Homiletics 2 File 28 Professor David Schmitt Question by: Paul >> PAUL: You've offered us three places to go for putting our sermons together: Logical structures, textual structures, and dynamic structures. What does this look like in real life? Can you give an example, using the sample sermon in a different structure? >> PROF. SCHMITT: Great, Paul. Thanks. I'd love to do that. You're right, the sermon we looked at, the sermon about the miraculous catch of fish, in that particular sermon, we had a dynamic structure, if you recall. We had a struct ure that started with an experience of the law, moved to an experience of the gospel, and then closed with some words about how it applies to our life. The question is: What would that sermon look like if we took it out of a dynamic structure and we did it so that it would fall under a propositional structure, a logical structure that unfolds a thought for the hearers? So I'm going to offer you several different logical structures and what they would look like if they were applied to the material of that sermon. One thing you'll notice about that sermon is that in its development, in the vertical movement on that sermon, the writer kept using the the logical process of comparison. He would offer us a sample of Isaiah's life, a glimpse of Peter's life, and a glimpse of our own life, comparing all three. He compared all three of those experiences under the rubric of law, gospel, application. What would happen if we used the logic of comparison not as a vertical form, not as a development in the sermon, but, rather, used it as the progression of the sermon, as the horizontal movement, so that the hearers walk through three different life experiences, comparing all three of them, whole to whole? So, for example, you could have this sermon, this same topic of God changing lives, but the hearers would be treated to an experience of how God changes the life of Isaiah, how God changes the life of Peter, and then how God changes their lives today. By the end of the sermon, the hearers would have seen three different people into whose lives God entered and was at work, and they would then see how God works very personally with individuals, working with us, changing our lives even today. That would be using the logic of comparison, God changes lives, and showing three examples of God entering into people's lives and changing them. The value of that type of a structure for this particular sermon is that it would allow the historical context of each of these individuals to be more fully explored for the hearers. They'd be able to see God working in the time of Isaiah, see God working again in the time of Peter, and then contemplate and meditate for a moment how God works among us today. Rather than focusing on what God does law gospel application the hearers would focus on the people in whose lives God enters, how God enters into history then, and now continuing to do the same thing among his people day after day. So that would be using a logical structure of comparison for that particular sermon. We could also use the logical structure of classification, where we look at the change that God does and we classify it in terms of what type of change or what is it that God is changing. So, for example, you could write the sermon with three different changes that God accomplishes. You could start by saying God changes lives in worship experience. Here you would allow Isaiah to rise to the front of the sermon, you would see how in this worship experience God enters in, changes his life, brings about a moment of the experience of grace, and makes him a different person. So God changes lives in worship. And then the second section would be God changes our work in the world. In this case, you would allow Isaiah to still be present, as we see how Isaiah's work in the world changed, and then you would move into the apostle Peter, show his work of discipleship, show how God changed what he did in the world and contemplate how God changes what we do in the world today as well. So you've got God changes our lives in worship, God changes our work in the world. And then the last part would be God changes the world itself. And here you would speak about what is the the result of this work that God did through Isaiah, God did through Peter, and God does through us. And in the present sermon, that section tends to work with witnessing or evangelism and that proclamation of God's word to the end of the world, so I think you could simply work with how God, through the proclamation of his word, changes the world around us through his people. Your hearers then would walk away from the sermon seeing God actively at work in three different areas: God changing our lives in worship; God changing the work we do in the world; and then God changing the world around us through the word that we proclaim. Notice the value of this particular design. As a preacher, you're able to offer law and gospel three different times in a sermon. Your hearers see that experience of how God works through law and gospel in worship, how God works through law and gospel in guiding us in our vocation, and how God works through law and gospel in reaching out into the world. They're not only offered one moment of law, one moment of gospel, but they have several through the sermon, and their attention is focused on God and what God does to change life, work in the world, and the world itself. That would be a method using classification. Let's take the same sermon and let's throw it into the category of the question/answer design. In a question/answer design, the preacher opens the sermon by raising a question that does not have an easy answer. It shouldn't be a yes or no question. It should be a question that Christians tend to debate over, wonder about. And the preacher then slowly walks his hearers through three answers to that question. They don't know it, but the first answer to the question is going to be a wrong one. You offer the answer, one that people commonly think of. Then you help them think through that answer theologically until they realize that it's wrong. You come back to the question and say, "Well, if that doesn't work, what's another possible answer?" Then you throw out another answer that arises in our world that our parishioners have heard. Maybe they themselves are thinking of these answers. You then explore that answer until theologically you realize, no, this answer doesn't work either. And then you move to the last answer, which is going to be the answer that flows from the gospel, is the correct answer, and guides us in our life. This particular sermon design is actually great for helping your people think theologically. It enables them to think about the different answers that the world around them gives to theological questions, and then how we, as Christians, respond to those answers, think through them, and ultimately come back to the word of God. One hint if you do try this method. Be very careful that you don't shame the hearers who are offering these answers. You raise a question, you offer the first answer, you don't want to say, "Well, the first stupid answer is." No. Instead, you want to say, "You know, some people think that this is possibly an answer, and help us see how this answer could arise from our human experience." Don't shame the person because it might be that your hearers, your parishioners, have that very answer in their mind, and the last thing you want to do is make them think that they could never share that answer with you because you'd laugh at them for it. Instead, you want to treat it with honor, treat it with respect, and then help them theologically think through it to the point where they realize, "No, this probably isn't the best answer. Perhaps we should look somewhere else." So let's take this particular sermon. As I look at this sermon, I think one of the topics that comes up in this sermon is: What does it mean for the Lord to be with you? Now, if you think about it, in our worship services, if you follow the traditional liturgy that has been set out for us in the hymnal, you're going to hear that language, "The Lord be with you," "And also with you" several times throughout the service. And the question is: What does that really mean? It might be a good question for you to treat in the sermon, offering two false answers to what it means for the Lord to be with you, until you finally come to the right answer. One false answer might be that some people think that for the Lord to be with you, everything in life is going to go great. Here you're kind of dealing with the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel that when God comes into your life, everything works out and there's no problem that follows after that. And so you can work with that answer, show how it isn't correct, and then move to the second answer. The second answer may be that if God is with us, we're able to accomplish whatever it is that we want to do. And here, you again work with with what is wrong with that particular answer and you finally come to the correct answer that God being with us means that he will bring forgiveness to those who are frightened and use them in his work in the world. And here you show how God, with Isaiah and Peter and us, comes to people who are frightened, comes to people for whom everything in life is not going the way they planned, comes to people who try and try but whatever they try to do never seems to work out, and forgives them and works in their life to bring out things not according to our plan, but according to his. So that would be a question/answer design, taking, again, the same sermon, some of its material, and arranging it in a logical progression that seeks to find the right answer to a troubling question. One last design this will be a last logical design could be using the logic of definition. In the logic of definition, you take a particular topic, you define it according to its parts for the hearer, and then you spend the rest of the sermon walking through each of those particular parts, helping them see how that definition comes out of the text and how it applies to their life. So, for example, if we were working with these texts, I guess you could say one of the texts is one of the ideas in this text is Christian confidence. That God at work in our life offers us what we could call a Christian confidence. And so the sermon is going to define for our hearers what it means to have Christian confidence. You might start the sermon from 2 Timothy 1: "God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power." And then declare that this is a declaration of God's gift of Christian confidence for us. Notice here how we have God as the actor, and God graciously doing something for us, giving us the spirit of Christian confidence. Now, as a preacher, you're then going to define, well, what does Christian confidence mean? In this particular case, I think I would define it in two ways. It means confidence in God's word and confident confidence in God's work. And so I'd spend the first part of my sermon talking about confidence in God's word. Help us see how Isaiah and how Peter were brought to a reliance upon God's word: God's word of forgiveness to Isaiah, who is frightened of him in the temple; God's word of direction to Peter; and we as Christians today are confident in this forgiving word of God. Having defined Christian confidence as confidence in God's word, I would then move to the second part of the sermon, which is confidence in God's work, and here again, you could work with Isaiah and his work out in the world. You could work with Peter and the work that God did through him. And finally, come to the hearers and talk about the word work that God does through them, and speak about how Christian confidence is not only confidence in God's word, but also confidence in God's work. As a preacher, then, I enter into the pulpit and I have in my mind two basic ideas I'm going to offer my hearers today: Confidence in God's word; confidence in his work. And in both of those ideas, I'm going to integrate law and gospel so that my hearers walk away celebrating this God who has given them confidence both in his work word and in his work out in the world. So I hope that gives you some sense of how you can take the same sermon and much of the same material that is in that sermon and rearrange it according to propositional designs. In this case, as a preacher, you're asking yourself, "What are the things that my hearers need to know today? How could I structure this sermon in a way that serves them best so that I can communicate the idea that I want to communicate to them and I can have a logical progression of thought for them?" I could use comparison. I could use classification. I could use question/answer. I could use definition. You can then go into cause/effect, problem solution, analogy you can go on and on and on in all sorts of different logical designs. I've given you a glimpse of what a few of those might look like.