Warning: This is a long post and for preaching geeks only!!! I welcome your thoughtful feedback on my work as I prepare to present the thoughts below at a homiletics society meeting this week.
Preaching
as a Spiritual Discipline: An Incarnational Model
Abstract
It
is tempting for preachers to practice preaching as merely a rhetorical,
technical task instead of what it is ultimately intended to be—a spiritual,
devotional journey into the Christ whom the preacher proclaims. This trend in
homiletic practice can detract from the preacher’s Christian ethos and
preaching joy. The result is often homiletic fatigue, pastoral burnout, or,
worse, moral failure. Preachers can benefit significantly from a guide to
developing and delivering sermons that fosters not only exegetical and
homiletical integrity, but also the spiritual intensity that nurtures intimacy
with Christ. The rhetorical task of preaching is most formational when it is
wed to the spiritual life of the preacher. This conviction is at the center of
this paper, which contends for preaching as a spiritual discipline and explores
some practices for doing so in the pulpit and the classroom.
Problem:
Where We Are
An All Too Familiar Story
I was in over my head and I knew it. During my senior year
of college, I was called to pastor a rural congregation fifteen minutes off
campus. My senior class friends were making the most of their weekends while my
Saturdays were devoted to prepping for Sunday sermons. I took a preaching
course in college but barely paid attention presuming, “I don’t have to be ready
to preach yet; there’s plenty of time.” If only I had taken that course seriously!
The high call of preaching good news to a hope-hungry human race overwhelmed
me. Most of the people in that small congregation were three times my age. What
could I possibly tell them that they didn’t already know and how could I say it
any differently than they had already heard it? Simply put, preaching petrified
me.
There was, however, a significant silver lining. My lack of
skill and experience, coupled with my sense of inadequacy and insecurity, prompted
in me a deep dependence upon God throughout the process of developing and
delivering sermons. Preaching was, in the earliest days of my ministry, a
spiritual discipline that increased my preaching joy and Christian ethos, which
I define as authentic love for God and for the people to whom I preach.
Another dynamic soon surfaced along the homiletical highway
when I learned how to preach. Invitations to be a guest speaker at retreats and
special events came early in my preaching journey, too early I suppose. The
affirmation made me arrogant, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I went to
seminary and received A’s in every preaching course I took, and I registered
for as many as I could take. During my senior year in the Master of Divinity
program I was the recipient of the Biblical Studies Award. Seminary affirmed my
homiletical and exegetical skills, which I erroneously assumed were all I
needed for a faithful, fruitful, and fulfilling preaching ministry.
Over the next few years, I lost my preaching mojo. I’m not
sure that anyone really noticed this, but I did. As my congregation and young
family grew, corner-cutting became my pattern for sermon preparation. Basic exegetical
and rhetorical work had to be done, so I cut the only corner I thought I could
cut. I cut out praying, fasting, and reflecting on the biblical text I was
preaching. The sermons I preached still seemed, on the surface, exegetically
sound and homiletically tight. Nothing much appeared to happen to the sermon, but
something happened to this preacher. My Christian ethos and my preaching joy
dissipated. Preaching was now a chore, a rhetorical task on my long to-do list,
instead of a spiritual discipline through which I delved deep into Christ and
God’s word on behalf of my congregation. Preaching was no longer the
adventurous devotional tightrope walk from Monday to Sunday that plunged me
headlong toward divine dependence. I was like the artist ghost in C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce who was more enamored
with the artistic craft than what the craft was conveying.[1] I
became more intoxicated with the craft of preaching than with the Christ I was
called to preach. Preaching was killing my soul in the worst way.
Based upon countless conversations with ministerial colleagues
and students, I have come to realize that my story is more universal than
unique. What can be done to prevent this generation of preachers from
forfeiting Christian ethos and preaching joy in favor of an efficient
rhetorical technique? For starters, we will need to name and avoid the homiletic
heresies that push their way into the practice of preaching.
Homiletic Heresies: Docetism to Donatism
to Deism
Several heresies reared their ugly head in the early days
of the Church as she sought to comprehend and communicate the full divinity and
complete humanity of Christ. These Christological heresies form a frame through
which to analyze current homiletic “heresies” that have developed around the
preacher and preaching.
Docetism was one of the earliest heresies to emerge.[2] Docetics
emphasized the divinity of Christ but devalued his humanity by denying it
altogether. Jesus only appeared to be
made of human matter, according to Docetics, but was entirely divine spirit. Homiletic
Docetism underemphasizes the human side of preaching, namely the role of the preacher.
Theologian Karl Barth, rightly intent on elevating the role of God in preaching,
inadvertently downplayed the significance of the preacher’s character and skill
to the preaching event. As long as God shows up, so the thinking goes, the
presence of the preacher doesn’t matter much. Preaching happens because God
shows up to speak through the preacher, regardless of the latter’s level of
involvement in the process. Barth was likely trying to overcome the perception
of preaching as “truth through personality” that dominated homiletics during
the turn of the twentieth century.[3]
The Barthian pendulum swung a bit too far for some homileticians.
Homiletic Docetics want to cut out the human fat from the meat
of the preaching event. This homiletic bent makes the development of exegetical
and homiletical skills, and the professors and courses that foster them, somewhat
unnecessary. Furthermore, the preacher’s spirituality doesn’t matter much
either, according to homiletic Docetics, because preaching is “all about God.” Preaching
is, they suppose, at its best when there is little to no flesh, blood, and bone
of humanity in it. Those preachers who “wing” their sermon on Sunday morning in
order to be “Spirit-led” deny the essentiality and responsibility of the
preacher and become Docetic in their practice. I agree with Fred Craddock who
states, “Any doctrine of the Holy Spirit that relieves me of my work and its
responsibility is plainly false.”[4]
There is another homiletic heresy that seems more en vogue
today; it is the one that nearly led me off the proclamation deep-end. The
heresy that seems to dominate the preaching landscape today is not a homiletic Docetism
that diminishes the role and responsibilities of the preacher, but a homiletic Donatism
that is so exclusively enamored with the skills and methods of the human preacher
that there is minimal room or need for the Spirit of God. The Donatists
of the 4th century put too much emphasis on the roles and responsibilities of the clergy. They believed that if the priest administering the
sacrament of Communion was a spiritual weakling, a compromiser who sold out during persecution, then the sacrament would not be efficacious for the
recipient. The Donatists put so much stock in
the clergy, in terms of the latter’s character and skills, that they devalued
the presence and power of God that comes through the sacraments regardless of
the kind of person administering them.
Homiletic Donatists are those who make preaching primarily,
if not entirely, about the personality and skills of the preacher. Preaching
is, to them, all about the preacher. Of course, homiletic Donatists don’t set
out to be such. They preach, however, as if the impact of preaching is entirely
dependent upon their rhetorical skills instead of the presence and power of the
God who shows up to speak up through the preacher. Michael Pasquarello hits the
proverbial “nail on the head” of homiletic Donatism when he writes:
[T]he most unquestioned homiletic assumption of our time:
that the primary task of preaching is a matter of finding the right rhetorical
technique, homiletic style, and evangelistic strategy to translate and make
Christianity useful, appealing, relevant and entertaining on terms dictated by
a consumerist culture. This understanding of preaching… in
practice, shifts the weight of dependence from the efficacy of the Spirit to an
almost exclusive dependence on human personality, ingenuity, method, and skill.[5]
The preachers who feel the full “weight” of the preaching
event, as if everything depends upon their rhetorical technique and skill, lean
toward Donatism. Homiletic Donatists don’t deny the importance of God’s
presence in theory but put God on the back-burner in practice. They may offer a
quick prayer at the beginning of sermon preparation and another just before
sermon delivery, but there is no consistent and comprehensive space for God in
their homiletic process. Homiletic Donatism is evidenced when the preacher
practices preaching as a rhetorical technique that makes relational dependence
upon and submission to God unnecessary. This homiletic crisis is really a faith
crisis for the preacher. The preacher is driven solely by the pragmatism of
what works, while theological and devotional convictions are relegated to the
side-lines of sermon preparation.
The river of homiletic Donatism eventually flows into the
lake of homiletic Deism. Once the preacher has what is needed from God, the
preacher no longer needs God. Get the method that works, the Divine principle,
and then God is no longer necessary. The preacher becomes, essentially, a
practical Deist.[6] Some
people, primarily homiletics professors like me, bemoan the current dominance
of deistic sermons. A deistic sermon is one that posits a bottom line principle
that can be effectively applied to finances, marriage, friendship, emotions,
etc. without any relational dependence upon and submission to God. Deistic
sermons seem to come from deistic preachers, those who develop and deliver
sermons with relatively no relational connection to God built into the
homiletic process.
Although we find ourselves in a Postmodern context, homiletics
is still reeling from the impact of Modernity. The empiricism of the Modern era
led naturally to a worldview in which truth could only be discovered through
the detached objectivity mandated by the scientific method. Modernity sought to
free itself from the Premodern proclivity toward spirituality and subjectivism
in the quest for truth. The detached objectivity of Modernity flooded the field
of biblical criticism and flowed into the field of homiletics. The result is
that many preachers over the past century were taught to never mix their
devotional reading of Scripture, designed for spiritual growth, with their
exegetical reading of Scripture, designated for the sermon. The underlying,
often unstated, assumption of Modern homiletics, with a few refreshing
exceptions, is that the only or best way for the preacher to mine a text for
the sermon is from a posture of detached and objective pragmatism. One can
easily see how such a posture would inhibit the spiritually formative potential
of preaching upon preachers.
The miserable irony here is overt; if the preacher is going
to ascertain and appropriate the truth of God’s word, all the preacher really
needs is a tried and true method, not the tried and true God. In time, the
homiletics course became chiefly concerned with rhetorical methodology and
rarely devoted adequate time and space to an exploration of the theology,
anthropology and spirituality of preaching.
The “what” (sermon) and “how” (rhetoric) dominated the “who” (God and
the preacher) and “why” (call). The development and delivery of gifted
preachers and good sermons became more methodological than formational, more
technical than spiritual.
The literature on homiletics over the past generation
corroborates the impact of Modernity’s infatuation with methodology over
spirituality. Some of the most popular books on preaching, the ones that have prevailed
in the homiletics course and the pastor’s study, offer virtually no guidance on
practicing preaching as a spiritual discipline.
Biblical Preaching, written by Haddon Robinson and published in 1980, is
one of the most widely read and helpful books in preaching produced within the
past forty years. Robinson’s main aim was to help preachers “rightly divide the
word of truth,” to get the biblical text right. This was a vital concern during
the rise of the pop-psychological topical sermon that dominated the preaching
scene during the last half of the 20th century. Perhaps as a
cautious reaction to biblical shallowness and subjectivity in the pulpit,
Robinson prescribes no explicit practical steps for incorporating spiritual
disciplines into the homiletic venture.
Fred Craddock’s Preaching,
while beneficial in helping the preacher develop a theologically sound and
practically astute ministry of preaching, says very little about perceiving and
practicing preaching as a spiritual discipline. In Part II of the book, the
section that deals with the nuts and bolts of developing a sermon that is
faithful to the text and the context, the reader receives no practical
prescription for the wedding of spiritual disciplines with the homiletic task.
Craddock does assert his conviction that both the Spirit and the preacher are
necessary to the preaching event,[7]
but there is almost no exploration of practical ways to consciously and
consistently deploy his conviction.
David Buttrick’s Homiletic
provides many valuable insights for preachers in its 500 pages. The nearly 10
page index, however, does not even include the topic of “prayer.” Buttrick says
almost nothing about the important intersection between homiletics and the preacher’s
dependence upon God throughout the homiletic enterprise. He even comes close to
demeaning the notion that such an intersection even exists.[8]
One of the more recent books to have a wide ranging impact
on a new generation of preachers is Andy Stanley and Lane Jones’ Communicating for a Change, published in
2006. There is much to appreciate and appropriate from this readable volume.
However, it is almost entirely consumed with methodology and only includes a
sprinkling of spirituality and theology. The primary admonition to include
prayer in the preaching process comes at the end of the book, and only then in
the context of the preacher being “stuck.”[9]
The masterful books cited above have positively influenced
the way I preach sermons and teach preaching. These works are worth their
homiletic weight in gold. All of them, nevertheless, present a methodological framework
that makes virtually no room for the infusion of spiritual disciplines. Maybe these
books were written to combat the homiletic Docetism that was still lingering
from 19th century revivalism, which appears to have led to a
devaluing of the education and skills required for faithful and fruitful
preaching. These popular preaching texts swing the pendulum the other way. They
say almost nothing about how to develop and deliver sermons in a manner that
intentionally forms Christ, his love and joy, in the preacher. A couple of
these influential works encourage a godly life and even stress the importance
of the preacher’s devotional life outside of the homiletic process. Yet none of
them include practical ways to consistently engage preaching as a spiritual
discipline. In failing to do so, these works neglect a key element in the homiletic
process. Perhaps they assumed their preaching readership, without admonition
and guidance, would intuitively merge spiritual disciplines with the homiletic
process. The lack of deep and abiding joy in clergy is one point of evidence
that this merger can no longer be assumed.
According to an article from the New York Times published
in 2010, there is an alarming lack of vocational joy among clergy. The article
begins:
The
findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and
with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension
and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their
use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many
would change jobs if they could.
Public health
experts who have led the studies caution that there is no simple explanation of
why so many members of a profession once associated with rosy-cheeked longevity
have become so unhealthy and unhappy.[10]
The article, titled Taking
a Break from the Lord’s Work, goes on to suggest that burn-out is caused by
the busyness of doing the Lord’s work. According to the piece, pastors simply
need a break from their work by taking vacation, a day of rest each week, and
extended sabbaticals. While I am fully supportive of pastors taking a break
from the Lord’s work, there is not necessarily a direct connection between
busyness and burnout. I know dozens of pastors, many of them serving in
rigorous third world contexts, who are extremely busy but not at all on the
verge of burning out. They are full of joy. Could it be that clergy burnout,
fatigue, and moral failure are caused not by the busyness and challenge of
ministry but by trying to do the work of the Lord without the Lord of the work?
Practical Deism causes burnout among clergy.
What if the 10-15 hours typically designated for sermon
preparation were conceived as a spiritual discipline designed to foster
intimacy between the preacher and Christ? What if sound exegesis and skillful
rhetoric were fostered and deployed not through detached objectivity or pragmatic
methodology but as a spiritual discipline?
Imagine what might happen to the preacher whose homiletic paradigm shifts
from preaching as a rhetorical task in order to get a sermon toward preaching
as a spiritual discipline in order to get Christ? How can the preacher preach
in a way that forms Christ in them through the process of developing and
delivering sermons? The union between the preacher and Christ is the only
proven path through which ethos and joy flow into and from the preacher. Preaching
as a spiritual discipline is an incarnational approach that unites the human
preacher with the divine Christ in the homiletic voyage.
Homiletic heresy happens when the process of developing and
delivering sermons diminishes either the role of God or the role of the preacher.
It seems to me that, somehow, the Church must live between
the extremes of homiletic Donatism, an over-reliance on the preacher that
squeezes out the need for the presence and power of God, and homiletic Docetism, a complete denial of
the importance of the preacher that makes God responsible for doing the preacher’s work.
God does his most outstanding work through the wedding
together of divinity and humanity. Consider the Scriptures, God’s divine Word reflected
through human words. Consider Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Consider the
Church, divine treasure in human jars of clay. And consider the Christian
sermon, divine grace and truth bursting through a human agent we call preacher.
An incarnational sermon, then, is bound to be birthed through a homiletic
process that is incarnational, that is open to, dependent upon, and requiring
the full participation of both God and the preacher. The Church longs for an
incarnational homiletic.
Resolution:
Where We Have Been
How can the practice of preaching spiritually form
preachers so that their Christian ethos and preaching joy are heightened? This
question has been asked and addressed before. One is wise to look back upon the
historical horizon in order to move forward. C. S. Lewis insightfully asserts:
Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good
at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all,
therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our
own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to
some extent the contemporary outlook- even those, like myself, who seem most
opposed to it.[11]
A brief glance into the rearview mirror of history can
inform a thoughtful response to the current preaching crisis.
Aristotle
Aristotle (384-322 BC) is worthy of consideration in the
scope of this paper for two reasons. First, he was one of the earliest pioneers
in teaching and writing about rhetoric. His work influences how we communicate
and think about communication to this day. Second, he elevated ethos, the
character of the speaker, above logos, the content of the speech, and pathos,
the connection to the listener. Aristotle asserted that the ethos of the
speaker, which he described as “good sense, good moral character, and goodwill,”[12]
is the most important factor in convincing and persuading listeners.
Few homileticians, if any, would disagree with Aristotle’s
emphasis on the ethos of the speaker, but most would not affirm all of his
conceptions. Aristotle wrote that “persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s
personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him
credible….his character may almost be called the most effective means of
persuasion he possesses.”[13] Notice
the pragmatic language Aristotle uses here. If one reads between the lines it
appears that this ancient rhetorician taught students that it’s quite possible,
and even advisable, to fake ethos so that the listener thinks more highly of
the speaker than he ought. Perceived ethos, then, matters as much as or more
than real ethos to Aristotle. Ethos is important in so far as it is an
“effective means” of persuading the listener.
Aristotle’s version of ethos may elicit listener persuasion
but it does not cultivate the kind of character in the speaker that is real,
marked by love and joy. Perceived ethos, so conceived, might positively impact
the listener but not the speaker. While perceived ethos is purely
anthropological and can, therefore, be manufactured through methodological
pragmatism, real ethos is cultivated in the preacher who yields to God through
the practice of spiritual disciplines.
Aristotle’s notion of ethos conflicts with Christian ethos
in other noteworthy ways. Aristotle advises those who speak to seek
self-glorification through the derogation of others. “Having shown your own
truthfulness and the untruthfulness of your opponent, the natural thing is to
commend yourself….you must make yourself out a good man and him a bad one
either in yourselves or in relation to your hearers,”[14]
suggests Aristotle. Christian ethos, on the contrary, is revealed in the
preacher who seeks the glory of God, as opposed to self-glory, and the
well-being, not the belittling, of others. The premise of this paper is that the
preacher who genuinely incorporates spiritual disciplines throughout the
homiletic process will experience a heightened level of love for God and for
people that cultivates a more authentic sort of ethos in the preacher than
Aristotle conceived.
Apostle Paul
The Apostle Paul counters Aristotelian rhetorical aims in
that he refused to preach for his own ovation in place of God’s glorification.
Paul reveals this goal in his words from 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, the most explicit
description of his homiletic theology. Paul’s
writing here
has rhetorical eloquence,[15] though he tries his best not to showcase it in his
preaching. He even notes the lack of rhetorical eloquence in his preaching when
he was previously with the Corinthians for eighteen months of ministry.[16] It is counter-intuitive for someone who is trying to
develop his credibility as an apostle to downplay his rhetorical ability. Paul
reveals in 2:5 why he puts his ineloquence on display. In climactic fashion he
writes, “so that
your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” Paul’s intentional lack
of eloquence in speaking prevents people from putting more faith in him than in
God. He
was more concerned with God’s glory and the spiritual nurture of the listener
than with arrogantly impressing people
through his rhetorical skill. This
humble love for God and people heightened the Apostle’s Christian ethos in
preaching.
The
Corinthians, steeped in the Greco-Roman
idolization of rhetoric, often exalted the
messenger over the message. Perhaps
for this reason Paul is quick to embrace the weakness of
his preaching (v. 1) and
his own emotional state (v. 3). Eventually, he moves from weakness to strength
in this pericope by praising
the Spirit and power of God (vv. 4-5).
The
internal development of the passage moves from a focus on Paul’s weakness to a
focus on God’s power. This shift represents the transition that Paul wants to
see take place in the hearts of the Corinthian believers, a move away from an
anthropocentric focus to a theocentric focus in the preaching event.[17] Paul is, it seems, advocating a spiritual homiletic that places more
emphasis on the power of God than the technique of the preacher without denying the role of the latter. Paul would, no doubt, advocate an
incarnational model of preaching that avoids the homiletic heresies described
previously.
Several
contrasts and comparisons are going on in this brief passage which are vital to
its interpretation. Paul contrasts his “message and preaching” (v. 4) with the “superiority of
speech or of wisdom” (v. 1) and “persuasive words of wisdom” (v. 4) that many in
the Greek culture idolized. Paul’s refusal to showcase his rhetorical eloquence
and power by “determining to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ, and
Him crucified” (v. 2), actually, and ironically,
invited and enabled the “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (v. 4).
Paul’s preaching when he was with the Corinthians illustrates what he has been
trying to communicate in 1 Corinthians 1:17-31, that what appears to be foolish, weak and
ineloquent from a human standpoint is actually the wisdom, power, and eloquence
of God. Paul wants God to get the credit the
latter deserves for our salvation and ministry.[18] Paul is essentially saying that if the impact of preaching
rested on the preacher’s ability, and not God’s power, it would be a vain
rhetorical exercise. Yet many preachers
have been prepared to practice preaching
as principally a rhetorical exercise dependent on human presence and power instead of a spiritual discipline that opens the homiletic process to
God’s presence and power. Many
preachers profess reliance upon God but deny that profession in the process of developing
and delivering sermons.
Paul
states strongly in 1 Corinthians 2:2 that he intentionally decided to “know nothing” when he
preached except “Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” “By placing proper emphasis on the
crucifixion, Paul ensured that no one could mistake his message for a kind
of crowd-pleasing rhetorical stunt, convincing at the time but making no lasting
impression.”[19]
Paul is using a bit of sarcasm to challenge those who claim to know everything.
He resolves to distinguish himself from “wandering sophists and orators,”[20]
who showcased their knowledge and skill in an arrogant and boastful manner. He refuses
to get lost in the philosophical minutia of the day in order to keep his focus
on the cross. The bottom line of Paul’s claim in verse 2, in light of the
entire pericope, is that “the cross not only establishes what we are to preach,
but how we are to preach.”[21]
Paul’s “policy on rhetoric”[22]
was informed by his identification with the cross of Christ. This cross-shaped identification
is what the Christian spiritual disciplines are designed to cultivate, as
Paul’s life so plainly illustrated.
Paul cites the “Spirit” (v. 4) as the primary power for his
proclamation. First Corinthians employs various forms of pneuma (“Spirit”)
thirty-two times, which is more than is found in any other letter from Paul. The inclusion of Paul’s homiletic theology in a letter
that focuses prominently on the work of the Holy Spirit would imply a deep and
intimate connection for Paul between pneumatology and homiletics,
a connection that has
too often been severed in practice, if not in theory.
Paul’s
preaching manifested
a “demonstration of the Spirit”
and
“power.” avpodei,xei,, translated “demonstration,” literally means “a clear proof” and was a technical
rhetorical term.[23] Paul is likely employing a sarcastic play on words here as
he denigrates rhetorical demonstration by comparing it to the even greater
demonstration of duna,mij, the Greek word for
“power,” which Paul includes on verses 4 and 5. The question the
reader is forced to ask at this point in the passage is, how was the Spirit and power demonstrated through Paul’s
preaching? Paul never answers this
question directly, but he does describe the evidence of his Spirit-empowered preaching in the following verse.
2:5
is Paul’s climactic conclusion about his spiritual homiletic, a homiletic that embraces the incarnational intersection
between the preacher’s
presence and God’s power. His preaching was
not powerful from a rhetorical standpoint but was, nonetheless, a display of Spirit and power because of the inward result
of “faith” it produced in the hearts of listeners, a faith that “would not rest
on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.”
What might have been cryptic to readers up to this point, Paul now makes crystal clear.
His preaching style and content, like the cross of Christ, is intended to
elicit peoples’ faith, not in human ability and the conventional wisdom of the day, but in God. Paul
wants his preaching, and the response to his preaching, not to rest on the
limited capacity of humanity, but the limitless ability of God. Rhetorical eloquence takes a backseat to
the kerygma of Christ crucified. In Paul’s estimation, what makes good
preaching good is that it will cause people to put more faith in the Christ who is preached than
in the preacher who is preaching. Gordon D. Fee reinforces Paul’s emphasis:
What [Paul] is rejecting is not preaching, not even
persuasive preaching; rather, it is the real danger in all preaching- self-reliance. The
danger always lies in letting the form and content get in the way of what
should be the single concern: the gospel proclaimed through human weakness but
accompanied by the powerful work of the Spirit so that lives are changed
through a divine-human encounter. That is hard to teach in a course on
homiletics, but it still stands as the true need in genuinely Christian
preaching.[24]
Ultimately, the God-dependent preacher
is the one who experiences the fullness of God’s power in and through the preaching
event.
For
Paul, preaching was a spiritual discipline that, like all spiritual
disciplines, depends upon the power of God and not merely upon human wisdom and
ability. This dependence does not negate the importance of human ability and
experience in the homiletic process. That would lead to homiletic Docetism. The preacher’s
skill and effort can be important elements through which the power of God is
made manifest. However, what is even more important than the preacher’s ability
is the willingness of the preacher
to cultivate and maintain identification and intimacy with the crucified and
risen Christ throughout the homiletic process. This intimate identification is
fostered through authentic engagement in spiritual disciplines. Paul made a
conscious decision to focus more on alignment with Christ than with the
rhetorical devices of his day. Union with Christ is the spiritual homiletic
that enabled Paul’s preaching to realize the power of God to a greater degree than it would have if it rested solely “on the wisdom of men” (1 Cor. 2:5b).
Paul operates under the conviction that if the presence and
power of God is going to come through the preaching event, then the preacher
must resist blind acceptance of the rhetorical conventions of the day.
Furthermore, the faithful preacher will adopt a spiritual homiletic that opens
the preacher up to the Spirit of God while engaging in exegesis, hermeneutics,
and rhetoric. If one reads between the lines of Paul one might hear the apostle
asking, how can the preacher ask people to put their trust in God not “man,” if
the preacher is unwilling to do so in the practice of preaching?
Augustine
Augustine is the earliest and, arguably, best example of a rhetorician
turned preacher who found a way to walk the fine line of incarnation between
homiletic Docetism and homiletic Donatism. He seems to have merged the best of
Pauline spiritual theology and Aristotelian rhetorical philosophy into a
homiletic that diminished neither the role of God nor the role of the preacher.
Augustine
of Hippo (354-430 AD), like Aristotle, not
only practiced but taught and wrote about his rhetorical
philosophy or, more accurately, homiletic theology. In
On
Christian Teaching, Augustine
placed the highest value on the ethos of the speaker. Though he lived hundreds of years after Aristotle,
Augustine was likely trained under the tutelage of the Greek philosopher’s writings.
When Augustine converted to Christ he, along with many in the Church, tried to
grasp and teach the uniqueness of Christian rhetoric and the role of the Holy
Spirit in Christian speech. “The church agonized over its use
of rhetorical strategies and forms, encumbered as the classical tradition was
with pagan associations. Where was the Holy Spirit in the rhetoric of
preaching? ....Augustine helped relieve the church’s problem for well over a
millennium by codifying a Christian approach to the rhetoric of preaching.”[25] Augustine conveyed
a nuanced view of rhetoric that is really more akin to what I am describing as the Christian
ethos that results from spiritual disciplines.
Abiding
in Christ was important to Augustine because he “knew well the enchanting
power of human speech and its capacity for harm when separated from God’s truth
and goodness.”[26]
Augustine taught that a person’s
relationship with God enabled the “affirmation of human institutions and the
discernment of what needs to be redeemed and rejected in them.”[27] Something
greater and more influential than mere rhetorical technique was available to
Christian preachers and Augustine knew it. While Augustine did not ignore the
importance of rhetorical skills, he realized that the power of God’s Spirit was
both necessary and available for Christian preaching to reach its potential and
hit its mark. He “offered an alternative way by encouraging pastors to take up
a life of prayerful attention to the Word with the love bestowed by the Spirit.”[28]
Unlike
so much of the literature and practice in preaching today, Augustine did not
want to put the cart of the preacher’s rhetorical technique before the horse of the preacher’s
spiritual vitality.
Augustine’s
theology of preaching comes out most profoundly in Book IV of his On Christian Teaching. Here he has much
to say about the difference between rhetorical eloquence and Christian ethos,
stressing the latter without
entirely negating the need for the former. He writes, “More important than any amount of grandeur of style
to those of us who seek to be listened to with obedience is the life of the
speaker.”[29]
Simply put, ethos is more important than eloquence for the proclaimer of the
gospel of Jesus Christ. And this ethos,
according to Augustine and a long line of others in the tradition of Christian preaching, is
not developed by technique, but by God in the context of spiritual disciplines.
In the following quote from Augustine about the preacher,
one can easily sense the overall thrust of his homiletic
approach:
He should be in no doubt that any
ability he has and however much he has derives more from his devotion to prayer
than his dedication to oratory; and so, by praying for himself and for those he
is about to address, he must become a man of prayer before becoming a man of
words. As the hour of his address approaches, before he opens his thrusting
lips he should lift his thirsting soul to God so that he may utter what he has
drunk in and pour out what has filled him.[30]
Augustine asserts here that the preaching life is
one that marinates in prayer, for both the task of preaching and those to whom
it is addressed. Just as he believes that genuine ethos enhances preaching, its
lack detracts from the potential impact of the preached message upon hearers. This conviction surfaces in his description of
those who preach what they do not practice when he writes “they benefit many
people by preaching what they do not practice, but they would benefit more
people if they practiced what they preached.”[31]
In this quote, Augustine masterfully avoids both homiletic Donatism, which overemphasizes the person of the preacher and underemphasizes
the presence of God, and homiletic Docetism, which undervalues the importance
of the preacher’s ethos to the preaching event.
Augustine
hints at
the connection between ethos and joy that this paper seeks to establish.
He tackles the issue of depression among preachers because he recognizes “we
are given a much more appreciative hearing when we ourselves enjoy performing
our task.”[32]
The bottom line is that joy in preaching appears
to enhance proclamation’s fruitfulness,
not to mention the preacher’s sense of fulfillment.
Of course, this joy comes from abiding in Christ through the spiritual
disciplines. For preachers, joy ultimately comes not from effectiveness or
commendation, but from the realization that, at the end of the sermon’s day, we
are “in harmony with God’s will to relieve that feeling of depression, and then
we may greatly rejoice in the fire of the Spirit.”[33]
The joy derived from being intimately connected to Christ can
sustain the life and work of the preacher for the longevity of ministry,
overturning the gloomy trend among clergy cited in the New York Times article
above.
Application:
Where We are Going
Preaching as a spiritual discipline reflects the incarnational
way of God in the world. Preaching is spiritual
in that its efficacy relies primarily on the power of God’s divine Spirit. Yet
preaching is also a discipline that
requires the full engagement of the human preacher with the disciplines of devotion,
exegesis, hermeneutics, and rhetoric. When preaching is perceived and practiced
as an incarnational reality, a divine and
human venture, the preacher avoids falling off the tightrope on either the side
of homiletic Donatism or homiletic Docetism.
Preaching as a spiritual discipline, integrating spiritual
disciplines with the homiletic process, is not only valuable because of its
congruence with God’s incarnational modus
operandi; it has some other major benefits as well.
Preaching as a spiritual discipline produces Christ-formed
preachers. Preachers too often complain about being so busy writing sermons that
benefit others they do not have time for practices that cultivate their own
soul. The model presented in this paper (see Appendix A) requires the preacher
to engage the homiletic process in a devotional manner. The preacher comes away
from the process not only with a sermon in hand but with the Spirit in the soul.
Dallas Willard is on to something when he suggests that the best preachers are
the ones who find their deepest satisfaction in Christ. He asserts that the
deeply satisfied preacher brings something to the preaching event that is more
significant than words.[34] Those
who listen to sermons hunger for a preacher who embodies integrity and intimacy
with God, not merely energy and eloquence. Preachers are starving for
devotional encounters with God. Preaching as a spiritual discipline has the
potential to satisfy the hunger of listeners and preachers.
Preaching as a spiritual discipline fosters quality
sermons. The sermons preached with the most passionate conviction are the ones
in which the preacher engages the “angel” of the text in a devotional wrestling
match. The preacher comes away limping under the weight of a sermon that
contains a “word from the Lord.” When the homiletic process does something to
the preacher, it often produces something through the preacher- namely a
quality sermon that is dripping with profound theological substance.
Preaching as a spiritual discipline enhances preaching joy.
More than a few preachers admit to a gradually diminishing joy in preaching.
They are either bored or tired or both. There is another way. Devotional submission
to God through the careful and prayerful reading of the biblical text leads the
preacher into an experience of delightful surprise and adventure. Preachers,
especially though not exclusively those in midlife, crave this reinfusion of
preaching joy. Preaching as a spiritual discipline puts the preacher in a
position to rely on God for both the revelation and inspiration that lead to boundless
joy.
While many preachers may articulate a view of preaching as
a spiritual discipline in theory, few seem to employ their theoretical
convictions in practice. How can we turn the preaching tide? How can we
practice and teach preaching as a spiritual discipline, so that godly preachers
are formed along with good sermons?
The Pulpit
The model for preaching presented in this paper (see
Appendix A) is designed to put the preacher in a posture to embrace and embody the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). Engagement in Christian
spiritual disciplines is a major means through which the ethos of Christ is
cultivated in persons.
A spiritual discipline
“is
any activity within our power that we engage in to enable us to do what we
cannot do by direct effort.”[35]
This definition may sound as if “Christ in us” is a work we accomplish through
discipline rather than a work God accomplishes through grace. Richard Foster insightfully addresses
how God’s grace and the human will
work together in spiritual disciplines that form Christ in people:
A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is
provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the
ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces
of the earth take over and up comes the grain. This is the way it is with the
Spiritual Disciplines—they are a way of sowing to the Spirit. The Disciplines
are God’s way of getting us into the ground; they put us where He can work with
us and transform us. By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing;
they can only get us to the place where something can be done. They are God’s
means of grace….God has ordained the Disciplines of the spiritual life as the
means by which we place ourselves where he can bless us.[36]
Only
God can work the miracle of enabling the character of Christ to flow into and
through the preacher’s life and ministry. “He invites us to become channels
through which He can work.”[37]
However, this does not happen unless the preacher places himself “into the
ground” of the spiritual disciplines with consistency and authenticity.
Christians
have engaged in a
variety of spiritual disciplines for nearly two thousand years. Most of them
can, however, fit into three major categories of disciplines. This three-legged
stool includes
Scripture, prayer and fellowship. Eugene Peterson’s Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity is basically
structured in the form of the three-legged stool of spiritual disciplines that my model incorporates. The only difference
is that Peterson incorporates fellowship as spiritual direction, and my model integrates fellowship in the context of
prayer and discussion groups. All of the spiritual disciplines listed by Dallas
Willard, in The Spirit of the Disciplines,
and Richard Foster, in Celebration of
Discipline, fit nicely in
the rubric of Scripture, prayer, or fellowship. What is more, the disciplines Jesus practiced
in the Gospels fit within this rubric.
My
contention, though one that is shared with others, is that when the preacher is
intimately connected on a regular basis to the three loves most important to
the homiletic process, namely God
through prayer, the Bible through study, and
people through fellowship, the preacher will be in the best possible spiritual shape
to preach. “As preachers we ought to take care not to discard the grace that
God offers us through the practice of spiritual disciplines. By practicing
these disciplines we grow in godliness. By growing in godliness our preaching
grows in power.”[38]
Therefore, a model that infuses the development
and delivery of sermons with the spiritual disciplines
that incorporate Scripture, prayer, and fellowship is a dire necessity for
preaching today. Without these disciplines in the life of the pastor “the best
of talents and best of intentions cannot prevent a thinning out into a life
that becomes mostly impersonation.”[39]
The incarnational model for preaching
as a spiritual discipline does not at all ignore the importance
of sound exegetical, hermeneutical, and rhetorical
methods, but it views these practices through a spiritual lens that invites
God’s Spirit to have the first and the last word in the homiletic enterprise.
Skill development for preaching is important but it must neither eradicate nor overshadow
the vital need for the preacher to be developed
spiritually. Skill development without the
spiritual development of the preacher will, in the long run, damage the
preacher and the Church. “We must be
traffickers in the Holy Spirit more than traffickers in biblical knowledge and
the skills of oratorical suasion.”[40]
Simply put, “The spiritual life is the foundation for preaching.”[41]
The Classroom
Homiletics professors have a weighty role to play in the
liberation of pastors from the wretched realities described in the NY Times
article above. Students need space in the curriculum to explore the possibility
and practice of preaching as a spiritual discipline. This curricular focus is
typically delegated to the spiritual formation professors who are tasked with
teaching students a full orbed life-approach to devotional engagement.
Formation professors focus on the devotional life while homiletics professors
concentrate on the preaching life. The disintegration of these two disciplines,
formation and homiletics, assumes that students will somehow, someday make the
connection between the devotional life and the preaching life, so that the “two
become one.” Some students, down the ministry road, connect the dots but too
many do not. The homiletics classroom is a well-suited environment for the
immediate integration of the devotional life with the preaching life. There are
several practical ways to facilitate this integration of disciplines which
have, for too long, been “torn asunder.”
Consider the inclusion of a course textbook or two that not
only emphasizes the importance of preaching as a spiritual discipline but
provides practical ideas for its undertaking. Books such as Deep Preaching by Edwards, Preaching in the Spirit by Kinlaw, and Spirit-Led Preaching by Heisler are
excellent resources for helping students integrate homiletics and formation.
Of course, reading a text like one of these should be
followed by class discussion and written reflection. Perhaps as much as 25% of
the lectures, readings, discussions, and writing assignments could focus on the
spiritual development of the preacher and practices for preaching as a
spiritual discipline. As I reflect on the homiletics courses I have taken at
the bachelor, master, and doctoral levels, 25% would warrant a significant
increase.
The sermon feedback arena in the homiletics course can also
provide a context for the exploration of preaching as a spiritual discipline.
Using the “Sermon Feedback Form” below (see Appendix B) as a guide, I often ask
students how their devotional interaction with God impacted the logos, pathos,
and ethos, or content, connection, and character of the sermon’s development
and delivery. The following questions
are raised frequently during sermon evaluation and feedback: How did God
illumine that particular interpretation of the biblical text? What did you pray
would happen in and through listeners as a result of hearing your sermon? How
did you rely upon God as you prepared for the delivery of the sermon? While
student responses to these sorts of questions are as varied and unpredictable
as their preaching styles, simply inquiring holds pedagogical potential for raising
the awareness of the crucial intersection between homiletics and spirituality.
Conclusion
Preaching is rhetoric, but it is more than that; it is
sacred rhetoric. Why should preachers become starving bakers,[42]
so busy baking spiritual goodies for others that they never allow themselves to
enjoy the baked goods? The homiletics course is the perfect context for the
obliteration of the starving baker syndrome. If we can teach preachers how to
infuse the homiletic process with spiritual disciplines that drive them deeper
into Christ, his love and joy, then possibly by 2020 the NY Times will publish a
very different and more hopeful article related to the health of clergy.
Questions to Consider
-How do you avoid homiletic Docetism and homiletic Donatism
in your preaching? How can we practice preaching as a spiritual discipline that
embraces both the power of God and the person of the preacher?
-In your pedagogical practice, what Docetic or Donastic
challenges surface most among your students? How can we teach preaching in a
manner that leads students out of homiletic heresy and toward an incarnational
model for preaching as a spiritual discipline?
Notes
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (San Francisco:
Harper, 1946), 38.
[2] Docetic
foundations are challenged throughout 1 John, which the large majority of
scholars agree was written in the late first century.
[3] Thomas G. Long
and Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, eds., Teaching
Preaching as a Christian Practice (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989),
6-11.
[4] Fred B.
Craddock, Preaching (Nashville:
Abingdon, 1985), 30.
[5] Michael
Pasquarello, Christian Preaching
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 166.
[6] John Wesley
used the term “practical atheist” in his sermon titled On Living without God to describe the person whose Christian
beliefs seem incongruent with that person’s behaviors. Wesley’s term may be too
strong and extreme to use here, since most preachers at least pray before they
jump into the homiletic process. “Practical deist,” then, is more accurate than
“practical atheist.”
[7] Craddock, Preaching, 154.
[8] David Buttrick,
Homiletic: Moves and Structures
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 458-59.
[9] Andy Stanley
and Lane Jones, Communicating for a
Change (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2006), 184-85.
[10] Paul Vitello,
“Taking a Break from the Lord’s Work,” New
York Times, August 1, 2010.
[14] Ibid., Book 3:
Chapter 19.
[15] Ben
Witherington, Conflict and Community in
Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 39.
[16] Paul admits “I
did not come with eloquence” in 1 Corinthians 2:1.
[17] Gordon D. Fee, The New International Commentary on the New
Testament: The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1987), 90.
[18] See 1
Corinthians 1:30-31; 2:5.
[19] N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians
(London: SPCK, 2004), 22.
[20] Fee, The New International Commentary on the New
Testament: The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 92.
[21] D. A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1993), 9.
[23] Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A
Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians, 125.
[24] Fee, The New International Commentary on the New
Testament: The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 96-97.
[25] Richard
Lischer, The Company of Preachers
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 277.
[26] Pasquarello, Christian Preaching, 164.
[27] Telford Work, Living and Active: Scripture in the Economy
of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 232.
[28] Pasquarello, Christian Preaching, 56.
[29] Augustine, On Christian Teaching (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997), 142.
[32] Augustine, Instructing Beginners in Faith (Hyde
Park: New City, 2006), 58.
[34] Dallas Willard,
Finding Satisfaction in Christ,
Preaching Today Issue 251, compact disc.
[35] Dallas Willard,
The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco:
Harper, 1997), 353.
[36] Richard Foster,
Celebration of Discipline (San
Francisco: Harper, 1978), 7-8.
[37] Dennis F.
Kinlaw, Preaching in the Spirit
(Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury Press, 1985), 21.
[38] Dean Shriver, Nobody’s Perfect, But You Have to Be
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 111.
[39] Eugene
Peterson, Working the Angles (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 15.
[40] Kinlaw, Preaching in the Spirit, 63.
[41] John H.
Westerhoff, Spiritual Life: The
Foundation for Preaching and Teaching (Louisville: Westminster, 1994), 15.
