Preaching That Makes the Word Plain - William Clair Turner

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as one who sees and hears is taken up in the oracles transcribed in J. W. Johnson’s God’s Trombones. The prayer for the preacher was that God would “Pin his ear to the wisdom-post, / . . . Put his eye to the telescope of eternity, / . . . turpentine his imagination,” so that his words might be “sledgehammers of truth.”4

      Now the question is, how do you write about—and more, teach—such an art form so that there is integrity in the word that is being declared? I can recall oh-so-clearly the conviction that came upon me for the short-lived effort to sacrifice the content for the style during a period when I believed I did not have time for all the preparation I was led to give to the sermon. The consequence was colossal failure that was obvious to me first of all. I can only assume how painful it was for those who listened.

      These are the “methodological currents” that go into my reflections on preaching. They are not contrary to other formal statements concerning preaching found in the standard texts. But these texts do not get to the heart of the project as I have experienced it being done. How shall I say it? They are good for what they are and what they do. But something goes on in the Black Pulpit that is well nigh mystical. I could expand this to all pulpits that are alive with vitality.

      Writing about preaching reminds me of the conversation between the angel and the captive beside the river in Babylon. The captive had serious questions regarding the suffering of Israel, and he wanted some answers. After much of the evasion of the angel (or so the captive thought) the angel came back with questions of his own. He asked the captive to measure a pound of fire, a bushel of wind, to call back a day that was past, and make visible the shape of a human voice. Then he would give the explanation.

      O preacher, how do you do your work? Take me into your workshop, into the workspace. Let me in on the secrets. Methodologically speaking, this sort of question is what I am seeking to probe. It honors but does not accept fully the old wisdom that the art of preaching is “caught rather than taught,” or that it is “better felt than tellt.”

      In the not so distant background is my memory of the anguish of black preachers in the generation that preceded me. Some died and others still live with a strong degree of regret for loosing the talent they took to seminary and being trained away from their people. Studying preaching requires taking the risk of coming out sounding like your teacher. Well into the seventies and beyond, white churches would not call a black preacher, and black churches would not have you if you could not preach with an acceptable delivery.

      Equally well, I remember the general anxiety of African American congregations over subscribing to a Duke-trained African American preacher. A person (or congregation) had no idea what they might be getting. Shaw, Virginia Union, Hood, Gammon, and other black seminaries and colleges had been training ministers as part of their original mission, and their track records were clear. But what would a Duke-trained black preacher do? To put it politely, there was fear.

      I will ever remember the scene following preaching to the Hampton mini-conference. A Baptist preacher rattled his jaws and said, “. . . You didn’t learn that at Duke.” On another occasion I preached for an AME Conference. The bishop “put me up . . . to see what the young doctor could do.” The Lord blessed a sermon entitled, “The Power of God’s Approval.” Some time later that day one of the younger preachers commented, “Now I’m not scared to go to Duke anymore.” Methodologically speaking, I am seeking to set forth a way of doing the work by which I have sought to prepare preachers to be effective dispensers of the word with careful regard (not disregard) for the communities from which they come and to which they will be called or sent.

      In the foreground is the need to serve a generation who did not hear the elders and whose experiences are so different that it is hard to appreciate how they did their work. In the view of many, the criteria for good preaching are set by media and consumer appeal. Dominant themes for this preaching are prosperity, wealth, patriotism, and material blessing. The primary vendors tend to be academic theologians who write for each other, or self-proclaimed popular theologians who are not subject to structures of accountability.

      The busy preacher can easily become the consumer of theologies that take on the guise of scientific scholarship, or that boast of not being theology at all. The underlying interest in this effort is the quest for recovering the pulpit as an arena in which responsible theology is done as source and interlocutor with the widest possible public. I do believe that is what my esteemed teacher had in mind.

      Part I consists of methodological discussions that reflect on preaching as the necessary work that must be done by persons who would speak faithfully for God. Revelation and inspiration notwithstanding, human hands must be set to tasks that demand great effort.

      Chapter 1 explores theological tensions in preaching that reach all the way into exegesis. Because preaching is to be understood, it can never be free of tethers that connect it to the texts that give authority, and to the times and seasons during which it is uttered. An effort is made to show how work done with integrity honors the source and destination of preaching.

      Chapter 2 sets the preacher in pneumatic space—space saturated by the Spirit. The location is somewhere between art and skill, between the mystical sphere in which the word is received and the mundane tasks like scratching the papyrus or striking the keyboard. This is where tedious tasks are sanctified. An attempt is made to say with words how hard work is turned into holy habits, so that one can grow to cherish the chores of preaching.

      Chapter 3 is a discussion of the mechanics involved in putting a sermon together. It identifies knowledges from which good preaching draws so they can be set in place for the necessary homiletical judgments that must be made.

      Part II is a selection of sermons preached from Romans 10, which is itself a mini-treatise on preaching. The sermons illustrate the methods discussed in Part I. They are transparent to the data of life in a particular Christian community. They advance the discussion of what preaching is and how it is done by refracting the word given in specific texts through the rhythms of life.

      Join me, if you will, through the pages under this cover in my quest for a wedding between “teaching what I practice,” and “practicing what I teach.”

part i

      one preaching that makes the word plain

      The essential nature of Christian preaching cannot be overstated, no matter how many times the articulation is made. It is God’s appointed means to proclaim redemption for the world. It has pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. Faith comes by hearing the word of God, but for there to be hearing, there must be a preacher. By preaching the church has lived; by preaching she is revived. Though archaic in form, no adequate replacement has been found. By now those who would embark upon such a quest should well be weary of their failed effort.

      Concerns for understanding, clarity, relevance, and concreteness sound all but tautological in the matter of preaching. It is God’s address to particular human creatures, at a particular time, and under particular circumstances. This is not to say that no factors pertaining to preaching are timeless, or that one generation cannot benefit from the

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