Arrested by Anecdote

The anecdote in the sermon answers the purpose of an engraving in a book.” So said Charles Haddon Spurgeon in one of his lectures to young ministers. Let’s think that one over a bit, for surely anecdote must be given a place in this excursive series on the pictorial element in preaching.

As currently used, “anecdote” has, to some extent at least, broken company with its etymology. Its Greek components add up to the meaning of “not given out.” Originally, therefore, an anecdote was something hitherto unpublished, something that its teller was releasing for the first time. Even now, when custom has given to the word a much broader definition, most listeners are struck by the vividness that may suddenly light up the sermon when the preacher says, “Yesterday as I was walking down Fifth Avenue.…”

The anecdote, though its purpose is manifestly illustrative, differs from, let us say, an illustration drawn from science in these particulars: (1) it belongs to the realm of event or experience; (2) it is personal (it happened in your experience or that of someone of whom you have knowledge); and (3) it normally can be told with brevity.

On one of those rare occasions when the late W. E. Sangster of London finished a sermon with an anecdote, his text was Genesis 41:51, “God … hath made me forget.” His subject: “Remember to Forget!” This was the ending:

It was Christmas time in my home. One of my guests had come a couple of days early and saw me sending off the last of my Christmas cards. He was startled to see a certain name and address. “Surely, you are not sending a greeting to him,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“But you remember,” he began, “eighteen months ago.…”

I remembered, then, the thing the man had publicly said about me, but I remembered also resolving at the time, with God’s help, that I would remember to forget. And God had “made” me forget!

I posted the card.

Here is the anecdotal form in preaching in its most authentic expression: this happened to the preacher.

The less authentic but still effective form appears when, for example, I take this incident and employ it, of course with due recognition of the facts surrounding it. (Heaven forgive me if I plagiarize it and palm it off as an experience of my own!)

Dr. Hillyer Straton, of the First Baptist Church of Malden, Massachusetts, has a year-end sermon on the Christian view of time that he opens with an anecdote drawn from the life of nineteenth-century scientist Thomas Huxley. The absent-minded savant, according to the story, leaped off a train at Euston Station, London, late for a speaking engagement. Jumping into a taxi, he shouted to the driver, “Hurry, I’m late!” Off they went at a furious speed. Huxley, having momentarily relaxed, suddenly sat up and called, “Where am I going?” To which the driver replied: “I don’t know, sir, where you are going, but we’ll get you there in a hurry!”

A mirror held up to our times!

As for anecdotal sources, Mr. Spurgeon told his students that they may be found anywhere: most obviously in one’s own experience, in biography, in history (whether recorded by Gibbon or the Times). “Dear brethren,” he urged, “do try with all your might to get the power to see a parable, a simile, an illustration, wherever it is to be seen.”

In mood and character anecdotes suitable for pulpit use exhibit a wide variety. They may evoke a chuckle or tug at a tear. They may be tender as a lullaby or piercing as a rapier. They may embody the intuitive insights of innocent childhood or the demonic shrewdness of evil’s old age.

One day, when my only son was less than five, I forbade his going swimming. On my return from an appointment his mother told me that she caught him just before he disobediently reached the water’s edge. When she reminded him that he was under instruction not to go in, his ingenious defense was: “Aw, mother, I wasn’t going to be in long enough for even God to see me!”

It is fair to say, I think, that this episode has never been shared with a congregation without producing a lively response in which the universal tendency to “rationalize” is smashed home to adults and juniors alike.

Are there any anecdotal perils? There are indeed:

Unreality. Anecdotes must be genuine. They must ring true.

Inaccuracy. Some preacher stories in circulation have too many versions. We need to sharpen up on our facts.

Frivolity. The “funny” story can be overworked or it can be controlled. The masterful expositor F. B. Meyer told a friend of mine that he deliberately used something in a lighter vein about midway through his sermon—to rest and refresh his congregation. That makes sense. It is a far cry from the “one-after-another” variety of sermon, the effect of which is to reduce preaching to the frivolous.

Impropriety. Vulgarity should always be shunned. The involvement of persons should be discreet. An incident described in one part of the country may be improper; told in another the effect may be nothing but good. The betrayal of confidences is a danger that must always be avoided.

Anecdotal pitfalls, however, are as nothing compared with the potentials. These potentials, brought to happy fruition by the skilled hand of the pulpit craftsman, mercifully blessed by the guiding Spirit of truth, will go far toward rendering our preaching what Spurgeon insisted it should be—“life-like and vivid.”

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