Oral cultures today continue
to transmit their history, traditions, and wisdom in these same forms. I enjoyed
the privilege of helping a friend edit his Ph.D. dissertation on the oral culture
of his people, the Kikuyu of Kenya. He reported that stories recounting Kikuyu
history are regularly told during special regional and national gatherings.
The storyteller often includes songs in his stories, songs he expects his hearers
to sing with him. Proverbs form a common part of daily dialog among the Kikuyu;
and children especially love riddles, a tool used by parents to educate their
progeny.
I believe that segments
of America, especially inner-city America, can be more effectively reached using
stories, songs, proverbs, riddles, etc. than by the traditional 3-points-and-a-poem
sermon. Much of American culture is oral. A 2002 survey by the National Endowment
of the Arts found that only 56% of American adults read a book of any kind in
2001.
Advertisement
According to "America's
Most Literate Cities 2004," out of 79 cities with populations over 200,000,
my city of Memphis ranks 67th in literacy.
I have seen where stories,
songs, proverbs, riddles, instructions, and dialogue either already have or
would likely appeal to segments of this culture. Inner-city youth incarcerated
at the facility I serve as a volunteer chaplain sit on the edge of their seats
to hear well-told biblical stories. They love riddles. Being able to pose a
riddle, then furnish the answer, gives them a feeling of intellectual superiority.
Through my mentoring at
Youth for Christ I encountered other youth who had successfully memorized dozens
of rap songs but never learned their multiplication tables. The rhythm of the
songs proved as memorable to them as melodic.
All of the youth in my
experiences have responded enthusiastically to well-known lines from movies
and TV, the proverbs of 21st century America. They appreciate specific
instructions on how to handle life's problems more than general admonitions.
Dialogue between pulpit
and pew has long been an important element in African-American preaching. Sitting
quietly through a 45-minute sermon doesn't sit well with the kids I know; but
if they can "talk back" and express their feelings about what they're hearing,
they'll gladly sit up to an hour.
No one would argue that
today's world needs wisdom. In the wisdom literature of his Bible, the preacher
finds both the content to address this need and forms for effectively delivering
it.5
I have long been committed
to a historical-grammatical-theological hermeneutic that endeavors to apply
the teachings of Scripture to today's world only after determining their original
intent. Increasingly, I am growing in my commitment to a fourth dimension of
this hermeneutic, the rhetorical, that seeks to understand how the Scripture
"spoke" to its first audience and then attempts to replicate this process through
homiletical technique. What follows is a collection of suggestions, warnings,
and ideas on how to preach the Bible's wisdom literature so as to communicate
accurately both its grammatical content and rhetorical intent.