Abstract
What is the point of preaching? This is a question that I hope most of us who deliver sermons ask ourselves on a regular basis, even if the answers that we come to may be as diverse as our sermons. For Margaret Cooling, the answer lies in relevance, which she describes in her introduction as ‘the pot of gold at the end of the sermon rainbow’, and which she also believes is the hardest part of sermon writing for many preachers. Her new book then goes on to explicate a particular way of revealing that relevance, which is all about showing rather than telling.
This is a book written for practitioners, and its methodology closely reflects the material Cooling is teaching in that it shows rather than just telling, using a wealth of examples that come mainly from her own sermons. She shows preachers how to re-tell biblical stories in ways that bring the characters to life, humanizing them so that listeners relate to their circumstances and to the ways in which God is present in their lives. Cooling’s narrative style invites hearers into the story so that the story can inform their own reflections, actions and choices. The relevance is revealed through the telling of the story rather than being an added extra at the end of a biblical exposition.
Cooling is obviously a skilled preacher and the material from her own sermons is engaging and often poetic. I should confess that the re-telling of the Bible passage we have just heard read is usually one of my least favourite forms of sermon to listen to, often seeming both lazy and somewhat patronizing on the part of the preacher. It is considerably to the credit of Cooling’s method that I could imagine listening with pleasure and profit to a sermon that followed her practice with the same level of skill she shows.
Having said that, I find it hard to imagine using this style of preaching myself. This is partly because the theological assumptions behind it are different from my own. While Cooling expertly allows the biblical narrative to challenge her hearers in new ways, she is far less interested in any challenge that might be offered to that narrative. She herself is clear that this method is not appropriate for every biblical passage or occasion, and it is unlikely to resonate with every preacher either.
Cooling’s method definitely succeeds in breathing new life into biblical narratives, allowing them to speak into the hearers’ lives with fresh relevance and with the potential for creating new insights and new choices. It may not be for every preacher, but her writing will encourage even those who have a different approach (methodological or theological) to consider the purpose and the impact of their sermons. I would be happy to sit in a service where Cooling was preaching and let myself be shown something of the nature of God through a fresh encounter with familiar stories.