EXODUS IMAGERY AND SERMONIC PERFORMANCE

In every crisis God raises up a Moses ... especially where the destiny of [God's] people is concerned.

— C. L. Franklin

Exodus preaching (African American prophetic preaching) is concrete and daring discourse that names God and offers a vision of divine purpose. Preaching of this kind serves an emancipatory agenda. Through criticism and symbols of hope about what God intends and expects of God's human creation, Exodus preaching lands on the ear of the despairing and is dedicated to help them interpret their situation in light of God's justice and the quest for human freedom. As long as people desire to be free, Martin King's insightful query will never ring hollow.

King once asked, "Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings of people more than the preacher?" Such a question hoists a burden upon every minister who hopes to do something of consequence in partnership with God. To shun the beckoning task of preparing listeners to stand and be counted as co- participants with a promise-bearing God at work in the world is to tighten Egypt's grip and undermine a several-centuries-old quest for freedom. The Exodus saga's correspondence with today's victims of history has added legitimacy to the preacher's speech about God's will toward justice. Likewise, the Hebrew prophet's evocative cries for moral accountability to God and community beckons preachers toward high standards of moral and ethical responsibility, just as the salvific agenda and incarnational witness of Jesus remind preachers that the vocation of prophetic truth-telling often co-occurs with personal suffering. Such orienting biblical touchstones invite today's preacher-prophets to stand against the forces of death and evil in both the public square and the church. This is why the enduring pursuit for human dignity and overcoming spiritual and social forces that work against the collective good and welfare of all persons remain so important. In today's culture of trauma and numbness, if the preacher is silent potential pathways to human flourishing will be blocked.

But what might these pathways resemble? I have argued elsewhere that prophetic proclamation is not self-generated discourse but summoned Word taking its beginning and ending in God. Yet because preaching is both a divine and human activity, which calls upon a preacher's gifts and faculties, I believe that strategies to push a preacher to stretch her theological imagination can aid the preacher's growth, especially as it relates to developing a prophetic consciousness, given the current state of the world.

— CRAFTING STRATEGY: PREACHING THE EXODUS NARRATIVE (OR PREACHING FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT) —

Preaching from the Old Testament is just as important as preaching from the New Testament. In fact, if one bypasses or gives surface treatment to the Hebrew scriptures, taken on their own terms, one cannot obtain an appropriate picture of Jesus Christ. That which binds the two testaments together are the promises of God made in the Old Testament (or the Hebrew Bible for the canonically persnickety), which find fulfillment in God's Son in the New Testament witness. Nevertheless, preaching from the Old Testament poses great challenges and openings for the preacher in sermon creation.

Passage selection, understanding of the genre and history of the text, plot sequence and movement, assessment of the rhetorical situation, contemporary relevance, correspondence with the New Testament, pairing exegesis with imagination, and addressing theological problems the selected passage or book present are all of great consequence for sermon creation. Lone-ranger approaches to managing these components ensure that the preacher, no matter how earnest, will do violence to the integrity of the chosen passage's claim(s) and discernible intent.

CST1: ACKNOWLEDGE THE PROBLEM.

Consider this phrasing as a sermon opening:

We often cherry-pick or conveniently jump over biblical passages that rub us the wrong way. To do this is only natural because we need things to line up, don't we? To make rational sense. But what if they don't? What if they offend our Christian sensibilities and refuse to be bullied into what we want them to say? Do we just gather our marbles and run away from them? Do we throw them into our theological waste bins without discussion? I should hope not. I hope we would wrestle a bit with the Whys? and How comes? You do realize that God respects and remains unintimidated by whatever manner of question we can bring to God.

Why would God decree an invasion tactic that endorses the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children and hold Israel accountable if she does not sign onto the death warrant's dotted line? Perhaps we should chalk this up to the mysterious intentions of God. Or might we make peace with the fact that seeing this as God's act on Israel's behalf and to not see this as Israel's heroism or expression of her military prowess is the way to size up things? What can be said with reasonable certainty is that these weary nomads are extremely vulnerable and sin prone. Ask Moses. Who's to say they'd not simply enter a new place and fall prey to the temptation to run to the Canaanite gods without a way being made clear? I can think of better ways to do this. I know you could.

But as much as I want to impose my modern diplomacy and peacemaking strategies onto the ancients, I can't. You can't. We must embrace our discomfort. But that isn't all the Christian can do. The Christian can hold this and other troublesome accounts up to the light of the gospel and see if things line up. This gospel bids me to follow after the love of Jesus, and not Joshua's sword.

CST2: FIND THE MAJOR THEMES.

One effective way to enrich sermon preparation is to focus on key doctrinal themes seen in the passage. Ask yourself, "Is this passage about

-covenant and disobedience,

-promise and fulfillment,

-sin and mercy,

-bondage and deliverance,

-patience and faithfulness, or

-divine sovereignty and commitment?"

Coupling and organizing the sermon around these big themes can be an effective strategy for unearthing the intentions of the text.

CST3: PREPARE A REASONED RESPONSE.

After dealing with the text with critical eyes on the merit of what it speaks literally, ascend from history a bit and try interpreting the passage symbolically. Jeffrey Rogers helpfully suggests two possible responses a preacher might use:

-Relate the battle imagery to the struggle and terrors that every person, believers no exception, may face. These battles might entail enduring bouts with mental suffering or resisting addictive and spiritually crippling behaviors. Moses's words to Joshua, "Be strong and courageous ... for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go" (Josh 1:9) may find resonance in the life of a listener fearing a future...