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No Christian community, regardless of its claim, is shaped solely by the Bible; it is also shaped by the endless line of those who sought to understand and to live the faith that they had received as a heritage. Preaching that has a memory does not forget Goshen, Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Antioch, but neither does it forget Chalcedon, Wittenberg, London, and Plymouth; it does not forget Abraham, Sarah, Mary, and Simon, but neither does it forget Aquinas, Luther, Wesley, and Theresa. To use the imagery of Paul, such preaching grafts the listeners into the olive tree, the roots of which are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To be a Christian is to be enrolled in a story that gives to each person and to the community a sense of identity and purpose which transcends the remembered experiences of those who worship at any given time and place. Faith that can only witness to events within the parentheses of one’s own birth and death is undernourished and poorly resourced.
The quality in preaching that we are here considering does not call for a sentimental or uncritical embrace of tradition. Certainly not. Memory listens, reflects, sifts, and learns; otherwise we deny the present, cut off the future, and halt the growth toward maturity which should characterize the people of God. But preaching that has a memory is not guilty of that monumental conceit which reads the Bible as though it had never been read before, and enters the pulpit as though none had ever stood in that place. Neither does preaching that has a memory mean filling our sermons with stories from the old days and forcing the congregation to carry the bones of Joseph every step of the way to the Promised Land.
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