Thoughts on Narrative

I once told a preacher I knew that I felt his sermons were too simple. Yeah, I can be a jerk sometimes. It was indeed hurtful, and I ended up apologizing, because it was never my intent to hurt him. But leaving that aside, some of the things that were said have returned to my mind recently.

When I said "simple" I clearly meant something negative, but he said that he was glad to hear me say that. I think he took it to mean that he was clear and easy to understand, which are good things. But thinking about this has got me thinking about something else.

In certain settings, I found that as an explanation of why I didn't enjoy a book or a sermon, I'd have to explain that I could tell before I read it just about every point that was going to be made. But it is worth asking if that is such a bad thing. Afterall, what does it matter if I could predict them as long as they are true? It might be instructive for some people and simply a necessary reminder for others. Clearly knowing what points someone is going to make doesn't mean I don't need to hear them again.

But I still feel there's something to my complaint. I confess that there is most likely some intellectual vanity in it. I know that I am young and tempted by pride; I know that I enjoy knowing things for the sake of appearing better than others. But is there anything valid in my critique?

I think that there is. Yes it is true that the gospel is simple, but it is also infinitely rich and deep. There are things that a simplistic presentation of the gospel, or of any aspect of spirituality, cannot capture. This is subtle, because I am not trying to suggest mere intellectual or academic sophistication. I am trying to suggest a method of communicating that does justice to the richness of the Biblical text. Like more and more people, I find that the missing element in today's main modes of communication is narrative.

This is not the same thing as mere illustration. The kind of narrative I'm talking about means going deeper, telling a story that does more than merely highlight a point. Communicating using narrative is a challenge because it requires us to be so immersed in the text that we can recognize its truth as it plays out in our lives. It is also challenging because it requires that we actually be living lives that could demonstrate such truths. But I believe that these are the challenges that we are supposed to have in talking about Christianity.

The cool thing is that if you do immerse yourself in the text and strive to live it out, you will never be predictable since, presumably, you will always be learning new things as you live your life. On the other hand, you will never get too esoteric or intellectual since your communication is always rooted in the soil of real life. And if we stay away from the cliche, embellished, or saccharine, narrative has the potential to address both the mind and the heart with equal potency.

It has taken me awhile, but I think now my problem was not as much with a particular deficiency in what my friend was saying in his sermons, but instead a yearning for something I had never come across (except in scripture of course). I was yearning for a mode of communication that could incorporate the richness and complexity of the gospel while still remaining grounded and clear.

I believe now, after being nourished on it for a few years, that narrative preaching and writing offers something that has been missing from our modernistic styles. Yes we will always need clear, logical, propositional exposition. But by itself, such a presentation of the gospel is lacking. To offer consistent nourishment and teaching, the power of stories and poems is necessary.