{"id":34,"date":"2021-11-19T19:57:17","date_gmt":"2021-11-19T19:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/?post_type=chapter&p=34"},"modified":"2021-11-24T14:52:16","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T14:52:16","slug":"unleashing-the-power-of-scripture","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/chapter\/unleashing-the-power-of-scripture\/","title":{"raw":"Unleashing the Power of Scripture","rendered":"Unleashing the Power of Scripture"},"content":{"raw":"There is a story that the old-timers around Princeton, New Jersey, absolutely love to tell. It\u2019s a story about the day in the 1940s when a fashionable New York society matron drove down from Manhattan to Princeton in her touring car. She pulled up to the entrance of the Princeton Inn, which in those days was the most luxurious hotel in town. She got out of her car, fished around in her purse until she found a quarter.\r\n\r\nShe pressed it into the hand of the little man at the door of the hotel and said, \u201cTake my luggage in immediately,\u201d and breezed regally into the lobby of the hotel, leaving the little man at the door of the hotel, who just happened to be Albert Einstein, on his way to the lab, looking quizzically at the quarter in his hand. According to the story, he finally shrugged, picked up her luggage and took it into the hotel.\r\n\r\nIt was just a case of mistaken identity, misjudged appearances. She took one look at the shriveled-up little old guy and assumed that he was the bellhop, rather than the most distinguished scientist of our time. What concerns me tonight, though, is another case of mistaken identity. Another case of misjudged appearances and, this time, it\u2019s the case of mistaken identity and misjudged appearances of the biblical text in the pulpits across this land.\r\n\r\nAll of us, whether we are Roman Catholic or Protestant, have a high doctrine of Scripture \u2013 we know what we\u2019re supposed to do in preaching. In fact, in the Bishops\u2019 paper Fulfilled in Your Hearing<\/em>, it identifies the three essential ingredients of the sermon: the preacher, the assembly and the Scripture. And the Scripture is where the preacher and the assembly meet.\r\n\r\nWe know what we\u2019re supposed to do. We\u2019re supposed to get down into the marrow of a biblical text until it blesses us. And\u00a0then stand up there and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us God, about what the text has said.\r\n\r\nBut we\u2019re busy. And it gets to be late in the game, and so what we do is we take one look at the biblical text. We treat it as if it were a senile dinner companion, who always says the same old things over and over again, and we tip it a quarter and say, \u201cTake my homily into the church.\u201d\r\n\r\nI want to say that I know that we are not actually called to preach the Bible. We are called to preach the Gospel. But our access to the Gospel is through a hermeneutical encounter with the biblical text. And in doing so, we recapitulate the epistemology of the Church. We come to know, as the Church comes to know, and then bear witness to that in our preaching.\r\n\r\nNow, in some of the old-fashioned homiletical textbooks, it used to be said that you ought to spend an hour in the study with the text for every minute that you spend with a homily in the pulpit. I don\u2019t know who came up with that formula, but I\u2019m sure he was loved by both of his members. Most of us don\u2019t have that kind of time, but some sort of time has to be woven into the fabric of the weave, and there is simply no way to avoid it.\r\n\r\nResponsible preaching is hard work done under pressure. And one of the reasons that it\u2019s hard work is that genuinely getting to know a biblical text is a lot like genuinely getting to know another human being. It takes time. One has to be patient. One has to press a kind of inquiry. One has to listen with prayer and love to a biblical text.\r\n\r\nWhat I would like to advocate tonight is what might be called an encounter model of biblical interpretation for preaching. If you\u2019re interested in biblical hermeneutics, where this would fall would be somewhere in the range of reader response criticism of\u00a0biblical materials. That is to say, preachers ought to put themselves in the position of actually engaging the biblical text, to the extent that something actually happens in the encounter with the biblical\u00a0text. The text has a force, an impact, and the sermon becomes an attempt to regenerate that impact on the part of the hearers.\r\n\r\nNow, if we pursue an encounter model of biblical\u00a0interpretation, I think it helps to overcome several deceptive practices in biblical preaching. Let me name some of them. The first of them is avoiding the biblical text altogether. Avoiding the biblical text altogether.\r\n\r\nI had a student the other day who began his homily in my preaching class, \u201cBefore I preach,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019d like to say something about the text.\u201d No, I\u2019d like for you to say something about the text as you preach, that\u2019s what I would like. Now sometimes we avoid the biblical text by reading it or having it read, and then that\u2019s the last time that the assembly ever hears anything about it. It\u2019s simply ignored in the homily itself.\r\n\r\nMore often, the avoiding of the biblical text is much more subtle than that. The text appears in the homily, but it doesn\u2019t exert any force over the homily. One test is: Could you have preached this homily without having engaged that particular biblical text? Now I don\u2019t know whether this has had an impact in the Roman Catholic world, but certainly in the Protestant world.\r\n\r\nOne very potent example of avoiding the biblical text can be seen in Rick Warren\u2019s popular book, The Purpose Driven Life<\/em>. The book quotes Scripture over 1,300 times, but as far as I can tell, none of those texts has anything to do with what is said in the book. In fact, Warren\u2019s technique is to use 15 different translations and to pick the translation that most suits what he already wishes to say in the book.\r\n\r\nWell, mea culpa<\/em>, I have done that in sermons myself. I just don\u2019t have as many Bibles as Rick Warren has. But I, too, have manipulated the text in such a way to avoid it.\r\n\r\nThe second deceptive practice that this encounter model hopefully overcomes is the tendency simply to say the obvious from the text. Simply to say the obvious from the text. There are certain biblical texts that we have encountered so often in the liturgy, we think we already know what they have to say and, therefore, we do not have to encounter them, since we already have in our hands the meanings that they wish to convey.\r\n\r\nFor example, you preach on the parable of the Prodigal Son, and you always talk about the repentance of the younger brother. Or the self-righteousness of the older brother. It just may be that that text has a surprising and different word for us, but if we don\u2019t actually look at it again, we simply say the obvious out of the text.\r\n\r\nI used to have a colleague. The only thing that he knew about me is that I am a fan of the Atlanta Braves. That\u2019s the only thing he knew about me. And when I would encounter him in the hallway, you could almost see the gears whirring in his head, \u201cHere comes Tom. What do I know? Fan of Atlanta Braves.\u201d And then he would say, \u201cHello, Tom. How \u2019bout those Braves?\u201d Every time. In other words, he never really knew me.\r\n\r\nWe do the same with biblical texts. Another example of that is the passage in the 17th chapter of Luke, about the 10 lepers. You ever preached on the 10 lepers? Nine of whom keep on going after Jesus heals them, but one of whom, a Samaritan, returns to fall in the posture of worship, then says, \u201cThank you, thank you, thank you.\u201d And the sermon that you usually hear on that text is a sermon that basically is a sermon about religious etiquette. Whenever something good happens to you, you should say, \u201cThank you.\u201d Especially to God.\r\n\r\nBut if you actually look at that text, there may be a surprise hidden at the core of it. Right before that text, there is a saying of Jesus, addressed to the disciples, about the nature of master-servant relationships, in which Jesus says, in effect, \u201cIf you have a servant who plows your field and fixes your meals and does everything that a servant should do, do you say thank you to the servant?\u201d And the implied answer is, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\nIn first-century master-servant relationships, you don\u2019t say thank you to a servant who has simply done what a servant ought to have done. Well, that\u2019s a very interesting thing to put right before a story about nine lepers who are healed and who don\u2019t come back.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s not that they violate some rule of religious etiquette. It\u2019s that, astoundingly enough, nothing has happened to them for which the appropriate attitude is gratitude, because God, in their theology, is their servant, who has only done what a servant ought to have done. \u201cIt\u2019s God\u2019s job to heal me.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd gratitude does not evoke when a servant has only done what a servant ought. Only somebody outside the system, like a Samaritan, would understand that they are the recipient of a merit of grace. Be surprised by the text.\r\n\r\nWe had an unfortunate thing happen recently in Atlanta. One of our more prominent preachers preaches fantastic sermons and then produces photocopies of them the next week, available for the congregation. A member of his congregation liked one of the sermons particularly well; in fact, it seemed extraordinarily good, and so she Googled it. And there it was, written by somebody else several years ago, on the Internet. So she took a number of his sermons and Googled them, only to discover they all had been stolen off the Internet.\r\n\r\nHe was confronted by the officers of the Church. He apologized. He asked for forgiveness. The congregation and the officers forgave him, and that was the end of it. Well, not quite. A member of the congregation wrote a letter to a man named Randy Cohen; he writes as The Ethicist in the New York Times<\/em> magazine; and she said, \u201cWe have just discovered that our minister has been stealing his sermons off the Internet. What do you think about that?\u201d\r\n\r\nRandy Cohen made all the requisite remarks about how you shouldn\u2019t present somebody else\u2019s work as your own and plagiarism is wrong, and he certainly shouldn\u2019t have published them in Xerox\u00ae form in the narthex of the church. But then he went on to say, you know, being a priest or a minister is a very difficult job these days. And not everybody has the ability to write a sermon. And wouldn\u2019t it be better if priests would simply take other people\u2019s sermons and read them, if they admitted that they belonged to somebody else?\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t know why that frosted me so much, but I finally began to think about it, and I realized that the one thing that you have to offer your congregation in the pulpit is an act of hermeneutics, because you are the only person in the world who has one foot in your congregation\u2019s context and one foot in the biblical text. And only you can say what happens when you bring text and context together.\r\n\r\nWalter Brueggemann can\u2019t say it for you. Barbara Brown Taylor can\u2019t say it for you. You are the only person who can commit hermeneutics for your congregation, and you owe your congregation, your assembly, a fresh act of interpretation.\r\n\r\nThe last deceptive practice that I think an encounter model of preaching overcomes is what might be called \u201cplaying parlor games\u201d with the text; playing parlor games with the text.\r\n\r\nPlaying parlor games with the text consists of sermons that sound chock-full of biblical information, but lack any biblical encounter. Here\u2019s how they sound: \u201cOur text for today involves the triumphal entry of our Lord into Jerusalem. You notice that when he rode on the beast of burden, this is taken from the ninth chapter of Zechariah, and fulfills Nathan\u2019s prophecy, as does the psalm that is being sung by the crowds; it\u2019s the Hallel song found in Psalm 118.\u201d Blah, blah, blah.\r\n\r\nWhat we\u2019re trying to do, in an encounter model of preaching, is to generate the next generation of acoustical impact of the text. Here\u2019s a way to think about it: A biblical text, as we find it in the Scripture, consists of a stone, thrown into a pond, and it makes a splash. In its original context, it created an acoustical event. Now, you don\u2019t stand historically or sociologically in the same place as where the text hit the pond. You stand in another place in the pond. But the ripples of that original acoustical impact make their way in your direction. And your sermon is a new acoustical impact, created by the ripples of the original acoustical impact.\r\n\r\nNow, what are the implications of taking this sort of acoustical encounter model of a text? Well, the first implication of it is that this intentionally blurs the distinction between orality and literacy in biblical materials. We get the Scripture in written form, but it is intended to be received in oral form. All Scripture was intended to be read out loud. And its impact is an impact in the ear.\r\n\r\nIn the fourth chapter of Philippians, when Paul says, \u201cI urge Euodia and Syntyche, agree in the Lord.\u201d That was not read between leather covers. It was not posted on the bulletin board of the church at Philippi. That was read out loud in worship. \u201cI urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche, get it together.\u201d As one biblical\u00a0scholar has noted, when that was read out loud at Philippi, two women sank a little lower.\r\n\r\nNow we don\u2019t know what the argument was between Euodia and Syntyche. Maybe Euodia liked praise music and Syntyche liked traditional music. But something had gotten between them. And notice what the acoustical impact goes on to do: My fellow workers, help these women, for your names are written in the Book of Life. Now what is that? That\u2019s acoustically an echo from the baptismal liturgy. Your names are written in the Book of Life, which is a reminder that this is not the first time that the names Euodia and Syntyche have been said out loud in worship. \u201cI baptize you, Euodia. I baptize you, Syntyche.\u201d\r\n\r\nAcoustically, they\u2019re not being called out. They\u2019re being called up to their baptismal identity. And it evokes the acoustical memory of baptismal worship. So it intentionally blurs the distinction between orality and literacy. It also overcomes the old-fashioned notion that what you\u2019re supposed to do as a preacher is to figure out what a text used to say and then take that and tell what you think it might mean if you update it.\r\n\r\nI was taught a form of exegesis that most of you were not taught. I was taught that what a preacher ought to do is to put on a pair of surgically sterile exegetical gloves to go to the biblical text and riffle around in the biblical text with your sterile gloves on, until you have found the theological nugget or idea that lies at the heart of the text, to bring that forward and to drop it on the congregation.\r\n\r\nWhat we have discovered, of course, is, these gloves were never really sterile and the biblical text is not an inert container with an idea in it. It\u2019s more like a dance partner. It wants to move us around the dance floor of congregational life. And what we\u00a0bring to a text makes a difference in the kind of encounter that it can create.\r\n\r\nThis approach also implies that we utilize every wave of biblical interpretation that we have inherited. We do not put down any critical tools in order to do an encounter model of exegesis. Almost 500 years ago, we inherited the first wave that passed over us, and that was historical. We understood that the Bible was not dropped down, dictated by the Spirit; it came up, out of historical circumstances. Inspiration works from the ground up. The fingerprints of those historical circumstances are all over the text and they make a difference in interpretation.\r\n\r\nFor example, we think that the Gospel of Mark was written to a lower socio-economic group. Lower economic group. We think the Gospel of Luke was written to a mixed socio-economic group. And the Gospel of Matthew is to our first suburban, affluent congregation. You can tell that in the text.\r\n\r\nIn all three synoptic gospels, Jesus sends the disciples out two by two, and he says to them, in each case, \u201cTake no money.\u201d But the Greek is not the same. In Mark, it\u2019s \u201ctake no copper.\u201d In Luke, it\u2019s \u201ctake no silver.\u201d And in Matthew, it\u2019s \u201ctake no copper, silver or gold.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn Mark, the disciples are caught walking along the road, arguing about who is the greatest. And Jesus says to them, \u201cIf you want to be great, you must become as one who serves.\u201d Now notice the language, \u201cIf you want to be great.\u201d What does that imply about them? They are great.\r\n\r\nIn Luke, Jesus also catches the disciples arguing about who is the greatest. In fact, this is at the Last Supper, rather than on the road. They\u2019re arguing about it at the Last Supper. And in Luke, he doesn\u2019t say the same thing as he says in Mark. What he says to\u00a0them in Luke is, \u201cThose among you who are great must become as those who wait on tables.\u201d\r\n\r\nNote the difference in language. In Luke\u2019s community, some of them are at the big house, sitting down at table while servants wait on them. But in the Lord\u2019s house, you\u2019re supposed to reverse the economy. You can feel the historical circumstance of the text, and it makes a difference.\r\n\r\nAbout a century and a half ago, we got a second wave that passed over us. Not only were texts historical, they were also theological. The biblical writers had different theologies. The theology of Mark was not the same as the theology of Matthew. The theology of Paul is not the same as the theology of James. And if we\u2019re going to get the total witness of Scripture, we\u2019re going to hear it not as a monochromatic kind of witness, but as a kind of chorus. A choir of witnesses.\r\n\r\nFor example, Matthew and John don\u2019t agree theologically about time. And the preacher needs to pay attention to that. Matthew\u2019s understanding of time: The kingdom of heaven is in the future, and we live in a Good Friday world. We are marching to Zion, but we aren\u2019t there yet. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They will be filled. Future tense.\r\n\r\nJohn is different. It\u2019s as if John reaches out and takes Matthew\u2019s future kingdom and pulls it like a canopy over ordinary time. Matthew, where\u2019s the kingdom? \u201cAhead of us.\u201d John, where\u2019s the kingdom? \u201cAbove us.\u201d And in John, like a sewing machine, eternal time keeps penetrating down into the present and creating moments or signs where you can experience, right here and now, the fullness of the thing. That makes a difference in how we read texts in Matthew and texts in John.\r\n\r\nFor example, in the Gospel of John, you may remember the death of Lazarus. Lazarus is dead, and Jesus is late to the funeral. In fact, he\u2019s in a holding pattern outside of Bethany, and he won\u2019t go in. So one of Lazarus\u2019 sisters, Martha, comes out to him, and she says, \u201cIf you had been here, our brother would not have died.\u201d To which Jesus says, \u201cYour brother will rise again.\u201d To which Martha says, \u201cI know. I know he will rise again at the last day.\u201d To which Jesus says, \u201cNo, no, Martha. That\u2019s the Gospel of Matthew. I am the resurrection and the life.\u201d\r\n\r\nNow, I\u2019m glad that the preacher encounters, in Matthew and John, these two different views of time. Matthew helps us read the newspaper, and John helps us understand ecstasy. Okay.\r\n\r\nThe third wave has passed over us in the last generation or so. In addition to understanding biblical writers historically and understanding biblical writers theologically, we now have the critical tools of poetry and literary analysis of texts. In other words, the biblical writers were poets and artists who chose just the right language and just the right literary structures to create impact. The preacher needs to attend to that as well.\r\n\r\nFor example, the writer of the Gospel of John uses a certain literary pattern about six or seven times in his Gospel. I call it question\/answer\/dumb response. Question\/answer\/ dumb response. Here\u2019s the way it works: Read through the Gospel of John and you will find, on a number of occasions, someone will ask Jesus a question. And it will be a good question. It will be a question at the mundane, routine, ordinary level of life, though.\r\n\r\nJesus will answer the question, but he won\u2019t answer it at the level that it\u2019s asked. He will answer it at this level: at the level of Johannine, eternal-life Christology. That means that the answer goes right over the head of the person who\u2019s asking the question,\u00a0and you can tell this because they say something dumb. Something banal. Something insipid.\r\n\r\nFourth chapter of John, the woman at the well. Question: \u201cWhy is it that you, a Jew, ask of me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?\u201d That's a darn good question. Why would any Jewish male in that period and place risk breaking down religious, racial and gender barriers to say anything to a Samaritan female? Wasn\u2019t done.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy do you, a Jew, ask of me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?\u201d Answer: \u201cIf you knew who was asking, you would have been free to ask him, and he would have given you the living water.\u201d \u201cWhere are you gonna get this water? You haven\u2019t even got a pocket.\u201d That laughter is what John is after. That irony of the Gospel, because that provokes you, acoustically, to say, \u201cHe doesn\u2019t mean that. He means that<\/em>.\u201d And the miracle of the Gospel of John has begun to work.\r\n\r\nLet me read to you, as kind of pulling together of this, a text that\u2019s not on your handout. But it\u2019s in the 17th chapter of Luke. You probably never have preached on this, because just flatfootedly, it is a kind of foreboding text. Here is how it sounds. This is Luke 17:\r\n

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the\u00a0 days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking\u00a0 and marrying and being given in marriage until Noah\u00a0 entered the ark and the flood came, and destroyed all of\u00a0 them. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: They\u00a0 were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and\u00a0 building, but on the day that Lot left Sodom it rained fire\u00a0 and sulfur from Heaven, and it destroyed all of them. It\u00a0 will be like that on the day that the son of man is revealed.<\/p>\r\nNow a flatfooted interpretation of that text is: The day of the Son of Man is going to be a very bad day. And I can give you two Old Testament examples to back it up.\r\n\r\nBut Robert Tannehill, the New Testament scholar, has suggested that to read it that way misses the acoustical encounter impact of the text. Let me try to reread it in such a way that we can hear some of what it\u2019s trying to do, acoustically.\r\n\r\n\u201cJust as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. [In a drone<\/em>] Eating, drinking, marrying, being \u2026 .\u201d Why am I saying it that way? In Greek, here are the words: epinon<\/em>, esthion<\/em>, epoloun<\/em>. They rhyme. They rhyme. What was happening in the days of Noah? Eating, drinking, yada, yada, yada.\r\n\r\nThe ordinary, boring rhythms of life and [Bang!<\/em>] crisis happened in the middle of the grooves. Likewise, as it was in the days of Lot. Feeding, drinking, buying, we\u2019ve heard this list before. We know what happens at the end of it. Buying, selling, planting, building \u2013 oh my God, the list is getting longer. We know the crisis comes. But we don\u2019t know when.\r\n\r\nNotice the posture the text generates. Leaning forward, into the midst of the boring grooves of a soccer mom, three-martini lunch world. Anticipating any minute the shaking of the foundations. That\u2019s the acoustical generation of the text.\r\n\r\nNow, you\u2019ve got a handout, and I\u2019d thought we\u2019d wind up tonight by taking a look at a few example texts here together. If you don\u2019t have one, if you raise your hand we can get you one.\r\n\r\nOkay, the first suggestion to the preacher is slow down. Slow down when you read the text. Put the needle of your phonograph down into the grooves, to use an anachronistic example; turn it down in the grooves of the text, and let it track, so that you\u00a0actually can see some of the impact of the phrases and the words, rather than speeding through the thing.\r\n\r\nTake a look at Exodus 22, for example. We have here a text that, if we race through it, is not very profitable for preaching. This is a piece of casuistic law. Case law. Case law being, if such and so is the case, then the regulation of the law is this: if you take your neighbor\u2019s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down. For it may be your neighbor\u2019s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.\r\n\r\nNow, that doesn\u2019t leave us. We race right through that. A flatfooted reading of that text is: Don\u2019t take interest or usury. Not helpful in our culture. We\u2019re in a different economic world. But slow it down and see what happens to the acoustical impact of this text: \u201cIf you take your neighbor\u2019s cloak in pawn.\u201d Now notice where that puts you. That puts you \u2026 in charge. You\u2019re in the power position. You\u2019re the one taking, in this particular text; you take. So it puts us in the position of taking, and it sits us right down in the middle of ordinary economic discourse of the day.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf you take your neighbor\u2019s cloak in pawn.\u201d Now, if you take your neighbor\u2019s Visa at Wal-Mart \u2013 this is down in the middle of ordinary economic exchange, and you are in the power position in the economic world. \u201cIf you take your neighbor\u2019s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down.\u201d To which you ought to say, \u201cHell, no.\u201d That\u2019s not the way collateral works. You don\u2019t take it and restore it until the loan is paid off.\r\n\r\n\u201cFor it may be your neighbor\u2019s only clothing to use as cover.\u201d And to which you ought to say, \u201cAnd that\u2019s the point.\u201d That\u2019s how collateral works. If it\u2019s not valuable, it doesn\u2019t work. \u201cIn what else shall that person sleep?\u201d To which you should say, \u201cNot my\u00a0problem.\u201d To which the text responds, \u201cWell, I the Lord your God am going to make it my problem. Because if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen. For I am compassionate.\u201d Wow.\r\n\r\nSee what the text is doing acoustically? It\u2019s taking us from Wal Mart to a theophany. It\u2019s taking us from the ordinary realm of economic discourse into an encounter with the compassionate and holy One. That would preach. I think it will preach.\r\n\r\nTake a look at the text right after it: Deuteronomy 6. This is a script for a family ritual. When your children ask you in time to come, what is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances the Lord our God has commanded you, you shall say to your children, \u201cWe were Pharaoh\u2019s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all its household. He brought us out from there in order to bring us in; to give us the land that He promised on oath to our ancestors. Then the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive as is now the case. If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us, we will be in the right.\u201d\r\n\r\nOkay, a script for family ritual. The oldest son has a three-by-five card, and he says his part, \u201cPapa, what is the meaning of the commandments, statutes and ordinances of the Lord our God as commanded you?\u201d Father has his three-by-five card, so he says his part of the script, \u201cSon, we were slaves in Egypt and the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand,\u201d and that\u2019s the way Israel keeps its traditions alive.\r\n\r\nHowever, if you read it slowly, says Rabbi Michael Fishbane, who teaches Old Testament at Brown, you will notice that this is\u00a0no innocent family ritual. Built into the syntax of this, into the acoustical effect of this, is the breakdown that always occurs between generations in the household of faith; between the older and the younger. And if you\u2019re going to hear it right, you have to hear it with a kind of adolescent attitude.\r\n\r\nHere\u2019s how it sounds: In time to come, when your children say to you, \u201cWhat is the meaning of the statutes, commandments, and ordinances that God has commanded you?\u201d You shall say to your children, \u201cYou impudent \u2026.\u201d No, no, no. You shall say to your children, \u201cWe were slaves in Egypt.\u201d Did you notice the shift in pronouns? \u201cWhat is all this guff that God has commanded you?\u201d You shall say to your children, \u201cWe were slaves in Egypt.\u201d\r\n\r\nBuilt into the acoustical effect of this text, into the encounter with this text, is the command to older generations to tell the stories of the faith to younger generations in such a way that they not only understand them and get the information from them but know that they were involved in them and participate in them. It\u2019s built into the impact of the text.\r\n\r\nSlow down. Do a close reading of the text. Second piece of advice: look out for odd pieces of information. Things that don\u2019t belong in the text. Sometimes, when you encounter something that disrupts the hearing process, that\u2019s pay dirt. I was talking to one of you tonight, who said, \u201cWhenever I look at a text and I find something in there that really bothers me, that I don\u2019t understand, I stay with it.\u201d Well, that\u2019s good. Because sometimes that\u2019s planted in the text.\r\n\r\nJust take a look at Mark 6 on the southeast corner of your sheet there. This has what might be called an \u201cacoustical speed bump\u201d in it. It\u2019s designed to disrupt your smooth driving through the text and make you pay attention to something.\r\n\r\nSee if you can spot it: \u201cThe Apostles gathered around Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. Jesus said to them, \u2018Come away, to a desert, all by yourselves, and rest awhile.\u2019 For many were coming and going. They hadn\u2019t even had the leisure to get something to eat. So, they went away in the boat, to a desert, by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot, from all towns, and arrived ahead of them. So as Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd. And he had compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, \u2018This is a desert. The hour is now very late. Send these people away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat. But Jesus answered them, \u2018You give them something to eat.\u2019 They said to him, \u2018Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?\u2019 And he said to them, \u2018How many loaves have you? Go and see.\u2019 When they found out, they said, \u2018Five and two fish.\u2019 Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhere are we? Three times, we\u2019ve been told in this text that we are in a desert. Now, Palestinian deserts can turn green on you, but when they do, in Mark, it becomes very interesting theologically, because Mark is not this kind of writer. He never says things like, \u201cJesus was wearing a brown robe with matching tan sandals as He stood under the azure sky.\u201d That\u2019s not the way he writes: immediately, immediately, and suddenly black and white is turned to Technicolor.\r\n\r\nNow if you are as competent in the Old Testament as Mark\u2019s hearers were, and suddenly the desert turns green, what\u2019s the acoustical impact? Your mind goes to Isaiah. The desert shall\u00a0blossom. When will the desert blossom? When Messiah comes. Not only that. He ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. He made them sit down. He maketh them to lie down. That\u2019s so familiar; I just can\u2019t remember where it\u2019s from. It\u2019s a psalm, isn\u2019t it? How does it start? \u201cThe Lord is my shepherd.\u201d Verse 34.\r\n\r\nHe had compassion upon them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he maketh them to lie down in green pastures. Wow. Acoustically, Mark has galvanized two Old Testament images: Messiah and shepherd, in this feeding pasture. That\u2019s the acoustical impact created by odd elements in the text. Look at the upsetting of genre expectations. That is to say, certain literary texts are supposed to go certain ways, and when they don\u2019t go certain ways, then the very fact that they upset your expectations is acoustically impactful.\r\n\r\nFor example, take a look at I Corinthians 1. In a first-century Hellenistic letter, after the address, after the signature and the address and the greeting, the next thing that is supposed to come generically in the letter is philophronesis or, as we would put it, \u201cfluff,\u201d and the way we still have fluff in our letters. \u201cDear Jane, I remember with great joy the summer our children spent with each other at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. How wonderful it was to see them frolic in the waves and to enjoy the sunshine and all the family time together. However, you owe me $275.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe fluff is establishing a kind of warmth. Well, in Hellenistic letters, there was fluff, but Paul upsets the generic expectations by turning fluff into Eucharistic prayer. He turns fluff into Eucharistic prayer. Except in Galatians, he puts a Eucharistic prayer at the beginning of his letters, right at that point where you would expect philophronesis.\r\n\r\nLook at this one in Corinth, in Corinthians, I Corinthians. By the way, you remember what\u2019s happened? They\u2019ve written him to say, \u201cWe\u2019ve got a few problems. We\u2019re at each other\u2019s throats. We\u2019re fighting over the Lord\u2019s Supper. We\u2019re fighting over baptism. We\u2019re fighting over Gnosticism. We\u2019re fighting over speaking in tongues. We have sexual immorality in the congregation. And most of the people in the congregation do not believe in the resurrection.\u201d Other than that, they were doing just fine. So he writes back to say, \u201cI\u2019m going to deal with all those problems, but first, let us pray.\u201d\r\n\r\nTake a look at verse 4.\r\n\r\n\u201cI give thanks to my God, always, for you.\u201d You\u2019ve got to be kidding me?\r\n\r\n\u201cBecause of the grace of God that\u2019s been given you, in Christ Jesus, for in every way, you\u2019ve been enriched in him \u2026\u201d In speech, speaking in tongues is tearing them apart; in gnosis of every kind, Gnosticism, ripping them to shreds.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2026 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you, \u2026\u201d They don\u2019t believe in the resurrection. \u201c\u2026 so that you\u2019re not lacking in any spiritual gift, \u2026\u201d I\u2019ll say. Spiritual gifts? They\u2019re burning the place down.\r\n\r\n\u201c\u2026 as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, he will strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by Him, you were called in the fellowship of His son, Jesus Christ Our Lord.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn other words, the problem list is the prayer list. And the faithfulness and grace of God is going to be seen in the broken places. In the broken places. It\u2019s in the generic shake-up in the text.\r\n\r\nOne other, and then I\u2019m going to see if you\u2019ve got any questions. This is not on your handout, but listen to this. This is the description of the list of people who were at Pentecost. It sounds like a bus station announcer. \u201cHow is it that we hear each of us in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, visitors from Rome.\u201d All aboard, please.\r\n\r\nThere were Medes at Pentecost? This is the first century. There hadn\u2019t been any Medes in the world for hundreds of years. They were as extinct as mastodons. There were Elamites at Pentecost? They did not wander over from the next county. They wandered over from the Old Testament. To say that there were Medes and Elamites at Pentecost is like saying, \u201cYou should have been at St. Ann\u2019s last week. We had visitors from Ohio, Michigan, Florida, a whole vanload of Assyrians, and a cute little Hittite couple.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe acoustical impact of this is everybody who ever lived was at Pentecost. Everybody who ever lived was at Pentecost.\r\n\r\nEncounter the biblical text to generate the energy of the sermon.","rendered":"

There is a story that the old-timers around Princeton, New Jersey, absolutely love to tell. It\u2019s a story about the day in the 1940s when a fashionable New York society matron drove down from Manhattan to Princeton in her touring car. She pulled up to the entrance of the Princeton Inn, which in those days was the most luxurious hotel in town. She got out of her car, fished around in her purse until she found a quarter.<\/p>\n

She pressed it into the hand of the little man at the door of the hotel and said, \u201cTake my luggage in immediately,\u201d and breezed regally into the lobby of the hotel, leaving the little man at the door of the hotel, who just happened to be Albert Einstein, on his way to the lab, looking quizzically at the quarter in his hand. According to the story, he finally shrugged, picked up her luggage and took it into the hotel.<\/p>\n

It was just a case of mistaken identity, misjudged appearances. She took one look at the shriveled-up little old guy and assumed that he was the bellhop, rather than the most distinguished scientist of our time. What concerns me tonight, though, is another case of mistaken identity. Another case of misjudged appearances and, this time, it\u2019s the case of mistaken identity and misjudged appearances of the biblical text in the pulpits across this land.<\/p>\n

All of us, whether we are Roman Catholic or Protestant, have a high doctrine of Scripture \u2013 we know what we\u2019re supposed to do in preaching. In fact, in the Bishops\u2019 paper Fulfilled in Your Hearing<\/em>, it identifies the three essential ingredients of the sermon: the preacher, the assembly and the Scripture. And the Scripture is where the preacher and the assembly meet.<\/p>\n

We know what we\u2019re supposed to do. We\u2019re supposed to get down into the marrow of a biblical text until it blesses us. And\u00a0then stand up there and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help us God, about what the text has said.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re busy. And it gets to be late in the game, and so what we do is we take one look at the biblical text. We treat it as if it were a senile dinner companion, who always says the same old things over and over again, and we tip it a quarter and say, \u201cTake my homily into the church.\u201d<\/p>\n

I want to say that I know that we are not actually called to preach the Bible. We are called to preach the Gospel. But our access to the Gospel is through a hermeneutical encounter with the biblical text. And in doing so, we recapitulate the epistemology of the Church. We come to know, as the Church comes to know, and then bear witness to that in our preaching.<\/p>\n

Now, in some of the old-fashioned homiletical textbooks, it used to be said that you ought to spend an hour in the study with the text for every minute that you spend with a homily in the pulpit. I don\u2019t know who came up with that formula, but I\u2019m sure he was loved by both of his members. Most of us don\u2019t have that kind of time, but some sort of time has to be woven into the fabric of the weave, and there is simply no way to avoid it.<\/p>\n

Responsible preaching is hard work done under pressure. And one of the reasons that it\u2019s hard work is that genuinely getting to know a biblical text is a lot like genuinely getting to know another human being. It takes time. One has to be patient. One has to press a kind of inquiry. One has to listen with prayer and love to a biblical text.<\/p>\n

What I would like to advocate tonight is what might be called an encounter model of biblical interpretation for preaching. If you\u2019re interested in biblical hermeneutics, where this would fall would be somewhere in the range of reader response criticism of\u00a0biblical materials. That is to say, preachers ought to put themselves in the position of actually engaging the biblical text, to the extent that something actually happens in the encounter with the biblical\u00a0text. The text has a force, an impact, and the sermon becomes an attempt to regenerate that impact on the part of the hearers.<\/p>\n

Now, if we pursue an encounter model of biblical\u00a0interpretation, I think it helps to overcome several deceptive practices in biblical preaching. Let me name some of them. The first of them is avoiding the biblical text altogether. Avoiding the biblical text altogether.<\/p>\n

I had a student the other day who began his homily in my preaching class, \u201cBefore I preach,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019d like to say something about the text.\u201d No, I\u2019d like for you to say something about the text as you preach, that\u2019s what I would like. Now sometimes we avoid the biblical text by reading it or having it read, and then that\u2019s the last time that the assembly ever hears anything about it. It\u2019s simply ignored in the homily itself.<\/p>\n

More often, the avoiding of the biblical text is much more subtle than that. The text appears in the homily, but it doesn\u2019t exert any force over the homily. One test is: Could you have preached this homily without having engaged that particular biblical text? Now I don\u2019t know whether this has had an impact in the Roman Catholic world, but certainly in the Protestant world.<\/p>\n

One very potent example of avoiding the biblical text can be seen in Rick Warren\u2019s popular book, The Purpose Driven Life<\/em>. The book quotes Scripture over 1,300 times, but as far as I can tell, none of those texts has anything to do with what is said in the book. In fact, Warren\u2019s technique is to use 15 different translations and to pick the translation that most suits what he already wishes to say in the book.<\/p>\n

Well, mea culpa<\/em>, I have done that in sermons myself. I just don\u2019t have as many Bibles as Rick Warren has. But I, too, have manipulated the text in such a way to avoid it.<\/p>\n

The second deceptive practice that this encounter model hopefully overcomes is the tendency simply to say the obvious from the text. Simply to say the obvious from the text. There are certain biblical texts that we have encountered so often in the liturgy, we think we already know what they have to say and, therefore, we do not have to encounter them, since we already have in our hands the meanings that they wish to convey.<\/p>\n

For example, you preach on the parable of the Prodigal Son, and you always talk about the repentance of the younger brother. Or the self-righteousness of the older brother. It just may be that that text has a surprising and different word for us, but if we don\u2019t actually look at it again, we simply say the obvious out of the text.<\/p>\n

I used to have a colleague. The only thing that he knew about me is that I am a fan of the Atlanta Braves. That\u2019s the only thing he knew about me. And when I would encounter him in the hallway, you could almost see the gears whirring in his head, \u201cHere comes Tom. What do I know? Fan of Atlanta Braves.\u201d And then he would say, \u201cHello, Tom. How \u2019bout those Braves?\u201d Every time. In other words, he never really knew me.<\/p>\n

We do the same with biblical texts. Another example of that is the passage in the 17th chapter of Luke, about the 10 lepers. You ever preached on the 10 lepers? Nine of whom keep on going after Jesus heals them, but one of whom, a Samaritan, returns to fall in the posture of worship, then says, \u201cThank you, thank you, thank you.\u201d And the sermon that you usually hear on that text is a sermon that basically is a sermon about religious etiquette. Whenever something good happens to you, you should say, \u201cThank you.\u201d Especially to God.<\/p>\n

But if you actually look at that text, there may be a surprise hidden at the core of it. Right before that text, there is a saying of Jesus, addressed to the disciples, about the nature of master-servant relationships, in which Jesus says, in effect, \u201cIf you have a servant who plows your field and fixes your meals and does everything that a servant should do, do you say thank you to the servant?\u201d And the implied answer is, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In first-century master-servant relationships, you don\u2019t say thank you to a servant who has simply done what a servant ought to have done. Well, that\u2019s a very interesting thing to put right before a story about nine lepers who are healed and who don\u2019t come back.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that they violate some rule of religious etiquette. It\u2019s that, astoundingly enough, nothing has happened to them for which the appropriate attitude is gratitude, because God, in their theology, is their servant, who has only done what a servant ought to have done. \u201cIt\u2019s God\u2019s job to heal me.\u201d<\/p>\n

And gratitude does not evoke when a servant has only done what a servant ought. Only somebody outside the system, like a Samaritan, would understand that they are the recipient of a merit of grace. Be surprised by the text.<\/p>\n

We had an unfortunate thing happen recently in Atlanta. One of our more prominent preachers preaches fantastic sermons and then produces photocopies of them the next week, available for the congregation. A member of his congregation liked one of the sermons particularly well; in fact, it seemed extraordinarily good, and so she Googled it. And there it was, written by somebody else several years ago, on the Internet. So she took a number of his sermons and Googled them, only to discover they all had been stolen off the Internet.<\/p>\n

He was confronted by the officers of the Church. He apologized. He asked for forgiveness. The congregation and the officers forgave him, and that was the end of it. Well, not quite. A member of the congregation wrote a letter to a man named Randy Cohen; he writes as The Ethicist in the New York Times<\/em> magazine; and she said, \u201cWe have just discovered that our minister has been stealing his sermons off the Internet. What do you think about that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Randy Cohen made all the requisite remarks about how you shouldn\u2019t present somebody else\u2019s work as your own and plagiarism is wrong, and he certainly shouldn\u2019t have published them in Xerox\u00ae form in the narthex of the church. But then he went on to say, you know, being a priest or a minister is a very difficult job these days. And not everybody has the ability to write a sermon. And wouldn\u2019t it be better if priests would simply take other people\u2019s sermons and read them, if they admitted that they belonged to somebody else?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why that frosted me so much, but I finally began to think about it, and I realized that the one thing that you have to offer your congregation in the pulpit is an act of hermeneutics, because you are the only person in the world who has one foot in your congregation\u2019s context and one foot in the biblical text. And only you can say what happens when you bring text and context together.<\/p>\n

Walter Brueggemann can\u2019t say it for you. Barbara Brown Taylor can\u2019t say it for you. You are the only person who can commit hermeneutics for your congregation, and you owe your congregation, your assembly, a fresh act of interpretation.<\/p>\n

The last deceptive practice that I think an encounter model of preaching overcomes is what might be called \u201cplaying parlor games\u201d with the text; playing parlor games with the text.<\/p>\n

Playing parlor games with the text consists of sermons that sound chock-full of biblical information, but lack any biblical encounter. Here\u2019s how they sound: \u201cOur text for today involves the triumphal entry of our Lord into Jerusalem. You notice that when he rode on the beast of burden, this is taken from the ninth chapter of Zechariah, and fulfills Nathan\u2019s prophecy, as does the psalm that is being sung by the crowds; it\u2019s the Hallel song found in Psalm 118.\u201d Blah, blah, blah.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re trying to do, in an encounter model of preaching, is to generate the next generation of acoustical impact of the text. Here\u2019s a way to think about it: A biblical text, as we find it in the Scripture, consists of a stone, thrown into a pond, and it makes a splash. In its original context, it created an acoustical event. Now, you don\u2019t stand historically or sociologically in the same place as where the text hit the pond. You stand in another place in the pond. But the ripples of that original acoustical impact make their way in your direction. And your sermon is a new acoustical impact, created by the ripples of the original acoustical impact.<\/p>\n

Now, what are the implications of taking this sort of acoustical encounter model of a text? Well, the first implication of it is that this intentionally blurs the distinction between orality and literacy in biblical materials. We get the Scripture in written form, but it is intended to be received in oral form. All Scripture was intended to be read out loud. And its impact is an impact in the ear.<\/p>\n

In the fourth chapter of Philippians, when Paul says, \u201cI urge Euodia and Syntyche, agree in the Lord.\u201d That was not read between leather covers. It was not posted on the bulletin board of the church at Philippi. That was read out loud in worship. \u201cI urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche, get it together.\u201d As one biblical\u00a0scholar has noted, when that was read out loud at Philippi, two women sank a little lower.<\/p>\n

Now we don\u2019t know what the argument was between Euodia and Syntyche. Maybe Euodia liked praise music and Syntyche liked traditional music. But something had gotten between them. And notice what the acoustical impact goes on to do: My fellow workers, help these women, for your names are written in the Book of Life. Now what is that? That\u2019s acoustically an echo from the baptismal liturgy. Your names are written in the Book of Life, which is a reminder that this is not the first time that the names Euodia and Syntyche have been said out loud in worship. \u201cI baptize you, Euodia. I baptize you, Syntyche.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acoustically, they\u2019re not being called out. They\u2019re being called up to their baptismal identity. And it evokes the acoustical memory of baptismal worship. So it intentionally blurs the distinction between orality and literacy. It also overcomes the old-fashioned notion that what you\u2019re supposed to do as a preacher is to figure out what a text used to say and then take that and tell what you think it might mean if you update it.<\/p>\n

I was taught a form of exegesis that most of you were not taught. I was taught that what a preacher ought to do is to put on a pair of surgically sterile exegetical gloves to go to the biblical text and riffle around in the biblical text with your sterile gloves on, until you have found the theological nugget or idea that lies at the heart of the text, to bring that forward and to drop it on the congregation.<\/p>\n

What we have discovered, of course, is, these gloves were never really sterile and the biblical text is not an inert container with an idea in it. It\u2019s more like a dance partner. It wants to move us around the dance floor of congregational life. And what we\u00a0bring to a text makes a difference in the kind of encounter that it can create.<\/p>\n

This approach also implies that we utilize every wave of biblical interpretation that we have inherited. We do not put down any critical tools in order to do an encounter model of exegesis. Almost 500 years ago, we inherited the first wave that passed over us, and that was historical. We understood that the Bible was not dropped down, dictated by the Spirit; it came up, out of historical circumstances. Inspiration works from the ground up. The fingerprints of those historical circumstances are all over the text and they make a difference in interpretation.<\/p>\n

For example, we think that the Gospel of Mark was written to a lower socio-economic group. Lower economic group. We think the Gospel of Luke was written to a mixed socio-economic group. And the Gospel of Matthew is to our first suburban, affluent congregation. You can tell that in the text.<\/p>\n

In all three synoptic gospels, Jesus sends the disciples out two by two, and he says to them, in each case, \u201cTake no money.\u201d But the Greek is not the same. In Mark, it\u2019s \u201ctake no copper.\u201d In Luke, it\u2019s \u201ctake no silver.\u201d And in Matthew, it\u2019s \u201ctake no copper, silver or gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Mark, the disciples are caught walking along the road, arguing about who is the greatest. And Jesus says to them, \u201cIf you want to be great, you must become as one who serves.\u201d Now notice the language, \u201cIf you want to be great.\u201d What does that imply about them? They are great.<\/p>\n

In Luke, Jesus also catches the disciples arguing about who is the greatest. In fact, this is at the Last Supper, rather than on the road. They\u2019re arguing about it at the Last Supper. And in Luke, he doesn\u2019t say the same thing as he says in Mark. What he says to\u00a0them in Luke is, \u201cThose among you who are great must become as those who wait on tables.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note the difference in language. In Luke\u2019s community, some of them are at the big house, sitting down at table while servants wait on them. But in the Lord\u2019s house, you\u2019re supposed to reverse the economy. You can feel the historical circumstance of the text, and it makes a difference.<\/p>\n

About a century and a half ago, we got a second wave that passed over us. Not only were texts historical, they were also theological. The biblical writers had different theologies. The theology of Mark was not the same as the theology of Matthew. The theology of Paul is not the same as the theology of James. And if we\u2019re going to get the total witness of Scripture, we\u2019re going to hear it not as a monochromatic kind of witness, but as a kind of chorus. A choir of witnesses.<\/p>\n

For example, Matthew and John don\u2019t agree theologically about time. And the preacher needs to pay attention to that. Matthew\u2019s understanding of time: The kingdom of heaven is in the future, and we live in a Good Friday world. We are marching to Zion, but we aren\u2019t there yet. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They will be filled. Future tense.<\/p>\n

John is different. It\u2019s as if John reaches out and takes Matthew\u2019s future kingdom and pulls it like a canopy over ordinary time. Matthew, where\u2019s the kingdom? \u201cAhead of us.\u201d John, where\u2019s the kingdom? \u201cAbove us.\u201d And in John, like a sewing machine, eternal time keeps penetrating down into the present and creating moments or signs where you can experience, right here and now, the fullness of the thing. That makes a difference in how we read texts in Matthew and texts in John.<\/p>\n

For example, in the Gospel of John, you may remember the death of Lazarus. Lazarus is dead, and Jesus is late to the funeral. In fact, he\u2019s in a holding pattern outside of Bethany, and he won\u2019t go in. So one of Lazarus\u2019 sisters, Martha, comes out to him, and she says, \u201cIf you had been here, our brother would not have died.\u201d To which Jesus says, \u201cYour brother will rise again.\u201d To which Martha says, \u201cI know. I know he will rise again at the last day.\u201d To which Jesus says, \u201cNo, no, Martha. That\u2019s the Gospel of Matthew. I am the resurrection and the life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m glad that the preacher encounters, in Matthew and John, these two different views of time. Matthew helps us read the newspaper, and John helps us understand ecstasy. Okay.<\/p>\n

The third wave has passed over us in the last generation or so. In addition to understanding biblical writers historically and understanding biblical writers theologically, we now have the critical tools of poetry and literary analysis of texts. In other words, the biblical writers were poets and artists who chose just the right language and just the right literary structures to create impact. The preacher needs to attend to that as well.<\/p>\n

For example, the writer of the Gospel of John uses a certain literary pattern about six or seven times in his Gospel. I call it question\/answer\/dumb response. Question\/answer\/ dumb response. Here\u2019s the way it works: Read through the Gospel of John and you will find, on a number of occasions, someone will ask Jesus a question. And it will be a good question. It will be a question at the mundane, routine, ordinary level of life, though.<\/p>\n

Jesus will answer the question, but he won\u2019t answer it at the level that it\u2019s asked. He will answer it at this level: at the level of Johannine, eternal-life Christology. That means that the answer goes right over the head of the person who\u2019s asking the question,\u00a0and you can tell this because they say something dumb. Something banal. Something insipid.<\/p>\n

Fourth chapter of John, the woman at the well. Question: \u201cWhy is it that you, a Jew, ask of me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?\u201d That’s a darn good question. Why would any Jewish male in that period and place risk breaking down religious, racial and gender barriers to say anything to a Samaritan female? Wasn\u2019t done.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you, a Jew, ask of me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?\u201d Answer: \u201cIf you knew who was asking, you would have been free to ask him, and he would have given you the living water.\u201d \u201cWhere are you gonna get this water? You haven\u2019t even got a pocket.\u201d That laughter is what John is after. That irony of the Gospel, because that provokes you, acoustically, to say, \u201cHe doesn\u2019t mean that. He means that<\/em>.\u201d And the miracle of the Gospel of John has begun to work.<\/p>\n

Let me read to you, as kind of pulling together of this, a text that\u2019s not on your handout. But it\u2019s in the 17th chapter of Luke. You probably never have preached on this, because just flatfootedly, it is a kind of foreboding text. Here is how it sounds. This is Luke 17:<\/p>\n

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the\u00a0 days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking\u00a0 and marrying and being given in marriage until Noah\u00a0 entered the ark and the flood came, and destroyed all of\u00a0 them. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: They\u00a0 were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and\u00a0 building, but on the day that Lot left Sodom it rained fire\u00a0 and sulfur from Heaven, and it destroyed all of them. It\u00a0 will be like that on the day that the son of man is revealed.<\/p>\n

Now a flatfooted interpretation of that text is: The day of the Son of Man is going to be a very bad day. And I can give you two Old Testament examples to back it up.<\/p>\n

But Robert Tannehill, the New Testament scholar, has suggested that to read it that way misses the acoustical encounter impact of the text. Let me try to reread it in such a way that we can hear some of what it\u2019s trying to do, acoustically.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. [In a drone<\/em>] Eating, drinking, marrying, being \u2026 .\u201d Why am I saying it that way? In Greek, here are the words: epinon<\/em>, esthion<\/em>, epoloun<\/em>. They rhyme. They rhyme. What was happening in the days of Noah? Eating, drinking, yada, yada, yada.<\/p>\n

The ordinary, boring rhythms of life and [Bang!<\/em>] crisis happened in the middle of the grooves. Likewise, as it was in the days of Lot. Feeding, drinking, buying, we\u2019ve heard this list before. We know what happens at the end of it. Buying, selling, planting, building \u2013 oh my God, the list is getting longer. We know the crisis comes. But we don\u2019t know when.<\/p>\n

Notice the posture the text generates. Leaning forward, into the midst of the boring grooves of a soccer mom, three-martini lunch world. Anticipating any minute the shaking of the foundations. That\u2019s the acoustical generation of the text.<\/p>\n

Now, you\u2019ve got a handout, and I\u2019d thought we\u2019d wind up tonight by taking a look at a few example texts here together. If you don\u2019t have one, if you raise your hand we can get you one.<\/p>\n

Okay, the first suggestion to the preacher is slow down. Slow down when you read the text. Put the needle of your phonograph down into the grooves, to use an anachronistic example; turn it down in the grooves of the text, and let it track, so that you\u00a0actually can see some of the impact of the phrases and the words, rather than speeding through the thing.<\/p>\n

Take a look at Exodus 22, for example. We have here a text that, if we race through it, is not very profitable for preaching. This is a piece of casuistic law. Case law. Case law being, if such and so is the case, then the regulation of the law is this: if you take your neighbor\u2019s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down. For it may be your neighbor\u2019s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.<\/p>\n

Now, that doesn\u2019t leave us. We race right through that. A flatfooted reading of that text is: Don\u2019t take interest or usury. Not helpful in our culture. We\u2019re in a different economic world. But slow it down and see what happens to the acoustical impact of this text: \u201cIf you take your neighbor\u2019s cloak in pawn.\u201d Now notice where that puts you. That puts you \u2026 in charge. You\u2019re in the power position. You\u2019re the one taking, in this particular text; you take. So it puts us in the position of taking, and it sits us right down in the middle of ordinary economic discourse of the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take your neighbor\u2019s cloak in pawn.\u201d Now, if you take your neighbor\u2019s Visa at Wal-Mart \u2013 this is down in the middle of ordinary economic exchange, and you are in the power position in the economic world. \u201cIf you take your neighbor\u2019s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down.\u201d To which you ought to say, \u201cHell, no.\u201d That\u2019s not the way collateral works. You don\u2019t take it and restore it until the loan is paid off.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor it may be your neighbor\u2019s only clothing to use as cover.\u201d And to which you ought to say, \u201cAnd that\u2019s the point.\u201d That\u2019s how collateral works. If it\u2019s not valuable, it doesn\u2019t work. \u201cIn what else shall that person sleep?\u201d To which you should say, \u201cNot my\u00a0problem.\u201d To which the text responds, \u201cWell, I the Lord your God am going to make it my problem. Because if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen. For I am compassionate.\u201d Wow.<\/p>\n

See what the text is doing acoustically? It\u2019s taking us from Wal Mart to a theophany. It\u2019s taking us from the ordinary realm of economic discourse into an encounter with the compassionate and holy One. That would preach. I think it will preach.<\/p>\n

Take a look at the text right after it: Deuteronomy 6. This is a script for a family ritual. When your children ask you in time to come, what is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances the Lord our God has commanded you, you shall say to your children, \u201cWe were Pharaoh\u2019s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all its household. He brought us out from there in order to bring us in; to give us the land that He promised on oath to our ancestors. Then the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive as is now the case. If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us, we will be in the right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay, a script for family ritual. The oldest son has a three-by-five card, and he says his part, \u201cPapa, what is the meaning of the commandments, statutes and ordinances of the Lord our God as commanded you?\u201d Father has his three-by-five card, so he says his part of the script, \u201cSon, we were slaves in Egypt and the Lord brought us out with a mighty hand,\u201d and that\u2019s the way Israel keeps its traditions alive.<\/p>\n

However, if you read it slowly, says Rabbi Michael Fishbane, who teaches Old Testament at Brown, you will notice that this is\u00a0no innocent family ritual. Built into the syntax of this, into the acoustical effect of this, is the breakdown that always occurs between generations in the household of faith; between the older and the younger. And if you\u2019re going to hear it right, you have to hear it with a kind of adolescent attitude.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it sounds: In time to come, when your children say to you, \u201cWhat is the meaning of the statutes, commandments, and ordinances that God has commanded you?\u201d You shall say to your children, \u201cYou impudent \u2026.\u201d No, no, no. You shall say to your children, \u201cWe were slaves in Egypt.\u201d Did you notice the shift in pronouns? \u201cWhat is all this guff that God has commanded you?\u201d You shall say to your children, \u201cWe were slaves in Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Built into the acoustical effect of this text, into the encounter with this text, is the command to older generations to tell the stories of the faith to younger generations in such a way that they not only understand them and get the information from them but know that they were involved in them and participate in them. It\u2019s built into the impact of the text.<\/p>\n

Slow down. Do a close reading of the text. Second piece of advice: look out for odd pieces of information. Things that don\u2019t belong in the text. Sometimes, when you encounter something that disrupts the hearing process, that\u2019s pay dirt. I was talking to one of you tonight, who said, \u201cWhenever I look at a text and I find something in there that really bothers me, that I don\u2019t understand, I stay with it.\u201d Well, that\u2019s good. Because sometimes that\u2019s planted in the text.<\/p>\n

Just take a look at Mark 6 on the southeast corner of your sheet there. This has what might be called an \u201cacoustical speed bump\u201d in it. It\u2019s designed to disrupt your smooth driving through the text and make you pay attention to something.<\/p>\n

See if you can spot it: \u201cThe Apostles gathered around Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. Jesus said to them, \u2018Come away, to a desert, all by yourselves, and rest awhile.\u2019 For many were coming and going. They hadn\u2019t even had the leisure to get something to eat. So, they went away in the boat, to a desert, by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot, from all towns, and arrived ahead of them. So as Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd. And he had compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, \u2018This is a desert. The hour is now very late. Send these people away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat. But Jesus answered them, \u2018You give them something to eat.\u2019 They said to him, \u2018Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?\u2019 And he said to them, \u2018How many loaves have you? Go and see.\u2019 When they found out, they said, \u2018Five and two fish.\u2019 Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where are we? Three times, we\u2019ve been told in this text that we are in a desert. Now, Palestinian deserts can turn green on you, but when they do, in Mark, it becomes very interesting theologically, because Mark is not this kind of writer. He never says things like, \u201cJesus was wearing a brown robe with matching tan sandals as He stood under the azure sky.\u201d That\u2019s not the way he writes: immediately, immediately, and suddenly black and white is turned to Technicolor.<\/p>\n

Now if you are as competent in the Old Testament as Mark\u2019s hearers were, and suddenly the desert turns green, what\u2019s the acoustical impact? Your mind goes to Isaiah. The desert shall\u00a0blossom. When will the desert blossom? When Messiah comes. Not only that. He ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. He made them sit down. He maketh them to lie down. That\u2019s so familiar; I just can\u2019t remember where it\u2019s from. It\u2019s a psalm, isn\u2019t it? How does it start? \u201cThe Lord is my shepherd.\u201d Verse 34.<\/p>\n

He had compassion upon them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he maketh them to lie down in green pastures. Wow. Acoustically, Mark has galvanized two Old Testament images: Messiah and shepherd, in this feeding pasture. That\u2019s the acoustical impact created by odd elements in the text. Look at the upsetting of genre expectations. That is to say, certain literary texts are supposed to go certain ways, and when they don\u2019t go certain ways, then the very fact that they upset your expectations is acoustically impactful.<\/p>\n

For example, take a look at I Corinthians 1. In a first-century Hellenistic letter, after the address, after the signature and the address and the greeting, the next thing that is supposed to come generically in the letter is philophronesis or, as we would put it, \u201cfluff,\u201d and the way we still have fluff in our letters. \u201cDear Jane, I remember with great joy the summer our children spent with each other at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. How wonderful it was to see them frolic in the waves and to enjoy the sunshine and all the family time together. However, you owe me $275.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fluff is establishing a kind of warmth. Well, in Hellenistic letters, there was fluff, but Paul upsets the generic expectations by turning fluff into Eucharistic prayer. He turns fluff into Eucharistic prayer. Except in Galatians, he puts a Eucharistic prayer at the beginning of his letters, right at that point where you would expect philophronesis.<\/p>\n

Look at this one in Corinth, in Corinthians, I Corinthians. By the way, you remember what\u2019s happened? They\u2019ve written him to say, \u201cWe\u2019ve got a few problems. We\u2019re at each other\u2019s throats. We\u2019re fighting over the Lord\u2019s Supper. We\u2019re fighting over baptism. We\u2019re fighting over Gnosticism. We\u2019re fighting over speaking in tongues. We have sexual immorality in the congregation. And most of the people in the congregation do not believe in the resurrection.\u201d Other than that, they were doing just fine. So he writes back to say, \u201cI\u2019m going to deal with all those problems, but first, let us pray.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take a look at verse 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cI give thanks to my God, always, for you.\u201d You\u2019ve got to be kidding me?<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the grace of God that\u2019s been given you, in Christ Jesus, for in every way, you\u2019ve been enriched in him \u2026\u201d In speech, speaking in tongues is tearing them apart; in gnosis of every kind, Gnosticism, ripping them to shreds.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you, \u2026\u201d They don\u2019t believe in the resurrection. \u201c\u2026 so that you\u2019re not lacking in any spiritual gift, \u2026\u201d I\u2019ll say. Spiritual gifts? They\u2019re burning the place down.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, he will strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by Him, you were called in the fellowship of His son, Jesus Christ Our Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the problem list is the prayer list. And the faithfulness and grace of God is going to be seen in the broken places. In the broken places. It\u2019s in the generic shake-up in the text.<\/p>\n

One other, and then I\u2019m going to see if you\u2019ve got any questions. This is not on your handout, but listen to this. This is the description of the list of people who were at Pentecost. It sounds like a bus station announcer. \u201cHow is it that we hear each of us in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, visitors from Rome.\u201d All aboard, please.<\/p>\n

There were Medes at Pentecost? This is the first century. There hadn\u2019t been any Medes in the world for hundreds of years. They were as extinct as mastodons. There were Elamites at Pentecost? They did not wander over from the next county. They wandered over from the Old Testament. To say that there were Medes and Elamites at Pentecost is like saying, \u201cYou should have been at St. Ann\u2019s last week. We had visitors from Ohio, Michigan, Florida, a whole vanload of Assyrians, and a cute little Hittite couple.\u201d<\/p>\n

The acoustical impact of this is everybody who ever lived was at Pentecost. Everybody who ever lived was at Pentecost.<\/p>\n

Encounter the biblical text to generate the energy of the sermon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"menu_order":2,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["dr-thomas-g-long"],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[65],"license":[],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/revisions\/51"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/34\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.palni.org\/martenlecturesvol2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}