Preaching and Storytelling

Joining the Story

“We read to know that we are not alone” (Anthony Hopkins as C. S. Lewis in Shadowlands). That’s also why we listen to sermons. Someone once told me that in every sermon they hope to laugh, cry and sigh—"Ah-ha.” When that happens, you know you are hearing in some way, your own story. You’re not alone. Every sermon offers a homecoming.

I am a man of average intelligence. The thing that helps my brain process information is stories. Stories help me understand. Stories help me to belong to the gospel.

For instance, what did Jesus mean when He said this?

"For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Matthew 17:20-21 (NRSVUE)

Can a mountain really be moved? My young pastor-friend Peter’s cancer was killing him. He had a wife and three daughters. To cheer him up, his wife took him on a hike to a favorite mountain lake in the shadow of a great mountain. The Forest Service had built a rental cabin there, but there was a year-long wait. She signed up anyway. “Everything here is so permanent,” he said. “The lake, the forest and the towering mountain have been here 1000 years. There’s my wife making plans for a year from now. Everything is so permanent—except me. A year from now I won’t even be here.”

But a strange thing happened. A year later the lake was gone, the cabin was gone, the forest was gone, even the mountain was all but gone, all blown away when Mt. St. Helens blew its top on Mother’s Day, 1980. But Peter was still there to watch his children grow. Peter discovered that mountains can be moved. That’s when he knew Jesus’ story was his own.

When he told that story, I had a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. Even speaking was difficult. Could this be my story too?

"He Just Tells Stories"

When people say, “He doesn’t know anything, he just tells stories,” it stings a little. But stories are my lifeline. They are, as Peter Gruber puts it, “the cornerstone of consciousness, in fact the highest form of consciousness.” [1]

Round up a group of people these days and someone is bound to ask, “Have you found anything good to watch?” And, not so often, but often enough, some people will also ask, “Have you read anything good lately?” We’re all in search of stories—something that will make us laugh, cry or sigh—to help us feel like we belong. Garrison Keillor made a living telling stories. At his retirement he said, “When you get to the end, you discover there are no answers, only stories.”

It’s a chicken-and-egg thing. Our answers come from our stories and our stories come from our answers. Either way, the story is catalytic. If we want to change people’s answers, we’ve got to change their story. Jesus knew this, that’s why,

With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

Mark 4:33-34 (NRSVUE)

They said about His teaching, He speaks with authority, not like our scribes.

Don't Walk Away from the Text

Dale Bruner, used to say, “My kingdom for a story.” Speaking of Dale, for 7 years I served at First Presbyterian Church in Spokane, WA where Dale was the revered and beloved Sunday morning Bible teacher. Early on, someone asked what he thought of me. I held my breath. He said, “I like him, I think. But one thing does bother me. After he finishes reading the scripture text, he lays the Bible on the Communion Table and walks away.” I’ve never had a more supportive team than Dale and Kathy, but his words were a powerful corrective. Never walk away from the passage. That’s one of the challenges of illustrating scripture—stories can hijack the text.

With that warning in mind, I'd like to explore some important steps to use stories well in your sermons.

Step One — Absorb the Passage

I try to memorize as much as I can. Decades ago, I was a certified lifeguard. Certification involved learning a new technique called CPR. It was before Resusci Anne and Resusci Andy—lifelike mannequins people learn on today. So, we learned on each other with a square of gauze. It was creepy—but I do remember the sensation of my lungs being inflated by another’s breath.

All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16).

Let the passage breathe into you.

Search the text until the Lord breathes into you something that makes you laugh, cry or sigh. It’s what Ann Lamott describes as the thing that tugs on the sleeves of your heart to say, the thing that will make you feel like hell if you don’t say it. It’s why you were born.

Step Two — Test for Fit

Test the story for fit. Don’t forget the importance of time in the fitting room with the message.

Whenever I buy clothes without first trying them on in the fitting room, I regret it. For me, Saturday is the fitting room for a sermon. It is the hardest part of preaching. Outside, the world glides by enjoying Saturday pleasures while I pace back and forth. But I know that if I don’t do that Saturday piece, Sunday will not go well. Every good work has a Saturday piece. I do not consider myself ready to preach until I have gone over the message 5 times in my mind and written it down once.

That is the best way for me to test for fit. If the fit is good the text will bring to mind the story and the story will bring to mind the text. It will flow. Fit facilitates flow. If not, it’s probably not a good fit.

My brother-in-law is a muralist. He’s paints murals all over the world, usually in zoos and museums. One time we climbed up on scaffolding at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. While we watched, with his airbrush, he drew a jungle scene out of a blank wall. It was magical. We had tears in our eyes. I asked, “Dave, how do you do that?” He shrugged, “It’s just a matter of putting the right color in the right place.” Sounds so simple, but it’s not. Make your stories, illustrations and parables splashes of the right color in the right place in your messages and people will laugh, cry, and sigh.

Step Three — Delivery

Delivery. Practice using the fewest possible words. If I am connecting with the listener they will already be trying to guess where I’m going next. Invite them in. Let them do part of the work. It’s tragic to lose a perfectly good illustration in the wilderness of unnecessary details.

Keep it moving. Focus on expressive nouns and verbs. Nouns and verbs move things faster than adjectives and adverbs. Turn their listening into an adventure. Make it a partnership.

In a 25-minute message, I typically use 11 illustrations to cover the details of the text. That’s a lot, I know. Many are short, a few are longer. I constantly need to remind myself that every word doesn’t require a story. I’ve always got to keep a scalpel handy.

Be very careful with stories that are emotionally intense. The story of the bridge-tender’s son comes to mind. When the father chooses to sacrifice his son in the grinding gears of the bridge to save the train full of passengers it is a graphic illustration of the Cross, but it’s also so raw that it’s best to temper the literal. Don’t give every detail. Let the listener complete your sentences in a way they can deal with.

Step Four — Pause

Someone once asked Bryant Kirkland what he thought of my preaching. “He is the master of the pause.” I tried not to think that he was saying I was at my best when I wasn’t saying anything. But sometimes silence really can be golden. Silence gives the listener time to catch up, to sit for a moment with a thought or even anticipate what might be next.

My dad could have been a professional singer. He thought maybe I could sing. I once sang a solo to my girlfriend in a stairwell. Never again. Eventually I did discover that I didn’t have to sing solos to make music, I could also preach. There is a musicality to preaching—rhythm, pace, volume, silence, discord, resolution, harmony—flow.

Charles Hausmann once told the congregation that the piece the choir was about to present would normally be accompanied by a full orchestra. Since that was impractical, he pointed to a lone violinist and introduced her as the orchestra’s “symphonic reduction.” Every preacher is the symphonic reduction of the Word of God and God’s Kingdom, so as my friend, Ron Scates was fond of saying, “give them heaven!”

References

 [1] Peter Gruber, "The Inside Story," Psychology Today (March 15, 2011 - last reviewed on June 9, 2016)