Panentheist that I am, I’ve long believed that the Spirit moves in spite of us at least as often as the Spirit moves because of us. So the preacher is (theoretically) off the hook when it comes to “being in the Spirit” in the pulpit. (You can hear me arguing with my former charismatic/Pentecostal self here.)

Which calls up vague memories of Karl Barth’s theories of kerygma. Briefly, kerygma is an effective sacred story that transforms/saves/heals/justifies/redeems/etc. Effective — because it’s success does not depend on the kerygma’s delivery man — but not so effective that you’ll never need booster shots. And it’s always suasive, never compulsory. Let those who have ears, hear — although kerygma is tricky enough to slip past the censors from time to time.

Needless to say, while I’m fascinated with the concept of kerygma, I cannot say the same about Barth’s adaptation of Paul/Saul’s god-talk. (Nor any other adaptation of it, really.) The re-telling of a transformative sacred story is the heart of kerygma, and it is what gives it its suasive character — if it is to be suasive at all.

The question of how it is suasive is what interests me. The effective kerygma relies, as I’ve said, on the effectiveness of the sacred story. (Thus, the benefit of lectionaries, which give priority to the stories and not to their tellers.) But kerygma is always also a performance relying upon the relationship of the preacher to her audience or congregation and vice versa. The preacher speaks both as “one of us” and as the sacred story itself, thereby briefly incarnating the sacred narrative on behalf of the assembled hearers.

Kerygma is more likely to transform when the preacher has intimate knowledge of her own lived relationship to the sacred story and when the audience is committed to wrestling with the challenge of the sacred story. (The preacher does not need to love the sacred story but should honor and trust its potential to transform.) Kerygma is less likely to transform when the preacher mistrusts the sacred story’s potential to transform or when the preacher or assembly places no stock in transformation. The love triangle between sacred story, preacher, and assembly is what makes kerygma tick — and what differentiates it from other forms of public speech that seek to persuade.