On March 28, 1992, my journal entry reads, “My seminary notes, along with ten years of sermon tapes, are sitting in the dumpster at Glengary Elementary School.”
At the time, the decision seemed radical. All night I considered driving back to the dumpster and retrieving my deposit, but I never did.
What prompted such unusual behavior? Was I renouncing my ministry, my preaching, my seminary education? Not at all. I had struggled with the decision for several weeks. An imminent move from Nashville, Tennessee, to a pastorate in Honolulu, Hawaii, which pressured me to get rid of excess baggage, had brought me face to face with how in recent years my preaching had changed.
In my early years of ministry, my preaching was strong on principles, ideas, information. I encouraged listeners to take notes. But as the years passed, I concluded that effective preaching is not ultimately about points, outlines, and information as much as about helping people make contact with God.
Today I don’t care if people take notes during my sermons. Like my seminary notes, they won’t be looked at again. While outlines and information are important, they’re secondary. The experience of meeting God is primary.
THE POWER OF STORIES
I’ve been preaching for twenty years. I served as a youth speaker during high school, an associate pastor during college, a student pastor during seminary, and a senior pastor after seminary. For four years I served as editor of Proclaim, the Southern Baptist journal for biblical preaching. Now I’m back in the pastorate. And I’m convinced one of the best ways to impact people is to follow Jesus’ example in preaching.
Jesus’ primary style of preaching was storytelling. When Jesus wanted to teach people about the love and grace of God, he didn’t say, “Let me share three principles about God’s love.” Instead he said, “There was a man who had two sons. … “
During my early years of preaching, I used stories to illustrate my point; today, stories often are my point. My favorite method of preaching is to take a biblical story, retell it as creatively as possible, develop one primary point from that story, and reinforce it with several contemporary stories.
Early in my ministry I preached an informational sermon during a Lord’s Supper service. The sermon was a rational, three-point message explaining the meaning of the Supper. Although theologically correct, it lacked passion and impact. After the service people shook my hand and politely said, “Nice service, Pastor.”
Three months later we again observed the Lord’s Supper. My sermon and its effect were dramatically different. A few weeks earlier, I had read a Lord’s Supper sermon by John Claypool in which he told the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and read one of his letters.
Bonhoeffer was a brilliant young pastor and seminary teacher who opposed Adolph Hitler’s policies in the 1930s. On April 5, 1943, the Germans arrested Bonhoeffer and put him in prison. Two years later the Nazis executed him, hanging him on the gallows just days before the Allies swept in to liberate Germany.
About ten weeks after his arrest, Bonhoeffer ended a letter (his correspondence during captivity has been published in “Letters and Papers from Prison”) to his parents with these words:
“It is Monday, and I was just sitting down to a dinner of turnips and potatoes when a parcel you sent me by Ruth arrived. Such things give me greater joy than I can say. Although I am utterly convinced that nothing can break the bonds between us, I seem to need some outward token or sign to reassure me. In this way, material things become the vehicles of spiritual realities. I suppose it is rather like the felt need in our religion for sacraments.”
Bonhoeffer knew his parents loved him. Yet he still hungered for that love to be reaffirmed. He needed to be reminded of their love in a tangible way. His package from home served that purpose, and Bonhoeffer saw the Lord’s Supper doing the same.
I decided to use Bonhoeffer’s analogy, along with some of John Claypool’s insights, in my Lord’s Supper sermon. I did not preach an informational, three-point message on the meaning of the Supper. Instead I told stories.
I began by recounting how much I enjoyed receiving packages from home during my college years–especially if they included a check! I told my congregation that the contents of the package–cookies, socks, money, whatever–served as powerful reminders that my parents loved and were thinking of me.
I then told the story about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his package from home. With the help of some biblical passages, I drove home the point that the Lord’s Supper is a package from our heavenly home, a tangible expression of God’s love for us.
I concluded the sermon by walking to the Communion table and saying, “Come, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us partake. A package from home has arrived. Let us eat and drink and be reminded of God’s awesome love for his children.”
After the service people didn’t say, “Nice service, Pastor.” Several commented, “That was the most moving Lord’s Supper service I have ever experienced.”
SHEDDING LIGHT ON SCRIPTURE
A few months later, during a tragedy, I again experienced the power and impact of an appropriate story. Anthony, a beloved teenager from our youth group, was killed in an automobile accident. The following Sunday I preached from the book of Habakkuk, especially 1:1-4, 2:1-4, and 3:17-19. This text speaks of faith in the midst of struggle, anger, doubt, and despair.
I began by telling the congregation how much I loved Anthony and how bad it hurt to lose him. I told several stories from my experiences with Anthony. I was honest about my grief and anger over his premature death–even my anger at God. I reminded them the prophet Habakkuk had similar feelings.
After looking closely at the text, I told the story of a young Jewish boy named Elie Wiesel, who at age 14 was taken from his home and placed in a German concentration camp.
In his book “Night,” Wiesel tells of one night when several prisoners decided to put God on trial. They wanted to try God for the horrors of the Holocaust. These were men of faith, but it seemed to them their faith had failed them. They asked young Wiesel to witness the proceedings.
The “prosecuting attorney” brought charges. God’s people had been torn from their homes, separated from their families, beaten, abused, and burned alive in the incinerators. The defense attorney made his case. But in the end, they found God guilty of failing and abandoning his people, maybe even guilty of not existing.
The trial was over. The mood in the room was somber, dark, depressing. The men prepared for bed. A few minutes later, however, when the time came for the Jewish evening prayer, these same men who had just found God guilty of abandoning them got on their knees and prayed their evening prayer.
This scene brought Habakkuk once again to mind: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength” (3:17-19).
Elie Wiesel’s story had profound meaning and a deep impact on me and my congregation during that terrible week.
THE POWER TO MOTIVATE CHANGE
I recently preached a sermon about our call to minister to the needs of others. Like many of Jesus’ sermons, my sermon consisted primarily of three stories.
The opening story was a humorous tale on the subject of service:
Several years ago in Mississippi, a doctor taught a Red Cross course in emergency medical assistance to a group of ladies from First Church. One evening a serious accident occurred in front of the home of one of these ladies.
At the next Red Cross class, that lady described the accident. “It was horrible,” she exclaimed. “There was blood on the street, bruised bodies, and broken bones. I was so glad to have had your course on emergency medical assistance.”
“Were you able to use what I taught you?” the doctor asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “I put my head between my legs and breathed deeply, and never once felt as though I would faint.”
I made a brief transition to the second story, a retelling of the parable about the sheep and goats, in Matthew 25.
After making some applications to our church, I concluded the sermon with an extended story I heard at the National Storytelling Festival:
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Jews were expelled from Spain. Many went to France, Germany, Greece, and some went to the Holy Land. Among them was Jacoby, a shoemaker by trade.
Jacoby was a kind man; but most of all, Jacoby was a devout man. He went to the synagogue every Sabbath and listened to what the rabbi was saying, even though Jacoby spoke Spanish and the rabbi spoke Hebrew.
One Sabbath, the rabbi mentioned in his sermon how at one time twelve loaves of bread were offered to God. Jacoby heard and understood the words bread and God, and he got excited. He ran home and said to his wife, “Esperanza! Guess what? God eats bread! And you are the best baker in the whole country! This week make your best bread, and I’ll bring it to God.”
That week Esperanza kneaded in the best ingredients and braided the dough with such love. Jacoby later took twelve loaves of bread to the synagogue.
“Senor Dios,” Jacoby said to God. “I’ve got your bread. You will love it. My wife, Esperanza, she’s a wonderful baker! You’ll eat every crumb!” Then Jacoby took the bread and put it into the holy ark.
No sooner did Jacoby leave than in came the shammes, the man who cleans up the synagogue. “Lord, you know I want to be here in this holy place; that’s all I want to do. But for seven weeks now I haven’t been paid. Lord, I need for you to make me a miracle. I believe you’re going to; maybe you have done it already. Maybe I’ll open the holy ark, and there will be my miracle.”
He walked to the ark and opened it, and there was his miracle. Twelve loaves of bread! Enough for the whole week.
The next day, Jacoby and Esperanza opened the ark and saw the bread was gone. A look of joy passed between them.
The next week it was the same. And the week after. This went on for months. The shammes learned to have faith in God, but if he hung around the synagogue, or came too early, there was no miracle.
And so thirty years went by.
Now an old man, Jacoby came one day to the synagogue with his loaves of bread. “Senor Dios,” he prayed, “I know your bread’s been lumpy lately. Esperanza’s arthritis–maybe you could do something? You’ll eat better!”
He put the bread in the ark and started to leave when suddenly the rabbi grabbed him. “What are you doing?” the rabbi demanded.
“I’m bringing God his bread,” Jacoby replied.
“God doesn’t eat bread!” said the rabbi.
Jacoby said, “He’s been eating Esperanza’s bread for thirty years.”
Then the two men heard a noise, and they hid.
No sooner did they hide, than in came the shammes. “I hate to bring it up, Lord, but you know your bread’s been lumpy lately. Maybe you could talk to an angel.”
When the shammes reached into the ark for the loaf of bread, the rabbi jumped out and grabbed him.
The rabbi angrily told the two men that what they were doing was sinful, going on and on, and all three men began to cry. Jacoby cried because he only wanted to do good. The rabbi because all this happened because of his sermon thirty years ago. And the shammes because he realized there would be no more bread.
Suddenly they heard laughter from the corner. They turned and saw the great mystic, Rabbi Isaac. Shaking his head and laughing, Rabbi Isaac said, “No, Rabbi, these men, they were not sinful. These men are devout! God has never had more pleasure than watching what goes on in your synagogue. On the Sabbath, he sits with his angels, and they laugh, watching this man bring the bread and the other man take the bread, while God gets all the credit! You must beg forgiveness of these men, Rabbi.”
Rabbi Isaac looked at Jacoby and said, “Jacoby, you must do something even more difficult. You must now bring your bread directly to the shammes and when you do, you must believe with perfect faith that it is the same as giving it to God.”
At this point of the story, I paused and then repeated the last sentence, “You must now bring your bread directly to the shammed and when you do, you must believe with perfect faith that it is the same as giving it to God.”
I concluded: “This sounds a lot like the words of another Rabbi who lived many years earlier: ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me’ (Matt. 25:40).”
Several weeks after that sermon, a church member told me she now takes an extra lunch to work each day and gives it to a homeless person in the park.
Stories not only complement the teaching of Scripture by fleshing out the truth, stories change lives.
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal
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Copyright © 1994 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
