Michael Quicke
C.W.Koller
Professor of Preaching and Communication
Northern Baptist
Theological Seminary
Lombard, Illinois
Abstract: This plea echoes in the
aural/oral culture of the New Testament. How much more urgently it must be
attended to today. With reference to Trinitarian theology of the preaching
event this paper will concentrate on the critical need to restore godly
listening and participation. Some steps for encouraging active listening will
be outlined and some practicalities discussed.
"The skills of the hearers are
more important than the skills of the preacher" controversially claimed
G.E. Sweazey, Preaching the Good News 1976, 310). He went onto argue how hearers "need their own
instruction in homiletics.
. .they
need to know what the whole idea of preaching is." This overstates the
case for in preaching there is a principle of mutual responsibility with a
complex balance of accountability between hearers and preacher. No preacher can
abdicate accountability for conveying God's truth and neither can hearers evade
responsibility. Boring sermons produce yawns, but willfully bored people can
stonewall sermons. Both sides have to listen and learn from each other.
Preachers need to listen to their own hearers in order to preach better and
hearers need listen to preachers in order that they might respond more
sensitively to God's word.
This paper considers a New Testament
command embedded in the teachings of Jesus and probes at some of its
implications in the light of recent research in orality, culture change and a
theology of preaching. It concludes with some practical steps (which would
please Sweazey!)
The Synoptic gospels testify that on
several different occasions Jesus called for active listening with the refrain:
"Let anyone with ears to hear, listen" (Mark 4:23; 7:16; Matthew
11:15; 13: 9, 34; 25:29; Luke 8:8; 13:9; 21:4.) It is particularly interesting to look at Jesus' parable in
Mark 4:1-20 (and its parallels) with its different soils and harshly realistic
quotation from Isaiah 6: 9-10. How
significant is it that Jesus opens with the command: "Listen!" (verse
3) and concludes with the refrain: "Let anyone with ears, listen"(verse
9)? Commentators are convinced that Jesus raises the threshold for hearers.
Cranfield likens it to way the daily Shema opens (Deut. 6.4). It is "both an appeal to hear aright
and at the same time a solemn warning of the possibility of a wrong hearing."
(Cranfield, 1959, 149.) "This is no self evident truth." Wessel
(1984, 648). "By it the hearers are summoned to hear at a deeper level
than mere sense perception, to take hold of the meaning of the parable, to
apply it to themselves and thus ultimately to hear the word of God which can
save them (Ezk. 3:27)." Marshall (1978, 320). It seems that hearers bear
some responsibility for being seeded in 'good soil' accepting and "bearing
fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold"
"Let anyone with ears to hear,
listen" is not an empty ritual refrain but an urgent encouragement that listeners
need to listen with more than their ears with spiritual apprehension. It calls
for holistic listening. Hearers have a responsibility to be willing to live in
new ways. It involves an intensity of response that casual notice may miss to
its peril. Hearing words and not putting them into practice is like a foolish
man who built his house upon sand (Matt.7: 26). For "faith comes from what
is heard" (Romans 10:17.) You catch the urgency, for example in 1 Cor.
15:51, "Listen, I will tell you a mystery! Hearing opens up a dimension of
responsibility that echoes in the early church (Rev.2: 7,11,17,29; 3:6,13,22)
and complements the accountabilities of the preacher.
Holistic listening then
Orality focuses on
the role of spoken words. The history of spoken words can be described by
three main eras: aural-orality, writing and print,
and electronic.
The early period of aural-orality was marked by the dominance of the spoken
and heard word. It continued long after the invention of writing and many
of its features were seen up until the invention of printing. Though Old Testament
Scriptures were written by hand, and the gospels were later to be recorded,
(and Paul's letters to be sent), the ways of thinking and ordering thought
among Jesus' disciples were most influenced by an unwritten culture of "word
of mouth." Words operated very differently from what happened later when
you could see them written down. Words were 'sounds' from within a person's
'interior consciousness' and these sounded out words were events in themselves.
Hence the Hebrew word dabar means both word and event. Words were
personal happenings with direct impact on the ears of the listeners.
The ear was all-important. There was
no other back up to memory. Communication was abortive if people failed to hear
and to remember. Orality meant aurality. Important truths needed to be recalled
afterwards. The primary way therefore for Jesus to engage his disciples in
sustained thought and action was tied to hearing speech, to "think
memorable thoughts" as Ong (1982,35) describes it. Sounding out words and
listening to them were both essential for faith and community. Various
techniques were developed to help the ear such as mnemonics, rhythms,
repetitions, formulae, but the most obvious and far-reaching was the place of "stories."
Accurate listening and ability to recall was fundamental to truth telling and
truth living.
"Let anyone with ears to hear,
listen" directly related to how words worked in an aural/oral culture. At
the center of Jesus' discipling were sounded out words which created a
community of the ear. Indeed,
Wilson has described the era of the early church: "The authority of word
as sound" (1992 17-66).
Babin,(following ideas of McLuhan
1969), has further emphasized the vital role played by the medium of communication
within this aural/oral culture. "The message is not in the words but in
the effect produced by the one who is speaking. . .modulation is the essence of audiovisual
language. . .. Modulation
indicates vibration frequencies which vary in length, intensity, harmonics and
other nuance. . .perceived by our
senses and induce emotions, images even ideas" (1991,6). Christ's teaching not only concerns
information and ideas, but also invites hearers into relationship with himself
through audio-visual language. Babin asserts the importance of the communal
life as Christian faith was learned through what he terms "immersion"
from New Testament until the fifteenth century. "Immersion" describes
how faith was communicated in an aural/oral culture characterized by "the
pre-eminence of communal life, by liturgy and practice, by stories and images,
and by the sacred part played by the person teaching." Hearers were drawn
into a deep belonging where "there was no gap. . .between the sacred and the profane.
The whole of life was bathed in a religious climate."(21). It was a total
learning experience. "To understand is to participate."
The aural/oral era was succeeded by
an era dominated by writing and print. Instead of the ear being primary, with
learning by immersion in community with participation, the eye was dominant. "Let
anyone with eyes to see, see" became the litany for individual readers who
no longer had need of immersion in community nor for techniques of recall--you
could simply look it up on a page and put the page down at your convenience.
Thinking could now be recorded in linear and logical format with a greatly
extended vocabulary. Babin makes
the judgment that this led increasingly to a "more cerebral form of faith. . .but one day we woke up to the fact
that, for the majority of people the living reality of faith had fled."
(99)
Holistic listening now
My enthusiasm for
orality studies concerns the present third era with the advent of electronic
communication.
Modulation, vibrations, participation in community have returned with two
electronic media--the audio-visual which relates primarily to pleasure and
entertainment and data-processing which involves information and
calculation.
Babin believes that these two media
together open up a "new era in religious communication."
I do not think it
is possible to separate an audiovisual form of catechesis, one that appeals to
the heart and to human feelings, from a purely notional form, one aimed more
precisely at the intellect and reason. This new, combined type of religious
education will hereafter be called stereo catechesis (his italics). . ... The greatest danger threatening
faith today, I am convinced, is not the absence of information and firm
instruction, but the lack of interest in Jesus Christ and the failure of our
hearts to be converted (1991, 31-32).
Two kinds of language
therefore coexist. 'Conceptual' language appeals to intellect and reason and
is grounded in writing, print and data processing. "Symbolic" language
is his term for audiovisual language that "adds modulation to abstract
words." (146) Babin claims that Jesus' language was primarily symbolic
which "leads to spirit, heart and moves the body. Full of resonances,
rhythms, stories, images which lead to a different kind of mental and emotional
behavior." (149). It is
transformational more than informational. However, these two languages operate
together in stereo form, combining like "two waves, each one carrying with it its own sand."
(152)
Fig.1 Two kinds of language (drawn from Babin,
figs 11,12, 150,151.)
The electronic revolution has opened up new possibilities for stereo listening, head and heart. "Let anyone who has ears to hear and eyes to see, listen and see."
Many authors on
preaching are wrestling with the implications of stereo communication for
preaching. There is increasing awareness that conceptual language alone,
characteristic of the print age, is not communicating as effectively in the
electronic age. Contemporary congregations have people who hear, see and touch
the preaching differently. Frick (1999) generalizes about three groups found in
congregations: those who respond visually and often sit at the back of the
congregation in order to see the big picture. Others respond audibly, sitting in the
middle so as not to miss anything. Yet others respond kinesthetically preferring to be
drawn into experience by participating physically. Sitting at the front they
engage with bodies as well as minds. To respond to the needs of all these
different kinds of listening Frick calls for a "total learning experience"
with a variety of creative approaches. He joins a long line of those who have
studied orality change and suggest new options for preaching. Some have focused
on using words in multi-sensory ways (Mitchell 1999), on emphasizing orality by
preaching without a manuscript (Elsworth 2000) and on using technology
(Slaughter 1998, Wilson 1999). Others have emphasized "participation and
immersion" by developing collaborative preaching with listeners involved
at each stage of the preaching process (Schlafer 1992, McClure 1995).
Spiritual apprehension
Central to holistic
listening is a theological issue about what God does in the act of preaching.
Though this paper allows only limited space to sketch out some implications we
should consider how the triune God empowers effective preaching?
Torrance warns how
many Christians are practical Unitarians with a practice of worship which:
Has no doctrine of
the mediator or sole priesthood of Christ, is human-centered, has no proper
doctrine of the Holy Spirit. . ..we
sit in the pew watching the minister "doing his thing," exhorting us "to
do our thing," until we go home thinking we have done our duty for another
week (1996,20).
In contrast, a
Trinitarian view of worship sees it as "the gift of participating through
the Spirit in the incarnate Son's communion with the Father (20)."
Torrance calls for a fresh experience of the two movements of grace: the
God-humanward from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit and the
human-Godward to the Father through the Son in the Spirit. No genuine listening
and responding to God in preaching can occur except by gracious revelation of
the Father, Christ's interceding presence in the midst and the empowering Holy
Spirit who enabled Scripture first to be inspired, and now interpreted,
interactive, heard and lived out in faith. Preaching is a Father event, a
Christ event, a Spirit event or it is merely resounding gongs or clanging
cymbals.
Preaching occurs
within a 360 degree dynamic as the Lord gives a word and it returns to him.
Comparing the word to the cycle of rain falling from heaven and not returning
until it has watered the earth and caused seed to grow, "so shall my word
be that goes from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall
accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it"(Isa.55:
11.)
This returning word, in a 360 degree dynamic, is difficult to describe. Any attempted model is untidy and multi-dimensional with arrows and lines flowing in many directions and many more connections too complex to show in a flat diagram. The triune God of grace is involved in every point yet begins and finishes the process. Each line and arrow describes Trinitarian connections between preacher and hearers, and hearers and preachers as the whole community is challenged in its living.
The command: "Let
anyone with ears to hear, listen" invites participation in a dynamic where
God's word will not return empty, Christ stands with those who gather in his
name (Matthew 18:20) and prays for all believers (John 17:20-26) and the Holy
Spirit actively creates spiritual apprehension (1 Thess. 1: 5). "The
quality of preaching is affected most significantly by the level of awareness
of the movement of the Spirit shared by those in the pulpit and the pew"
(Forbes, 20).
Convincing,
rebuking, loving, healing, converting, sending out, are all evidences of God's
work through a preacher. It is the Holy Spirit who will "prove the world
wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment" (John 16:8) and who makes
connections "bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God "(Rom
8:16). The outcome of preaching is
well summarized in 1 John 1:3: "We declare to you what we have seen and
heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is
with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ."
Let anyone with ears to hear, listen
Earlier I referred
to a principle of mutual responsibility between hearers and preacher. On one
side, preachers have accountability to ensure good news is just that. Preachers
in their exegesis, interpretation and design need always to be conscious of
their listeners, making connections and 'hooking' responses by content and
interesting style. David Mains, of Mainstay Ministries, contends that 80%
of evangelical sermons fail because preachers are unclear what response they
are calling for. Hearers can
tell you afterwards what the theme was but they had no idea what to do about
it. Contemporary preachers should not avoid working through the implications
of stereo preaching and we have already noted some authors' contributions.
However, in the
last part of this paper I want to address hearers in particular. Authentic
twenty-first preaching must recover authentic listening and preachers have a
critical task of restoring godly listening. Sweazey (1976) argued that hearers
need their own instruction in homiletics. He suggested that an occasional
sermon with a subject such as: "Partners in Preaching" could be
useful as well as offering courses on homiletics for hearers. Preachers have to
awaken passive listeners to become active partners in hearing and doing God's
word. Mark 4:1-20 has to be taken seriously. Hearers have to be alerted to
responsibilities before, during and after preaching. Like loving God "with
all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with
all your mind" (Luke 10: 27), stereo listening requires everything of a
hearer. Here are some guidelines:
1. Prepare for worship
expectantly.
The more casual and
unprepared that listeners are as they come to worship the less likely they are
to experience God. All worshipers, preacher included, should make space and
time for genuine prayers of preparation. "Who shall stand in his holy
place? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their
souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully" (Ps 24:3,4).
Snatched seconds of perfunctory routine before worship smothers spiritual
possibilities within worship. "True
worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth" (John 4:21) and be
sensitive to God who is spirit. Spiritual insensitivity to God beforehand can
condemn to spiritual insensitivity during worship. The outcome is a Unitarian
utilitarianism - preachers "do their own thing" which may or may not
have any relevance to hearers "doing their thing."
Preachers need to
include themselves in more rigorous practice of prayerful preparation that
stills the spirit (Psalm 37:7) and raises expectation that God, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit are involved in a spiritual happening in worship for the whole
community. God's word does not
return empty. God's seed in good soil can make an astounding difference--"bearing
fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold. " Worshipers should prepare
with openness to what fruit they might bear. If you think a sermon is going to
be a waste of time, nine times out of ten it will be. If you believe in an
active present God anything could happen.
Preachers have a
responsibility to model sensitive preparation for worship. In the crescendo of
interruptions often leading up to the service prayer should not be treated as a
routine to be squeezed out by more important matters, but the foundation for
prepared minds and hearts of everyone. Listeners can be encouraged to pray in
the days leading up to worship by specific information. Preachers can share
next week's Scripture text and theme and ask listeners to prepare by reading
and reflecting themselves as well as supporting the preacher in preparation. The
more seriously preachers reflect personal conviction about the Trinitarian
dynamic of worship and preaching, the more seriously listeners will prepare
with them.
Those who commend
collaborative preaching where they work with a small group of people, before,
during and after the preaching, comment on hearers' heightened awareness as
they work on a text beforehand (McClure, Schlafer). It may be a far cry for most congregations to undertake home
assignments on the text for the next Sunday and prayerfully uphold a preacher,
but nothing is more effective in raising the possibilities of fruit
bearing. Preachers have a
responsibility to raise the stakes.
2. Listen with all your mind
Stereo listening
hears both conceptual and symbolic language. Morreale and Bovee stress the
importance of developing four kinds of listening which cover both kinds of
language: content
(comprehensive) to understand a speaker's message; critical listening which
evaluates the message; empathetic listening which seeks to understand the
speaker's feelings and viewpoint; appreciative listening which
intentionally seeks to admire and enjoy (2000, 70).
Many older members
of congregations have a strong preference for conceptual language in preaching
which emphasizes precision, clarity, analysis, idea, explanation and linear
sequence (fig 1). They particularly focus on content listening and critical
listening.
There is a considerable literature on the dynamics of listening to conceptual language and about the effort involved to develop active listening. Active listening is a willingness to participate mentally with a speaker, to dialogue, question and engage with a developing linear sequence. It requires concentration. The average person speaks at a rate of 125-150 words per minutes while the average capacity to listen is nearer 500 words per minute. This considerable extra capacity for the mind to wander is a common cause of those with ears to hear not hearing. While appearing to be listening attentively, hearers can be "miles away."
Many churches, especially
those that publish worship bulletins, provide aids for listeners in the form
of sermon outlines and spaces for writing sermon notes. Some churches have
sermon note pads provided in the pews. On other occasions preachers ask specific
questions which they expect to be written down while they are preaching and
in some cases small groups use these at a later occasion to follow up the
sermon.
3. Listen with
all your heart
Clearly, it is
false to distinguish sharply between head and heart responses. Preachers who
use conceptual language would claim to change hearts through changed thinking.
However, symbolic language is characterized much more by participation,
immersion, intuitive and imagination and evolves "by thresholds rather
than by linear accomplishment" (see fig 1). The more symbolic language is
used, the less satisfactory is the taking of notes.
Preaching to the heart is more often stressed in black preaching than in white. In many white congregations conceptual language focuses on content and critical responses. A white colleague of mine, in a highly liturgical tradition, commented recently how distressing he found it that people gave so little response, even facially. In black congregations, however, there can be empathetic and appreciative listening with highly vocal dialogue. Some black preachers invite responses not only directly: "Do I have a witness? Do I hear Amen?" but by their whole approach to holistic preaching from which we can all learn.
Mitchell in Celebration
and Experience in Preaching (1990) emphasizes how preaching should be to the whole
person, cognitively and emotionally. "Every sermon must make sense; it must be
manifestly reasonable.
. .otherwise
the subsection of the rational mind that monitors such things will
shut down one's receptivity. However, although reason ..opens the gate to the
intuitive, it does not itself beget faith. . ..faith invades our lives through the
intuitive
and emotive
sectors of consciousness.
. .experiential encounter (his
italics) (19-22). Mitchell has
much to say to preachers about moving in sermon design from outline as "flow
of ideas" to outlines as "flow in consciousness"(49). The
implications for listeners are very significant too. As "Jesus required "clients"
to take some part in the healing. . .no
healing at the church can take place without the cooperation of the person in
need. . .to have openness to
and confidence in the healer. So seeds come to life." (149). Symbolic language seeks a personal
commitment from a listener to be sensitive to the spiritual possibilities of
God acting in the present tense.
One or two of my
African American students have commented how in their experience, certain
patterns of black preaching can sometimes build their own momentum that seems
to owe too much at times to congregational expectation or, worse, a need for
ministerial affirmation. Yet on many occasions there is an undeniable
participation and celebration that actively involves the whole congregation.
4. Listen with
all your strength.
Preaching should
always result in more than a cerebral response, such as notes made on a sheet
of paper. Its outcome is about people building on rock and not on sand, doing
God's word and living God's word together. It is about God's word returning to
him having changed lives and communities. Preaching is about forming Biblical
shaped, Christ centered individuals and communities. The test for preaching is
what happens in the behavior of the hearers.
The reference in 1
Cor. 14:3 to "those who prophesy" relates to intelligible speech
(verse 9) and therefore to preaching. Its three outcomes are listed as "building
up" (oikodomeo), "encouragement" (paraclesis) and "consolation"
(paramythia).
2 Tim. 4:2 adds convince (elegeon) and rebuke (epitemeson). Mitchell calls
for each sermon to have a "behavioral purpose." "Every sermon
will have a controlling idea and require some intellectual
growth or increased understanding, but maturity of attitude and behavior--deep
trust with willing obedience is the central objective." (54)
Hearers, and
preacher, need to recognize that God may be calling for a specific response
that requires deeper trust and willing obedience. Too many listeners rate a
sermon in terms of its interest and weight, but what matters most is what they
will do differently. As Sangster once commented, what counts is "service
beyond services", or in Bill Hybel's words that hearers become "a
biblically functioning community."
5. Remember:
Good listening makes for better preaching.
In Sweazey's advice to hearers he describes how ministers who preach away from home are sometimes struck by contrasting responses from different congregations (perhaps to the same message). In some places it feel like "slogging through mud up to the waist" as all eyes are averted and body language is depressed. Yet in another church everyone seems to lean forward with excitement (316). Most hearers have little idea of what a vital role they have to play in the worship and preaching event. They have never understood the impact that their body language makes, and what difference their graciously worded comments afterwards can make (including negative observations). Which preacher has not risen with eagle's wings when they are told about significant events triggered by a sermon?
It is beyond the
remit of this paper to pursue important issues about how preachers might
develop greater mentoring and organize more formal feedback after sermons. But
listeners should be awakened to their responsibilities to share in the dynamics
of a preaching event.
For many churches
these five guidelines mean a revolution in listening habits. Some churches
would benefit from "listening clinics" for new believers who are
unused to listening to sermons, tired and middle-aged listeners who long ago
gave up expecting to hear anything from God and have settled for tedium. For
the elderly who were excited once and who long to hear the sound of heaven
again. "Sermons are delivered
to the church on Sunday so they can be delivered to the world on Monday. Out
there is where the harvest will be reaped" (Sweazey, 318). "Anyone
who has ears to hear, listen."
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