Broken Words: Reflections on the Craft of Preaching/Difficult Texts: A Preaching Commentary

Broken Words: Reflections on the Craft of Preaching. By Paul Scott Wilson. Nashville: Abingdon, 2004, 168 pp., $18.00 paper. Difficult Texts: A Preaching Commentary. By Catherine Gunsalus Gonzalez. Nashville: Abingdon, 2005, 118 pp., $16.00 paper.

These two books address the biblical and theological content of the sermon from different vantage points. Paul Scott Wilson is Professor of Homiletics at Emmanuel College of the University of Toronto. His title Broken Words points to the dynamic of divine grace and human action that stands as foundation of this book. Preached words break open the bread of life, but they are also broken themselves, spoken by redeemed sinners, imperfect yet empowered by the Spirit. Wilson himself is honest enough to present a few that did not work as an encouragement to learn through one's mistakes.

A companion to Wilson's earlier The Four Pages of the Sermon, the opening chapter of Broken Words explains the four pages approach as concerned not so much with the form of the sermon (as in narrative, expositional, topical approaches) as its theological content. The basic tension between trouble and grace generates electricity; words that trouble put the burden on humanity to act, words that proclaim grace place the burden upon God to save. An element of judgment appears in Wilson's understanding: "Trouble has to do with human sin and God's condemnation. Grace has to do with supplying what we lack" (p. 3). Both are necessary if a sermon is to faithfully represent the biblical witness.

The trouble-grace dynamic offers a "theological grammar" that gives focus to the sermon and a "theological structure to enable the gospel to be heard" (p. 3). The four-page structure guides the preacher in writing about: (1) trouble in the biblical world; (2) trouble in our world; (3) grace in the biblical world; and (4) grace in our world. The four components need not be presented in that order, as some of the sermons included here show, but each should receive equal voice if the message of redemption is to be both experienced and understood.

A general theory can guide practice, but real coaching takes place here as common preaching challenges are handled with wise counsel and a model sermon. Wilson answers the kind of questions that might have been raised in his preaching class: How does one preach grace if the text seems to have none? How can I use imagination to bring the text to life and remain faithful to it? What can the preacher do to magnify the work of God in a biblical text? Other reflection/sermon pairings address preaching ethics and social justice, finding one's reflection in the text, keeping the focus on God and locating the presence of God in ordinary events. A final chapter on eschatology, "preaching's often neglected dimension" (p. 152), reminds us that people do need to hear that "God wins" (p. 162), especially those listeners who know they are desperate.

Catherine Gunsalus Gonzalez, Professor Emerita of Church History at Columbia Theological Seminary, in her book Difficult Texts, offers help with preaching Scripture's difficult texts. She acknowledges that some of the difficulty of hearing Scripture's message is attributable to sin, but adds that often the message itself is hard to understand and apply in a particular time and place. To prove the point, she presents a few examples in which different social settings and cultural perspectives can make for hard listening. So Jesus' words on hating father and mother (Luke 12:51-53) might sound compatible with the culture of American individualism, but they would be hard for people in Asian cultures where first-generation Christians risk rejection by the families they are supposed to honor. Or, whereas many Americans interpret "Love your enemies" as a call to be kind to people they do not like, people with deep-seated ethnic conflicts like those of the former Yugoslavia or Palestinians and Israelis who lay claim to the same land make loving enemies a form of treason to one's own people.

González then proposes a method that begins by asking why a text might be difficult in a given time and place before she treats some texts many Americans find hard to hear. To start, preachers might list all the questions and objections listeners might raise, examining cultural assumptions as to why a text seems not right or not relevant. Other texts from both testaments can be consulted to draw a larger picture of the issue. The preacher can then study the difficult text in depth and finally make some conclusions for interpreting the passage now. Gonzalez applies her fourfold method to the words on having enough in Prov 30:7-9, asking "Can the consumer ever be satisfied?" (p. 13) and Jesus' words about service in Matt 20:17-28, asking "Shouldn't we try to get ahead?" (p. 67).

The combination of insightful summary of contemporary sensitivities with careful use of biblical scholarship makes this an admirable model of sermon preparation for all texts, not just those that appear difficult. Like Wilson's four pages approach, Gonzâlez's approach brings biblical and contemporary worlds together in conversation that respects each without diminishing biblical authority. What I found especially helpful is the way the two approaches give both preacher and congregation encouragement to voice their questions together. Attention to that interaction offers the promise that preaching can bring a life-giving word that is both relevant and faithful.