Introduction
This paper was submitted to Dr. A. Roger Gobel on Dec. 5, 1985, as part of “Religion and Human Behavior,” a first-year course at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg.
Paper
In virtually every congregation on any given Sunday, when the minister takes to the pulpit and preaches to the assembled congregation, the minister delivers a monologue. Exceedingly rarely, if ever, will the congregation respond to the sermon during its delivery. So the task of the minister is to climb, weekly, into the pulpit and to say some words about the Word of God, hoping to spur some change of heart, to elicit some reaction on the part of the parishoners, trusting, in most cases, “in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to do the job.” But the minister never knows whether the preaching falls on “those that have ears, letting them hear.” To borrow a term from the science of electronics, what the minister needs is feedback from the people in the pews. The minister needs the parishioners to indicate they have heard the sermon and to assure they will effect a change in themselves.
In short, communication—verbal exchange or dialogue—is necessary in this situation. The necessity of dialogue in the proclamation of the Word of God arises in two works in particular: The Presence of the Word Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History by Walter J. Ong, S.J. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), and “Religious Communication and the Nature of Meaning” by A. Roger Gobbel and Thomas H. Ridenhour (in Religious Communication Today, Sept. 1981, Vol. 24). Ong states, “In terms relating directly to the verbal media of communication, it is interesting to note how the catechism has made way for dialogue as a technique for presenting religious truths” (p. 300). Gobbel and Ridenhour say, “We invite them [men and women, boys and girls] to join with us in the creation, the constructing of new meanings and truth as we discover afresh what it is to be the people of God” (p. 26). Granted, the above quotation does not explicitly mention “dialogue,” but the communality of the act of creating meaning and truth suggests exchange, or dialogue. In addition, the role of “truth” in these two quotations bears examination, as the term is used in contradictory ways. Nevertheless, despite contradictory understandings of the nature of truth, both works point to the necessity for dialogue in proclaiming the Word of God, thus implying possible changes in the structure and style of preaching.
Before turning to the use of dialogue, the works’ uses of the word “truth” merit discussion. Early in his book, Ong states, “In literature cultures the illusion is widespread that if one has the exact words someone has uttered, one has by that very fact his exact meaning. This is not true” (p. 32). Here Ong contends that meaning is not borne by the words themselves, yet in the quotation presented above, a verbal exchange is “a technique for presenting religious truths” (p. 300). Yet here Ong contends that truth is borne by the words themselves. Clearly the two cases are mutually exclusive. Gobbel and Ridenhour, by contrast, agree with Ong’s earlier contention: “We cannot deposit in another person the meanings that we possess for a thing, event or words—including God and Jesus. And Abbey suggests, we cannot ‘give’ truth to another. We possess no pristine truth to be passed on via our communication activities” (Gobbel and Ridenhour, p. 25). So, on this question of the residency of truth and meaning, the two works disagree at the points under examination.
Even so, the two works agree on the need for dialogue in the task of preaching. Ong, in tracing the development of verbal media, asserts, “Today, even to disseminate the teaching it itself contains, the catechism is no longer the effective instrument it once was. Discussion is essential for assimilation in the post-typographically oral stage” (p. 300). Here Ong points to the efficacy of dialogue, even free-wheeling discussion, as compared to a rigid catechetical approach in the proclamation of the Word (leaving aside the problem of the residency of truth). Gobbel and Ridenhour mention, “The task of creation, construction of new meanings and truth is not just an individual task within the Christian tradition. It is also a task of the community of faith” (p. 26). In this communal task, during which the preacher “opens windows” onto “new horizons,” conversation and dialogue must take place. This is so because as “messages are transmitted and provoke and evoke meanings in persons” (pp. 25-26), for as windows are opened, the preacher knows if the windows open onto the same landscape only if the parishioners looking out of those windows describe a view closely resembling the preacher’s view.
Thus the preacher needs feedback from the parishioners during the task of preaching to facilitate the act of proclamation. In the system of Gobbel and Ridenhour, the preacher will attempt to call forth, or evoke, a certain meaning in the parishioners. The parishioners should then describe to the preacher the meaning they have created within themselves. If the preacher finds the description fitting closely his or her own meaning, the preacher can continue to the next point of the sermon. Otherwise the preacher can refine or elaborate the message, trying to evoke the desired meaning.
This explanation of the role of dialogue in the proclamation of the Word suggests several possible changes in the way preaching is structured and viewed. First, the preacher could encourage parishioners to respond to the sermon as it takes place, thus turning the sermon from a monologue to a dialogue. Or, if persons feel uncomfortable with that brand of spontaneity, pastors and parishioners can discuss the sermons afterwards. Further, the pastors can take the long view, seeing the proclamation of the Word as an on-going process, occurring week after week, and adjust future sermons to attempt evoking the desired meanings. These suggestions point to an interactive, dialogical approach and away from an active-passive, monological approach to the proclamation of the Word of God.