Helmut Theilicke served as professor of theology at Heidelberg until he was dismissed by the Nazi regime in 1940. To protect him from rising Nazi pressure, a caring bishop sent him to pastor a rural church in remote Langenargenby-Constance. There, the brilliant theologian, still in his early thirties, learned some important lessons about the local church and about preaching.
We had never felt so lonely in our lives. Not a single person knew why we had come. Nor could we tell them, because in their innocence they would not have understood. We often said to ourselves that it would have been better to have lived in the concrete jungle of some big city and to have had good friends that were on our level.
The task that caused me the most problems was the propagation of the gospel from the pulpit, that is, the sermon. Up until that time, I had lived under the foolish illusion that I could only set foot in the pulpit when I had the theological theory completely clear in my mind. For this reason I had always avoided preaching whenever possible.
It was only after I had to preach every week that I gradually realized how false my previous conception had been. I learned that faith comes from preaching and that theology is merely the result of later reflection on this faith. Thus theology does not, as I had previously imagined, precede preaching but follows it. In retrospect, I now know that I could not have written the eight volumes of my systematic theology—ethics, dogmatics, and the history of theology—if I had not had the spiritual experiences I owe to my preaching duties.
My academic style
There was another reason for the fear I felt when I made my first visit to the Ravensburg pulpit. I tended to express myself rather abstractly in my early period. I would descend into the depths of profundity and, simultaneously, climb into the rarified air of pure intellectuality.
I still have in my archives a letter from Emil Brunner, who kindly drew my attention to these dangers in a helpful and paternal way. He has played an important role in my career as a red warning light. After a few sentences declaring his support for my work and speaking of the hope he placed in me, he wrote the following words: 'There is one thing I as the elder man and as a genuine admirer of your work might perhaps say to you: I am a little afraid
of your virtuosity and, if I may say so, of your intellectual cleverness. You dissect everything that falls into your hands. I feel quite uncouth and clumsy in comparison, but I cannot really believe that my inability to dissect and
analyze is really a deficit. … That is why a quite immense responsibility rests upon your shoulders. You have to step into the breach that Barth has torn open and which I cannot fill. You are still full of youthful energy whereas I am almost 60. You are clever enough to talk to the German people, whereas I cannot. For this reason, you must at all costs beware of your ability, your insatiable analytical intellect. May God grant you the necessary simplicity."
His critique of my esoteric and academic style caused me to worry whether I would be able to preach in a way that would be intelligible to ordinary people. I re solved to concentrate all my intellectual energies on this task.
Because I had to look after the outlying districts of Ravensburg and the surrounding villages, I had to travel long distances by foot. I used to think on the way about what images and stories I could use to illustrate my sermons. I attempted to use various experiences in my preaching—from a sunset to conversations at the sick-beds of my parishioners. I also decided to begin by preaching not on texts from Paul's letters but on the stories in the Gospels in order to remain close to the narrative form. In doing this, I strove to find the point where the members of the congregation could identify themselves with the figures surrounding Jesus.
Even my first attempts at preaching brought good feelings; my enjoyment increased each time I mounted the pulpit. Gradually I acquired a certain rhetorical élan, which I let myself be carried away by, especially since I noticed that the congregation responded in a favorable and lively way and that attendance increased. The thing I enjoyed most was gazing into thoughtful, young faces.
While I spoke, I always fixed my attention on a select group of people. It was mainly to these that I addressed my sermon. I even learned that a good method of public speaking is to concentrate on a single member of the congregation and to enter into an intellectual dialogue with him. All the other people in the congregation would then listen. Otherwise, one's sentences tend to dissolve into generalities. This produces the most dangerous reaction possible in preaching, namely, the feeling on the part of the listener that the sermon is not addressed to him.
My spiritual crisis
My most difficult task was having to preach when I was undergoing a spiritual crisis. If on the previous day I had been walking along See Street, and had again bumped into the Nazi school-teacher, I had difficulty in coping with my anger at the contemptuous way he had treated me. How could I then preach a sermon on the text: "Love your enemies"?
One Saturday I received news that four of my former students, to whom I was particularly close, had been killed in action. The next day I had to preach on the subject: "Joy in the Lord." How could I do that without hypocrisy? I was afraid I would lose my credibility. Simply to call the whole thing off—"Sermon cancelled due to spiritual crisis!"—was not a viable alternative.
I would cope with a distressing situation of this kind by openly confessing my spiritual crisis from the pulpit: "If I have to preach on joy today, then you should not think that my heart is so overflowing with joy that it is merely a case of opening my mouth and allowing it to How out. I cannot speak 'lyrically' of joy because I am dejected and depressed. … The text on joy stands like an alpine peak high above me while I flounder about in the depths below. So I will try to make clear what message is being sent down from this peak to us in our grief."
I thus always attempted to be completely honest and not to say anything to the congregation that I was not at the same time prepared to say to myself. I was consequently also prepared to admit to them that I did not feel equal to a certain biblical passage. I was always strangely moved by the fact that it was precisely this honesty that made the congregation listen attentively to the sermon! Stranger still was the fact that I myself left the pulpit comforted and with a renewed capacity for joy.
Helmut Thielicke was rector and professor of theology at the University of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany.
1996 by Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP, journal.
