 |
 |
|
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|
 |
|
|
||
| Preaching Re-runs Tell me the old, old story of unseen things above/ Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love/ Tell me the story simply, as to a little child/ For I am weak and weary, and helpless and defiled. When Katherine Hankey penned the lyrics to this well-known gospel song in 1870, she probably didn’t intend to define the nature, and the drudgery, of the preaching task. The old, old story. The tired old story. The boring old story. Do you find that preaching the Parable of the Good Samaritan again and again is tiresome and frustrating — not to speak of difficult? Welcome to my world. I mean, I’m preaching from the same book and telling the same stories that preachers have been preaching for 2,000 years — or longer. That’s the bad news. The good news is twofold. First, Americans love stories. Why else would we be interested in Carl’s Burgers pimping out Paris Hilton, or the romantic symmetry of Paris engaged to Paris, or Tom Cruise jumping all over Oprah’s couch in the throes of what the celebrity blogs are calling the TomKat affair? Second, American audiences love stories that are retold, remade or rerun. That’s why, this summer as every summer, many of the movies are a retelling and rehashing of the familiar. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is based on Ann Brashare’s 2001 novel of the same name, and which, I daresay, will no doubt be followed up next summer by The Brotherhood of the Traveling Jockstrap. War of the Worlds puts Tom Cruise in a techno-savvy version of H.G.Wells’ 1898 story. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, just released, is based on Roald Dahl’s 1964 story. Steve Martin reprises Peter Seller’s role as Inspector Clousceau in The Pink Panther. We’ll also see Ben Afflect in Jack Lord’s old role on Hawaii Five-O. And then there’s The Honeymooners, The Longest Yard, Bewitched, Herbie, Batman Begins, The Dukes of Hazzard. And in a few weeks, Zorro. Rehash all. Broadway. Spamalot wins the Tony for Best Musical. Fine. Seen it before. John Patrick Shanely’s Doubt, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and nominated for eight Tony Awards and winner of Best Play—while a completely original story seems to be based on contemporary headlines and makes me think of Hawthorne, or Miller’s The Crucible. And since most Americans won’t see Doubt in New York, the show’s going on tour in September, 2006, ensuring that we’ll be able to see it more than once — if we choose. And why show reruns on television if there’s not a huge appetite to see and hear these stories again? The Law and Order franchise, or sitcoms like Cheers, Frasier, Leave It to Beaver, All in the Family, Three’s Company, Sanford and Son, Roseanne, Cosby, Home Improvement, Mary Tyler Moore, Andy Griffith, WKRP Cincinnati or The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. To name a few. The last three Christmas seasons we were enthralled with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This Christmas C.S. Lewis comes to the screen. Listening, or watching, a story retold is something kids love to do. As children we seldom tired of hearing the same story retold countless times — and without any creative variations. The same words, the same pictures, the same length, the same outcome. And when we’d heard the story 20 times, we wanted to hear it a 21st time. The Preacher as Storyteller. We’ve heard that a thousand times if we’ve heard it once. What we need to understand is our role as re-tellers of the story! We need the skills, not only to tell a story, but to re-tell it, re-live it, re-freshen it and re-hearse it. That is, we verbalize the story, we embody it or give it flesh, we freshen it up to avoid it becoming stale, and we go over the same ground again. The word “rehearse” comes from the Old French meaning to “rake” the ground again. In our preaching we “rake” the theological, moral, ethical and spiritual ground — again — hoping to stir up or uncover something useful, or at the very least, to prepare the soil for planting, growth and harvest. To be re-tellers means that we approach the preaching task with certain assumptions. One of these is that we live in a post-literate culture in which the language has changed. So we’ve got to learn the language. C.S. Lewis said that “It is absolutely disgraceful that we expect missionaries to the Bantus to learn Bantu, but never ask whether our missionaries to the Americans or English can speak American or English. Any fool can write learned language: the vernacular is the real test. If you can’t turn your faith into it, then either you don’t understand it or don’t believe it.” Preachers need to learn to speak American, and the lingua franca of the emerging culture is a visual and digital linguistic, not a textual or semantic linguistic. The epistemological reality of the emerging culture is that in a post-literate culture, we learn not by reading, but by observing and watching. The bookshelves of many Gen-Yers are likely to be filled not with books but lined with DVD cases. And this is okay. Do we really think that Jesus, Peter or Paul envisioned a future in which preachers stood behind a pulpit to utter theological verities? Isn’t the “Great Commission” simply a mandate to “re-tell”? “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, ... teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19, 20). Tell them, Jesus says, what I have told you. The apostle Peter makes no apologies for repeating himself: “I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory” (2 Peter 1:13). He understands that his audience has heard it all before and that they are well-established in the faith. He doesn’t care: “Therefore I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you” (2 Peter 1:12). Soooooo ... we’re coming up on September and the start of a new church year — as it were. Many of us, I suspect, are burdened with the chore of bringing vitality to the same old thing. Verily I say unto you, be not afraid, but be of good cheer. Don’t worry about re-telling the old, old story. That’s what we do!
|
|
|
|
© 2008 COMMUNICATION RESOURCES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PowerPoint® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. |