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I realize even to use this term I’m dragging up a dead set of presuppositions, but in thinking about preaching/teaching/talking/homileticizing, etc., there is for me a state of increasing frustration. Why don’t people hear the truth in what I’m saying? Where is the response regarding their lives? We trust in the spirit of truth to really get to the heart of things, but in the end the frustration of someone who undertakes to teach people about the Gospel is often intense and mysterious. Each talk, each exposition, crafted with hope and care is received as if it were a commencement address: “Good sermon. Not too long.” People see it as my job—I see it as a matter of disseminating life or death challenges. There is only so long one can dive into and out of this pool before a mental and spiritual funk begins to develop.
In the middle of one such funk, I stumbled onto the passage of Jesus and the Parable of the Sower. He gives a grand illustration from the world of agriculture, and then lets the whole story close itself. No “In conclusion…” or “As we close…” needed here—Jesus just told the story and then let it hang. The audience and the disciples no doubt twitched nervously waiting for the exegesis of the story and the resulting invitation to some new commitment or life change. No resolution ever came. Having studied parables, they were intended to connect on a real-life level with the hearers. Where’s the connection? Did Jesus ever feel as frustrated as today’s preachers and teachers?
Later, the disciples pulled the explanation out of Jesus but not without this often strange sounding phrase from Isaiah:
“they may be ever seeing but
never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never
understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.” (Is. 6:9-10 in Mk. 4:12)
I suppose that at any point of doubt or crisis, the answer to our conundrum is often quite simple. Jesus’ preaching and teaching was simply ugly. It had no neat twists, though it was interesting and the story approach drew people in, and there was little explanation. The reason, prophetically supported, was basically that “They need to figure this out for themselves. The secret of the Kingdom of God isn’t easy to explain and is even more difficult to accept. This message has to be discovered.”
I began to examine my own preaching and teaching. I looked at the ways that I communicated and realized that for the majority of people involved in preaching the modus operandi has been to completely tie up all the loose ends and send people home feeling as if they have witnessed a verbal dissection and now have portable nuggets of application to either dismiss or embrace as important to their daily existence. I imagine each talk to be a book, which when read from beginning to end leaves no questions or doubts. Everything develops normally and perfectly and at the end everyone feels better now knowing the perfect answer. How we can rationalize that this is possible given the fact that we are broken folks giving an unbroken message is really beyond me. I suppose that is what makes preaching “ugly.”
And in turn, frustration and stagnation mounts.
What if we make a commitment to preach ugly? If we no longer allow ourselves to be satisfied with complete, easy to digest information, and instead put the reality on display for people to do with what they wish? Jesus’ main objective was to reveal a new covenant and a new relationship with God, but His process did not include giving all the steps and all the understandings necessary to live within that relationship. They were responsible for perceiving, understanding, and turning all by themselves.
The prior commitment to simplified preaching has led to preachers and Christians who are no longer comfortable making decisions without prompting from a lecture filled with exegesis and poetry. What would happen if this ugly preaching became beautiful freedom for Christians everywhere in bondage to easy answers? I believe the preachers and teachers of this world would feel as if chains of spiritual bondage had been lifted. For whatever reason, that spiritual codependency, which develops involving our emotional health being based somewhat on the response of people to our presentation of the Gospel, would drift helplessly down the drain, while the freedom to simply explicate the problem of mankind interacting with God, without giving obvious and easy to accomplish solutions, would become the renewing and powerful event it was intended to be.
My hope is that if I am able to commit to preaching ugly and can avoid the wide path of easy answers, that I will actually provide more answers and direction than ever before. In a time when the tides of culture are shifting it is only natural that teachers and preachers of the Gospel try to focus in on stability and security. Yet, what stability does the Gospel offer us except a life of trusting, seeking, and growing that is mainly predicated on whether or not we allow ourselves to be affected by and respond to a disgustingly mysterious and beautifully ugly truth? The counter to the frustration of pretty preaching is to let it be ugly—let the shirt-tails hang out and deliver the Gospel unshaven and unkempt into the hearts of individuals who will be helplessly compelled to either hear or understand, see or perceive.
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This is a beautifully simple and clearly written article....about ugly preaching.
Being sarcastic there, of course. I've often wanted to try preaching a parable without any conclusion....but cant seem to bring myself to do it. Modern pursuit of knowledge runs deep?
My generation seeks a deep maeningful spiriuality not an easy "Sunday School Gospel". Well written!
I recently gave just such a message - and the first questions after the service?
"When do we get to hear the rest of it?"
There's another chunk of scripture that you could be throwing in here: "The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how."
You don't know what God is doing with what you're laying down. Outwardly, people are tired and hungry, maybe thinking, "Well, football in 40 minutes," but the inner workings of heart, mind and soul are moving in quite another direction: an association is being made here, a phrase has lodged itself there, maybe a piece of scripture has really found its way into someone's heart -- he doesn't know it yet, you don't know it yet, but it's there. And much later, in the fullness of time, it will find its way into the light: glory.
So, yeah, save the poetry for English class: let's get ugly. I feel that everything Jesus preached was "ugly" in that sense; he wasn't pushing for the instantaneous transformation of his hearers, and hey, it didn't happen. Jesus preached stuff that did not make immediate sense to his listeners -- did not make them say, "Hey, that was great! Now my knowledge is complete on that aspect of spiritual living. Thanks!" The response to Jesus was largely, "What did he say? I don't get that. Write it down anyway; maybe it'll make sense later."
It was a matter of cascading legibilities: days or months or years afterwards, with the Spirit working inside of him to solder This truth to That experience, Peter was able to dope-slap himself and say, "Of course! Listen up, people..."
I feel that this "ugliness" should extend to bible studies as well. It's been years since I showed up for a bible study and was not handed a book with sixth-grade-level discussions, followed by tidbits of scripture that seem to support the assertions in those discussions, followed by blank spaces for the reader to fill in -- all more-or-less requiring the reader to come to the conclusions the authors (and, be it known, the study leaders) wanted the reader to come to. And nothing more.
Want to lead a transformative bible study? Leave the books at home; read your bibles.
I think your article is right on. We wonder why we can't get people to think about what we've said, but it's our own fault. We don't give them anything to think about by drawing the conclusions for them.
I agree wholeheartedly with what you have observed and said. If you are part of the paid church system and decide to "preach ugly," you will eventually find yourself without a job. The masses with "itching ears" want pretty preaching and spoon-fed conclusions. That way they don't have to process it themselves and therefore don't have to ask the Holy Spirit to help them change. They would rather have a neat, boxed sermon presented to them so they feel that their tithes are worth the investment in your salary. Afterall, they reason, isn't that why you went to seminary? That's your job. If your commitment to ugly preaching ensues (which I believe is the Holy Spirit's guidance) the deacon board will soon give you a call to correct this path you choose. Then you will have a crossroads decision to make: Obey God(true security) or man. (false security) Better follow God than to have Ichabod written on you. (The glory has departed.) You've discovered something that has a cost to it. But isn't following Jesus like that anyway?
Sounds good. Letting a parable just hang "un-exegesized"... I do see that in Christ's teachings.
What are other stragegies for uglification? Any takers? I think we can take inspiration from Paul Hewson: "Being a Christian hasn't given me all the answers; in fact, it's given me a whole new set of questions." So, I guess my 2 cents on top of avoiding over-explanation would be to put some relevant and gritty questions at the very end. I mean the literal end. I mean the "sermon" ends with a question mark.
I would really be interested to see one sermon in two versions: first written conventionally, then stripped down to utilitarian ugliness. Has anyone done this and would be willing to share?
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This is a beautifully simple and clearly written article....about ugly preaching.
Being sarcastic there, of course. I've often wanted to try preaching a parable without any conclusion....but cant seem to bring myself to do it. Modern pursuit of knowledge runs deep?
Posted by dasratzel | Posted at 05/02/2006 11:25 PMMy generation seeks a deep maeningful spiriuality not an easy "Sunday School Gospel". Well written! Posted by matt | Posted at 05/09/2006 9:34 PM
I recently gave just such a message - and the first questions after the service?
"When do we get to hear the rest of it?"
Posted by scott | Posted at 05/11/2006 4:44 PMThere's another chunk of scripture that you could be throwing in here: "The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how."
You don't know what God is doing with what you're laying down. Outwardly, people are tired and hungry, maybe thinking, "Well, football in 40 minutes," but the inner workings of heart, mind and soul are moving in quite another direction: an association is being made here, a phrase has lodged itself there, maybe a piece of scripture has really found its way into someone's heart -- he doesn't know it yet, you don't know it yet, but it's there. And much later, in the fullness of time, it will find its way into the light: glory.
So, yeah, save the poetry for English class: let's get ugly. I feel that everything Jesus preached was "ugly" in that sense; he wasn't pushing for the instantaneous transformation of his hearers, and hey, it didn't happen. Jesus preached stuff that did not make immediate sense to his listeners -- did not make them say, "Hey, that was great! Now my knowledge is complete on that aspect of spiritual living. Thanks!" The response to Jesus was largely, "What did he say? I don't get that. Write it down anyway; maybe it'll make sense later."
It was a matter of cascading legibilities: days or months or years afterwards, with the Spirit working inside of him to solder This truth to That experience, Peter was able to dope-slap himself and say, "Of course! Listen up, people..."
I feel that this "ugliness" should extend to bible studies as well. It's been years since I showed up for a bible study and was not handed a book with sixth-grade-level discussions, followed by tidbits of scripture that seem to support the assertions in those discussions, followed by blank spaces for the reader to fill in -- all more-or-less requiring the reader to come to the conclusions the authors (and, be it known, the study leaders) wanted the reader to come to. And nothing more.
Want to lead a transformative bible study? Leave the books at home; read your bibles.
Posted by williedorr | Posted at 05/21/2006 5:33 AMI think your article is right on. We wonder why we can't get people to think about what we've said, but it's our own fault. We don't give them anything to think about by drawing the conclusions for them. Posted by Chris Campbell | Posted at 05/22/2006 10:55 AM
I agree wholeheartedly with what you have observed and said. If you are part of the paid church system and decide to "preach ugly," you will eventually find yourself without a job. The masses with "itching ears" want pretty preaching and spoon-fed conclusions. That way they don't have to process it themselves and therefore don't have to ask the Holy Spirit to help them change. They would rather have a neat, boxed sermon presented to them so they feel that their tithes are worth the investment in your salary. Afterall, they reason, isn't that why you went to seminary? That's your job. If your commitment to ugly preaching ensues (which I believe is the Holy Spirit's guidance) the deacon board will soon give you a call to correct this path you choose. Then you will have a crossroads decision to make: Obey God(true security) or man. (false security) Better follow God than to have Ichabod written on you. (The glory has departed.) You've discovered something that has a cost to it. But isn't following Jesus like that anyway? Posted by Patti Blount | Posted at 07/02/2006 10:26 AM
Sounds good. Letting a parable just hang "un-exegesized"... I do see that in Christ's teachings.
What are other stragegies for uglification? Any takers? I think we can take inspiration from Paul Hewson: "Being a Christian hasn't given me all the answers; in fact, it's given me a whole new set of questions." So, I guess my 2 cents on top of avoiding over-explanation would be to put some relevant and gritty questions at the very end. I mean the literal end. I mean the "sermon" ends with a question mark.
I would really be interested to see one sermon in two versions: first written conventionally, then stripped down to utilitarian ugliness. Has anyone done this and would be willing to share?
Posted by Russell | Posted at 07/13/2006 2:06 PM