 |
 The art
and craft of preaching was of great importance to Joseph Sittler.
Believing that the ordained ones are charged with "keeping The Story
alive" from one generation to the next, he was concerned not only with
how those ordained ones are prepared for their ministries, but also how
they transmit the message. He had much experience as a preacher, first,
as a parish pastor for thirteen years, then as a guest preacher in many
churches, university, college, and seminary chapels throughout the
country.
When he addressed the subject of homiletics, he would stress the
importance of connecting the Gospel to the people in the pews, in their
daily lives; of keeping abreast of what is going on in the world through
TV and film, literature and the arts, and science and technology; of
probing the meanings of the texts, asking, "What's going on here?",
instead of restating the obvious or delivering a series of moral maxims;
of attending to language.
To quote from The
Anguish of Preaching (Fortress Press, 1966):
"Between these two
worlds, the one that has enfolded men's thoughts and confession about
Christ for hundreds of years, the other enfolding both a newness that
is discontinuous with all that is past, and a continuity with it in
the promise of God and the presence of the alive Christ- between these
we must find a way, a witness, a word.
"The acceptance in
faith and joy of precisely this tautness is the way of the Christian.
It is the particular vocation, ordination, interior life and steady
place of the preacher. He stands between the what has been and a
presence whose present doing is a fact. But a fact unsecured by
history. The preacher in a special posture stands between the "It is
finished" and the tremendous word of the Apostle, 'The whole creation
waits with eager longing.' Every Christian is indeed called to fill up
what remains of the sufferings of Christ; it is the christological
anguish of the preacher that he must speak of it! — speak it from
behind, forward into the actuality of the day and situation that now
is."
A sample of materials on Preaching
available from the Archives
-
The Anguish of
Preaching, by Joseph Sittler. Fortress Press, 1966, Book
-
The Haunting Allure of Jesus (Commencement
Address at
Trinity Seminary, Columbus, Ohio)
Also in text form. Audiotape (5/22/82)
-
Preaching From Structure (United Theological
Seminary,
Richmond, Virginia), Audiotape (11/2.61)
-
Sermon at Chapel,
Lutheran Theological Seminary at Chicago, Audiotape (6/4/75)
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