Preaching Gospel

Essays in Honor of Richard Lischer

Charles L. Campbell, Clayton J. Schmit, Mary Hinkle Shore, Jennifer E. Copeland, Campbell, Schmit

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781498207911
• eBook ISBN: 9781498207904
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Teaching preaching, like preaching itself, is a noble endeavor. After nearly four decades of teaching, Richard Lischer has sent legions of preachers across the world to preach gospel. This volume pays tribute to his faith-filled life of preaching and teaching. The contributors, some of whom were taught by Lischer, have received many laurels themselves, so readers will find in these pages wisdom for preaching from many quarters. Some authors include sermons with helpful commentary about the preaching exercise; some offer essays to illuminate the task of sermon writing; all acknowledge the influence of Richard Lischer on their preaching and teaching endeavors.

Singing the Story

the gospel according to the spirituals

Luke A. Powery

If one browses the corpus of work produced by Richard Lischer, one will observe the ways in which his scholarship is historical, cultural, pastoral, and theological. He touches on themes of culture and preaching, ministry and memoir, death and lament, community and reconciliation, and the hope of the gospel. These are just a few, but it is the last—the gospel—which forms the heart of his writings, and in particular, the gospel story centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through his years of teaching and preaching, Lischer might as well have said, like the early Black preachers and creators of the spirituals, “You can have dis ole world but give me Jesus,” a phrase called “the narcotic doctrine”317 of Black religious folks during the time of slavery. Lischer’s classic study of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., represents not only the preeminent work on King’s preaching, but also Lischer’s embrace and deep appreciation for Black preaching in general.

Given the core gospel theme at the center of Lischer’s work and his keen interest in the cultural expression of Black preaching traditions, this brief essay will explore how the spirituals, the musical genre created by enslaved Africans in the United States, sing the gospel story. Elsewhere, I argue how the spirituals are musical sermons, and thus can serve as teachers of preaching even for today.318 This essay will not make that same argument; rather, it is assumed when I speak of spirituals, I am talking about preaching. After a brief discussion of the spiritual origins of song, I will discuss three major themes of the gospel story presented by the spirituals followed by an exploration of why singing the gospel is important. It will become clear that the gospel story should not only be spoken but also sung.

Divine Origins of the Spirituals

One cannot truly comprehend the significance of singing the gospel story from a cultural perspective without learning about High John de Conquer. In her book, The Sanctified Church, anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston tells an important story from African American cultural history about this figure.319 Here is some of what Hurston writes.

[High John de Conquer] was not a natural man in the beginning. First off, he was a whisper, a will to hope, a wish to find something worthy of laughter and song. Then the whisper put on flesh. His footsteps sounded across the world in a low but musical rhythm as if the world he walked on was a singing-drum. . . . The sign of this man was a laugh, and his singing-symbol was a drum-beat. . . . It was an inside thing to live by. It was sure to be heard when and where the work was the hardest, and the lot the most cruel. It helped the slaves endure. . . . He had come from Africa. He came walking on the waves of sound.

There are many stories about how the enslaved received freedom through High John de Conquer. “The best one,” according to Hurston, “deals with a plantation where the work was hard, and Old Massa mean. . . . So, naturally, Old John de Conquer was around that plantation a lot.”

“‘What we need is a song,’ he told the people after he had figured the whole thing out. . . . Us better go hunt around. This has got to be a particular piece of singing.” However, the slaves were scared to leave because they knew how Old Massa would treat any slave who attempted to escape. Their fear did not stop High John. He came with a big black crow for them to travel on in their search for a song. They traveled to hell looking for “a song that would whip Old Massa’s earlaps down.” But the song was not in hell thus they decided to visit heaven.

When they reached heaven, they were “given new and shining instruments to play on” and they “walked up Amen Avenue and down Hallelujah Street,” both of which were tuned to sing bass, alto, tenor, and soprano, respectively. “You could make any tune you wanted to by the way you walked. . . . Old Maker called them up before His great work-bench, and made them a tune and put it in their mouths. It had no words. It was a tune that you could bend and shape in most any way you wanted to fit the words and feelings that you had. They learned it and began to sing.”

Just about that time, Old Massa began to call them and scream. They returned to the plantation with a new song and laughter, both an advantage in their minds. They picked up their hoes as they “broke out singing as they went off to work. The day didn’t seem hot like it had before. Their gift song came back into their memories in pieces, and they sang about glittering new robes and harps, and the work flew . . . .”

This cultural vignette suggests the divine origins of the gift of song. The “Old Maker,” God, made them a melody for survival. Moreover, it is significant that when speaking of the religious slave songs, the spirituals, an ex-slave makes an even greater and specific claim. He says:

Us ole heads used ter make them on the spurn of de moment, after we wressle with the Spirit and come thoo. But the tunes was brung from Africa by our granddaddies. Dey was jis ’miliar song . . . they calls ’em spirituals, case de Holy Spirit done revealed ’em to ’em.320

According to this account, the “spirituals” are called such because they stem from the Holy Spirit. Like the story of High John, they have divine origins thus are not to be taken for granted and easily dismissed. The spirituals are musical revelations of the Spirit proclaiming the gospel story. These historical musical sermons are the roots of centuries of musical preaching within African American settings. Black preachers have been called “God’s trombones” pointing to the musical homiletical tradition. From early chanting slave p...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Preaching Gospel
• Reading the Text with Richard Lischer
• Preaching Gospel from the Old Testament
• Preaching Paul’s Gospel
• Preaching In the Ruins
• Preaching the Gospel of Resurrection
• The Holy Spirit and Preaching
• The Promise of Law and Gospel
• The Gospel and the Missional Church
• Gospel Wisdom for Ministry
• Preaching the Gospel of Hope
• Singing the Story
• Speaking Gospel in the Public Arena
• Preaching Gospel in a Gendered World
• Memoir and Gospel
• Breakfast on the Shore
• Gospel Performance and the Mind of Christ
• A Final Word on Richard Lischer as Preacher of the Gospel