Once again, what you heard in Seminary: K.I.S.S.: "Keep It Simple, Stupid." There, don't we all feel uplifted! More seriously, as we who would preach something resembling the Word of God -- or a word from God through our poor words! -- know all too well, techno-speak is murder to comprehension. This is why storytelling is so fabulously popular.
But ordinary language is what folks use in everyday conversation. So conversational language is what best carries the freight of the words of our sermons. This entry in Paul Krugman's blog, "Conscience of a Liberal" simply underscores this notion, coming from the flying keys of a Nobel-winning economist: "But, And, Why."
Preaching to the soul of our hearers is work -- as preachers know all too well. But we are not left alone. That Word hurled to the world (Isaiah 55:11) is doing most of the work for us already, and the One who stepped into human skin -- technical term: "incarnation" -- is also carrying the heavy end of the load (check Matthew 11:28-30). Just as the Word eternal (John 1:1) landed on planet earth as a back-woods Galilean, in a land occupied by Roman power, so now that very Word inhabits our words. Let's make it easier for God to get the Good News across to contemporary ears, by K.I.S.Saints.
Bob
As a consumer of sermons, lessons, preacher's blogs, etc., I appreciate your point. It seems to me that you are warning against jargon. Even when I am aware of the technical term in use, I sometimes find it distracting to have to reach back into my grey matter to recover its meaning.
ReplyDeleteI have also written a number of messages to my friends about something going on with my job, only to get a response of "I have no idea what you are saying." I will reread my message, and it is often full of legalees that have become a part of my everyday vocabulary.
Jim Barton
Thanks, Jim. A brief comment about your comment: if you find it distracting to "have to reach back into my grey matter" to recover the meaning of your statement -- how much more difficult might it be for your interlocutor? My aim (which you'll have to ask my hearers how often I actually achieve!) is to make it as easy as possible for my hearers to "get" what I'm trying to say.
ReplyDeleteI would tell my preaching students to imagine that they were sitting in a playground swing beside a 12-year-old in the next swing, and try to make what they were saying make sense to her -- without reducing the depth of content. To try, in other words, to say the extraordinary in ordinary language. 'Tis not impossible.
It's even happened with me a couple of times....