\nDuring a recent vacation, my wife and I ventured across town to another church.\nThe jammed parking lot and crowded lobby suggested a scintillating sermon.\nThe preacher was articulate and entertaining. His sermon was biblical, with\nfour crafted principles from the text.<\/p>\n\n
\nBut as we left that morning, I realized, as William Willimon has said, I\ngot the sermon, but it didn’t get me.<\/p>\n\n
\nFast-forward to a couple of days later, same vacation: Sitting under a thatched\numbrella on a beach, I’m reading John Grisham’s The Chamber,<\/em> a novel\nabout capital punishment.<\/p>\n\n \nToward the end of the story, Grisham describes Sam Cayhall, the death-row\ninmate, taking off the clothes he has worn for so many years. His new clothes\nlying on the bed are for his execution in the gas chamber. The portrayal\noverwhelmed me, and I began to weep. As a tear rolled down my cheek, I silently\nasked the Lord to forgive me for my past hatred of death-row inmates.<\/p>\n\n \nIt struck me that Grisham’s novel had “got” me in a way the principled sermon\nI’d heard hadn’t. I began studying what makes a good story work. As I applied\nthe elements of plot to my sermon structure, they revolutionized the way\nI create and deliver a sermon.<\/p>\n\n\n A plot-based sermon is not one with more stories in it. It is not\ncreated by cramming more illustrations into a sermon or seeing the sermon\nas one lengthy illustration.<\/p>\n\n \nThe very structure of a plot-based sermon is different. The difference between\na plot-based sermon and a principle-based sermon is not hermeneutical but\nhomiletical. A plot-based sermon still requires traditional exegesis; I still\nhave to immerse myself in the text. But once I do my exegetical spadework,\nI head in a new direction. I steer away from principles and launch out into\nthe realm of surprise, tension, and disequilibrium.<\/p>\n\n \nObviously, this is easier with narrative literature, but every text is set\nin a context, in a story and a situation. And every situation has some\ndisequilibrium or tension.<\/p>\n\n \nAs I begin thinking about my sermon, I ponder what my audience might expect\nfrom this text. Then I do my best to avoid their expectations. As I start\nthe sermon, I want people to wonder, “Where is he going with this?”<\/p>\n\n \nIn The Homiletical Plot,<\/em> Eugene Lowry illustrates with the old “Quincy”\ntv show (a more recent example is “Murder, She Wrote”). Both shows start\nwith a dead body-no surprise there. The interest factor is the uncertainty-“Who\ndid it?” “How did they do it?” “Why did they do it?” “How will Quincy or\nJessica figure it out?”<\/p>\n\n \nIn a recent sermon on the Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12, for example,\nthe congregation expected I would oppose the Rich Fool. So I showed how much\nI identified with him. I viewed him as a financially fortunate farmer: “The\nRich Fool seems wise to us. He earned his money honestly. He was hard-working.\nHe invested and expanded. He used his surplus to plan for his retirement.\nMoney<\/em> magazine would profile him as a financial genius.”<\/p>\n\n \nI used a quote: “If this man is a fool, then a lot of Americans are fools!”\nI told my audience I had recently calculated the money I’d have for retirement\nin twenty years if, instead of giving to the church and missionaries during\nthe past four years, I had invested it. The tally was more than $200,000.\nI then asked them to decide whether having $200,000 less at retirement was\nwise or foolish.<\/p>\n\n \nTo my suburban congregation, that created disequilibrium, tension, and surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n In the exegetical phase of sermon preparation, I search carefully\nfor any textually-based disequilibrium.<\/p>\n\n \nWhile preaching on the life of Paul, for example, I found some delicious\ndisequilibrium in Acts, chapter 27. Luke tells about riding out a storm with\nPaul. The storm rages with no word from God. Luke writes in 27:20 that they\nfinally “gave up all hope” of being saved.<\/p>\n \nI could have ruined the sermon at that point by chiding my audience, “But\nof course, we all know the doctrine of omnipresence, so we know God was there-the\nprinciple<\/em> of his presence!”<\/p>\n\n \nThe temptation is to play down disequilibrium in the text, as if it’s my\njob to make God look good. One commentator on this passage used the four\nanchors from Acts 27:29 as “four anchors to keep us from shipwreck during\nlife’s storms.” But the problem here is not only homilectical but\ntheological-Paul’s ship does shipwreck!<\/p>\n\n \nMy goal is to play up the tension. In all good stories, things unravel, creating\nmore tension until the climax. My tendency has been to reach the last chapter\ntoo quickly. But the heart of the sermon, like the heart of a novel, is a\nthickening plot.<\/p>\n\n \nWhile preaching a series on the life of Abraham, I used him as an example\nof what it’s like to be a friend of God. To build tension, I asked my audience\nwhether they would treat a friend like God does.<\/p>\n\n \nAbraham and Sarah waited twenty-five years for God to give them the promised\nchild. I told my audience I could understand what Abraham was feeling during\nthose years. Although God didn’t promise me a son, I know what it’s like\nto wait to have a child. My wife, Jan, and I are still waiting. We have been\nmarried for twenty-four years. We planned to have children, raise a family,\nand joyfully serve the Lord. We are now a childless couple in midlife.<\/p>\n\n \nI told the audience that when I read that Susan Smith drowned her two children\nin South Carolina, anger welled up in my heart. My passion was not as much\ntoward her as toward God. Why allow her to have children, and not us? I’d\nnever do what she did.<\/p>\n\n \nThere is power in a sermon that asks some questions.<\/p>\n\n\n But the tension created by the disequilibrium eventually has to\nbe released. The time clock runs out in the fourth quarter of the game. The\nBook of Revelation resolves the tension between God and Satan. In good stories\nand sermons, the denouement (or resolution) is brief. Using the tv-drama\nanalogy, a sermon’s denouement should not take more than five minutes.<\/p>\n\n \nThis part of the sermon feels most like traditional preaching to me. It is\nthe time for propositional statements about God. It is the time to explain\nthe “rest of the story.” But it must not drag on and on.<\/p>\n\n \nIn my sermon on the Parable of the Rich Fool, the denouement was simple-“If\nyou’re not careful, your money can make a fool out of you. Storing wealth\nis foolish, but sharing wealth is wise.”<\/p>\n\n \nI mentioned the $200,000 less I’ll have for retirement and reminded the audience\nthat even though someone may say, “What a fool,” God says, “How wise!”<\/p>\n\n \nThis was a stewardship sermon in preparation for a campaign banquet. I suggested\nto the audience that as they filled out a pledge card the next week, someone\nmight look at their card and judge them a fool. I hoped it wasn’t God.<\/p>\n\n \nFinally, I told about two little girls named Kaylee and Whitnee, who had\nsold caramel apples and cookies the week before. A little sign at their booth\nread: “Everything we make is for our new church building.” I held up the\nenvelope they gave me earlier that morning. Scrawled in a little girl’s\nhandwriting was the figure $36.75 and then: “For the new church. Love, Whitnee\nand Kaylee.”<\/p>\n\n \nI concluded by asking my audience whether God’s response was “What fools,”\nor “What wise little girls”?<\/p>\n\n \nProducing sermon principles is easy; creating sermonic plot is arduous. To\nhelp me produce better plot-based sermons, I read fiction, take in movies\nand dramas, listen carefully to the stories of those who see me for pastoral\ncare, and pay attention to the lyrics of country music-“Sometimes you’re\nthe windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.”<\/p>\n\n \nBut perhaps, more than anything, the disequilibrium of my own story fuels\nmy creativity most.<\/p>\n\n\n Bill Oudemolen is pastor of Foothills Bible Church in Littleton,\nColorado.<\/p>\n\n 1996 by Christianity Today\/LEADERSHIP, journal.<\/p>\nStarting with surprise<\/h2>
Building tension<\/h2>
Wrapping it up<\/h2>