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"On Preaching" by Scott Hoezee
Reflections on Preaching from the Center for Excellence in Preaching.
Wordstruck (Posted on March 16, 2006)
(Note: This article originally appeared in “Perspectives” magazine and is used here with persmission.)
In his book Lincoln at Gettysburg, Garry Wills says that the President's famous address forever altered America's view of the Constitution: "Lincoln performed one of the most daring acts of open-air sleight of hand ever witnessed. Everyone in the vast throng was having his pocket picked intellectually. The crowd departed with a new thing in its ideological luggage, the new Constitution Lincoln had substituted for the one they had brought with them."
Remarkably, Lincoln did all this magic in 272 words (approximately one-eighth of an average sermon). As Wills tells it, Lincoln accomplished his trick by language. He removed and replaced people's concept of the Constitution by artful phrasing, word interplay, alliteration, and the like--and he did it even though he was not the main speaker on the program that day. Some renowned orator spoke forgettably for two hours. Lincoln spoke three minutes and changed history.
How much attention do preachers pay to pulpit prose? Certainly, in preaching the first task centers on what we say. Our seminary training steeps us in the exegetical and hermeneutical process so that the message may accurately reflect God's Word. Still, the stunning accomplishment of Lincoln's 272 words reminds us that how we say something can determine whether or not the what lodges securely in people's hearts.
Is the quest for artful pulpit prose high-minded but unrealistic? It may seem so in a time when many people content themselves with a verbally bland diet. People who consume network news porridge or the slivered speech of sitcom characters may not be getting enough blood to the part of the brain that was designed to appreciate language. Thus, if delivered today, Lincoln's address might not make much of a dent there.
Perhaps. And yet, truly fine speaking does still inspire and move people. A recent PBS documentary on the Kennedy family concluded with a portion of Edward Kennedy's address to the 1980 Democratic Convention-a well-crafted and well-delivered speech that ended with a lengthy quotation from Tennyson. The speech worked. Kennedy engaged the delegates in a rhetorical dance, leading them by diction and delivery through a sequence of steps and turns till he had taken them, seemingly, outside the convention hall and across the country.
Excellence in language still touches people. In his Wordstruck, Robert MacNeil claims that language has the potential to "spin gossamer bonds" between reader and author, ones that tie together the hearts and hopes of the two. The preacher's job is to tie listeners to the Word of God. To do this job by means of language, the preacher will have to know the length, and weight, and strength of words. Surely, as MacNeil suggests, in an age when we pride ourselves on our ability to weigh atomic particles, we might give some thought to weighing our words.
For the preacher, this means that, after exegesis and sermon plotting, diction comes next. Of course, the limits of our time and abilities will keep us from creating verbal masterpieces each week. But at least at critical junctures in our sermons--openings and closings, transitions, dramatic climaxes-perhaps our listeners have a right to expect well-crafted prose. We may want to choose verbs with special care. For example, we usually say we "pour" the communion wine. But why not say we "spill" it? This verb, both apt and quietly striking, may revive the sacrament for somebody who needs it. We usually say Christ "washes" away our sins. But why not sometimes say he "bleaches" them?
Suppose that the choice of words and phrases matters. Choice implies having a good stock of words and phrases on hand to begin with. Where do we get them? We get them from dictionaries and thesauri planted in more than one room of the house. We get them from lis¬tening to good talkers and reading good writers (the kinds of writers who live by the rule that hard writing makes easy reading). We get them whenever Frederick Buechner has been stirring our juices. Consider, for example, Buechner's portrait of Jonah as a man whose disposi¬tion "could curdle milk" or his speculation that Cain's "mark" may have been a sort of facial twitch-the kind of thing that would guarantee that, as promised, everybody would steer clear of him for the rest of his life!
Language, says Garry Wills, reverses the logic of horti¬culture-in language the blossom comes first and then, in turn, the branch. The idea is that listeners and readers get at the spine and stem of thought only by making their way through the language that expresses it. This does not mean that preachers' prose must be flowery or even pretty. It does mean their prose must attract, hold, and move people so that they find their way through our words to the Word of God himself.