Read Scripture in odd places and odd ways.

Day of Pentecost--Proper 12, Series C

I have just read Preaching as Testimony (Westminster John Knox, 2007), a new book by my friend Anna Carter Florence, who teaches preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. Dr. Carter Florence asks us to consider preaching as a narration of events and a confession of belief: We tell what we have seen and heard, and we confess what we believe about it. This kind of preaching--testimony--cannot be proven. All that listeners can do is engage the witness, who in this case is the preacher. Rather than verifying whether a sermon is true or false, one can only believe it or reject it.

In her book, Carter Florence introduces readers to historical preaching women to make the case for testimony and teases out the implications of testimony for preaching today. Then she gets practical, inviting us to attend to what we see in the biblical text by changing our location and subject position. She encourages us to make time and space in which there is room for us to be open and receptive to the Word in text and world. This involves putting away our books (for a while) and leaving our studies in order to read the text in odd ways and in odd places. She offers some suggestions (pp. 139-43), including:

* Write the text out longhand in a journal, in order to slow down and notice what grabs you.

* Carry the text around in your pocket and look at it frequently.

* Memorize the text (a personal favorite of mine).

* Underline words and phrases in the text that stand out to you (turn off the internal editor) and then ponder them separately.

* Read the text in the places where you spend most of your time, and invite your companions to read the text with you.

* Take the text someplace where you feel like a fish out of water, and read it there.

* Block the text like a scene in a play.

* Embody the text using movement and dance.

* Read the text with someone "other" than you and ask for his or her reaction.

* Create the text artistically, using crayons and paint.

* And, of course, study the text.

In my introductory preaching class, one of my mantras is Spend time with the text before consulting the commentary. Carter Florence helps us know how to do that. Truth be told, exegetical lectures put me to sleep--particularly if I am treated to several in the course of a single preaching lab--and are not the good news that God's people yearn to hear. We must do our exegesis, but exegesis is not an end in itself. The question, of course, is, How does exegesis inform and enhance the proclamation of the gospel? When an insight enhances that proclamation, it belongs in the sermon. As for the rest, all those pages of exegetical notes, I once heard Mark Allen Powell, who teaches New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, brilliantly compare exegesis in preaching to underwear. Dr. Powell said, "Our people want you to have it, but they don't want you to show it to them."

Aaron J. Couch, co-pastor of First Immanuel Lutheran church in Portland, Oregon, author of this series of Preaching Helps, echoes Carter Florence by calling us to a different kind of study. Pastor Couch observes that he appreciates writing Preaching Helps because it obliges him to spend time with texts in ways that his normal sermon preparation does not. More odd times and odd places!

I write this reflection as we begin a new year and as I prepare to return to LSTC from a sabbatical. You will read this as we prepare for the end of the congregational program year and the coming of summer. Whether we are gearing up or winding down, the invitation to spend more time with Scripture, reading it in odd places and in odd ways, will only enhance our preaching. In the words of Colossians, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God" (Col 3:16 NRSV).

Craig A. Satterlee

Editor of Preaching Helps