of the prefigured world. The hearers of a Christian sermon are those who affirm that

Jesus is raised from the dead and who confess the Scripture to be God's Word. The hearers share

some theological assumptions and liturgical memory and because they live in the same time and

(to lesser or greater extents) the same place, they share a cultural and geographical life together.

In other words, this time in prayer frames the reading of the pericopes and allows the preacher to

imagine what elements might bear on the meaning-making and revelatory character of the

congregation's encounter with the text 2. Select the text

If using a lectionary, decide which one of the appointed readings will be the pericope whose encounter with the worshiping congregation will become the sermon text. Because the lectionaries in most common use (e.g., the Revised Common Lectionary and The Lectionary for the Mass) are constructed with the liturgical year in mind, there are times of the year when one or more of the pericopes are chosen for their thematic links to liturgical themes. It is not my desire here to argue for or against the practice of tying lectionary pericopes together in the sermon. On the one hand, the fact that the other pericopes are read in close proximity to the sermon text means that they already form part of the preaching context. On the other hand, preaching from the literal sense of the pericope demands a deep entry into and development of the text. The limits of the sermon as an oral form—specifically the amount of material that can be profitably handled—caution against trying to deal with more than one text. It is also the case that once a preacher is preaching on two or more texts, the character of the sermon's relationship to those texts changes from "textual" to "topical."

If not using a lectionary, decide on the location and limits of the chosen text. In all cases, remember that the pericope is both a theological-poetic work in its own right and a fragment taken from multiple layered contexts that may, depending on preacher, audience, occasion, and context, exert influence over its hearing. Already, the preacher should be considering how the living context of worship, where the pericope will be encountered as a unit apart from its literary contexts, might shape the encounter and the urge toward reference and identification. 204

3. Read the text

First read the pericope aloud. Reading aloud affirms in a sensory way that Scripture has a voice. Reading the passage in the worship space where the sermon will be preached will simulate the place of the encounter (even if not the full energy of the encounter). Read the passage aloud using different translations or paraphrases. At the very least, the preacher should, through practice and study, know what the pericope is saying and begin to claim a passion for communicating the pericope's content to the audience.

During this preparatory reading aloud begin to consider options for the oral performance of the text in worship. Even when a preacher's piety dictates that the oral performance should be serious or measured there are many options for inflection, tone of voice, pacing, and emphasis.

When a preacher's piety allows for playful or dramatic reading, those options multiply. In all cases, a well-prepared reading is an act of interpretation that initiates the encounter that the gathered hearers will have with the text.419

Even when read aloud by the preacher alone, the pericope is not the preaching text—it only simulates that text. The preaching text will only be fully known when the pericope is read out loud in worship. This means (one hopes only occasionally) that on the day of worship even as the pericope is being read, the preacher may discover that his or her wagers about how the text would be heard when read were wrong and that the prepared sermon is not quite the right one.

(Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the sermon was composed while imagining a

"different" preaching text all together.)

Back in the study, preachers who have facility with the biblical languages should read the pericope in its original language. Great care must be taken so that the preacher does not mistake

419 Improving the quality and the understanding of the office of lector is an area of great interest to me for future research and study. 205 original language discovery with true meaning. We can recall Donald G. Miller's observation that unless the preacher is truly bilingual, the preacher's own natural language is the medium through which the biblical language is processed. Paul Auster expresses it this way:

My French was neither good nor bad. I had enough to understand what people said to me, but speaking was difficult, and there were times when no words came to my lips, when I struggled to say even the simplest things. There was a certain pleasure in this, I believe—to experience language as a collection of sounds, to be forced to the surface of words where meanings vanish—but it was also quite wearing, and it had the effect of shutting me up in my thoughts. In order to understand what people were saying, I had to translate everything silently into English, which meant that even when I understood, I was understanding at one remove—doing twice the work and getting half the result. Nuances, subliminal associations, undercurrents—all these things were lost on me. In the end, it would probably not be wrong to say that everything was lost on me.420

The very practical caution here is to know that we can never say with complete assurance, "here is how the original hearers understood this word or phrase to refer or to 'mean.'" Original language philology, etymology, and translation are not determinative for meaning but, as

Ricoeur affirms, can deepen our natural language comprehension of the text by spurring the metaphorical meaning-making process.

Continue to bring to mind, as you read, your preaching audience and the "climate" of the preaching occasion; the preacher intends the sermon to capture, manage, and respond to that engagement in a meaningful, constructive, relevant, and true way. Howard Crosby reminded us that this act of imagination is an extension of and a synthesis of the pastor's role. Every reading of the peri cope will have new force and will suggest new possibilities for reference and meaning as the preacher considers texts in light of parish life, the lives of the hearers, and the events of human society. This reading and imagining should also recall George Sweazey's observation that

"people together are a different sort of creature from people alone ... something electric is

Paul Auster, The Locked Room (Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1986): 140. exchanged among clustered hearers which alters the way they operate." 21 The better the preacher understands the ethos and habitual dynamics of the sermon audience, the better will be the preacher's assessment of how the elements of the literal sense are being drawn together by the hearers.

One aspect of this imagination is the preacher's awareness during this preparatory reading of the "level" at which he or she is reading. There are multiple possibilities here and the boundaries are blurry. But suppose the reading is from Luke 2,

Then an angel of the Lord stood before the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people."

Depending on the imagined disposition of the fragments (the circumstance of the audience, liturgical occasion, etc.) any one of several trajectories of reference and identification might emerge as primary. The revelation from the text will be decidedly different depending on what

finally emerges. For example: if the preacher assumes that the "angel" and "shepherds" will be heard to refer literally (historically), then the meaning of the passage might shade toward the

historical birth of Jesus; if the preacher assumes that "angel" will be heard to refer literally

(historically or in a literary way) but "shepherds" will be heard to refer metaphorically to

contemporary Christians, then the meaning might shade toward news of Christ's coming into our

lives.

Each of these possibilities configures the world of the encounter between peri cope and

audience in slightly different ways, each of which will come into encounter with the prefigured

world of the audience in correlating different ways. Here it is important to keep Valdes's second

principle in mind {any attempt to reduce or remove tension brings about premature and/or

arbitrary closure). We have already considered that Scripture is a part of the hearer's world.

421 Sweazey, Good News, 6 (emphasis in original). 207

Familiarity with a passage has the potential to dissolve the tension resulting in the tensive equivalent of a simile. The challenge for the preacher is to use the composition of the sermon to lead hearers into the landscape of the text so that either the familiar identifications are supplanted by new identifications or the familiar identifications are re-examined in order to revisit the impertinence that may have been accommodated by repeated use.422

4. Enter the Text

Earlier we heard that the literal sense of the text creates a "world of the text" by stipulating and establishing entities and their character (nouns, pronouns, adjectives); activity or states of being and their nature (verbs, adverbs); relationships between entities (prepositions, conjunctions); and development of these elements and their interrelation (argument, plot). The nature of this world and the characteristics of its entities are stipulated by the text and while the imperative to make meaning will drive hearers to make assumptions both about how the world of the text operates and how it refers to their own "real world," the text retains its prerogative to define its own world. Given the specific conditions of preaching, where a text from Scripture is being read in the context of worship to a community of memory, it is important to note that the meaning-making imperative is strong and the habits of reference and identification are deeply ingrained. It is here that an understanding of a pre-referential literal sense can make a contribution to a renewed voice for Scripture.

Entering the text (whether we are talking about the preacher entering the text as part of the sermon composition process or as an aspect of the encounter with the text that will take place

422 This can include even the reanimation of dead metaphors. Here I would disagree with John Broadus when he rails against preachers who dive deeply into textual metaphors. Broadus writes, When our Lord says, 'Take my yoke upon you,' we have no right to hunt up all manner of details as to yokes and oxen, and run a fanciful parallel as to each particular." Broadus, Treatise, p. 69. The pre-referential character of the literal sense as I have constructed it 208 around the homiletical roundtable) consists of following the text's lead in establishing a world, a landscape consisting of the entities in the text. Regardless of the genre of the text, the nouns become key features of the text's terrain, the adjectives help define the nouns, the verbs and adverbs describe the relationship between them, and as the text unfolds we see how the relationships are characterized and how they shift and change. Familiarity with this terrain allows the preacher and hearers to move confidently within the text and to appreciate the richness of the relationships between entities. Taking time, and resisting the temptation to presume reference or identifications between the text's world and entities in the real world, means that when reference finally is made and identifications proposed, the connections made will be clear, strong, and persuasive. This is especially important when the reference or identifications are unexpected.

Depending on how many possible referential moves or identifications the preacher is trying to keep alive, entering the text and becoming familiar with its landscape can be an exhausting and fun time. Becoming familiar with the landscape can be a matter of imagining the scene of the text (paying attention to all five physical senses, especially in the case of narrative or historical texts) and to the emotional climate that might exist between the characters or elements of the texts. As Henry Mitchell points out, this is the stage where historical scholarship can be of great use to preaching by adding "living details that would not otherwise be evident."423

Establishing and testing reference and identification

Having hazarded some guesses about how the hearing community might hear the pericope, the preacher will at this point make decisions about how the sermon might frame reference and identification of the entities of the text to the world of the hearers. Again, it is would allow for precisely such "fanciful" development insofar as preacher's predication about the congregation's encounter with the text warrants it. 209 important both for the purposes of letting the configuration of the text's world remain before us and of keeping the tension alive that preachers make the move toward reference and identification with great care. The process of determining reference and identification are, broadly speaking, metaphorical, though we can also use the related terms analogical or typological. As we saw in chapter two, the resolution of the "is" and the "is not" of metaphorical process constitutes part of how we think, learn, read, deepen our understanding of what we already know, come to new understandings, and communicate with others.

What follows here is a brief outline of three methodological aids that can help preachers analyze the text's landscape and consider how to turn toward the negotiation between the worlds of text and hearer. But first I want to raise a few questions and issues that deserve future thought and research. During the process of researching this dissertation my own confidence in the theological meaning of making analogies to Scripture was stirred. When we sense that we are addressed by Scripture, who do we understand to be doing the addressing: God, the human author, the book's narrator, the Church from whose hands we received Scripture and a clue about how to read it, or the reader within us? With respect to homiletical method, this question concerns authorship and therefore "author-ity" for asserting how the literal sense refers to the real world and how readers/hearers identify with entities in the text. For example, does any prerogative or authority I have to identify myself with a character in the biblical narrative extend to the assignment of analogical identities to others? If I, in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke

10:25-37) identify with the man who has been beaten and robbed am I bound to allegorize the other characters and decide who the priest and Levite represent? Do the "worlds" uncovered in our reading of Scripture and the "real" world established by the living God through creation and then our baptisms exist in a continuum of time or space? Is an analogical connection necessarily

Mitchell, Black Preaching (1970), 117. 210 true just because it is tight, elegant, or seems to achieve allegorical perfection? Might a crude or clumsy analogy end up corresponding more faithfully to reality or to God's revelatory intent?

Questions such as these are inevitable given the changing shape of authority and construction of meaning characteristic in the New Homiletic.

Preachers do build sermons around their choices with respect to reference and

identification between the world configured by the text and the new, living context into which

the sermon is preached. Sometimes the identifications are stipulated in a fresh or surprising way by the preacher though often those identifications are retrieved from the Church's store of

common typological trajectories (e.g., the Hebrew people often refer to the contemporary

Church; biblical prophets to current preachers; the biblical Jesus to the living Christ). Sometimes

preachers collapse entities of the two worlds into isometric identification—the Church (as an

entity in the text of the New Testament) is often assumed to be in historical continuity with the

contemporary Church and the God of Scripture is generally assumed to be the living God known

to the Church even apart from Scripture. Regardless of how they are discovered, these

stipulations of identification between the entities in text and world can, through confirmation,

disruption, or playfulness, accomplish a variety of theological, educational, pastoral, moral,

missional, or aesthetic goals.

The discipline of trying to understand, systematize, and simplify this complex process—

for my own preaching first, and then for my confidence in helping preaching students engage the

issues—was greatly aided by three methods I have found to be complementary: Paul Wilson's

exercise of matching "concerns of the text" with "concerns of the world,"424 Stephen Farris's

Paul Scott Wilson, The Practice of Preaching, Revised Edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007). 211 method of "finding the analogies,"425 and the work of Keith Holyoak and Paul Thagard426 in assessing analogical depth and strength. Wilson's method tends to help me consider with care the attributes and character of the discrete entities of the text. Farris's method tends to help me see larger relationships and movements in the plot. Holyoak and Thagard's insights are helpful as I consider how to make the choices I make in the sermon with respect to reference and identification stronger and more persuasive. All three exercises keep my attention focused on the entities of the text so that my confidence in knowing the landscape strengthens my commitment to the choices I make in the sermon. None of these processes should be seen as adding layers of work to the preacher's burden. They are attempts to dissect and systematize the instinctive mental processes involved in sermon composition and for our purposes to aid in the analysis of how the literal sense of the pericope will be taken to refer in the sermon. What follows is a brief sketch of the three processes.

A. Paul Wilson.

This exercise is extracted from Wilson's total method as unfolded in both The Four

Pages of the Sermon and his The Practice of Preaching. Briefly, Wilson's theological commitment and method yields a "four page sermon," so-called because the sermon deals in roughly equal parts with "trouble in the biblical text," "trouble in the world," "grace in the biblical text," and "grace in the world." There are two important analogical or metaphorical links required by the method. The first concerns how the entities in the text refer to entities in the world, the second concerns whether the grace (in both text and world) directly and effectively

425 Stephen Farris, Preaching That Matters: The Bible and Our Lives (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998). 426 Keith J. Holyoak and Paul Thagard, Mental Leaps: Analogy in Creative Thought (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995). 212 respond to the trouble. Though I am adopting here only one of the many exercises Wilson prescribes, the imprint of the method is visible. And again, while I affirm and practice Wilson's theological commitments, I believe this exercise focused on "concerns of the text" and "concerns of the world" would work for other theological commitments.

Step One: Generate a list of "concerns of the text. " Each "concern" is a short, simple

sentence that expresses an apparent thing or idea with which the text is concerned. Label

concerns either: (t) for trouble, (g) for grace, (n) for items that are neutral (e.g. background material that might be used at many places in the sermon). Note that some concerns will be

difficult to categorize, and in fact may be both/either trouble and/or grace. The examples below

are from Isaiah 6.

Concerns can come directly from your reading of the text. At this point we are highlighting elements of the text's literal sense, no assumptions are yet made about reference. These concerns are the features of the text's landscape. This list is only meant to be suggestive; the actual list of concerns could be many times longer. • King Uzziah died (t) • Isaiah is in the temple (n) • Isaiah is given a vision (g) • God's messenger cleanses Isaiah (g)

Concerns can come from exegetical or historical research, general background knowledge of history, theology, or canon, though in terms of my approach, these elements should be added only to the extent that they organically inform the preacher's reading of the text: • Judah is threatened by northern powers (t) • Isaiah's vision is of the heavenly court (g) • The book of Isaiah moves in prophetic pattern from judgment to grace (t/g)

Step Two: Choose one of the grace concerns, one that includes a clear action of God, to

be the "anchor" of page three.429 If the listing of the concerns corresponds to the preacher's

Paul Scott Wilson, The Four Pages of the Sermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999). Wilson, Practice, 61-67. attempt to become familiar with the text's landscape, the selection of a single grace concern represents a decision on the part of the preacher about which features of the encounter between the text's world and the world of the hearers might be fruitfully explored.

Step Three: Transpose the concerns of the text into concerns of the sermon. It is at this step that the preacher will begin to reveal his or her wagers about how literal sense might likely move toward reference and identification.

• "King Uzziah died (t-text)" is transposed to "Earthly leaders/powers change or die (t-world)." In this transposition, the literal entity King Uzziah is referred analogically to Earthly leaders or powers. • "Isaiah is in the temple (n-text)" is transposed to "We come to God in worship (n/t/g-world)." Here, the literal entity Isaiah is referred analogically to the contemporary congregation. • "Isaiah is given a vision (g-text)" is transposed to "God gives us visions in Christ (g-world)" Again, the literal entity Isaiah is referred analogically to the hearers. Note that Wilson adds here a theological/Christological overlay. • "God's messenger cleanses Isaiah (g-text)" becomes "We are made clean in Baptism (g-world)." The implicit part of this analogy (and one that might bear being made more explicit in the sermon) is that identification between the "burning coal" and baptism.

Concerns from research or background knowledge can also be transposed. • "Judah is threatened by northern powers (t-text)" becomes "Powers clash around us (t-world)." Here contemporary hearers ("us") are invited to identify with "Judah" (the literal entity in the text) and the rather specific "northern powers" (the literal entity in the text) is identified by the more general "clashing powers" of our world. • "Isaiah's vision is of the heavenly court (g-text)" becomes "We glimpse the Reign of God (g-world)." • "The book of Isaiah moves in the prophetic pattern from judgment to grace (t/g-text)" becomes "One movement described by the Christian story is from fall to grace (t/g-world)."

Step Four: Decide which pair of trouble concerns will be the foci for pages one and two, and which pair of grace concerns will be the foci for pages three and four. This step is quite specific to the theological commitments of the method but is still instructive for the question of

u Ibid., 73-78. 'ibid., 81. 214 how literal sense moves to reference. As the preacher gathers ideas, stories, illustrations, theological insight, images, and other sermon material he or she assess how clearly they relate to the theme foci. At times, preachers will discover that a theme/concern is not proving to be as rich as expected that is, a wager made about reference proves not to hold up (perhaps for reasons that we will consider below). The concern here is developing a basic thematic skeleton for the sermon that will bear the dual moves of text to world and trouble to grace.

The specific strength of this exercise from Wilson's method for my purposes is the way it

encourages preachers to look closely at the character of the individual entities of the text's literal

sense. Again, while the reference and identifications made from text to world may follow traditional or expected habits, there is opportunity in this exercise for preachers to play with unexpected reference and identification.

B. Stephen Farris

As noted above, while Wilson exercise is especially helpful when considering the

characteristics of the individual entities, this exercise from Stephen Farris is helpful when

considering how the entities of the peri cope's literal sense relate to one another and how the

dynamics of those relationships shift as the text unfolds. I want to note that Farris's full method

gives more consideration than I to both the larger literary context from which a pericope is taken

and to authorial intent. Even with that difference, these steps from Farris's whole method help

preachers closely examine the landscape of the pericope.

Part One, Step One: Identify the persons or groups in our behind your text.422 This step

identifies the important entities in the text whose identification sets some of the major features of

the text's landscape. I would modify Farris's direction to include in this list of entities 215 theological concepts and ideas. While the entities most important for my methodology are those present in the pericope itself, there may be occasions where the preacher predicts that the hearing audience will also be aware of entities that dwell in the larger canonical context (chapter, book, author's corpus, canon). Farris does stipulate that the list should include non-living elements that exert "character-like" presence in the text (e.g. The Red Sea in the Exodus).

Part One, Step Two: Sketch the nature of the entities listed. Here preachers are asked to include as much as they can about character, attitude, or demeanor of the entities in the text.

Having established the main landmarks of the landscape in step one, here the preacher begins to

add color and shading to them.

Part One, Step Three: Sketch the nature of the relationship between entities in the text

and note how those relationships change in the movement of the text. In this step the preacher

steps back from the details of the entities in the text to consider the nature of the terrain between

aspects of the landscape and how it changes. At this point the literal sense of the pericope still

controls the observation; no specific decisions about reference or identification have yet been

made.

Part One, Step Four: Make some wagers about the apparent purpose of the passage and

the means by which those purposes are accomplished.4 5 This step is well-designed to serve

Farris's interest in the pressure exerted toward reference and meaning by the larger literary

context and the intent of the author, but even when considering the pericope as a work in its own

right, there are cases where purpose and means are present.

F'arris, Preaching That Matters, 75. Ibid., 79. Ibid. Ibid., 93-101. Part Two, Step One: Replicate steps one through three with respect to the entities who

will be present when the sermon is preached. As with the consideration of the text, the preacher should include as much information as possible about attitudes or demeanors. Here, too,

the preacher should include sometimes hidden characters that exert clear influence on the

preaching moment (e.g. social conventions, powers and principalities, God, the devil, etc.). This

list of entities should include:

1. The preacher himself or herself 2. The congregation as a community 3. Component parts of the congregation (groups, cliques, families, individuals) 4. God as God is present in the text 5. God as God is present in the liturgy 6. God as God is present in the community 7. "The world" 8. Non-living elements that exert "character-like" presence (e.g., presidential election, the economy, the American dream)

Part Two, Step Two: Begin to experiment possibilities for reference and

identification437. Keeping in mind the various relationships, interactions, and purposes

that exist among and between the "characters" of the preaching occasion, the preacher

begins to experiment with analogical/metaphorical relationships between the text and the

world as present in the preaching occasion. The goal here is to push for connections and

analogies that have multiple points of contacts (attributes, attitudes, relationships, similar

places in the system, etc.). As noted before, there are habits of reference and

identification always at work around biblical preaching. Preachers are encouraged at this

stage to experiment with unusual connections and juxtapositions.

Ibid., 80-93. 217

C. Holyoak and Thagard

It was a moment of awakening when I heard Stephen Farris suggest that when reading or preaching on Psalm 137 ("By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remember Zion ...") any facile identification between the North American mainline Church with the mournful Israelites is disingenuous insofar as there are many respects in which North

American Christians of European descent are more like oppressive Babylon.438 Two things are striking: first is the tenacity of my preference for the traditional identification between the

Church and the Hebrew people. The second was how quickly the aptness of the new, disturbing identification loosened my hold on the traditional one. This is the meaning-making power of carefully constructed metaphors.

In one of their more simple analyses, Holyoak and Thagard line out a three level scheme of analogical relationships: simple attributes (noun with adjective or adjectives); simple relationships (noun-verb-object); and complex systems of relationships (involving all the former along with plot).439 While there are powerful analogical possibilities at all three levels, the most satisfying analogies relate analogs with similar attributes and which also share analogical systemic relationships (including causes, motivations, and attitudes). In effect, Holyoak and

Thagard help coalesce the wagers about reference and identification that develop during the processes outlined by Wilson and Farris. In teaching, I have found that this simple three-part scheme helps students evaluate the relative strength of emerging reference and identification.

In considering the story of David and Goliath, for example, this schema might unfold in this way. At the level of simple attributes, we could say that, a) David was a youth called by

God. At this point, we've got the start of a singularly unsatisfying, but possible Confirmation

438 Ibid., 82ff. 439 Holyoak and Thagard, Mental Leaps, lOOff (Chapter Five, "The Construction of Similarity") passim. 218

sermon. Possible because confirmands are, like David, youths called by God, unsatisfying because of the apparent differences between the pre-teens gathered in worship and the text's portrayal of the complex familial relationships that enmesh Jesse's youngest son. At the level of

simple relationships we might say, b) David conquered someone bigger than himself. Perhaps

now David emerges as an analog for us as we face big issues in our lives. This choice of

reference means making a persuasive case for why we should be identified with David (rather

than, for example, the panic-stricken Israelite army). The risk of this move toward reference lies

in the fact that the attributes of the "bigger thing" are unspecified, we might end up naming

benign or salutary challenges as "Goliath." If the "someone or something bigger" than we is

understood to be "good," the sermon may suffer if Goliath's characteristics are overlaid on our

challenge (so that the congregation's building program becomes a blasphemous monster). If such

a sermon can work, the preacher will have to be sure that Goliath's attributes are not allowed to

"intrude" into the sermon. Finally, at the level of complex systems (and here I have chosen just a

handful, many more could be gleaned from the text), c) David is surrounded by friends and

relatives who are faithful but fearful; David is singularly small and fearless; David's weapons

seem inadequate; David rejects the customary tools of warfare; Goliath is pagan; Goliath derides

all that David stands for. From here, we might move to a sermon about the Church's challenge to

the onslaught of messages from the secular media, or to policies by a dominant or oppressive

government.

In a way analogous to my reflections about the Wilson and Farris methods of teasing out

analogies in texts, I find this exercise of considering layers of analogical connection helpful. It

keeps preachers focused longer on the analogies as they develop, increasing the chance that they

will spot where simple attributes and relationships do not match up and that they will then press 219 for analogies that account for more complex relationships. The tension in metaphor and analogy is never fully resolved; the "is" is always balanced by the "is not" so part of sermon composition will always be framing reference and identification so that elements that do not match up can be kept at bay. This I accept as the inevitable result of the ambiguity of communication.

5. Compose

My argument for preachers to attend to the literal sense of the pericope has particular implications for the steps leading up to the actual composition of the sermon. It is my sense that the insights gained from attending carefully to the steps suggested above might strengthen preaching in many different styles. However, it is my hope that a next stage of my work and research would be to consider how this attention to the literal sense of the pericope and metaphorical meaning making would concretely impact sermon composition and content. A very brief examination of two sermon excerpts follows.

One implication for composition that might be mentioned here is the use of the language of the text in the sermon. Because the landscape of the text and the entities (characters and ideas) that dot that landscape are configured by the literal sense, those same characters and ideas should be named in the sermon. For Steimle, the biblical character of preaching must influence preaching in terms of its language, grammar, and imagery. "The fabric or texture of the sermon, as well as its content, will be determined by its biblical roots."440 Similarly, Milton Crum maintains that the verbal content of the sermon must "be grounded in Scripture, which will provide the words and images which help both preacher and listener 'see' what is being said."

That is, there must be an ostensive connection between the language of the sermon and that of

u Steimle, "The Fabric of the Sermon," 164. 1 Crum, Manual, 18. 220 the biblical text that inspires the sermon. As noted in chapter seven, the use of biblical language does not guarantee a sermon's faithfulness, however it helps insure that the connection between text and world are witnessed to by the voicing of the text's language.

Sermon Excerpts

In April of 2004, Bishop Robert Rimbo addressed the graduating class of Trinity

Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. In his remarks, Rimbo reflected first on the relatively narrow, and entirely plausible, scope of Jesus' commission to his disciples in Luke 10:8-9,

"Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'" Rimbo then compared this passage with the somewhat broader imperatives in the parallel account in Matthew

10:7-8. "As you go, proclaim the good news, 'The kingdom of heaven has come near.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons." Rimbo was especially interested in the imperative, "raise the dead." He supposed that first-year seminary graduates who returned to their bishop or mentor with the report that they had raised the dead would likely be encouraged to submit to another round of psychological testing. But on the heels of that musing he said, "but if you do not expect truly to raise the dead, why bother engaging this ministry at all?"

Rimbo's strategy was subtle but through it he exemplified how attention to the pre- referential literal sense might operate. On his first pass through the text's landscape he framed the phrase "raise the dead" by having it refer historically in two ways. He not only assumed that when Jesus commanded his disciples to "raise the dead," the Jesus who speaks in the passage expects the disciples in the passage to do exactly that: return heart, lung, and brain function to 221 dead humans he also assumed that the Jesus in the text (isometric with the Jesus who was raised from the dead himself or not?) must have the same expectation of us.

But Rimbo then immediately confirmed our disinclination to have the literal sense refer literally in that way. He did so by reinforcing our modern, common sense understanding of what is possible, and in so doing played on some embedded assumptions that whatever Jesus might have said to the disciples back then, any transfer of direct commands from Scripture's world to ours must pass a test of plausibility. (This is not meant to assume that the request would have seemed any more plausible to the disciples; that is something we cannot know with certainty!)

Even prior to his hearers having an opportunity to negotiate or settle the impertinence of Jesus's command, Rimbo had negotiated things so that the literal sense as literally referred need not concern us. But then, immediately, Rimbo returned to the command and withdrew that confirmation. He put before us again the "literal sense" of Jesus's command, but this time he expanded the reference of "dead" so that it extended beyond the mere returning of heart and lung function.

Let us leave unexamined for now Rimbo's tacit assumption that it is appropriate to assume that commands leveled at the disciples in Scripture should be referred metaphorically or analogically to modern Christian "disciples." By presenting us with the stark "literal sense" of the command, we as audience and preacher are forced into negotiation as a communal act within the body of the sermon. Because Rimbo elected to negotiate with the literal sense of the command, rather than with a mitigated metaphorical sense, the sermon was sharper; at once unapologetic and apologetic.

Robert A. Rimbo, "Show and Tell" a Senior Banquet Address delivered at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio April 15, 2004, unpublished. A complete manuscript for this sermon appears in the Appendix, used by permission. 222

This next excerpt is from a sermon I preached in the chapel at Trinity Lutheran Seminary

in Columbus, Ohio.443 It exemplifies a direct way of moving from the literal sense of the pericope to a specified manner of reference without considering historical reference as such. The

text for the sermon was Exodus 32:7-14:

The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation. But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, T will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

The sermon begins as follows:

There is no strong evidence, really, that we ever wanted to be God's people in the first place. It is easy to be hurt and indignant by the exchange between Moses and God recorded in Exodus 32 ... but we really have no case. We weren't really that keen on being God's people anyway. There is no record in the book of Exodus of any great enthusiasm on our part about being God's people. There is never the sense that when Moses comes to us with the news of his vision of God ... there is never the sense that any of us responds with, "Hey ... that's a great idea ... how can we help?" We watched the plagues being dumped on Pharaoh and we did as we were told ... but there is no sense of much enthusiasm on our part. When Moses is talking to God and God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and make demands, Moses says, "Pharaoh is not going to listen to me, the Israelites aren't even listening, to me!"

"The Israelites aren 't even listening to me."

Full text of the sermon is included in the Appendix. 223

We weren't really that keen on being God's people anyway. And God knows this. God has known all along that we've never really been that keen about being God's people. We didn't know this at the time, but one of the very first things God decides is to NOT take us to the Promised Land by the most direct route because that would mean confronting the Philistines and God knew that one look at the Philistines and we'd be falling all over ourselves to get back to Egypt. God has always known that our heart's not really in it.

After the journey has begun we get one of our first speaking lines ... we're drawing near to the Red Sea ... the Egyptians are pursuing us and do you know what we said to Moses? "Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, 'Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness." Our heart has never been in it. Well, okay there was that time when Miriam grabbed her tambourine and danced and we sang that song ... "I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory the horse and rider thrown into the sea." But that doesn't really count ... I mean, who can resist liturgical dance and a praise band? At every hardship we grumbled ... no water ... no bread ... no meat... no water again ...

I knew that a seminary audience's encounter with the text would likely include some consideration of the historical possibilities, but in the sermon I entered the landscape of the text and elected to ignore historical reference and immediately identified the Israelites with the hearers. I entered the landscape of the text and kept God and Moses the same but made a wholesale identification of the Israelites with the gathered audience.

A Homiletic of Surprise

I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality.444

Even when it comes to the story unfolded for us in Scripture, it is true what Pi says; we are not as resilient as we might be. Marcus Borg entices us toward surprise in the title, Reading the Bible

Again for the First Time, but then comes the standard escape from surprise in the subtitle, Taking

Yann Martel, Life of Pi (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2001), p. 302. the Bible Seriously but not Literally. Preachers John T. and James R. Carroll apply this

Borgian hermeneutic to Jesus's "hard sayings," but in explaining what Jesus "really meant," they so lower the bar of meaning that one wonders how the sayings ever qualified as "hard."446 While it may be testimony to God's sense of irony that our lack of resilience is met by a life with an endless stream of situations and stories that surprise us, it is testimony to our trust-less-ness that we are inclined to want constant confirmation of what we already know. In the 569 hymns of my denomination's 1978 hymnal, Lutheran Book of Worship447, the word "surprise" appears only once in the seldom sung "O Jesus Christ, May Grateful Hymns Be Rising": "... Inspire our worship, grant the glad surprising / That your blest Spirit rouses ev'rywhere."448 Well, perhaps not everywhere.

An eloquent reflection on this desire to regulate surprise comes from the character

Orleanna Price, missionary wife in Barbara Kingsolver's novel, The Poisonwood Bible. She opines on the naive futilities of her husband, Nathan—a caricature of a missionary in the

Western cultural imperialist Christian tradition—and others like us:

... his kind will always lose in the end. I know this, and now I know why. Whether it's wife or nation they occupy, their mistake is the same: they stand still, and their stage moves underneath them. ... Chains rattle, rivers roll ... forests inspire and expand, babies stretch open-mouthed from the womb, new seedlings arch their necks and creep forward into the light. Even a language won't stand still. A territory is only possessed for a moment in time. They stake everything on that moment, posing for photographs while planting the flag, casting themselves in bronze. ... They're desperate to hang on. But they can't. Even before the flagpole begins to peel and splinter, the ground underneath arches and slides

Marcus Borg, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001). 446 Carroll and Carroll, Preaching the Hard Sayings.. See, for example, where James R. Carroll reduces that hard saying about "hating" our families to a call for single-minded vocational dedication (p. 46). 447 Lutheran Book of Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House and Philadelphia: Board of Publication, Lutheran Church in America, 1978). 448 Bradford G. Webster, "O Jesus Christ, may grateful hymns be rising," Text © 1954, renewal 1982 by The Hymn Society (admin, by Hope Publishing Co., Carol Stream, IL 60188). All Rights Reserved. forward into its own new destiny. It may bear the marks of boots on its back, but those marks become the possessions of the land.449

Even a language won't stand still. This is the part that interests the preacher in me.

The Nature of Language is Surprise

We wisely and faithfully seek to name our experience of God; hymns, collects, creeds, sermons, theologies, and accumulated interpretations of Scripture are all efforts to plant a semantic flag on any conceptual high place where sense was made, where faith-seeking- understanding gained a toehold. And we can look back at all those peeling poles and marvel at how they mark a path through danger, annihilation, and heresy. But as Annie Dillard reminds us,

The higher Christian churches ... come at God with an unwarranted air of professionalism, with authority and pomp, as though they knew what they were doing, as though people in themselves were an appropriate set of creatures to have dealings with God. I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed. In the high churches they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a strand of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God where to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked.450

With our words we stake our claims in the ground of meaning, and the ground— especially the ground under our theological libraries—bears the burden of our accumulated verbal expressions. But there are no guarantees that any of our revered words are still safe. Even the words "Jesus loves you" or "we are justified by grace through faith apart from works of the law for the sake of Christ," are only Gospel if they function as Gospel. But when the ground beneath our faith shifts, safe stepping stones become land mines.

Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible (New York: Harper Flamingo, imprint of Harper Collins, 1998), 384. Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1977), p. 59. 226

Even a language won't stand still. Old words denote new things; old images enter our imagination and evoke pictures that would horrify ancient iconographers.451 When the social or political ground begins to shift in surprising ways beneath our faith—as it does, for example, in our reconsideration of the place of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons—we reach

for the words that we have safely used in the past. But analogies to past contexts break down before they are half formed, and in our efforts to press them anyway, to apply revered words to new situations, we injure our neighbors. While it is understandable that we would reach for

language that once marked a place that felt safe, it is naive to hope that we should ever stand

there again. Even before the ink is dry, the expressions of faith seeking understanding have

already begun to mean something else; they can only remind us of what we once thought we

knew.

Surprise and the Words of Scripture

No one knows better than preachers how flimsy the settled words of our tradition can feel

when they are brought into play in each new context—unless it is every baptized Christian who

has sought to address the paradox of life in the void with some revered word. If we are lucky

enough to have preaching audiences with discretion, it may only be our own voice we hear

saying, "Well, okay, that may be what Scripture says.. .it may even be true.. .but so what?" The

revered language becomes dry, yeastless factuality, and settles nothing.

But we cannot be without the revered language, certainly not without the revered

language of Scripture. If the "liberal theology alert" has been blinking on your neo-orthodox

radar, you can relax. This dissertation is not a call to jettison the revered language or to

451 For example, who will be there in heaven to provide support for the company of ancient Byzantine hagiographers when they encounter a "Precious Moments" nativity scene? 227 demythologize or to work to find a "different way to say the same old thing." It is quite the other way around. This dissertation has argued that a renewed understanding of the literal sense and an appreciation for the metaphorical meaning-making processes offered by such phenomenological hermeneuts as Paul Ricoeur and Mario Valdes call for us to retain the revered language, to revel in the myths, the metaphors, the images, and to realize that every time Scripture speaks— especially in the context of worship and preaching—it is powerful because it finds the "same old way to say a different thing." The text—in its literal, plain, evident, mysterious self—speaks. We take it seriously precisely by taking it literally. It speaks directly to us, engages us on its own terms just as it did its first hearers and has to every hearer since. But we must let it speak to us as a text in all its textiness; we must let it retain its right to surprise us.

The power of Scripture lies not in our amazing reconstructions of the terrain or landscape of any past encounter with the text—not even that of its premier encounter—that ground has slid forward, moved on. The power of Scripture is in our encounter as we read it again, as always, for the first time. We do not try to plant the flag of Scripture in the ground in order to establish for all (or even any) time what it means. We carry the flag of Scripture with us and at each new encampment on the shifting ground of context and meaning; we fly it from the center pole of the tent and marvel at how, against every new landscape, it surprises us with new colors and hues.

Here is the change: Instead of calling up the revered language so that we may use it to settle things, we call it up to let it surprise us. We revel in the myths and narratives not to get at the psychological or sociological realities behind them, but to be surprised by where we will find ourselves in them this time. There is no different way to say "Jesus Christ is Lord." To say it differently would be to say something different. But when revered words are allowed to frolic with the world in every new context, there is a difference. 228

Homiletical Consensus

As the lector reads the appointed lectionary texts, the Bible's vocabulary and imagery

enter the mind, memory, and imagination of the worshiping community. Gathered in worship is a wide range of listeners: everyone from cradle-to-not-yet-grave Christians to skeptical first-time visitors; from the absorbed to the bored. As the reading unfolds, each listener is receiving the

elements of the passages—the characters, actions, images, and unfolding plots—and is working to assemble those elements into something sensible and relevant. What influences this attempt to

make sense and meaning? Everything: the day's liturgy (including the other Bible readings),

Sunday school lessons, common sense, hymns, this morning's news, Evan Almighty's version of

Noah,452 Charlton Heston's portrayal of Moses,453 insights from private prayer, cubicle

conversations at work, last night's diary entry, the latest IMHO from a favorite chat room,454

today's weather, and even the dynamite sermon the pastor preached on this same passage three

years ago. Everything. If there is a baptism today or someone has just died or the congregation is

breaking ground or the United States of America is bracing itself for a presidential election and

participation in the Olympic Summer Games, then as the Bible is read people may be hearing

words as never before, identifying with characters heretofore ignored, finding meaning in

hitherto overlooked details.

This is the gift preachers receive when they rise to preach: The Bible's words, images,

and stories are strewn across various species and conditions of rock, thistle, path, and soil. And

this is the challenge preachers accept when they rise to preach: before the texts' materials are

properly sorted, labeled, and stowed by the well-catechized minds of the faithful or discarded as

irrelevant and archaic by the disenchanted, the sermon will gather some of those elements and

452 Evan Almighty, Universal Studios, directed by Tom Shadyac, 2007. 453 The Ten Commandments, Motion Picture Associates, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, 1956. 229 give testimony to how this passage read to this gathering at this incomparable moment in time

carries a revelation from God. What is most surprising and wonderful is that this chaotic context is where Scripture is quintessentially Scripture: read aloud to God's complex people gathered for

worship. What is most disappointing is how often preachers choose to talk the Bible down from

the precarious ledge whence new revelation might take flight and urge Scripture back into the

safer confines of "the broader literary context" or the Church's traditional interpretation or the

reconstructed historical circumstances of the supposed human author.

About this need for naive engagement and for the potential for surprise, there is

remarkable consensus in recent homiletical literature. Surprise is not for its own sake, but for the

sake of the Gospel that overturns our world by its claim. However, for the new claim to be made

the old order must be disrupted. Some homileticians call for surprise as a way to protect the

sovereignty of God to speak through Scripture; others to protect us from meanings established by

the powerful, often at the expense of the powerless. Still others call for surprise as a way of

reclaiming the textiness of this literary text so to protect us from hopeless attempts to make us

"hear it the way they would have heard it" or from another prosaic sleeper about the ultimate fate

of the Jebusites. This surprising consensus holds that it is exactly right that the ground shifts

beneath our faith and that revered words never again mean what they meant.

Here are just a few contemporary homiletical voices from across the theological

spectrum. Charles Bartow, writes, "Oxymoron is a linguistic ... gesture given in response to an

event of divine self-disclosure when that event seems to disconfirm previous experience of the

divine. .. .A God comprehended is no God, and the theology that pretends to know everything is

"IMHO" is chat-room shorthand for "in my humble opinion." 230 a sham." William Beardslee and his colleagues write, "We are aware that each person will... be attentive to proposals that appear to reinforce previously held orientations. It is the desire of the Spirit, however, to stretch our thinking and expand our horizons to entertain new possibilities of transforming our attitudes."456 Robert Dykstra holds that

... a rendering of a biblical text compelled by tradition or orthodoxy, by recognized authorities or esteemed commentators of church or culture, or even by the preacher's own concerns for doing God's will or speaking God's word leads to a similarly unsatisfying outcome. As Winnicott sought to prevent a mother from prematurely reassuring her hesitant child ... one can imagine God seeking to restrain ecclesiastical or other powerful voices, including even God's own, from too swiftly prevailing in the preacher's initial encounter with a specific biblical text. Truth ... even biblical truth, must be at once created and found.457

John McClure observes that "the function of the Bible as scripture ... is to problematize ... all positions and identities, and to do so in such a way that I (we) cannot relocate myself (ourselves).

...as scripture the Bible refuses over and over again to close itself as a book, to secure its connotations to a single self-referential tautology." Or to say it in a more graphic way, Ted

Peters writes that preaching "in obedience to the first commandment is first and foremost a world-destroying activity. It leads to the goring of every sacred cow worshipped by the listener

[or the preacher]. It is the proclamation of judgment against the golden calves in our minds and in our lives." Feminist Christine Smith sees preaching "from a feminist perspective as 'weft- faced' weaving. Instead of the strands of tradition being those that dominate, I want to explore what the content and vision of preaching might be if threads of transformation dominated the

Charles Bartow, God's Human Speech: A Practical Theology of Proclamation (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), p. 21. 456 William A. Beardslee et. al., Biblical Preaching on the Death of Jesus (Nashville: Abingdon, 1989), p. 66. 457 Robert Dykstra, Discovering a Sermon: Personal Pastoral Preaching (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), p. 17. 458 John McClure, Other-wise Preaching: A Postmodern Ethic for Homiletics (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), p. 21. 459 Ted Peters, "Hermeneutics and Homiletics" in Dialog 21:2 (Spring 1982). One hopes that Peters would accept my bracketed addition! 231 entire preaching creation. ... The biblical text and the text of each of our lives must meet... [to] inform, broaden, and deepen the witness and power of each other."460

What this consensus calls for is a homiletics of surprise where we celebrate that things are never the same; where we walk the scaffolding fully aware of the danger; and where we trust

God to surprise us when the same serious and literal words say a brand new thing. A homiletics of surprise calls for a new necessary charism for preaching. Preachers are still called to be shaped by biblical scholarship and by our work in systematic and pastoral theology. We are still to be the local rabbi who can bring scholarship and wisdom to bear on a congregation's life. But in our awareness of the shifting ground of meaning, our character as preachers might better resemble that of a performing text reviewer and critic. The primary text that the preacher reviews is neither the revered words of Scripture, nor the text in any one of its many canonical contexts.

The primary text is the story that arises from the rich, surprising encounter between text, context, and the living Spirit of God.

And the constitutional requirement for a homiletics of surprise must be that we can never point to what the surprise will be or where the shifting ground will take us. This would only be a kind of post-modern version of the conservative impulse to confirm what we already know, to plant a flag; to take the naivete out of second naivete. Even our proudest doctrines and dogmas must always be available for critique and reshaping—not only because they truly are (and always have been) conditional wagers, but because even when we get the language right, the ground shifts under our feet.

It could be argued that this homiletics of surprise is just an elaborate version of the defensive tautology, "expect the unexpected." But my denomination's 1978 Lutheran Book of

4 Christine Smith, Weaving the Sermon: Preaching in a Feminist Perspective (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), p. 106 and 148. 232

Worship contains only one "surprise," Evangelical Lutheran Worship has three.461 From the poetically unfortunate "just one more surprise" of John Ylvisaker's "Borning Cry"462 through the enigmatic use of "surprise" in two Herb Brokering hymns—"Jesus our blessing, our constant surprise"463 "Thine the kingdom thine the prize / thine the wonderful surprise"464—perhaps there is the beginning of a willingness to pull up stakes and see where the ground beneath our faith might take us.

461 Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006) 462 John Ylvisaker, "Borning Cry," Text and music © 1985 John Ylvisaker, 463 Herb Brokering, "Alleluia! Jesus is Risen!" Text © 1995 Augsburg Fortress. Music © 1969 Contemporary Worship 1, admin. Augsburg Fortress. 464 Herb Brokering, "Thine the Amen," Text and music © 1983 Augsburg Publishing House, admin. Augsburg Fortress. APPENDIX

Sermon by Robert A. Rimbo

SHOW AND TELL Senior Banquet Address Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus 15 April 2004

Dear Seniors, soon to be graduates of Trinity Lutheran Seminary, family members, staff and faculty friends, pastor president Ramseth, all friends in Christ: I thank you for the invitation to be with you as you celebrate together. I suspect that Diane Bareis had something to do with this, though she assures me that she did not pull presidential rank. I figure that since she had dinner at my house on internship I could have dinner at hers. I'm really delighted to be with all of you and let me offer congratulations to all of you: students who soon will graduate, those amazing people, the families who have supported them, and this wonderful staff and faculty who continue to provide remarkable leaders for the church. I begin by saying thank you. I'm a preacher. So when I received the gracious invitation to speak at this banquet words that might offer an encouraging, funny, serious pep talk without a trace of academia I turned to a book that, for me, sets the standard of wise words for graduates, Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. You're probably saying: Now he tells me, after all these years, all this work and, yes, all this money, all I know I've already learned? Please!!! Fulghum writes: All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate- school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. Thus far, Robert Fulghum. And there is a lot of wisdom in his writing.

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But he is not quite complete in his simple wisdom. Not everything is there. Words of Jesus from Luke 10 offer us, especially you who are entering a different kind of ministry now, the words of Jesus offer us greater wisdom in as succinct a form: "Cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'" That's my text. Or, following Fulghum's wisdom, let's put it in other words, "Show and Tell." If nothing else after years of seminary education leading to a variety of degrees, those who soon will graduate can rejoice in the simplicity, clarity and directness of this commission. They can also rejoice that it makes for a brief banquet address. "Cure the sick who are there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'" Show and Tell. It may lack the richness and depth of systematic theology. It may overly-simplify the demands of pastoral care. It may miss the subtleties you discovered in critical biblical exegesis or the history of doctrine. But at least it's to the point. I prefer Luke's account of this because it's more modest. In Matthew's gospel the commission is expanded: "Preach as you go saying, 'The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons." (Matthew 10:7-8) Healing the sick, although no small task, seems within reach, especially if we distinguish healing from curing. But what are we to make of Jesus telling the seventy to raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons? After all, even your best experiences of being empowered for ministry here at Trinity Lutheran Seminary - as far as I know - stopped short of claiming that you would be able to raise the dead. Yet, "the seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!" Can you imagine the look on the faces of Dean Huber and President Ramseth if a few months from now you return here and exclaim with unbridled joy that you have cast out demons, healed the sick, and raised the dead?? I would expect your bishop would be telephoned quickly, or perhaps Midwest Guidance Center. But, if you don't expect to do that, exactly what do you expect to do? This commissioning begins Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, not one of the happiest trips in the Bible. What journey is it that you are starting? No matter what your specific role is - whether you are about to begin ministry as a church musician, a newly-degreed lay minister, a pastor, walking out of here as a Master of Lay Ministry, Master of Divinity, Master of Theology, or even if you're staying here to continue as a member of this seminary's staff or faculty. No matter what corner of the church you're from - Episcopal, United Methodist, Baptist, Roman Catholic, United Church of Christ, African Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian, not affiliated with a particular denomination, or even Lutheran - you are part of the whole community of faith, part of the whole People of God, who are on the journey that leads to Jerusalem. How do you plan to celebrate that journey? Try Show and Tell. Seeing the clerical collar, a waitress at a restaurant not long ago said to me, "Looks like the world is falling apart again." The word "again" caught my attention. Somehow I don't think she had Genesis 3 in mind as the reason for saying "again." No, it was the fact that one more example in a long, long list of things happened, a list that reveals how we have littered human history with tragedies of our own making. Some might say it's evidence of the success of the demons of this world, the depressing reality of our universal experience of sickness and death. It's a reality that leads one to say in frustrating situations of pain, suffering, and defeat, "Looks like the world is falling apart again." It is a world that often seems to have no interest in seeing or hearing that the Reign of God is near. Luke was quite realistic about it all in his day: "Whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our 235 feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near."' Not words and actions to endear you to a call committee, but, hey, it's in the Bible. Yet, know this, says Jesus and Jesus's disciples. Yet... I salute you, dear sisters and brothers. You are serving the church and the world in anxious times. Financial woes, sexuality studies, the threat of November elections, escalating conflicts, dysfunctional congregations, are all part of the reality you and I face. Anxiety is the order of the day and rightly so. If you and I are part of a world that is falling apart, the church is no haven from it. We are not sent from the church as a place of safety into the world as a place of danger. When Jesus said, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning," it was both proclamation and promise that the power of evil is destroyed forever. The whole world is reconciled to God by Jesus's life, death, and resurrection. It's a done deal. Nothing can change it. Nothing can finally prevail against this reconciling act of God. The world is, has been, and will be good, bad, and every conceivable degree between. Insofar as we continue to live in human history on this side of Jesus's second coming, where we have been on our journey is not all that different from where we are going, except for the power of Jesus's message that the kingdom of God is near, except for the critical "yet..." When Luke reports that Jesus tells the seventy that they are sent out as lambs in the midst of wolves he does not mean that they are good people going to minister to bad people. It is instead a vision of the commissioned disciples being living, embodied witnesses of the peace- filled presence of God's reign no matter what the circumstances. It is like Daniel in the lion's den. It is like Isaiah's vision of the wolf dwelling with the lamb and the leopard lying down with the kid and the calf and the lion and the fatling together and a little child leading them all. It is like Melanchthon and like Luther, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and like Billy Graham, like Oscar Romero and Pope John the Twenty-Third.. .sometimes the world and the church are receptive; sometimes the world and the church are hostile; most times it's somewhere in between. And perhaps the world and the church will seem no better or worse because of you, dear graduate. But in your own way you will heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons and raise the dead. And this is why: because God has promised to do so through you. In your own way you will proclaim that the Reign of God is near. Some people may not believe that God is working through you. At times you will not believe it yourself. But it will be so. What will not change is the world's need for the message you bear in Jesus's name. What will never change is the world's deep need for you to show and tell. There are at least two ways to hear the words of one of my favorite hymns, "Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service." The second stanza says: Still your children wander homeless; still the hungry cry for bread; still the captives long for freedom; still in grief we mourn our dead. These are either words of accusation or words of invitation. As followers of Jesus commissioned in faith, we are freed to hear them always as invitation, the invitation to show the world how to deal with its cry of pain and to tell God's good news with fervor. In his vision of the reign of God, Luke will not separate the two and I pray that in your ministry you will likewise keep them together; Luke, and more importantly, Jesus says to us "show and tell." 236

So let's do it. Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. And when you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. And look. "Cure the sick who are there, and say to them,' The kingdom of God has come near to you.'" Show and Tell. Thank you.

Bishop Robert A. Rimbo Southeast Michigan Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Sermon by Henry J. Langknecht

September 19, 2007 Trinity Lutheran Seminary Chapel

There is no strong evidence, really, that we ever wanted to be God's people in the first place. It is easy to be hurt and indignant by the exchange between Moses and God recorded in Exodus 32 ... but we really have no case. We weren't really that keen on being God's people anyway. There is no record in the book of Exodus of any great enthusiasm on our part about being God's people. There is never the sense that when Moses comes to us with the news of his vision of God ... there is never the sense that any of us responds with, "Hey ... that's a great idea ... how can we help?" We watched the plagues being dumped on Pharaoh and we did as we were told ... but there is no sense of much enthusiasm on our part. When Moses is talking to God and God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and make demands, Moses says, "Pharaoh is not going to listen to me, the Israelites aren 't even listening to me!" "The Israelites aren 't even listening to me." We weren't really that keen on being God's people anyway. And God knows this. God has known all along that we've never really been that keen about being God's people. We didn't know this at the time, but ... one of the very first things God decides is to NOT take us to the Promised Land by the most direct route because that would mean confronting the Philistines and God knew that one look at the Philistines and we'd be falling all over ourselves to get back to Egypt. God has always known that our heart's not really in it. After the journey has begun we get one of our first speaking lines ... we're drawing near to the Red Sea .. .the Egyptians are pursuing us and do you know what we said to Moses? "Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, 'Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians'? "For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness." Our heart has never been in it. Well, okay there was that time when Miriam grabbed her tambourine and danced and we sang that song .. ."I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory the horse and rider thrown 237 into the sea." But that doesn't really count... I mean, who can resist liturgical dance and a praise band? At every hardship we grumbled ... no water ... no bread ... no meat... no water again ... At no time do we give any indication that we find this exodus an adventure ... There is no record of us saying, "Hey, this is kind of fun in a dry, weary, hungry sort of way." There's not even an "are we there yet"? It's an irritating question to ask ... but at least it shows an interest in the destination. We never ask "are we there yet" we always ask "when can we go back?" With every step we take away from Egypt, our memory gets more and more skewed ... eventually even the bricks we had to make ... every miserable brick ... Remember? They kept the quota the same but stopped providing us with the raw materials ... we had to gather our own straw ... and then they beat us when our production lagged ... remember? But with every step we take into the wilderness .. .the memories of those bricks turn into memories of bread ... and leeks ... and cucumbers ... and garlic ... and melon ... and pomegranates. But our memories are horrible ... I checked the concordance ... we never had pomegranates in Egypt. There is no record in the book of Exodus of any great enthusiasm on our part about being God's people. Until we get to Sinai ... that was the one highlight. We'd been wandering for three months and we finally get to the place where Moses said we would worship God. Moses went up the mountain and we finally heard from God ... what a day of fulfillment and joy! God says to Moses, "You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples ... you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. So Moses came, summoned us and put before us all these words that the LORD had commanded. And we answered as one: "Everything that the LORD has spoken we will do." This is our first moment of real enthusiasm for God ... for Exodus ... for the promise. And that was the day the wheels really started to come off this thing. We all know what happened next. Moses went back up the mountain and was gone quite a long time. And then ... somehow all the gold jewelry we owned kinda got gathered together somehow ... and then somehow it sorta got thrown into the fire ... and it sorta formed itself into the shape of a calf... and—well, you had to be there to believe it... but it was fairly amazing ... and then Aaron said we'd have a day of celebration ... tambourines and stuff... and ... well ... we've always been suckers for liturgical dance and praise bands ... so we started to dance around the calf. And then comes the exchange between Moses and God that we heard read today. It hurts. Look: God hears us and has mercy on us when we are victims ... oppressed ... crying out in misery ... slaves in Egypt. God hears us and has mercy on us then. And God provides for us when we are dependent weary pilgrims in the wilderness ... it's only daily bread and daily quail ... but it's a sign of God's desire to provide for us when we are dependent weary pilgrims. But the minute we show some enthusiasm ... the minute we make a commitment... the minute we turn from victims to followers and then ... the minute we turn from followers to disobedient followers ... God is done with us. You heard what God said to Moses, right? The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once! [SLOWLY] Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, 'These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen 238

this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation. Have we ever really been God's people? It's hard to make a case ... there's that initial moment when we cry out and God hears us ... then there's three months of us grumbling and God providing ... and then we have one great moment of enthusiasm ... make one great mistake ... and God is ready to destroy us. And Moses, bless his heart ... he stands right up to God and gives it right back ... and in his reply to God. Moses utterly fails to defend us. Moses saves our lives not by putting us in the best possible light or by pointing out that we're not THAT bad ... or by reminding God of all we've been through and how we've borne up pretty well under extremely difficult circumstances. Moses doesn't even try to defend us. Moses saves our lives by reminding God of who God is. But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, 'It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, 'I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people. Moses utterly fails to defend us ... because we are indefensible. We've never been that keen to be God's people. We shout as one, "Everything that the LORD has spoken we will do." But we have our fingers crossed. At every baptism the presider turns to us and says, People of God, do you promise to support name/s and pray for them in their new life in Christ? And we say "we do" ... but with our fingers crossed. When it comes to the raising of other people's children we don't want to be butt-in-skies. At every marriage service the presider turns to us and says, "Will all of you, by God's grace, uphold and care for name and name in their life together?" And we say "We will" ... but then we stand on the sidelines as Christian marriages break up, respecting the boundaries of a couple's misery ... all we can do is pray and keep our fingers crossed. Funny how keeping our fingers crossed serves both as a sign of deceit and a sign of facile hope. At every ordination and installation the presider turns to us and says, "Will you, assembled as the people of God and speaking for the whole Church, receive name as a messenger of Jesus Christ sent to serve God's people with the Gospel of hope and salvation? Will you regard him/her as a servant of Christ?" "We will." "Will you pray for him/her, help and honor him/her for his/her work's sake, and in all things strive to live together in the peace and unity of Christ?" And we say, again, "We will" ... but with our fingers crossed. Because God help me for all the times after a colleague has crashed and burned I've taken voyeuristic pleasure in hearing the gory details. They will never know that we are Christians by our love by our love, they will never know we're Christians by our love. Moses utterly fails to defend us ... because we are utterly 239 indefensible. And our utter indefensibility is precisely the point of this monumental exchange between God and Moses. Moses saves our lives no£ by putting us in the best possible light or by pointing out that we're not THAT bad ... or by reminding God of all we've been through and how we've borne up well under extremely difficult circumstances. Moses saves our lives by reminding God of who God is. What Moses says to God is, "don't let the Egyptians ridicule you by saying that you brought these people out here just to wipe them out (even if they deserve it)." What Moses implies to God is, "let the Egyptians see that you brought these people out here and even though they have No desire to be a people No heart for being a people No skills for being a people "Let the Egyptians say that you took a finger-crossing, double-crossing people and you fed them and nurtured them and sanctified them and created of them a people." They will not know that we are Christians by our love, by our love. I do believe that we are God's people. And I do believe the whole witness of Scripture and Creed ... I know that it's true that we are a holy people and a royal priesthood I know that we are a city on the hill and leaven in the dough I know that we are the communion of saints. But there is an important witness in this little gem of a pericope ... An important witness in this exchange between God and Moses where our identity as the people of God is brought into question. It is important to remember that we are also not God's people .. .We don't really have the heart or the stomach for it. They will never know we are Christians by our love, by our love ... They will know we are Christians when they meet Christ... who alone has the power to inspire and make a people. The important witness in this exchange between God and Moses is that we don't exist so that people will know who we. are. We exist so that people will know who God is. Don Luck, my theology professor in seminary, used to claim that one of Martin Luther's greatest lines was this: "I don't know if I believe ... but I know in whom I believe." God continues to hear us and have mercy on us when we are victims ... oppressed ... crying out in misery ... God continues to hears us and have mercy on us then. And God provides for us when we are dependent weary pilgrims in the wilderness ... It's only daily bread and daily wine ... but it's a sign of God's desire to provide for us when we are dependent weary pilgrims. But the minute we show some enthusiasm ... the minute we make a commitment... the minute we turn from victims to followers and then ... the minute we turn from followers to disobedient followers ... God is done with us. But then God remembers who God is. The God who can take a people who are not a people ... and make of us a people. And God takes us dead, heartless, dry, grumbling, gossiping .. .and makes of us a people. And in that moment before we lose heart again ... We become the very resurrection we proclaim. And by that they will know we are Christians. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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