Preaching as the Unfinished Task of Theology: Grief,Trauma,and Early Christian Texts in Homiletical Interpretation

Abstract

Preachers sometimes find themselves vexed by biblical texts that offer troubling theological problems. Early on Christian proclamation sought to move past those problems by encouraging figural interpretations (Augustine) when what a text said literally did not tend toward the love of God or neighbor. Contemporary homiletics argues that some of these texts may need to be revised theologically, or in some cases repudiated altogether by “preaching against the text.” The author here argues that some troubling texts actually represent the unfinished theological task of preaching itself. They require more than revision or repudiation, but instead a kind of ongoing homiletical-theological re-engagement in the gospel. Just as a preacher tries to makes sense of the gospel in light of trauma, grief, or crisis, so also a homiletical interpreter of troubling texts needs to wrestle with them in light of the traumatic exigencies of grief or crisis that surrounded their production. In this way, preachers can engage some troublesome texts not by standing apart from them in an act of self-possessed mastery of judgment, but pastorally in differentiated proximity to them in all their grief and trauma.