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Luther and Contemporary Preaching: Narrative and Anthropology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Richard Lischer
Richard Lischer
Affiliation:
Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina 27706, USA
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Extract

Exhaustive studies of Martin Luther's preaching are few, and for good reason. The persistence of his scribes has resulted in a corpus of more than 2,000 sermons — and a tangle of questions concerning their authenticity and integrity. His theological program was such that in matters of content he did not maintain a rigid distinction between treatise and sermon. Everything we have from Luther ‘preaches’. Complicating the picture are the various postils, which are usually identified as ‘sermons’. The postils were not intended to do more than set a standard for others; yet they probably were delivered verbatim from some pulpits, and in The German Mass Luther says they should be!

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , November 1983 , pp. 487 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1983

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References

1 Ritschl, Dietrich has provided a taxonomy of story in ‘Story’ als Rohmalerial der Theologie, Tkeologische Existenz heute, Nr. 192 (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1976)Google Scholar, in which he argues that stories are pre-theological, that is, the raw material for the more exacting work of theology, pp. 9–10. 25–8, 38–41. See also Jones, Hugh, ‘The Concept of Story and Theological Discourse’, Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 29, No. 5 (October 1976), 415–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Luther regularly complained about preachers' use of legends, fables, and dreams; see e.g. a sermon preached on his way to Worms in 1521: ‘And when you do get a good preacher, he runs through the gospel superficially and then follows it up with a fable about the old ass or a story about Dietrich of Berne …’ Sermon on John 20.1–20. Luther's Works (American Edition, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House and Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959, ff.), vol. 51, p. 64 (WA 7, 810)Google Scholar. Luther himself drew on Thuringian folk tales and materials from Aesop and the Vitae Patrum and by the end of his life had made a sizable collection of fables and proverbs (Kiessling, Elmer, The Early Sermons of Luther and their Relation to the Pre-Reformation Sermon (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1935), p. 138)Google Scholar. Luther's use of non-biblical narratives will not concern us. Luther often styled himself plain-spoken but by design. Of the ‘preferred’ preachers he said, ‘But they are praised because the common people admire them when they hear them tell stories and examples and play with words and allegories. In this I, too, am a master. But no one is judged eloquent on the article of justification, nor do people like to hear him or praise him. Take this as a sure sign that the common people sleep and cough when we preach the article of justification but prick up their ears at stories’ (WA, TR, II, No. 2408). On Luther's unparalleled literary craftsmanship see Dannenbauer, Heinz, Luther als religiöser Volksschriflsteller 1517–1520, Sammlung Gemeinverständlicher Vorträge, 145 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1930) pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

3 Church-Postil. Sermons on the Epistles, 3 vols, trans. Henkel, Ambrose, supervised by S. G. Henkel (New Market, Va.: New Market Evangelical Lutheran Publishing Company, 1869)Google Scholar, Eccles. 15.1–6,1, p. 110 (WA 10, I, 1, 290). See also Nembach, Ulrich, Predigt des Evangeliums, Luther als Prediger, Padagoge und Rhetor (Neukirchener Verlag, 1972), pp. 25–39, 60–2.Google Scholar

4 House-Postil, trans. Schmid, E. and Martens, D. M., ed. Loy, Matthias, 3 vols. (Columbus: J. A. Schulze, Publishers, 1884, f.)Google Scholar, Matt. 26.51–56,1, p. 257 (WA 52, 751).

5 WA 5, 543 quoted in Jaroslav Pelikan, Luther the Expositor, LW, Companion Vol., 226, n. On ‘using’ the gospel, see ‘An Order of Mass and Communion for the Church at Wittenberg’, LW, 53, p. 25 & n. (WA 12, 211).

6 ‘A Brief I nstruction on What to Look for and Expect in the Gospels’, LW, 35, p. 117 (WA 10, I, 1, 9).

7 Postilfor Luke 2.1–14, LW, 52, p. 11 (WA 10, I, 1, 65). On Luther's use of pathos, see Bainton, Roland, trans. The Martin Luther Christmas Book (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1948), p. 11.Google Scholar

8 House-Postil, Luke 2.41–52, I, pp. 222–3 (WA 52, 105).

9 ‘On Translating: An Open Letter’, LW, 35, p. 189 (WA 30, II, 637). ‘I do not want to be aware of Doctor Pommeranius, Jonus, or Phillip in my preaching, since they know better than I. I do not preach for them but for my Hans and Elsie’ (WA, TR, III, No. 3421).

10 The German Mass, LW, 53, p. 64 (WA 19, 75). In his enormous postil for the Epiphany Gospel, Matt. 2.1–12, Luther apologises, ‘All who have chaste ears should, and I am sure, will pardon me, but if I am to give my advice at all I must get to grips with this sickness of souls, like a doctor who has to examine the excrement and private parts’ (LW, 52, p. 260 (WA 10, I, 1, 693)).

11 ‘Infiltrating and Clandestine Preachers’, LW, 40, p. 393 (WA 30, III, 526) and a sermon on the catechism (1528), LW, 51, p. 180 (WA 30, I, 107).

12 House-Postil, Matt. 11.2–10, I, p. 51 (WA 52, 24) though he holds to the romantic notion that the common people are usually the most devout (House-Postil, Luke 11.14–28, I, p. 378 (WA 52, 186)).

13 This is Paul Althaus' judgment in The Theology of Martin Luther, trans. Schultz, Robert C. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966), p. 176Google Scholar, n. though it is possible that Althaus has overlooked some Pauline psychological insights in Rom. 1, 2, and 3.

14 Church-Postil, Titus 2.11–15, I, p. 61 (WA 10, I, 1, 25–6). Cf. Smalcald Art., III, 1, Sin.

15 House-Poslil, John 6.1–15, I, pp. 393–4 (WA 52, 192–8)

16 House-Postil, Luke 17.11–19, III, p. 248 (WA 52, 463–8).

17 House-Postil, Matt. 27.1–10, II, pp. 152–3 (WA 52, 772–9, esp. 779).

18 Sermon on Luke 2.1–14, LW, 51, p. 214 (WA 32, 264–5).

19 LW, 51, p, 214(WA 32, 264).

20 LW, 51, pp. 216–17 (WA 32, 268–9).

21 Ozment, Steven E., Homo Spiritualis: A Comparative Study of the Anthropology of Johannes Tauler, Jean Gerson and Martin Luther (1509–16) in the Context of their Theological Thought, Studiesin Medieval and Reformation Thought, Vol. VI, ed. Oberman, Heiko A. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969), p. 110. Cf. WA 3, 531, ff.Google Scholar

22 E.g. House-Postil, Matt. 26.57–68, II, p. 121 (WA 52, 763).

23 Church-Postil, 1 Cor. 10.6–13, III, pp. 95, 101 (WA 22, 158, 165).

24 Church-Postil, 1 Cor. 10.6–13, III, p. 97 (WA 22, 160).

25 Church-Postil, 1 Cor. 10.6–13, III, p. 100 (WA 22, 165).

26 Elert, Werner, The Structure of Lutheranism, trans. Hansen, Walter A. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1962), p. 19Google Scholar. On the ‘transcendental I’, see p. 79.

27 Ebeling, Gerhard, ‘Die Anfänge von Luthers Hermeneutik’, ZThK, 48 (1951), 198 quoted in Ozment, p. 88.Google Scholar

28 Joest, Wilfred, Ontologie der Person bei Luther (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967), pp. 223–237, 163–5. Cf. Ozment, pp. 93–4, 101.Google Scholar

29 WA 4, 364 quoted in Ozment, p. 133. Ozment calls attention to the concept of motus, movement, in the young Luther's scholia to the Psalms (p. 132). On ‘incomplete’ justification see Althaus, pp. 226, 236–7.

30 Church-Postil, Col. 3.1–7, II, p. 110 (WA 21, 266).

31 Joest, pp. 86–7, alluding to scholium on Rom. 8.19, WA 56, 371, ff.

32 Ebeling, , Luther, trans. Wilson, R. A. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1963), p. 242.Google Scholar

33 Dunne, John, A Search for God in Time and Memory (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1967), P. 179ff.Google Scholar

34 House-Postil, John 20.19–31, II, p. 311 (WA 52, 268).

35 Martin Schmidt, ‘Luthers Predigt und unsere Predigt heute’, Luther, Heft 2/1970, 75.

36 The term is from Joest, p. 322, though not applied to the contemporary context.

37 For a fuller treatment of this theme, see Lischer, Richard, ‘The Limits of Story’, Interpretation (January 1984).Google Scholar