In reading through the Gospel of John as part of my personal study time, I found that the story of the woman at the well showed me more about preaching than I had ever seen in it before (John 4:7-30).
Specifically, I was struck by how Jesus spoke to the woman’s imagination and how this interaction helps me as a preacher to better understand my calling to preach to the imagination effectively.
Calling People to Imagine
In ancient Palestine the task of drawing water from a well did not require a good deal of imagination. You would go to the well almost daily, drop the bucket or skin into the well, and draw it back up. But in John 4, the moment Jesus speaks to the woman her imagination is stirred. He asks for a drink and the woman responds with a question that starts with “How is it…” (John 4:9) These words show how her imagination is at work.
In her experience, Jewish men didn’t speak to Samaritan women, and so Jesus’ words force her to imagine a world where Jewish men do speak to Samaritan women. In simply asking for a drink Jesus demands that the woman imagine the world (even if only a little) to be other than she has known it to be. She knows Jewish men don’t speak to Samaritan women, yet here is a Jewish man speaking to a Samaritan woman!
Jesus then kicks things up a notch and introduces images and ideas that will force the woman to push her imagination even further. He says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (4:10).
When Jesus opens with “If you knew”, he is inviting the woman to second guess her reality. She was shocked enough by a Jewish man asking her for a drink, but now she has to imagine that this man is something more, or at least different than any other man. Jesus also speaks of the “gift of God” and “living water”, all words that she would have been familiar with but when brought together by Jesus in the order and context of the situation, she is forced to wonder what he means. This “wondering” or thinking requires imagination.
We need to know the Bible so well that we can then see how it speaks to our preaching contexts and then bring the truth to bear in the realities of our hearers.
When Jesus adds that all who drink his water will find “a spring of water welling up to eternal life”, she is again being asked to imagine water and life in a very different way.
Put plainly, this woman is being called to imagine a world that doesn’t exist as far as she knows it, and yet a world that she now desperately wishes were real. This is a world where Jews and Samaritans relate to one another; where men are not just men; where water is more than water; and where thirst can be quenched and water can bring eternal life.
There is a lot more that can (and should) be said about all the ways that the imagination is spurred in this interaction, but it is enough here to say that Jesus has so engaged the woman’s imagination that she is prepared to accept that this world that he has presented to her is real. She responds with excitement, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water” (4:15).
The world that didn’t exist for the woman just moments earlier, now is real enough for her to ask to enter into it. Jesus has managed to make the woman imagine that Jews and Samaritans can interact and have peace and where thirst can be satiated by water that this particular man has to offer.
Preaching to the Imagination
How can we preachers speak to the imaginations of our hearers? A few helpful thoughts came to me while reading an article called “A Preacher’s Decalogue” by Sinclair Ferguson where he writes:
“Imagination in preaching means being able to understand the truth well enough to translate or transpose it into another kind of language or musical key in order to present the same truth in a way that enables others to see it, understand its significance, feel its power—to do so in a way that gets under the skin, breaks through the barriers, grips the mind, will, and affections so that they not only understand the word used but feel their truth and power.”
Understand the Truth
Ferguson offers a great starting point for preachers wanting to preach to the imagination of our hearers – we need to “understand the truth well enough to translate or transpose it…” This means we need to spend a lot of time in the Word, studying it thoroughly, praying it deeply, and applying it widely. We need to know God’s Word so well that can then see where it intersects with the lives of our hearers.
Years ago I was surprised to learn that Jimi Hendrix was a very well trained guitarist. His music was often so raw and imaginative that I just assumed he was self-taught. But I realized that most great musicians are really well educated in their instrument. They know their craft so well that they can then improvise and create unique music.
We need to know the Bible so well that we can then see how it speaks to our preaching contexts and then bring the truth to bear in the realities of our hearers.
We do this by committing to be life-long students of God’s Word.
Our congregations should expect us to be serious students of God and his Word. If I need brain surgery I would not be comforted if my surgeon said, “I graduated from medical school thirty years ago and haven’t kept up to date on the latest techniques and scholarship, but don’t worry, the brain hasn’t changed much over the years.”
I would demand that my brain surgeon be committed to his/her craft and care enough about me as their patient and their field of expertise to have taken the time to continue to study and learn.
Why should our congregations settle for preachers who still rely on the same commentaries, illustrations, and models that they picked up in seminary?
Transpose the Truth
We need to know Scripture, but we also need to know our culture. We need to spend time with our people, have coffee with them, weep with them, celebrate with them so that we know how and where God’s Word and their lives converge. We need to read newspapers, books, and study culture so that we can use the trappings of our culture to point to the truth of God.
This doesn’t mean we need to experience all that our culture has to offer; there are somethings that we don’t need to partake of. But we should know the values and aspirations that our culture espouses and how the Gospel exposes and replaces them.
This is what Ferguson means (I think) when he says that preachers need to take Scripture and “transpose it into another kind of language or musical key in order to present the same truth in a way that enables others to see it, understand its significance, feel its power”. Have we spent enough time exegeting our culture?
Conclusion
The Gospel is a sort of “palate cleanser” for our imaginations.
We are inundated with the world’s images and narratives, and the Gospel comes with a counter narrative and images that are powerful enough to drive out and replace the world’s images. As ministers of the Word, we need to speak to the imagination of those God sets before us.
We need to present them with the Gospel that invites them to see themselves and the world differently.
We need to paint a picture so beautiful, winsome, and provocative that hearers are challenged and drawn to engage with God as they never have before.
We need to call them to a truth that they could never have dreamt up in their wild philosophies.
The Gospel does this. The Gospel cries out to the deadened imagination with the words, “If you knew…” and beckons us to follow.
Here is the link to the Sinclair Ferguson article mentioned above: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/a-preachers-decalogue/
