What are some of the barriers that have kept you from experiencing Scripture fully, open to new insights? Cindy Halvorson, author of Real People, Real Faith: Preaching Biblical Characters from Working Preacher Books, names the major barrier of thinking that Scripture passages can only have one meaning.
Sometimes the tapes in our heads, ingrained meanings we’ve learned, can get us stuck. Yet when we sit with the text and open our imagination, we can let it have a different meaning for what we might need right now, or what the congregation might need right now.
Exhaustion plays a role, though. When we are weary, it’s hard to get into Scripture for ourselves, in addition to the “job” of the preacher to find how it applies to others.
Listening with our hearts and souls, not just our minds
Cindy names on the podcast a concept she appreciates from Richard Rohr: that the soul is shy and will run and hide if it’s not sensing a safe space. Therein lies the connection between hospitality and imagination. If we can pause trying to convince others to convert to our way of thinking, and focus on creating space in our preaching where Scripture can open up, there is the possibility of change. Sermons can become a place of hospitality where people can encounter God. When we sit in a story, without making it do what we want it to do, we can see the ways Jesus met people.
So much sermon prep has been in our heads. But identifying with a character in a biblical story can help us to listen with our hearts and our souls too. God wants to care for all of us, not just our minds. Preachers sometimes feel compelled to use the Bible as a textbook or as an example, rather than telling the story itself. But getting inside the story opens up more questions than answers, and a window into deeply held feelings for people who might identify with any of those characters today.
What are lifegiving ways to tell biblical stories?
We need to treat the stories in Scripture like they are full of real people, with emotions, fears, and concerns; like they are truly human. Then empathy and wonder can happen. Our imagination can run between the lines. Wonder:
- Who else must be present in the story but isn’t named?
- Which of these characters most connects for me, with what’s going on in my life right now?
- What are the deep needs?
- How can I tell it so the listener can connect with those characters?
Personalized approaches to biblical stories
Stories are not historical information, but personalized accounts. How do you personalize your approach to the Bible, rather than going to it for information? Cindy suggests asking questions such as these:
- Where is Christ meeting the need in this passage?
- How does Christ meet that need for me?
- This is a living Word. How do I wrestle my way into the story and then sit with it?
The context of a story itself can be meaning-making. How the text feels, smells, and sounds can open ways into the story for us, and for listeners.
We can also pay attention to supporting characters (perhaps some that are not even named but must have been there, like the person who prepared the food for a meal). These side characters might be where some people connect best. If the soul is “shy,” we don’t necessarily want to think of ourselves as the main character—but a supporting character, yes!
Imagination for the preacher too
Cindy describes preaching a difficult sermon in the midst of traumatic feelings for everyone because of what had happened in the congregation. She thought, “I need to be able to hold the hand of God” and then physically reached out her hand, to imagine God holding onto her. As one of the “real people, with real faith” in God’s ongoing story, she embraced her own deep need and imagined that God took her hand as she walked into the pulpit.
Another area where imagination plays a role is in discovering our own preaching voice—distinct from other preachers we know. How do you find your own voice? It’s important to try different things, then pay attention to when you’re comfortable, and when you are not—you can sense “that’s not me.” Cindy has also approached this by imagining, if she had a friend sitting on the couch in her living room, what would she want to tell that friend about the story, when she knows their specific losses or the issues they are facing?
For more on this volume in the Working Preacher Books series, Real People, Real Faith: Preaching Biblical Characters, listen to a podcast episode or watch it on YouTube, in which Cindy Halvorson discusses the book with Rolf Jacobson and Karoline Lewis.