Listen to almost any sermon nowadays and you will hear it -- a story. Pastors especially think it appropriate to place some type of narrative at the beginning of a sermon. They do it to "catch the attention" of the people and to get them ready to hear a sermon supposedly related to the opening narrative. Unfortunately this method falls time and time again. The narratives very often do not highlight the following sermonic material. What happens to many sermonic narratives is that they take on a life and character of their own and separate themselves from the rest of the text.

This article will focus upon the modern sermon as a case study for the misuse of narrative and offer suggestions for correcting such abuses. There are many definitions of narrative, and even more definitional aspects of narrative. For the sake of this study I will define narrative as the use of story to create an understanding of our world and to tell us who we are in that world.1 Narrative not only tells us what our world is like and who we are, but narrative also interprets our realities of existence.2

Vague Narratives

The simplest misuse of narrative is the employment of vague narratives. This abuse is particularly seen at the beginning of a sermon. Many pastors believe the best way to begin their sermon is with a story. They will rack their brains finding a story to introduce their sermon, while at the same time trying to ready the congregation for the sermonic text itself. Unfortunately, this often backfires. Consider the following as such an example:

The man in the shadows waited pretty much until the family got all of its belongings into the car, checked everything, had the car loaded up, and pulled away for their summer's vacation. The man in the shadows waited until it was dark and then he went to the front door of the house and rang the bell. When there was no answer, this man, seasoned burglar that he was, had no trouble picking the lock and getting inside. As a precaution he called out into the darkness, "Is anybody home?" and he was stunned when he heard a voice reply, "I see you, and Jesus sees you."

Terrified, the burglar called out, "Who's there?" And again the voice came back, "I see you, and Jesus sees you." So the burglar switched on his flashlight toward the direction of the voice and was immediately relieved to see a caged parrot who recited once more, "I see you, and Jesus sees you." He laughed to himself and then went to the wall and threw on the wall switch. Then he saw it. Beneath the parrot's cage was a huge Doberman Pinscher. Then the parrot said, "Attack, Jesus, Attack!"3

The main intent of narrative is to establish a reality for us. Now this narrative established many realities. It established the burglar as being seasoned and very cautious in his action of stealthily moving around the shadows before the family left for the vacation. You would think the rest of the sermon would be about a thief or describe Jesus' Second Coming as a thief in the night or the omniscience of God, but this sermon doesn't graze upon any of those topics.