|
Books by Ralph G. Clingan
Against Cheap Grace in a World Come of Age, an
intellectual biography of Clayton Powell, 1865–1953
* * *
* *
A Lively, Living Word
By Ralph Garlin Clingan
I
started to sing in churches when about 20 years old, and
they asked me to preach and heard a lively Word, and I
have been a lively preacher, now in my 66th year. A
history of music, teaching homiletics, and preaching
around the world was mine. I discussed six things I
learned about lively preaching of God’s living Word,
although I learned a lot more about it than that. I hope
you learn at least these six things and that you
actually preach lively sermons. Then, God just might use
your sermons and celebrations of Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper to change everything.
1. Honest, truthful
living in harmony with God’s actions as attested to by
the Scriptures constitutes a lively, living Word.
A church council in a Masai village in Kenya purchased
land on which to build a church campus. They laid out
the foundation, but a drought struck the area. The
village council asked the church if they could take back
the land in order to raise crops to feed the people. The
church council did so. As the villagers started
planting seeds, their elders asked the church council
why they had not asked for a refund of the money they
paid for the land. The church replied that feeding and
saving the people was more important than money. Led by
the village council, the entire village became members
of the church. What is the reputation of the church in
which you preach? What is your reputation? They did
something new because of a lively sermon.
Lively preaching can
take longer than seven years to transform a given
church’s reputation in a community. What took a few
months in a newly evangelized Kenyan village may take
fourteen years in a conservative suburb. Three churches
in the New York City area, and one in Illinois that I
know about will radically alter their architecture
according to the needs of the communities they serve and
the acts of God because lively preachers have been busy
in those communities from seven to fourteen years. Such
transformation takes an inner liveliness and
thoroughgoing integrity. Transformation by a lively
preaching of God’s Living Word is not in any way, shape
or form cheap, easy grace.
2. Communities of
complacent, apathetic people respond best to honest,
real enactments of God’s truth.
We tend to learn more from doing than from listening.
Listening to the Word is how we come to take the Word
seriously, as matter of vital, lively concern to us. The
text of the sermon should concern us personally.
Preachers must be lively children at play. How can we
change from readers of deadly dull, boring essays to
lively preachers of sermons? The first two clues:
1. Honest, truthful
living under Biblical circumstances and,
2. Honest, real enacting
of God’s truth.
I administered the
Lord’s Supper on a Youth Sunday. A teenager preached a
lively sermon on Luke 7.36–50. She asked us to answer
two questions. Three things we think of homeless people,
and three things we think of race. After her wonderful
sermon, I asked children in the church to share their
answers, which, although different from hers, added to
the liveliness of the sermon. I have used collegial
methods to make the sermons lively. No cheap grace
there, either.
3. Lively, living
proclamations of God’s actions provoke people out of
apathy toward concerted, committed enactments of God’s
actions under the circumstances of the Biblical texts so
as to transform reality.
One Sunday I preached a Gospel text in which Jesus
called people to leave everything and follow him. I gave
an Invitation to Discipleship at the conclusion of the
sermon. Lo and behold a woman came forward to dedicate
her life to Jesus. She wanted to follow him with her
entire being. She had been provoked out her apathy and
was ready to move toward concerted commitment.
For three months, she
came to see me almost every week. She devoured the
Spiritual classics, the daily Bible readings from the
Ecumenical Common Daily Lectionary, and anything else I
could give her that I knew would enable her to form a
living bond with God. Piece by piece, as the Spirit
moved in her, a history of abandonment by her mother
and verbal abuse by her alcoholic father revealed a
fragile person struggling to find some way to trust
herself and others. She created a safe haven for wild
animals injured by encroachment. She identified so
closely with them, however, that she lacked the drive,
confidence, and aggressiveness to advocate their cause
boldly enough to bring in enough money to support
herself and her mission.
For another three months
I met with her Board of Directors. I guided them to
develop a set of by laws and a manual of operations, and
a plan for fund raising, growth, and development. The
Director had been making dentures and the like for
dentists, and failed at it. As the Board took control of
the future of the wildlife refuge, they paid her enough
money so she could stop the teeth business and
rehabilitate wildlife full time. The transformation God
started with a sermon that provocatively challenged an
entire congregation and a new convert began a chain
reaction of transformations: In the woman, in her Board,
and, most importantly, in the lives of thousands of
animals, birds, and reptiles successfully healed and
returned to their natural habitat.
Recently, three mother
bears were needlessly killed, and nine bear cubs ended
up at her refuge. Hers is the only wildlife
rehabilitative agency licensed to rehabilitate bears in
her State. All because of a lively, living proclamation
of God’s actions that provoked at least one person out
of apathy, transforming her and, through her Board and
volunteers and their concerted effort, transforming
reality. Lively preaching of the Word opens the door for
someone to begin a journey, a life long journey of
transformation by God. The sermon I delivered was only
the tip of an iceberg: No easy, cheap grace, please.
4. God’s actions are
uncontrollable, and whatever provoked us to change in a
worship service probably was uncontrollable, too.
As an educated, trained, professional instrumental and
vocal musician and actor, I brought many performance
skills to ministry. I spontaneously wove songs and
choruses into sermons, as I had experienced with Rev.
Stanley Taylor in my childhood. I played a Cherokee
Flute or Clarinet or Saxophone to deliver the Word.
Frequently I spontaneously mimic a person in the
scenario of a Biblical text. The more uncontrolled the
insertion, the more natural and effective it was. The
uncontrollable nature of it kept it authentic, not
contrived or phony.
A woman fell over on the
pew from a heart attack while I was preaching.
Immediately I left the pulpit, went to her and sent an
elder to call EMS. While they came, we administered the
Pastoral Rite of Wholeness to her, prayed for her, and
kept her still and calm until EMS technicians arrived
and took her to the Hospital. This was not an isolated
event, as I learned from hundreds of conversations with
other clergy, but amply illustrated how we get changed
by what cannot be controlled. The Lord God inserted a
lively Word to which we had to pay attention. Struggle
the good struggle of faith; no easy, cheap answers.
5. Preaching is a craft
with tools and technique.
Using tools and practicing technique always felt strange
at first, but as we got used to them, they became
habitual, integrated parts of our natural personalities.
Voice training, I recall, felt really strange. I had to
breathe, form words in my mouth, project, and engage
resonators, all of which felt unnatural. I kept up a
regular rehearsal routine until the technique no longer
felt strange, but became natural. My Reed instrument
teacher told me how to become a great instrumentalist.
First, play the notes. Second, play the phrases. Third,
interpret the phrases dynamically. Fourth, allow the
music to play you. Preaching involved the same process.
The more years we practiced the process, the shorter the
time sermon preparation took. I taught that every sermon
should have four theological ingredients. The notion did
not originate with me. I learned it from the same
theologians everyone else studied, or should have
studied.
A. The action of God
attested to by the text. There was no one “Kerygma.”
God cannot be limited to just one action. The Bible
attested to many divine actions. Our journey into Jesus
Christ may start through a narrow opening, but becomes
ever broader. If Jesus was the only door to God’s
sheepfold, the door is open to all who come in. The text
pointed beyond the translation toward an encounter with
God, an enlivening epiphany.
B. Every time the
Bible attests to an action of God, how God’s act varied
from other divine actions and the acts of other deities
and people and how God’s act provoked and changed people
gets in there, too. I call that the Didache, or
teaching function of the Biblical text. The
disagreements among Biblical books of the same
historical periods arise from the various ways their
communities and/or authors performed this function. How
a preacher allowed the Biblical authors and editors to
disagree revealed her/his theological maturity. I always
energized congregations by making them aware of the
lively disagreements among the Biblical materials.
C. Of course, what
God does changes the people involved and they form a
community around God’s action. That is “Koinonia,”
or fellowship. A very important part of any sermon. If
all we lead people to do is care for the people they
have known for three generations, what good have we
done? One church tolerated children sexually abusing one
another until encountered by a really lively Word.
Another tolerated abuse of women by a powerful member
until encountered by a lively Word. Koinonia: No buddy
ship of the complacency, but a lively fellowship of
authentic people being transformed by God’s lively Word.
D. Naturally, such a
fellowship reaches out to change the world. I call that
part of the sermon, “Diakonia,” or service. I heard
about a sermon a Divinity School student had preached
just the previous week, in the wake of hurricanes Rita
and Katrina. The evidence suggested that the lively job
done of preaching God’s Living Word had moved the
community to action to change the world. If ever an
event laid bare the sick bones of a dead nation, it was
the Katrina/Rita disaster. His sermon enlivened the
community to grow new flesh on old bones and go to New
Orleans and Mississippi.
Numberless students felt
that my method of preaching felt strange. They had a
hard time figuring out which parts of the Biblical text
fed which of the four parts of the sermon. Their first
efforts reflected this creative tension. Eventually,
however, the learning process I learned as a musician
and as an actor, worked for them, too. One student
became so proficient that a few years later, he preached
in a church attended by James Cone, Theologian at Union
Seminary in New York, and his wife. Mrs. Cone approached
Grant Johnson after the sermon, and said, “Your sermon
had everything my husband says a sermon must have. It
had kerygma, didache, koinonia, and diakonia.” Grant
replied, “Yes, that’s how I was taught to preach in
seminary.” Jim Cone asked if the preaching teacher was
African American. “No,” replied Grant, “he’s white.”
Talk about strange; yet as natural as the ravens Jesus
told us to ponder (Luke 12.22–24). No amount of racial
or ethnic pride can explain how the authenticity of
God’s lively, Living Word overcomes easy, cheap forms of
grace.
6. Love is the liveliest
living Word of all, and the uncontrollable liveliness of
God involves us in the most passionate love making of
all. The Song
of Solomon described the sort of uncontrollable, loving
passion for one another a couple of lovers have for each
other. The apostle Paul wrote that such passionate,
uncontrollable love, an all consuming flame, is the gift
of the Holy Spirit that mandates that a couple marry one
another (1 Corinthians 7.9, 14, 36). God called us to
love people.
Baptism bound everyone
who received the sacrament into a community of love. I
taught a night class for storefront preachers and other
preachers with no formal training during my years in
Atlanta. I brought a Gospel text for us to read and grow
sermons. One night we discussed Jesus’ parable in which
God said that when the blessed visited prisoners, they
visited God (Matthew 25.36, 43, 45). One of the brothers
said, “I visit the Atlanta City Jail, The Fulton County
Jail, the Georgia State Prison, and the Federal
Penitentiary every week.” I asked why he did so much and
he said, “Because someone visited me when I was in
prison.” When he said that, my eyes were opened and I
recognized who he was. I called out the exact date and
place where I had met him. I asked if he was baptized,
and if he was baptized in Brooklyn, which church. Then,
equipped with that critical information, I called his
pastor, who honored the baptismal covenant of passionate
love for one another. The pastor enabled him to be
released from prison, and honored his desire to become a
preacher. A very good lover of God, as attested to by
his many jail and prison visits! No easy, cheap grace in
his lively preaching.
What could preachers
authentically bring to the privilege, task, and duty of
proclaiming the living Word? I asked that question and
wondered: Can authentic people enliven sermons and
liturgies realistically? Could lively preachers serve
God’s action by honestly enacting the truth of God’s
action to provoke people out of apathy to enact God’s
actions under the circumstances of Biblical texts and
transform reality? I hope the six ways of enlivening
sermons I discussed here prove helpful in your efforts.
There’s a lot more to lively preaching, but I feel
strongest about these six aspects. Most of us know that
homilia, the Greek root of homiletics, means
conversation. Engage members of your worship team and
congregation in lively conversations about the Word and
discover how lively God’s Word can become. It will
change everything.
* * *
* *
Ralph Garlin Clingan.
Against
Cheap Grace: In a World Come of Age: An Intellectual Biography of Clayton Powell:
Clayton Powell (1865-1953) was one of a very few African-American
religious, cultural, and social leaders of his era to oppose what he
called the "cheap grace" of racist conservative and liberal ideologies
in what he called "a world come of age." His use of what a sociologist
and several philosophers called «the emotionalization of the ideal»
changed his congregations, cities, and nation, as well as one German
Sunday school teacher—Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Ralph Garlin Clingan explores
Powell's role as a radical, progressive prophet with a well thought out
program of emotionalizing the ideal of the meek, universal love of Jesus
Christ, the center of his life and ideal church, and raising a standard
for his community and the world. Powell is discussed in the context of
his sources, current Bonhoeffer scholarship, and today's issues.
* * *
* *
The
Rev. Ralph Garlin Clingan, PhD, H.R., moderates the
Public Policy Advocacy Network and represents the Board
of Directors of the Presbyterian Health, Education, and
Welfare Association to the Synod of the Northeast of the
Presbyterian Church (USA). His books include
Against Cheap Grace in a World Come of Age, an
intellectual biography of Clayton Powell, 1865–1953,
Vol. 9, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Studies in
Religion, Culture, and Social Development, edited by
Mozella Mitchell (New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group,
2002), and An Action Preaching Manual, available
in Korean and English from Seoul, Korea’s Preaching
Academy, 2005. Another book on how to prepare a sermon
quickly, which will contain three years of Clingan’s
sermons, will be available from the same publisher later
in 2007. Dr. Clingan taught homiletics and liturgics in
The Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta,
1980–1988.
* * *
* *
posted 15 December 2007 |
