Homiletic Theory
Dear Friends of this Blog,
I realize that the title of this week's post is as dry as sand...I apologize. Why an article are homiletic theory? Well, since we have a guest preacher at St. Al's this Sunday, I have the week off and decided to seek your opinion on an academic paper as opposed to a homily.
The article that appears below is a summary of a keynote presentation that I gave at a recent deacon conference. I intend to submit it as a paper at an upcoming meeting of the Academy of Homiletics.
If you find sections that need improvement or clarification, please post you comment on the discussion board or contact me directly at jms48@fuse.net.
Your feedback is much appreciated! -JMS
The Work of Our Hands:
Listener Involvement in Liturgical Preaching
by
Jim Schmitmeyer
Introduction
Have you ever remodeled a house? Have you ever served on a steering committee
for a church renovation? If so, you know what that kind of work entails and you know the kind of people that get that kind of job done.
So, picture a typical blue collar worker in your mind, perhaps a carpenter or a welder. Why? Because the goal of this paper is to highlight the ability of liturgical preaching to forge a vital connection between the work of human hands and the worship of our sovereign God.
This paper will demonstrate that such connections depend on the relationship
between the preacher and his or her listeners and development of a “partnership in preaching” mindset within a congregation.
Part I: The Relationship between Work and Worship
Before we consider specific aspects of the preacher-listener relationship, it is
necessary to consider the setting in which liturgical preaching takes place. A comparison between what takes place at the Table of the Word (ambo or pulpit) and the Table to the Eucharist (altar of sacrifice) will reveal the sacramental dimensions of liturgical speech and its reliance on “the stuff” of ordinary life, i.e. the work of human hands.
We begin with the proposition that homiletic preaching is different from other
kinds of preaching. How is it different? It sanctifies.What does it sanctify? It sanctifies the work of human labor, human love and human longing.
The key word here is sanctifies. The words of the preacher make holy the work of human hands in a similar way that the words of a priest consecrate the Bread and Wine on an altar. If Sunday worship is comprised of two segments: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, each segment contains its own “communion service”
A liturgical view of preaching sees the homily as “the communion service” of the Liturgy of the Word. In my particular tradition, this is strongly supported in of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “ In every liturgical action the Holy Spirit is sent in order to bring us into communion with Christ as so to form his Body” (#1108).
Homiletic preaching is not “time out” from the experience of awe that true
worship engenders. Moreover, preaching is not “time out” from worship for a few words of instruction or clarification from the preacher. Rather, Jesus said, “Those who hear you, hear me.”
That’s a reference to human communication as a form of
divine communion. Jesus is speaking here about a type of communion that occurs when people talk in a certain way. Therefore, it follows that the homily can in fact become a “linguistic-sacramental” moment.
The purpose of this unique rhetorical form called homiletic preaching is to engender within the assembly a mystical encounter with God through the faculty of human speech, speech that reveals the hidden presence of God in the world in which we live.
When a preacher weaves associations from the lived experience into the matrix of sacred tradition and scripture, a transformation occurs. The longing of our hearts and the work of our hands is viewed as something holy and worthy of God, in short, our life and our world is sanctified through contact with the Divine Word of God.
The process of sanctification occurs in descending and ascending pattern. In the former, human labor is accorded respect and honor simply by receiving attention in the course of a sacred rite. In other words, listeners are reminded that the work of their hands is important to God, as this quote from sociologist James Stockinger eloquently conveys:
Each of us lives in and through an immense movement of the hands of other people. The hands of other people lift us from the womb. The hands of other people grow the food we eat, weave the clothes we wear and build the shelters we inhabit. The hands of other people give aid and comfort in times of affliction and distress. It is in and through the hands of other people that the fruits of the earth are appropriated to the needs of our individual lives. And, in the end, it is the hands of other people that lower us into the earth. (James Stockinger as quoted in “The Good Society” by Robert Bellah et al Knopf, 1991)
The ascending movement of the liturgical sanctification of everyday life is expressed in this quote by theologian Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. who, as a chaplain in World War I, wrote this reflection on the Mass on a day when the required elements of bread and wine were unavailable.
Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outmost fringe of the eastern sky…. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labor…
Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those in office, in laboratory and factory…
Once upon a time men took into your temple the first fruits of their harvests, the flower of their flocks. But the offering you really want, the offering you mysteriously need… is nothing less than the growth of the world….
Receive, O Lord, this all-embracing host which your whole creation…offers you at this dawn of a new day. (Teilhard de Chardin’s “Mass on the World”)
The “all-embracing host” to which Chardin refers is not the bread of the Eucharist, but the work of human hands. He is telling us—through language inspired by the sacred liturgy—that human labor and commerce matter to God and, when offered to God, are sanctified by God.
This joining of our lives to the sacrifice of Christ is vital to the human spirit and lies at the very heart of the Church’s sacrifice of praise. The homily serves the sanctifying nature of the liturgy whenever it endeavors to make holy the offering of our day-to-day life.
The classroom is the proper setting for education. A church provides the place for praise. With this in mind, it should be clear that Christians do not attend the sacred liturgy to be lectured. We come to be sanctified so that, when we return to our regular duties on Monday morning, God might use the resumption of our human labor to sanctify that world to Himself.
In other words, the worship paid to God inside a church begins long before the pipe organ cranks up and the opening hymn is sung. This why preachers who engage the experience of listeners who work in agriculture, sales, construction, communication, health care, etc. place themselves in an ideal position to help the people of God to connect the Word of God with the world in which they live.
There is a saying among the Orthodox: “With the eyes of flesh we see bread and wine upon the altar. With the eyes of faith we see the Body and Blood of Christ.” Can a similar statement be made about the sacramentality of preaching? I.e. “With our human ears we hear about human experience, but with ears of faith we hear the voice of Christ.”
Consider the possibilities with the following texts:
· the prodigal son who runs away from home,
· a wedding reception in the village of Cana that runs short on wine
· a fishing boat suddenly, miraculously full of fish.
That’s what we hear with our human ears. But then, through the preaching of the Word, a transformation occurs.
· the story of the prodigal son melds with the image of a kid loitering outside a 7-11 convenience store
· we find ourselves dancing at a wedding and note the rhythm of grace in the shuffle of our feet and the passing of the years
· we’re fishing with a grandchild on a pond in Indiana or Tennessee but get our minds off “the miracles” all around us.
This is what happens when we worship. We listen to ordinary words but hear the language of angels spoken with a Southern, Minnesotan or Mexican accent.
In a sense, it’s Pentecost all over again as we hear the proclamation of God’s wonderful works in our own language; the deep mysteries of God conveyed in words we understand.
Such is the impact of preaching when partnerships are formed to make connections happen between God’s world and our world.
Part Two: A Brief Look at a Rhetorical Framework
To help us understand the unique rhetorical qualities of homiletic discourse, we’ll compare it to three other categories of preaching.
Throughout the history of the Church, there has existed four distinct types of preaching: Evangelistic, Catechetical, Theological and Homiletic. The following analysis is drawn from Fred Baumer’s doctoral dissertation, “Toward Homiletic as a Rhetorical Genre” (Northwestern University, 1985). In this work, each traditional type of preaching has its unique purpose which can be summarized as follows:
Evangelization: Conversion
Catechesis: Right behavior
Theological argument: Right thought
Homiletic: Worship
Each type of preaching as its own unique content:
Evangelization: Information
Catechesis: Advice
Theological argument: Analysis
Homiletic: Integration
Integration can be viewed in terms similar to those used above to describe sanctification:
· integration places the mysteries of God in the context of ordinary life
· integration enhances the experience of mystical transformation, i.e. God’s presence becomes real through the agency of the spoken word.
In short, integration happens when the preacher, like a blue collar worker, welds our world to God’s world, enabling, for instance, a young boy to think about St. Joseph as he envisions the basement at home and his dad’s work bench in the corner or allowing a visitor to a hospital to recall Christ healing a leper at the sight of a nurse changing a bandage.
Integration is an act of sanctification and illumines the insight at the heart of de Chardin’s words: Receive, O Lord, this all-bracing host, this work of our hands, which all creation offers you at the beginning of this day.”
Part Three: Making the Connections Happen
How is integration accomplished in public discourse? The primary rhetorical strategy used by liturgical preachers is that of description.
The more that preachers can describe the experience of grace in the lives of their listeners, and the more that listeners are willing to share their experience of grace with their preachers, the more effective the homilies become.
The preacher is the one who stands in the midst of the community and cries out: “Look! Here is God! And there is God! And over there, yet another hint of God!”
Through describing such things as the yearning at the heart of human love, the hurt that lies amid the fragments of broken dreams or sketching a vision of a world where terrorists abandon their bombs and lions lie down with lambs, the people of God begin to grasp something of the wonders of the God in whom we live and move and have our being. The result is True Worship, that is, sincere and heartfelt praise, thanksgiving and exultation.
No one accomplishes this important work better than an effective homilist. Here are recommendations to foster a attitude of partnership in preaching within one’s congregation:
1. Introduce a “Take Your Preacher to Work” Initiative
Can you imagine Jesus preaching to roughneck fishermen without ever climbing into one of their boats? Jesus did not shun the work of the dock…or the dust of the field…or the din of the marketplace. His preaching was full of references to ordinary life. Because of this, His words had immediate appeal and lasting effect. So, ask your listeners for a tour of their work place, join a parishioner in the company lunchroom or request an hour or two of “shadowing.” Visit the job sites and the places where your listeners work, and you’ll be following the example of the greatest preacher who ever lived.
2. Enter the Marketplace
Jesus referred to money more often than he mentioned sin. If you include his references to coins and market place, the gospels mention commercial transactions twice as often as they mention the word, “sin.”
3. Form Homily Reflection Groups
Homilists aren’t professors. We’re more like reporters out in the field. A homily reflection group that reviews an early draft of the Sunday homily can help the preacher refine the focus and add detail to make the exposition of a particular passage realistic and compelling.
Conclusion: A Sample Homily
This homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent illustrates the use of listener input as well as the use of descriptive language in bringing about an experience of “communion” in the context of the Liturgy of the Word.
Do not be afraid, Mary.
We hear those words in today’s gospel,
but as any mother will tell you,
fear and worry fall heavy on the heart.
Do not be afraid, Mary.
But nine months of pregnancy
means nine months of worry.
Will my child be healthy?
Will my child be strong?
Do not be afraid.
What about colic and jaundice;
ear infections, speech impediments?
Do not be afraid.
What about school?
Will my child have friends?
What will I say
when others make fun of my child?
Mary, do not be afraid.
Will my child be brave?
Will my child save the life of someone drowning?
Defend the rights of those shoved aside?
…
Maybe it was here, at this point in the conversation,
that Mary bowed her head
and opened her heart.
And new life in her was conceived.
And the salvation of the world commenced.
It began in fear, but the fear did not flee.
It tugged at her heart
and showed in her eyes
each time the baby’s cry turned shrill,
each time he ran from the house
--as little boys do--
only to come back with a swollen lip
or blood matted in his hair.
Fear.
It was always there, as it is for every mother.
Sometimes muffled,
like the sound of a hammer
in the carpenter shop.
Other times sharp and loud,
like the cries of the crowds that began to gather
on the shore of the sea
to hear the words He would speak.
This son of hers,
this child she carried in her womb
now cradling lepers with open sores
now lifting children into his lap…
This son of hers
now going down to the river,
now going out to the desert
now going out on the sea
to pull in nets of fish
with strong arms bronzed with the sun.
And she knew…(as only a mother can know)…
she knew that one day
bright blood
would string down those arms of his
now so strong, but once so small.
And nails would pierce the hands she once washed.
Because her son’s words were strong, much too strong.
And some day soldiers would come…
she knew they would come…for him.
Do not be afraid. Mary, do not be afraid.
I realize that the title of this week's post is as dry as sand...I apologize. Why an article are homiletic theory? Well, since we have a guest preacher at St. Al's this Sunday, I have the week off and decided to seek your opinion on an academic paper as opposed to a homily.
The article that appears below is a summary of a keynote presentation that I gave at a recent deacon conference. I intend to submit it as a paper at an upcoming meeting of the Academy of Homiletics.
If you find sections that need improvement or clarification, please post you comment on the discussion board or contact me directly at jms48@fuse.net.
Your feedback is much appreciated! -JMS
The Work of Our Hands:
Listener Involvement in Liturgical Preaching
by
Jim Schmitmeyer
Introduction
Have you ever remodeled a house? Have you ever served on a steering committee
for a church renovation? If so, you know what that kind of work entails and you know the kind of people that get that kind of job done.
So, picture a typical blue collar worker in your mind, perhaps a carpenter or a welder. Why? Because the goal of this paper is to highlight the ability of liturgical preaching to forge a vital connection between the work of human hands and the worship of our sovereign God.
This paper will demonstrate that such connections depend on the relationship
between the preacher and his or her listeners and development of a “partnership in preaching” mindset within a congregation.
Part I: The Relationship between Work and Worship
Before we consider specific aspects of the preacher-listener relationship, it is
necessary to consider the setting in which liturgical preaching takes place. A comparison between what takes place at the Table of the Word (ambo or pulpit) and the Table to the Eucharist (altar of sacrifice) will reveal the sacramental dimensions of liturgical speech and its reliance on “the stuff” of ordinary life, i.e. the work of human hands.
We begin with the proposition that homiletic preaching is different from other
kinds of preaching. How is it different? It sanctifies.What does it sanctify? It sanctifies the work of human labor, human love and human longing.
The key word here is sanctifies. The words of the preacher make holy the work of human hands in a similar way that the words of a priest consecrate the Bread and Wine on an altar. If Sunday worship is comprised of two segments: the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist, each segment contains its own “communion service”
A liturgical view of preaching sees the homily as “the communion service” of the Liturgy of the Word. In my particular tradition, this is strongly supported in of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “ In every liturgical action the Holy Spirit is sent in order to bring us into communion with Christ as so to form his Body” (#1108).
Homiletic preaching is not “time out” from the experience of awe that true
worship engenders. Moreover, preaching is not “time out” from worship for a few words of instruction or clarification from the preacher. Rather, Jesus said, “Those who hear you, hear me.”
That’s a reference to human communication as a form of
divine communion. Jesus is speaking here about a type of communion that occurs when people talk in a certain way. Therefore, it follows that the homily can in fact become a “linguistic-sacramental” moment.
The purpose of this unique rhetorical form called homiletic preaching is to engender within the assembly a mystical encounter with God through the faculty of human speech, speech that reveals the hidden presence of God in the world in which we live.
When a preacher weaves associations from the lived experience into the matrix of sacred tradition and scripture, a transformation occurs. The longing of our hearts and the work of our hands is viewed as something holy and worthy of God, in short, our life and our world is sanctified through contact with the Divine Word of God.
The process of sanctification occurs in descending and ascending pattern. In the former, human labor is accorded respect and honor simply by receiving attention in the course of a sacred rite. In other words, listeners are reminded that the work of their hands is important to God, as this quote from sociologist James Stockinger eloquently conveys:
Each of us lives in and through an immense movement of the hands of other people. The hands of other people lift us from the womb. The hands of other people grow the food we eat, weave the clothes we wear and build the shelters we inhabit. The hands of other people give aid and comfort in times of affliction and distress. It is in and through the hands of other people that the fruits of the earth are appropriated to the needs of our individual lives. And, in the end, it is the hands of other people that lower us into the earth. (James Stockinger as quoted in “The Good Society” by Robert Bellah et al Knopf, 1991)
The ascending movement of the liturgical sanctification of everyday life is expressed in this quote by theologian Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. who, as a chaplain in World War I, wrote this reflection on the Mass on a day when the required elements of bread and wine were unavailable.
Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outmost fringe of the eastern sky…. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labor…
Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those in office, in laboratory and factory…
Once upon a time men took into your temple the first fruits of their harvests, the flower of their flocks. But the offering you really want, the offering you mysteriously need… is nothing less than the growth of the world….
Receive, O Lord, this all-embracing host which your whole creation…offers you at this dawn of a new day. (Teilhard de Chardin’s “Mass on the World”)
The “all-embracing host” to which Chardin refers is not the bread of the Eucharist, but the work of human hands. He is telling us—through language inspired by the sacred liturgy—that human labor and commerce matter to God and, when offered to God, are sanctified by God.
This joining of our lives to the sacrifice of Christ is vital to the human spirit and lies at the very heart of the Church’s sacrifice of praise. The homily serves the sanctifying nature of the liturgy whenever it endeavors to make holy the offering of our day-to-day life.
The classroom is the proper setting for education. A church provides the place for praise. With this in mind, it should be clear that Christians do not attend the sacred liturgy to be lectured. We come to be sanctified so that, when we return to our regular duties on Monday morning, God might use the resumption of our human labor to sanctify that world to Himself.
In other words, the worship paid to God inside a church begins long before the pipe organ cranks up and the opening hymn is sung. This why preachers who engage the experience of listeners who work in agriculture, sales, construction, communication, health care, etc. place themselves in an ideal position to help the people of God to connect the Word of God with the world in which they live.
There is a saying among the Orthodox: “With the eyes of flesh we see bread and wine upon the altar. With the eyes of faith we see the Body and Blood of Christ.” Can a similar statement be made about the sacramentality of preaching? I.e. “With our human ears we hear about human experience, but with ears of faith we hear the voice of Christ.”
Consider the possibilities with the following texts:
· the prodigal son who runs away from home,
· a wedding reception in the village of Cana that runs short on wine
· a fishing boat suddenly, miraculously full of fish.
That’s what we hear with our human ears. But then, through the preaching of the Word, a transformation occurs.
· the story of the prodigal son melds with the image of a kid loitering outside a 7-11 convenience store
· we find ourselves dancing at a wedding and note the rhythm of grace in the shuffle of our feet and the passing of the years
· we’re fishing with a grandchild on a pond in Indiana or Tennessee but get our minds off “the miracles” all around us.
This is what happens when we worship. We listen to ordinary words but hear the language of angels spoken with a Southern, Minnesotan or Mexican accent.
In a sense, it’s Pentecost all over again as we hear the proclamation of God’s wonderful works in our own language; the deep mysteries of God conveyed in words we understand.
Such is the impact of preaching when partnerships are formed to make connections happen between God’s world and our world.
Part Two: A Brief Look at a Rhetorical Framework
To help us understand the unique rhetorical qualities of homiletic discourse, we’ll compare it to three other categories of preaching.
Throughout the history of the Church, there has existed four distinct types of preaching: Evangelistic, Catechetical, Theological and Homiletic. The following analysis is drawn from Fred Baumer’s doctoral dissertation, “Toward Homiletic as a Rhetorical Genre” (Northwestern University, 1985). In this work, each traditional type of preaching has its unique purpose which can be summarized as follows:
Evangelization: Conversion
Catechesis: Right behavior
Theological argument: Right thought
Homiletic: Worship
Each type of preaching as its own unique content:
Evangelization: Information
Catechesis: Advice
Theological argument: Analysis
Homiletic: Integration
Integration can be viewed in terms similar to those used above to describe sanctification:
· integration places the mysteries of God in the context of ordinary life
· integration enhances the experience of mystical transformation, i.e. God’s presence becomes real through the agency of the spoken word.
In short, integration happens when the preacher, like a blue collar worker, welds our world to God’s world, enabling, for instance, a young boy to think about St. Joseph as he envisions the basement at home and his dad’s work bench in the corner or allowing a visitor to a hospital to recall Christ healing a leper at the sight of a nurse changing a bandage.
Integration is an act of sanctification and illumines the insight at the heart of de Chardin’s words: Receive, O Lord, this all-bracing host, this work of our hands, which all creation offers you at the beginning of this day.”
Part Three: Making the Connections Happen
How is integration accomplished in public discourse? The primary rhetorical strategy used by liturgical preachers is that of description.
The more that preachers can describe the experience of grace in the lives of their listeners, and the more that listeners are willing to share their experience of grace with their preachers, the more effective the homilies become.
The preacher is the one who stands in the midst of the community and cries out: “Look! Here is God! And there is God! And over there, yet another hint of God!”
Through describing such things as the yearning at the heart of human love, the hurt that lies amid the fragments of broken dreams or sketching a vision of a world where terrorists abandon their bombs and lions lie down with lambs, the people of God begin to grasp something of the wonders of the God in whom we live and move and have our being. The result is True Worship, that is, sincere and heartfelt praise, thanksgiving and exultation.
No one accomplishes this important work better than an effective homilist. Here are recommendations to foster a attitude of partnership in preaching within one’s congregation:
1. Introduce a “Take Your Preacher to Work” Initiative
Can you imagine Jesus preaching to roughneck fishermen without ever climbing into one of their boats? Jesus did not shun the work of the dock…or the dust of the field…or the din of the marketplace. His preaching was full of references to ordinary life. Because of this, His words had immediate appeal and lasting effect. So, ask your listeners for a tour of their work place, join a parishioner in the company lunchroom or request an hour or two of “shadowing.” Visit the job sites and the places where your listeners work, and you’ll be following the example of the greatest preacher who ever lived.
2. Enter the Marketplace
Jesus referred to money more often than he mentioned sin. If you include his references to coins and market place, the gospels mention commercial transactions twice as often as they mention the word, “sin.”
3. Form Homily Reflection Groups
Homilists aren’t professors. We’re more like reporters out in the field. A homily reflection group that reviews an early draft of the Sunday homily can help the preacher refine the focus and add detail to make the exposition of a particular passage realistic and compelling.
Conclusion: A Sample Homily
This homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent illustrates the use of listener input as well as the use of descriptive language in bringing about an experience of “communion” in the context of the Liturgy of the Word.
Do not be afraid, Mary.
We hear those words in today’s gospel,
but as any mother will tell you,
fear and worry fall heavy on the heart.
Do not be afraid, Mary.
But nine months of pregnancy
means nine months of worry.
Will my child be healthy?
Will my child be strong?
Do not be afraid.
What about colic and jaundice;
ear infections, speech impediments?
Do not be afraid.
What about school?
Will my child have friends?
What will I say
when others make fun of my child?
Mary, do not be afraid.
Will my child be brave?
Will my child save the life of someone drowning?
Defend the rights of those shoved aside?
…
Maybe it was here, at this point in the conversation,
that Mary bowed her head
and opened her heart.
And new life in her was conceived.
And the salvation of the world commenced.
It began in fear, but the fear did not flee.
It tugged at her heart
and showed in her eyes
each time the baby’s cry turned shrill,
each time he ran from the house
--as little boys do--
only to come back with a swollen lip
or blood matted in his hair.
Fear.
It was always there, as it is for every mother.
Sometimes muffled,
like the sound of a hammer
in the carpenter shop.
Other times sharp and loud,
like the cries of the crowds that began to gather
on the shore of the sea
to hear the words He would speak.
This son of hers,
this child she carried in her womb
now cradling lepers with open sores
now lifting children into his lap…
This son of hers
now going down to the river,
now going out to the desert
now going out on the sea
to pull in nets of fish
with strong arms bronzed with the sun.
And she knew…(as only a mother can know)…
she knew that one day
bright blood
would string down those arms of his
now so strong, but once so small.
And nails would pierce the hands she once washed.
Because her son’s words were strong, much too strong.
And some day soldiers would come…
she knew they would come…for him.
Do not be afraid. Mary, do not be afraid.
posted by BlueCollarPreacher at 8:21 AM
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