The Story of Narrative Preaching

Experience and Exposition: A Narrative

Graves

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781630878993
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Forty years ago the one thing that could be said about sermons was they were biblical. Unfortunately, they were sometimes tedious too. Narrative preaching aimed to fix that, advocating for a dynamic experience of the text over against a static lecture. Preaching could be like the parables of Jesus, intriguing and compelling.The Story of Narrative Preaching is the story of seven students who are enrolled in Professor Freeman's preaching course. Once a new trend, narrative preaching is now older than most of them. As Professor Freeman notes, two things went wrong with narrative styles: over time the church became biblically and theologically illiterate, and the promised stress on experience didn't always measure up to the weight of the gospel.Readers are invited to sit in on the class, to reflect on the expositional nature of preaching and to experience the stories of some modern storytellers--Flannery O'Connor, Alice Walker, and others--to see what they might teach us about narratives of depth. In the end we discover what may be the most important word in preaching.

Chapter One

It Happened in Israel

It happened in Israel. Preachers are always saying that, right? Not in so many words, no; but in one way or another, yes. Maybe it’s while telling the story of prophets pleading on behalf of God, or each spring describing Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. The Bible is chock-full of stories that happened in Israel, and so naturally preachers tell lots of stories that in one way or another begin, “It happened in Israel.” Well, that’s where this one begins as well.

My New Testament colleague and I led a ten-day trip to the Holy Land late last May. David had been many times before, including an extended stay one summer at an archaeological dig in Banias, also known as Caesarea Philippi at another point in its history. He wasn’t exactly Indiana Jones, but he knew his way around. Me, this was my first trip, so I was more than a little nervous—not about the ongoing Middle East tension but about co-leading when I’d never been to Israel before. David told me to relax. He reminded me we had an excellent guide lined up, a Palestinian Christian, also by the name of David, and I had my colleague’s experience to rely upon. “Besides,” he kept telling me, “your job is preparing the sermons for our evening devotionals.” We had talked about this numerous times and had agreed I would lead the devotional time at the end of each day—prayer, Scripture reading, brief sermon, and communion. Looking at the itinerary ahead of time, I had chosen the Scriptures for each day of the trip, jotted down some sermon ideas, and had planned on ad-libbing depending on what happened each day.

What I had never anticipated in the Holy Land, and if you’ve never been, there’s just no way to plan for it, were the stark juxtapositions between the ancient and modern. They should warn you on the plane about the juxtapositions you will encounter. Shortly after reviewing safety procedures and how disabling smoke detectors is a felony, they should tell you about the juxtapositions. The contrast between ancient and modern is palpable, whether it be the architecture (Wailing Wall and Marriott Hotels), the clothing (tunics and Nikes), or any number of cultural customs too numerous to name. When you are in the Holy Land, you feel like any minute King David might issue an edict, and post it on the wall of his Facebook page no less, assuming the Wi-Fi is up and running.

On the third day of the trip two juxtapositions occurred. The first was seeing one of those wells so famously described in Scripture, like where Jacob first fell in love with Rachel, and where much later Jesus encountered the woman from Samaria. It’s hard to conjure up images of these wells if you’ve never seen one firsthand. They look nothing like the kind where Timmy falls in and Lassie comes to the rescue, oaken bucket on a rope and pulley, pitched roof overhead. Nope, not even close. Jacob’s well, or most any well in Israel for that matter, is a hole in the ground with a stone over it. You feel like you’ve stepped back in time. Only not exactly, because next to all these ancient wells there is usually a bucket like you’d find at Walmart, the brightly colored plastic ones kids use while digging on a beach in Florida. The ancient and modern side by side. That was the first juxtaposition.

The second juxtaposition happened later that afternoon. Tuesday evening I was going to preach from John 4, Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at that well. The sermon was pretty much ready, inspired in part by a sermon I’d heard Gene Lowry preach years ago. But earlier that day a book fell out of my backpack while I was looking for my digital camera. A friend had given me a collection of short stories to read on the plane, even if I’d chosen to sleep on the cross-Atlantic flight instead. She said it was the kind of book I’d love, stories that preachers would find interesting. Those were her words, “stories that preachers would find interesting.”

Of course I find stories interesting—I’m a preacher—and different kinds of stories, too. I like the stories my granddad used to tell about his childhood in Canada. I like the ones my friends and I told around campfires when we were kids, trying to scare each other. Even as an adult, I still like fables from different cultures. I love a good novel, even if I usually only get around to novels during the summer. I wish I could say I like the illustrations preachers tell, and some of them I do; but far too often the stories preachers tell are as weak as chicken broth compared to chicken soup. Don’t even get me started on Chicken Soup for the Preacher’s Soul or whatever volumes are out there. So often, preacher’s illustrations don’t measure up. The idea that this was a book of “stories that preachers would find interesting” didn’t really excite me. So that day in Israel I flipped it open to the table of contents with a healthy dose of cynicism. The name Alice Walker caught my eye, the author of the novel The Color Purple. Only this was a short story called “The Welcome Table.” My cynicism melted in minutes.

Words cannot describe what happened to me on that sunny afternoon in Israel as I read Walker’s story. I took the book and went across the street, where I sat outside a little café called Hillel, named after one of Israel’s great rabbis who even influenced Jesus. I ate falafel but devoured Alice Walker’s story. Other than the Gospel stories, I had never read anything quite so powerful and so brief at the same time. Dynamite in small packages, right?

Then it happened, right there in Israel. Walker’s story, it seemed to me, was a modern-day woman at the well story. Not exactly, of course. Nothing is ever exactly the same, but this short story was definitely in the same spirit as John’s story. So I decided to retell the two stories as part of my evening sermon. I would put them together like the plastic bucket next to an ancient well. If I had had the time, I would have typed out the sermon at a nearby Internet café, but I reconstructed it later and preached a similar version in the States. On that spring day in Israel, the sermon went something like this:

Did you hear John’s opening lines, “He left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria”? It doesn’t sound like much on the surface, certainly not Pulitzer Prize material, but it is a masterful opening.

After the last couple of days, our Mediterranean geography is greatly improved, so I probably don’t have to remind you that Judah is in the south, Galilee in the north, and back then Samaria was right between them. Of course Jesus had to go through Samaria. I mean, back home in the Midwest if you want to drive from Iowa to Arkansas, chances are good you’ll pass through Missouri.

Only Jesus didn’t have to go through Samaria. Some Jewish travelers did, but many went around. As you well know, Samaritans were considered the lowlifes of society by the Jews. The rabbis said, “Better to eat the flesh of swine than to eat Samaritan bread.” So when John says Jesus “had to,” he’s not talking geography, but theology. Jesus had to because there was someone there, someone looking for water. Here’s the story.

Jesus and his disciples journeyed until they came upon a sleepy little town called Sychar. (That’s not on our itinerary, in case you’re wondering.) It was not exactly a tourist spot, although it was the place where Jacob’s well was located, and travelers were always looking for water. Jesus sat down at the well, when a woman from the village came out to draw water. Jesus then struck up a conversation, asking for a drink. The woman was shocked that a Jewish man would even speak to her.

And so was John. Did you notice? John practically sticks his head out of the curtain and interrupts the story. He does. There in parentheses, John tells his readers, “Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans,” only I think he’s screaming it: “Jews Do Not Share Things In Common With Samaritans!” John seems to say, “Can you believe this?”

Not only is she a Samaritan. She’s a she, and the first century was a man’s world. One rabbi claimed, “Better to bury the Torah than entrust it to a woman.” You saw the movie Yentl, didn’t you? Not only is she a Samaritan and a she, this woman has been married five times. But before you jump to conclusions, may I remind you that women could not file for divorce in this ancient culture. This woman has been abandoned five times. That’s why she draws water at noon, not morning or evening with the other women. She has been shunned. And Jesus strikes up a conversation about water.

I really like what John has done here in how he tells the story, and the best way I know to get at that is through an analogy with da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa. As a friend of mine who teaches art history once showed me, you have to look in the background. Da Vinci was enamored with the Alps, only they are in the background of his painting. Those glorious mountains pale in comparison to Mona Lisa.

That’s what John does here, and what we see in the background is Nicodemus. Get it? In chapter three we have the story of this man—a Jewish man, with a distinguished name and religious credentials. But he fades into the background here as we behold this nameless Samaritan woman who has suffered much.

And Jesus seeks her out. Nicodemus sought Jesus, but Jesus sought this woman. He had to go through Samaria. Not because he wanted a drink from Jacob’s well. No, because he wanted to give her a drink. He calls it living water, not the wet stuff in her bucket but the kind of drink that satisfies so you never thirst again.

You know what kind of drink she wants, don’t you? Same kind we do when life is hard and we feel isolated and lonely. Same kind of drink we need at the graveside of a loved one, driving home after yet another funeral. Or waiting for the results of that biopsy. Or after discovering you have just been laid off. Same kind of drink that brought us to Jesus in the first place. It’s the water of life, real life. Anybody here feeling parched?

The disciples were shocked when they found Jesus talking with this woman, but I imagine John’s readers were even more shocked. Do you know why? Because they had heard this story before. And so have you. You know, the story about Jacob meeting Rachel at this very well, and marrying her. It is a common theme in biblical stories. As sure as “Once upon a time” alerts us to fairy tales, stories of a man meeting a woman at a well signaled betrothal. Courtship. Marriage. Get it? Jesus comes in an intimate yet appropriate way to this lonely woman, offering her living water. And what a powerful story!

It reminds me of a story Alice Walker tells, called “The Welcome Table.” Walker is best known for her novel The Color Purple, which is how I first learned about her. But I’ve just discovered this short story by her, and “The Welcome Table” is equally powerful. It’s the story of a woman, nameless and black, whom Walker describes as “the color of poor gray Georgia earth, beaten by king cotton and the extreme weather.”

On this particular fine Sunday morning she starts off to worship at the big white church down the road, a church that is white in many ways. The good religious folks are shocked when she appears. The reverend kindly reminds her this is not her church, as if one could choose the wrong church. The young usher tries as well to persuade her to leave, but she has come to worship God. Finally, the respectable ladies have had enough, and their husbands hurl the poor woman out onto the porch.

She is speechless. Only moments ago she was worshiping God. Then something happens. Listen to how Walker describes it: “She started to grin, toothlessly, with short giggles of joy, jumping about and slapping her hands on her knees. And soon it became apparent why she was so happy. For coming down the highway at a firm though leisurely pace was Jesus.” As he approaches, he says, “Follow me,” and without hesitation, she joins him there on the road, although she has no idea where they are headed. She hums. She sings. She tells Jesus all about her troubles. He smiles. Listens and smiles, and the two of them walk on until the ground beneath their feet gives way to clouds and she is truly home! Never alone! Never hungry! Never thirsty!

What a powerful story! Although the title seems odd, “The Welcome Table.” There’s no table in the story, not a single mention of a table. For that matter, there’s no table in this Gospel story either. Or maybe there is in both stories. Maybe everywhere Jesus goes there is a table. Maybe everywhere that people know pain and great thirst, there is a table with water on it, and wine and bread. And at this table Jesus smiles. Smiles and listens. Amen.

We sat there in silence for a minute or two, and then had communion. I did something similar the next day, and every day after that. I was hooked. One evening I paired Jesus’ temptation story with Stephen King’s “The Man in the Black Suit.” Yes, that Stephen King, only this is such a departure from his norm. I paired Peggy Payne’s “The Pure in Heart” with the burning bush in Exodus. You get the idea.

The people loved the sermons, or maybe it was the rush that comes from traveling through Israel, but these experiments in narrative juxtaposition were powerful, especially for me as the preacher. I couldn’t wait to read another story each day, to pair it with a text, and share it with our group. I figured out fairly quickly that not every short story out there will preach, but a lot of them do.

On the plane ride home, a day that never seems to end, I devoured several more short stories. After finishing “A Father’s Story” by Andre Dubus, a story that defies explanation, I told David, “These things are modern narrative sermons. Not all of them, but many of them for sure. They are powerful beyond description.” He looked up from the book he was reading and smiled. I remembered how Fred Craddock compared narrative sermons to short stories, calling them cousins. I closed the book and my eyes, and began to think about the course I would be teaching the following spring semester, an electi...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Author’s Note
• Chaper 1: It Happened in Israel
• Chapter 2: Shedding the Veil
• Chapter 3: The Sound of Mosquitoes Coughing
• Chapter 4: The Organic Movement
• Chapter 5: Breathing in the Experience
• Chapter 6: Whale Watching
• Chapter 7: Now in Flesh Appearing
• Chapter 8: Inside the Green Gate
• Chapter 9: Hyphenated
• Chapter 10: Revelation
• Chapter 11: Echoes of Eden
• Chapter 12: The Sacred Sandwich
• Chapter 13: A Narrative Species
• Chapter 14: Knocking at Heaven’s Door
• Chapter 15: Lessons from Yo-Yo Ma
• Chapter 16: Soulful Scholarship
• Chapter 17: Both/And
• Chapter 18: A Closer Look
• Chapter 19: Short Easter
• Chapter 20: The Most Important Word
• List of “Preachable” Short Stories
• Sources Consulted