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This is a unique book, integrating both didactic comment on homiletics and a narrative telling of the story of a beleaguered pastor. The left side of the page offers the detailed discussion and the right side of the page is the story line (see below). The result is a creative connection between the experience of the preacher and the explanation of the process of preaching. The preacher is encouraged and so is the reader.
Excerpt: Now he could see that the intruder had huge feathery wings arching above his shoulders. It was so uncanny, Sam wanted to laugh, but the severity of the intruder’s countenance made Sam retreat behind a wall of questions.
“Well what kind of angel are you? Are you Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, or Hazael? Are you one of the seven archangels?”
“Actually, I’m the eighth archangel,” said the intruder. “I’m Sermoniel, the Angel of Homiletics. I go around helping powerless preachers get it back.”
“Get what back?”
“Come, come, man! You don’t mean to tell me you are still pretending you have no second thoughts about your effectiveness? preaching is much more than you ever bargained for, isn’t it? It’s rough out there, isn’t it? There behind the big box is where you stand alone, strengthened only by God. There you hang your every word out in the open. Anybody can shoot it down. It’s the loneliest, cussedest, blessedest work in the world.
“Have you not felt the terror of preaching? The death sweat in the palms of your hands, the clench in the intestines, the gelatin in your joints, the lock-up in your larynx, the tonnage of the tongue, the ice in your arteries, the drain of the adrenalin, the mental muck, the -“
“Yes! Stop! I know all these things. These are the demons who share my nest. I just don’t know what to do about them.”
“Well relax, man! I’m your personal guardian, your angel of homiletic therapy! You have a condition known as sermonic sclerosis, or hardening of the homily. We call it by its more Latin name, homileticus horribilis. It is terminal. Most preachers die of it long before they are boxed and buried. In fact, most preachers go on preaching for years after people quit listening . . . You know what I mean?”
Sam nodded. He knew.