The Narrative-Storytelling Sermon

Homiletic, Theological and Cultural Considerations

Pablo A. Jiménezwww.drpablojimenez.net

Introduction

• The narrative-storytelling sermon is one of the four basic homiletic designs.

• It may be used to expound Scripture, as an alternative to textual-expository preaching.

• Or it may be used to discuss a doctrine or a topic in an accessible way.

Definition

• The narrative-storytelling sermon presents an aspect of the message of a literary unit of the Bible through one or more stories. This sermon transmits the Christian message through stories.

• I use the adjective “narrative” for describe sermons based on a biblical story and the term “storytelling” for sermons based on non-biblical stories.

Function

• The function of the narrative-storytelling sermon is to involve the listeners in the story, helping them to identify themselves with the stories.

• The aim of the narrative-storytelling sermon is to enable the congregation to experience the message of the text.

Characteristic Traits

The narrative-storytelling sermon has the following characteristics:

• Guides the imaging our listeners do.• Gives a contemporary appeal to the biblical

tradition.• Helps the hearers to identify with the

meaning of the stories.

Basic Patterns

There are two basic narrative patterns.

The Deductive Outline

• Introduction• Body (2 to 5 points)

– First episode or scene– Second episode or scene– Third episode or scene, etc.

• Conclusion

The Inductive Outline

Inductive sermons may use the narrative outline as a guideline for its design.

• Setting• Plot (may be divided in scenes or episodes)• Climax• Resolution

Narrative & Experience

The Biblical Story, our collective story and our personal stories

Surrounded by Story

“...human beings cannot get outside of story; we can get outside particular stories, or particular forms of stories but not outside story as such. The world in which we live is a narrative world, created by and in our stories.”

John Dominic CrossanThe Dark Interval, p. x

Three Stories Interact

Narrative & Experience

• Human experience has a narrative structure. In order to make sense of life, individuals cast the different events that conform their experience as part of a larger personal narrative.

• We use the different components of story--oppositions, cause and effect, reversals, etc.—to explain who we are and what we do.

Personal and Master Stories

• In turn, personal stories are determined by other, larger stories. Some may be as specific as the story of our extended family.

• Others may be models or archetypes that are common in our culture. Still others may be as large as the master stories of “myths” that create and sustain our culture and, therefore, our “world”.

Master Stories & Identity

• Our identity is largely determined by the ideological components of the master stories that shape our culture(s).

• These master stories provide the basis for social stratification, the core values of our ethnic groups, and the foundation of our theory of knowledge (epistemology).

Master Stories and Minorities

• Minority groups are defined as peripheral by the dominant group’s master stories.

• When one group is at the center of the national epic narrative, all others are by definition peripheral and subaltern to the central one. Some master stories even affirm that specific groups have either never existed or have ceased to exist.

Clashing Stories

• To a large degree, the contemporary social and political turmoil is the result of clashing stories. Minority and subaltern groups are “deconstructing” the master narratives by two means:– Challenging the existence of a “center”.– Recovering their “hidden stories”.

Is Christianity a “Master Story”?

Christianity is one of the basic master stories of the Western world.

• It defined Western Europe over and against the rest of the world.

• It provided ideological justification for the expansion of Anglo-European hegemony.

• It relegated to a subaltern status non-Christian cultures.

Christianity in Crisis

• Jean-François Lyotard defines the Postmodern condition as incredulity toward the master narratives that fashioned the Western culture.

• He affirms that the Postmodern world is incredulous toward Christianity, in general, and traditional Christian institutions, in specific.

Preach the Old Story?

• How the preach the Gospel to an incredulous world?

• This may be the fundamental challenge faced by the Western Church at the beginning of the XXI century.

• This issue may determine the shape and the survival of Christianity in the Western world.

A Hermeneutic of Suspicion

A hermeneutic of suspicion may help us to overcome Christianity’s legitimization crisis.

• Suspicion that Christendom did not represented the church in its catholicity.

• Suspicion that Christendom misrepresented the richness of the biblical witness and silenced marginal theological voices.

Recovering the Christian Story

• The church must recover the “old, old story” paying attention to its subversive thrust.

• Minorities are rediscovering the Gospel as a prophetic story of liberation. The Gospel story is kin to their own “hidden stories” of suffering. This biblical and theological readings are energizing Church.

The Rest of the Story

On the basis is this hermeneutic of suspicion and liberation, narrative preaching can be an useful tool to preach sermons that lead us to recover the Gospel’s subversive thrust.

The End

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