In the 1960s, I was in my late 40s. The popular song “From Both Sides Now,” written by Canadian Joni Mitchell, found me through the singer Judy Collins. The song takes us on a journey from “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now” to “I’ve looked at love from both sides now” to “I’ve looked at life from both sides now.”
Recently, now in my tenth decade, this song popped into my mind along with this awareness: I’ve looked at preaching from both sides now, from the pulpit for about 30 years, from the pew for about 30 years.
Mahan Siler
First, I looked at preaching from the pulpit side of worship.
An article by Walter Brueggemann, “The Preacher, the Text, and the People,” reframed my understanding of preaching. He lifted from family systems theorist Murray Bowen the concept of triangle and applied it as a frame of reference for preaching.
First, he described what preaching looks like. From a first glance, preaching appears to be an event between the preacher behind the pulpit and the congregation in the pew. To the contrary, according to Brueggemann, preaching actually occurs in a triangle. Both the preacher and the congregation come under the authority of the text . The preacher is in conversation with the text out loud, hoping this public interaction with the text might prompt an inner conversation between the parishioner and the text. Ideally, the preacher prompts this lively three-way conversation.
As the preacher, I always was left wondering: Did an inner conversation with this text happen within the listener? Did my conversation with the text provoke clarity, resolves or questions within the listener? I loved it when someone said, “Can we talk about your sermon over coffee sometime this week?” Most of the time I was left bewildered.
Now, shifting my stance from pulpit to pew, I’m seeing from this side now. For those of us in the pew, what’s our responsibility? All the preachers I experience take seriously their responsibility of preparation and proclamation. They do their job. But do we do our job?
If preaching is a joint conversation with the text, do those of us in the pew hold up our side of the conversation? I think not.
“If preaching is a joint conversation with the text, do those of us in the pew hold up our side of the conversation?”
I have experienced four efforts to close this loop, that is, ways to participate in the conversation with the preacher either before or after the sermon is offered to the congregation.
One, invite six to eight members to gather after service of worship. They are invited to meet and discuss their responses to the sermon without the pastor present. A few prompts are suggested as a guide for their discussion. The conversation, now recorded, can be heard later by the preacher.
A second model: With advance notice, congregants are invited to meet with the preacher after the service of worship for further conversation about the sermon.
A third possibility: Six or 10 congregants are invited to meet in early or mid-week prior to Sunday worship. With the preacher they practice a lectio divina approach to the texts offered by the Lectionary for that Sunday in the church year. From the variety of texts offered by the Lectionary, the preacher comes with those verses she is drawn to engage in the sermon.The text is read slowly three times with an openness to a word or phrase that seizes attention and asks for further meditation. Then, with the pastor facilitating, participants are asked to share their clarities or questions from the contemplative silence. All this is in service of the preacher’s crafting of the sermon.
The fourth and final example is a more recent experiment. When the proclaimer is open for further conversation, members are invited to join a dialogue for an hour about two weeks later. The person facilitating the meeting with the proclaimer has five simple responsibilities: Settle with the preacher on a date; put a notice of the post-conversation in the church newsletter; ask for a copy of the sermon; send a copy of the sermon to those indicating interest; and send a Zoom link the morning of the interactive conversation.
This is my witness: From my experience of worshiping God in community from both sides now, let’s complete the circle and find ways to enhance the dynamic, triangular conversation between the preacher, the text and the people. It’s a dance.
Mahan Siler lives in Asheville, N.C. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was one of the founders of the Alliance of Baptists and served two congregations as pastor, Ravensworth Baptist Church in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, N.C. He also has worked in pastoral care in the health care setting.