“Suggested by Eugene Lowry in his influential book The Homiletical Plot.” Long, p. 146
“or Lowry, any “felt need” on the part of the hearers—^whether originating in the biblical text, a theological doctrine, or a situation in life—can serve as the organizing task. Lowry believes that sermons should begin by describing this problem, dilemma, or bind so clearly that the hearers feel “ambiguity” and desire its resolution. He writes that “there is one essential in form which I believe indispensable to the sermon event, and that one essential is ambiguity.”^ p. 146
“Now, sometimes, of course, the congregation is already aware of a problem and already feels its ambiguity. At a funeral, for instance, the circumstance of death poses its own deeply felt dilemma. The preacher does not need to raise the problem; it is already powerfully present. Most of the time, though, it is up to the preacher to generate this ambiguity by kicking over the apple cart in the opening section of the sermon.
A preacher who begins a sermon by saying, ‘Today I want to talk about love” is, in Lowry’s view, “dull” because no suspense has been created at the sermon’s beginning.
Far better, he says, is this opening line: “Our problem is that so many times we extend our hand in love only to bring it back bruised and broken. To love is to risk rejection.” What makes that introduction better is that it creates imbalance; that is, it generates conflict by raising to the level of awareness an experiential problem about love. The listeners, he maintains, will want so much to see that conflict resolved they will listen to the rest of the sermon to discover how it all comes out. p. 146
Sermons, Lowry claims, should be designed around five basic movements, or “stages”
:I. Upsetting the equilibrium (Conflict). In this opening stage, which we have already described, the preacher poses the “problem” of the sermon in a way that can be felt by the hearers.
II. Analyzingthe discrepancy (Complication). In this stage thepreacher diagnoses the problem by exploring it in detail and articulating the reasons that it exists in human experience.
III. Disclosing the clue to resolution (Sudden Shift). Here is where the “Aha!” comes in Lowry’s form. In this stage the preacher supplies the clue from the gospel that provides the resolution for the problem. Lowry is quick to point out, though, that since the resolution comes from the gospel and not from “worldly wisdom,” this moment in the sermon has the air of surprise about it. There is a “reversal” of the hearers’ expectations, and this clue comes “by means of sudden illumination.”^^
IV. Experiencing the gospel. In this stage, the clue disclosed in the previous stage is fleshed out in terms of its fuller meaning, a stage in which the good news grasps the minds and hearts of the hearers.
V. Anticipating the consequences (Unfolding). In this final stage, the new discovery of the gospel is projected onto the future, “^^at— in the light of this intersection of human condition with the gospel—can be expected, should be done, or is now possible?” p.147
“Instead of the fivefold sequence, Lowry now describes a fourfold sequence {Conflict-Complication-Sudden Shift-Unfolding) with the “experiencing the gospel” element (the good news) still present but potentially occurring at any one of a number of places in the sequence. In both the original and the revised versions, though, Lowry has provided, instead of a deductive structure fashioned with points growing out of a central idea, a fluid suspense-driven master form for sermons. He calls this form “narrative,” since the four (or five) movements of the sermon work together like the episodes of a plot, but “narrative” is probably a misleading label.” p. 147