The shape of full-gospel preaching

Several questions lingered at the end of the first lecture. How do we listen attentively to the wild, untamable text in light of Jesus, the Word? How does the Bible as sacrament of the "Word of God" take on flesh among us? How do we hear the scattered voices with the counterspeech of God in our ears? How can full-gospel preaching be as tangible as the taste of bread in our mouths, as life-giving as water?

Full-gospel preaching shapes a peculiar community

Biblical preaching is, in many ways, a word for insiders. It is a word passed down over centuries of time within communities of faith, as St. Paul wrote: "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you...." This particular word is not written on the mountains and the hills or upon the collective subconscious. Indeed, we often divide the first eleven chapters of Genesis from all that follows: Babel ends the "primitive history" of creation and flood shared by people of many religious traditions. The story of a particular revelation begins after the people have been scattered, when God calls Abraham and Sarah. Babel ends in confusion and scattering because no one can understand the other. Pentecost gathers the scattered people from many nations and reshapes them into a new community where each one hears and understands, even though their language is not the same. From beginning to end, the biblical story is a community-forming story.

Full-gospel preaching as shared story

When the people crossed over into the promised land, Joshua commanded people to carry stones from the river to set up at Gilgal. So when their children asked in days to come, "What do these stones mean?" they could tell their children about the day the people of Israel crossed over the Jordan on dry ground, about the time God delivered their ancestors who were slaves in Egypt, about Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and all their kin. These stories not only made for good listening around the fire, they also shaped a peculiar people. The telling of stories is no small thing, especially in a time such as ours when generations no longer live in the same place and shared stories have become rare.

Stephen Dunn speaks of this longing for stories in his poem "At the Smithville Methodist Church." The parents in the poem have sent their little daughter off to Vacation Bible School. "It was supposed to be Arts & Crafts for a week," the father says, "but when she came home with the 'Jesus saves' button, we knew what art was up, what ancient craft." (1) This father seems to be a good person. He and his wife want good things for their daughter. I know these people, even though I don't know their names. They teach their children to be fair; they sing songs like "You can get good milk from a brown-skinned cow, The color of your skin doesn't matter anyhow. Ho, ho, ho! Can't you see? The color of your skin doesn't matter to me." But they had long ago ceased to believe in anything or anyone as specific as God or Jesus. They are modern people, holding out for "random acts of kindness." After a few days of hearing his daughter sing and tell stories, the father admits, "Evolution is magical but devoid of heroes. You can't say to your child: 'Evolution loves you.' The story stinks of extinction and nothing exciting happens for centuries. I didn't have a wonderful story for my child. And she was beaming." (2)

He didn't have a story for himself either.

It may be that people in our congregations don't know the biblical stories because we haven't told the stories often enough. If we don't know where else to start, we might start with the human drama of Old Testament stories, gathering people in the sanctuary around the fire. Even those who aren't familiar with the Bible can see their own lives reflected in these very human stories...

* the pain of Abraham and Sarah, fearing that God's promise to them was null and void: Where have we given up on the promises of God?

* the pathos of Hagar and Ishmael sent out into the wilderness by Abraham and Sarah: How is the racism of this story played out in our own country?

* the anguish of Esau standing beside his dying father: "Is there no blessing left for me? Has God only one blessing?" Have you felt that way within your own family?

* the power of jealousy among siblings so tangible in the stories of Joseph and his brothers--the audacity of his self-centered dreams, the deception of his brothers, the unfathomable forgiveness when they are all reunited: What has jealousy provoked within our families or our congregation? Have we ever experienced such unearned forgiveness?

* the boundary crossing of the three women at the river: the Egyptian princess, the Hebrew mother and her daughter, and the baby in the basket: What would it mean for women to conspire across the lines of race and class?

* the strong pull of sexual desire as David looks out from his balcony at Bathsheba: Do we ever speak about the power of such strong sexual feelings?

* the poignant and passionate love between David and Jonathan, perhaps the most beautiful story of love and commitment in the Bible: Have we revisited that story since second grade?