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I have trouble hearing. Several surgeries over the course of my life has left the hearing in my left ear seriously reduced. It has its advantages. There are times when not hearing can be convenient, like when your wife calls you to some unwanted household task. More often, however, I find myself struggling and straining to discern whatever it is that is going on. I’ve found that I am very intent upon hearing. I’m not a good one to sit beside in a theatre. I’ll constantly be asking, “What did he say? What was that? I couldn’t hear.” I want to know what is being said to me and I will strain hard to hear.
Of course some messages are of greater value than others. I’ve learned to be oblivious to television commercials, junk mail, and muzak. I try to tune myself carefully, however, to personal messages that are of value to me. I’ve become adept, for instance, at sifting through my cluttered inbox to locate the important email from out of the deluge of spam. Such is the task of the preacher. People have to contend with thousands of persuasive voices every day. Most of those voices are spam. Yet within the wall of white noise attacking listeners, there is a still small voice that must be heard. God is speaking and it is the preacher’s task to help the listener hear that voice.
The Message
In The Hunt for Red October, there is a scene in which a Navy submarine radio operator is listening hard to detect the sound of approaching enemy subs. His challenge is to determine the important noises from the array of ordinary noises. It takes a trained and experienced ear to know the difference between the sound of a whale swimming and a submarine screw turning. Yet the difference could mean life or death for a boatload of sailors. It is not a glamorous position. Most of the time is spent quietly in a small room listening. But when the right sound is heard, the whole crew takes notice. This is the task of the preacher. The preacher sits quietly examing texts and listening carefully. It takes a trained and experienced ear to be able to bring the voice of God to the congregation so that people consistently hear from God in his word.
The first stage in sermon preparation is discovery. The thing the preacher seeks to discover is the message, or the unique thing that God wants to say through this text at this time, to these people. The preacher begins with the assumption that God is speaking to his people through his word. The preacher, then, is like an advance scout, listening ahead to hear what God would say. The preacher is not engaged to offer opinion or cultural analysis. The preacher is a listener – the first listener – discerning the voice of God on behalf of the people. The preacher who wants to hear from God is driven to the Scripture for the Bible is the primary place given for hearing what God would say. But the preacher’s conviction is not only that God spoke in the past but that he is speaking in the present. The task, then, is not so much to determine what it was that God said as it is to determine what God is saying. In particular the preacher is interested in what God is saying at this moment to these people. What God said last week or last year is helpful contextually, but the primary need is to hear what God is saying currently. Preachers must resist the urge to talk about what God might be saying to other people not in attendance. The primary interest in what God is saying to these people, at this time, through this particular text in Scripture. The product of this quest is the message. It is the substance of what the preacher must say to the people.
Steps to Discovery
Discovery is a hermeneutic process. Discovering what God is saying requires careful exegesis and attention to several process steps.
First Step: Read the Text
The first thing a preacher needs to do is to determine the text in Scripture that he or she will preach. This is not as critical as it may seem. All of the Bible is the Word of God and is, therefore, profitable. God speaks through every nook and cranny of the Scriptures. Of course, the preacher may have to listen more carefully in Leviticus than in Luke. The preacher begins by selecting the portion of the Bible to which particular attention will be given. It is helpful to start with a text rather than a topic, though the two are not exclusive to one another. The basic concern is that God himself be allowed to direct the outcome without too much predetermination by the preacher. The preacher should be careful to choose a complete unit of thought in the text. There is no set number of verses that constitute “a complete unit of thought.” The concern is that the thought is not distorted by an incomplete reading.
Having determined the text, the preacher would do well to read it. It sounds obvious, but the preacher will be strongly tempted to save time by skipping the reading of texts thought to be familiar. Such negligence leads to a multitude of homiletical sins. The preacher must read the passage several times, silently and out loud, using a variety of versions and if possible, the original languages. The preacher ought to read with a pen at hand to record the questions and observations that emerge. This is not the time to read commentaries or to track down answers to all the questions and issues that present themselves. It is sufficient, for the moment, simply to record them for attention later. For now, just read the text.
Second Step: What’s the Big Idea?
Having repeatedly read and pondered the text the preacher moves to encapsulate the message or the “big idea” of the text in a strong theme statement. In order to ensure that the idea is simply expressed it would be good to keep the statement to a complete sentence of no more than twelve words. There should be no sentence fragments. This statement should not only tell us what the text is talking about (the subject), but what the text is saying about what it is talking about (the complement). Further, the statement should avoid the use of any conjunctions (and, but, or) in order to keep the theme statment simple and unified.
Of course, the effort will be flawed at this point. This is a preliminary step in order to make sure that the preacher has given due personal consideration to the text before consulting the experts. Also, the advance framing of a big idea will give focus to the preacher’s exegetical work.
Third Step: Exegesis
Now the preacher goes deep. Homiletic exegesis involves a thorough study of both text and today in order to determine the message that God has for the people at this time. It is imperative that we understand that the preacher must put almost as much work into listener exegesis as biblical exegesis. Not only must we understand the ancient text, but we must be intimate with the contemporary situation into which this text will be preached. A serious exegetical process will include several important components.
Literary Analysis: The preacher needs to consider the nature of the text in its literary context. What kind of passage is it? How does the way the text is presented (genre) affect the way the message is received. Obviously, a letter (epistle) intends something different from a hymn (psalm). The preacher, then, will need to consider genre parallels in the experience of the contemporary listeners. In some cases, the preacher will have to prepare to help listeners overcome barriers inherent in the literary construction of the text.
Historical Analysis: The preacher acknowledges that texts in Scripture are given within historical contexts. God does not speak into a vacuum but into space and time. The preacher needs to understand the historical setting of the text as carefully as possible. It helps, for example, to know who the Hittites were. Similarly, the preacher needs to carefully understand the contemporary situation, looking for parallels within biblical history. Historical analysis is concerned with context.
Linguistic Analysis: The Bible is given in text. The preacher needs to know the language. This involves careful interpretation of the words themselves, understanding that definition is key to interpretation. Also key to faithfully distinguishing ideas from texts is a syntactical analysis. The preachers needs to be able to separate the main clauses from the subordinate clauses. It is important to note the inter-relationship of ideas in the text as indicated by the grammatical markers employed. All of this is preliminary to the task of translation. The ideas represented in the Scripture will be universally recognized by listeners if the preacher is able to successfully translate the language.
Theological Analysis: Having understood the literature, history, and language of the text, the preacher needs to move toward a deeper theological interpretation of the issues under examination. At this point, there is a natural merge between the ancient and contemporary situations. The preacher needs to consider what this particular idea teaches about God, his character, his will, and how it fits into the grand story of salvation. What is timeless about this text? What is God doing in his word?
It is appropriate for the preacher to consult with commentaries, study guides, and other expert guides by means of whatever media is available. It may be of considerable value, in terms of listener exegesis, to convene a group of representative listeners to discuss the subject matter.
Step Four: Consolidate the Findings
Having completed the exegetical process it will be useful to reconfigure all of the data gathered as answers to the following four questions. These questions correlate with the four quadrants of the integrative homiletic model.
Quadrant One: What’s the Story? This question stands at the intersection between text and heart. It considers how the text is experienced. Every text has a story. There is humanity in every portion of Scripture. Even the book of Romans is about God’s interaction with people. Those people were called Romans. They lived in Rome and they experienced the same stuff in life that our listeners today. If we can uncover the human material in the text, we can easily connect listeners with the message God wants proclaimed.
Quadrant Two: What’s the Point? Every text has a point. Here the preacher is concerned to determine how the text is explained. The preacher may have to be disciplined to consolidate a number of points and ideas into one coherent presentation. Of course, this presentation must correspond faithfully to the text’s intention.
Quadrant Three: What’s the Problem? Here is where the sermon moves from the objective world of the text to the subjective world of today. The challenge is to apply the previously determined point to the cognitive process of the listener. The preacher seeks to explain today, and in doing so, it must be acknowledged that there will always be a problem. This is the Bible after all, and the world in which we are preaching is at constant cross-purposes with God’s intention as it is presented in his word. This is where exegesis becomes proclamation.
Quadrant Four: What’s the Difference? This aspect of the sermon occurs at the intersection of heart and today. Every sermon and every interaction with the word of God intends some kind of change. What is the difference stimulated by the experience of this text in this world.
The preacher should strive to understand these answers carefully. This will ultimately aid the movement from message to sermon. As these answers are refined, they are configured so as to easily transform into concepts that can be preached.
Step Five: Theme Statement
Having taken time to interpret the text in the context of a particular group of listeners, the preacher now returns to the “big idea” in order to craft the statement more carefully. This, then, becomes the theme of the sermon. It is the message in a nutshell. It is what God wants to say through this text to these people at this time.
Listening Carefully
Listeners want to hear from God. They may not be convinced it is possible, but they would be quite willing to listen if they were convinced that it was God who was speaking. Of course, this is a challenge beyond our personal ambition. We cannot force God to speak. Yet God has promised to speak through his word (Isaiah 55; 2 Timothy 3,4) as it is faithfully proclaimed. It is the preacher’s great advantage that he or she has a head start on the rest of the listeners. We get to listen first and we need to listen carefully so that people truly can hear from God.