The Minister’s Workshop: Captured by the Concrete

“When preaching is dull,” said Morgan Phelps Noyes in his Lyman Beecher Lectures, “or when preaching fails to be helpful, the chances are that it has gone off into abstractions.” It isn’t that abstractions are always under ban. Lecture rooms can do with them—but not pulpits.

How to avoid the abstract?

For one thing, be biblical. The world of the Bible in certain external particulars is not our world of astronauts and countdowns and blast-offs, our world of vitamins and cholesterol and Salk vaccines; but it is, for all this, a real world peopled by magnanimous Abrahams and greedy Lots, by cunning Jacobs and transparent Josephs, by moody Elijahs and lying Ahithophels, by hot-blooded Davids, and treacherous Judases, and winsome Johns, and adventurous Pauls, and by a host of others who, like these, are capable of acting “out of character,” so that the noblest of them, eyeing the worst of them, are obliged to say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I!”

The Bible is full of ideas, but they are not primarily ideational: they have skin on their faces and a glint—good or bad—in their eyes.

Closely linked with the wisdom of being biblical is a second piece of counsel for the preacher who would cultivate the concrete: be imaginative. This, we should be warned, is not the same as letting one’s fancy run riot or one’s rhetoric run purple and gold.

In the service of the preacher imagination is a kind of coagulant by which ideas, held in intellectual and theological suspension, are “precipitated” in the form of images. What, for example, is God’s bearing toward any prodigal who is sick of it all and ready to return in chastening and penitence? “Merciful,” we may say. Or “forgiving.” True enough! But is that the only way to say it?

One night, years ago, a preacher said, “Right now, if you will listen, you can hear the looms of Heaven weaving new robes for prodigals who, having wandered far, are coming home.” And suddenly the world of reconciliation, God’s world of grace, was lit up for me by the flash of an image I have never forgotten.

“First of all,” wrote Gustave Frenssen, in comment on his own homiletic method, “I take the text out of its ancient setting and plant it in our own life, and in our own time. My text, so to speak, saunters up and down the village street once or twice with thoughtful eyes and meditative mind. It becomes accustomed to the village, learns to feel at home in it.”

Here, obviously, is homiletical harnessing of the imagination, the effect of which is to pull the sermon through many an otherwise dull stretch where interest would flag and time would hang heavy.

One other suggestion: be word-conscious. Said that pulpit craftsman extraordinary, Charles Jefferson: “Words have moods as people do.… There are reverent, kneeling words, warm, tender, and affectionate words, open-handed, open-hearted, hospitable words, laughing, shouting, hallelujah words—words which are so rich in human experience, so saturated with laughter and tears that if the preacher breaks them upon his congregation, they fill with perfume, like precious alabaster boxes, all the place where he is preaching.”

Let the preacher go back over his notes or manuscript and prune severely those words that are torpid rather than lively, dull rather than bright, abstract rather than specific.

A recent issue of the Saturday Review reports that when British children were asked, “What are the twelve loveliest things you know?,” one boy answered:

“The cold of ice cream.

The scrunch of dry leaves.

The feel of clean clothes.

Water running into a bath.

Cool wind on a hot day.

Hot water bottle in bed.

Honey in your mouth.

Smell of a drug store.

Babies smiling.

The feeling inside when you sing.”

Note the specific situations. Mark the simple language. Catch the overtones of words like “clean” and “cool” and the sense-suggested-by-sound effect of a word like “scrunch.” Then think, if it isn’t too utterly beyond belief, of the distinguished clergyman who, according to the London Times, once preached a sermon to the ordinary people living in Wordsworth’s Lake District in which he assured them they were surrounded by “an apokdeiksis of theocratic omnipotence.” A garrison like that must have struck them as being more oppressive than protective.

But Jesus would have caught the eye and ear of that English lad. He would have done it with his “city set on a hill,” and his “salt of the earth,” and his “candle” on a “candlestick” and not “under a bushel,” and his “sower” going forth “to sow,” and his “five sparrows” in the market place, and a hundred other pictures-in-words which he painted with a deftness never surpassed.

The lesson is for all of us: our hearers are dulled and distanced by abstractions. What captures them is the concrete.

Today shall thou be with me … (Luke 23:43; read vv. 33–46).

Jesus has a supreme concern for the individual. Our Lord also thinks highly of the godly home, and the spiritual church. Because of his lofty ideals for home and church, he cares most of all for persons one by one. This truth shines out most wondrously on the day of the Cross. In our text He is speaking to the first believer in his Cross. Here our Lord reveals to us now three Gospel truths:

I. The Heart of Our God. In Old Testament times God cared for the humblest, simplest, meanest soul, but men did not know his deep concern, and did not dare to believe it. In Christ on the Cross we behold God as the supreme Person; it becomes sweet reasonableness to believe that he cares supremely for every soul he has made. This is the truth that shines out in the supreme care of Christ for the individual today. “Having seen Him, we have also seen the Father.” When we watch our Lord dealing as tenderly as a mother deals with each child; above all, when we follow his footsteps on the day of the Cross, we behold his supreme concern for the individual, and thus we learn the very mind and heart of God.

II. The Value of Each Soul. To seek and to save, one by one, souls lost in sin Jesus came from heaven, lived among men, suffered and died, the just for the unjust. Herein lies the value of each soul, that a man has in him the quality of life, made of God to go on forever. Since each soul is of infinite value to God, who has made it part of an eternal order, what an untold zest there is in living, what unspeakable value there is in each soul! What if the Master of the world’s music were to miss your voice in the harmony? What if the Master Workman were to find your place vacant?

This is the revelation Jesus has given of his supreme care for each of you. When we hear him assuring troubled hearts that he is preparing a place for them, where he will forever receive them to himself, we behold God in Christ caring for the individual soul.

III. The Duty of the Individual. This duty is to respond to God in love and faith. Since God so loves, the supreme duty of life is to love God, and bring the soul into harmony with his will. To save the soul is to make loving response to God, and thus allow his will to fashion your life.

This is the supreme duty of every person, for his own sake and for the sake of others. One by one we are born; one by one we must be born again. “Behold,” Jesus whispers, “I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”—From The Day of the Cross, London, 1910, pp. 313–24.

… The image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15a; quote vv. 15–18).

No loftier description of the Saviour appears in the writings of Paul. It may have been one of the early Christian hymns. The passage is remarkably similar to the Prologue of John’s Gospel. These sublime words of Paul (vv. 15–18) speak of Christ’s threefold relationship:

I. The Relation to God. For ancient men the supreme question was how the unseen eternal God can communicate with his creatures. In Paul’s day the Gnostic answer was that He did so through lower and lower emanations. “Not so,” said Paul; “if the high God of heaven is made known, he must come down in his very image as the Mediator who is not an intermediate being, but One who is fully identified with God and with man.” According to a papyrus, the Greek word for “image” also meant a portrait. According to the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325) Jesus was the first begotten, not the first created. Begotten of God here means that Jesus was exactly like the Father. Amen!

II. The Relation to the Universe. In Colossae false teachers talked about other intermediaries, such as stars and angels. Paul answers that Christ is the Creator of all things visible and invisible, including the stars and the highest of angelic rulers. They are all subject to him. In him alone all things hold together. Since in all the universe Christ is the principle of unity, the Christian must be completely united in devotion to him. As believers we all are moving, not toward extinction, but toward Christ. At the end of the road every man must meet Christ. Beyond Western civilization, beyond this age and all ages, beyond this world and all worlds, stands the shepherd with his staff and his rod.

III. The Relation to the Church. The Church is part of God’s plan from all creation. In the message that Christ has committed to the Church creation finds its meaning and mission. Creation was made for redemption. As the living body of Christ the Church goes on doing his work, bearing the griefs, carrying the sorrows of humanity, and leading men to God. In the Church Christ and men are made one as the family of God. He is the Head of the Church. He directs the activities and causes the body to serve the Head. He is the beginning, the source from which comes the Church. He is the first-born from the dead. By his Resurrection he became the immortal Conqueror. This triumph makes him supreme in all things. These magnificent descriptions cause us to sing:

Jesus, my Shepherd, Brother, Friend,

My Prophet, Priest, and King,

My Lord, my life, my Way, my End,

Accept the praise I bring.

—From The Shepherd of the Stars, Nashville, Broadman Press, 1962.

For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me (2 Cor. 12:8; read vv. 1–10).

Almost every person of middle age or older has a thorn in the flesh. Something physical, painful, at times excruciating, more or less chronic, and often a hindrance to one’s work. In such a case, what should a believer do? Pray until God answers!

I. Pray about It as Real. The Bible recognizes such ailments as real. It seems to ascribe them to the Evil One (cf. Job 3:2–8). About such an ailment a believer ought to pray. In dealing with “the God of detail” prayers may well be specific.

II. Ask for Its Removal. Often the Lord grants such a request through the proper use of medicine or surgery. Almost never does he work directly to heal when he can do so through human agents and means. However the healing comes, a person should render thanks to God for a thorn removed.

III. Accept It as Permanent. Even with such a saint as Paul, God sometimes says No. Instead of talking much about unanswered prayer, we ought rather to think of ones that God denies, for reasons known only to him. Like Paul, when God refuses, a believer submits. He no longer prays for removal. God does not always choose to say Yes, or to heal disease.

IV. Thank God for the Thorn. Like Paul a believer now may learn to give thanks for what once seemed a real handicap. As with Paul, a thorn in the flesh, once accepted, may become a means of grace. It seems to have been God’s appointed way of making Paul still more useful, more radiant, more Christlike, and all because he prayed, leaving the issue with God, whose grace is all-sufficient.

No one now can diagnose Paul’s ailment. Whatever your thorn, remember that it may be like that of Paul. It is God’s invitation to learn something more in the school of prayer. Meanwhile among your friends not young, which person seems most like Christ? Does not that person have a thorn in the flesh? Which elderly friend seems not to be growing more like Him? May it not be because of refusal to accept a thorn in the flesh?

In view of blindness after he was grown, George Matheson once wrote: “My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorn. I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorn. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross, but I have never thought of my cross itself as a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross. Teach me the value of my thorn. Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have been my rainbow.”

I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God (Rev. 21:3; read vv. 1–27).

What a text for the last Sunday of the church year! As the voice speaks for God the listening Church stands on tiptoe. This is the final consummation of all God’s plans and purposes toward men. Hence we close the church year, fixing our eyes not on a world in decay, but on the Christian hope that brings into our chaos the assurance of final victory.

I. The Completed Redemption of Christ. The assurance of final victory depends on God, not on us. In the price that our Lord has paid for us on the Cross, God has completed our redemption. Some day he will instruct the archangel to sound the trumpet and awaken the dead, so as to invite us into the presence of God forevermore.

This is an appropriate time to thank God for the privilege of gathering here every Sunday to learn of our salvation. Let us confess that we have not always fully appreciated our privilege of worship. How good God has been in giving us so many rich occasions to hear of his love in Christ our Lord! Who but an ingrate would neglect to say: “I thank Thee, O God, for letting me hear again and again how Christ has won the final victory, and how I am to build my confidence on full redemption through thy Son”?

II. The Holy Fellowship Hereafter. The voice from heaven reminds us that God himself will be with his redeemed children forevermore. Here is the final consummation of all his plans and purposes. This pledge of God’s continued presence with his believers is so staggering that we can but kneel down to worship and adore. Always the Gospel is the wondrous victory of God who has loved us even unto death, and who now calls for the transformation of all who anticipate sharing those joys.

Among our most determined and consecrated efforts will be the decision to share with others the victory that our Lord has won for us and is anxious to have all people enjoy. The sharing time is now. This is the reason we are here on earth. The Lord has for us a mission that only we can carry out for him. He would have us help others discover in Christ the only assurance of sharing in the final victory.—From The Concordia Pulpit for 1962, Missouri Lutheran, St. Louis, 1962.

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