The Simple but Misunderstood Key to Keeping Listeners Engaged: How to "Show" Rather than "Tell"

Photo by jonathan ocampo on Unsplash

Consider this paragraph coming up for the First Sunday of Lent, Matthew 4:1-2:

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’

Imagine you are Jesus. What do you see?

• You are led by the Spirit. What does the Spirit look like? What does being “led” feel like?

• You are led into a wilderness. What does the “wilderness” look like? How does it smell?

• You are approached by “the tempter.” What does the tempter look like? Sound like?

• The tempter tells you to turn “these stones” into bread. What do the stones look like? How do they feel in your hand?

• You’re famished and can imagine how good it would be to eat. If the stones were turned to bread, what would they look like? How would they taste? Smell?

Typical Telling Descriptions

Here’s how many might answer:

• The Spirit is a presence who is guiding me.

• The wilderness looks dangerous, frightening.

• The tempter looks confident, arrogant, very sure of himself.

• The stones look like bread.

• The bread looks warm, like it’s right out of the oven.

Do notice what’s missing in these descriptions? What was actually seen, felt, heard, tasted, smelled.

What’s listed above are interpretations of what was imagined.

For one nanosecond, a picture was held in the imagination, and in the next, the mind interpreted it.

Rather than describing the specific details of what the senses perceived, the preacher fast forwarded to the vague description of general meaning.

How to get Specific

It’s often hard work for adults to get literal when it comes to using the five senses. We tend to leap from image to meaning so fast we don’t recognize what we did.

We think we know what we mean when we say “the tempter looked arrogant.”

But when pressed on the question, “What does ‘arrogant’ look like?”, preachers’ mouths open and close without speech. They smile a bit sheepishly, eyes dashing back and forth between the questioner and the middle distance, eyebrows slightly raised.

The answer is often, “Uhh, you know. Umm, arrogant, cocky, sarcastic.”

(Do you see what I did there?)

To answer the question “What does it look like?”, get “into the weeds” with details: what do your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin perceive?

For example:

• What is the person wearing? What color? What fabric? What style?

• What is their posture? Their facial expression?

• Are they moving? If so, what are they doing and in what fashion are they moving? Let your verbs do the heavy lifting. And move beyond the easy verb (walking, running) to the more precise verb (strolling, sprinting, tearing, strutting, etc.)

• If your character tuned into the setting, what would they hear? Grass rustling? Dishes clattering? Vendors hawking their goods? Vultures crying? A mother shushing? (See all the work those verbs are doing?)

• What does their skin feel? Layers of scratchy wool? A warm breeze? A slight burn from the mid-day sun? The rough touch of a calloused hand?

• What’s happening in their mouth? Are they parched? Dying for a bite of that crusty loaf? Feeling the sting in the back of their throat after a full sprint? Rendered speechless by the constriction in their throat?

Keep coming back to the fundamental question, “What do your senses perceive?” Describe the scene using all five senses.

You don’t have to tell us the tempter is arrogant when you show us his swagger instead.

Examples

The bread offered:

The passage tells us the tempter suggested Jesus turn the stones into loaves of bread.

In the “telling” example above, the preacher suggests the bread “looks warm, right out of the oven.” But there are dozens of breads that could be described as “looking warm, right out of the oven.”

And I’m guessing that general description doesn’t get your mouth watering.

But what if I get more specific? What if I make it a flaky, golden croissant? With steam rising off its buttery layers? Or a tart, crusty loaf of sourdough?

Mouth watering now?

It’s the specific sensory details that elicit a response.

The Tempter

In the passage, we’re simply told there’s a tempter.

The preacher in the “telling” examples goes further to describe the tempter as “confident, arrogant, and very sure of himself.”

But what do these words look like? Sound like? Feel like?

Perhaps there’s an air in his gait. A chin lifted so the eyes are always peering down. A hint of sarcasm in each word. A voice dripping with derision.

Perhaps it’s easier to start by looking at the opposite. An arrogant tempter probably isn’t avoiding eye contact, dressed in rags, or bowing his head, right?

Instead:

The tempter relaxes with one foot crossed in front of the other, a shoulder leaning against a tree. A long, silver knife scrapes back and forth over a stick, its point already needle sharp.

The suit is tailored, an opalescent steel gray wool. He wears Italian leather shoes made to match. A red silk tie seems to smolder against a crisp shirt of white Egyptian linen. Though it’s 115 degrees in the shade, there is no sweat on the brow—but there is a curl to the lip.

Are you with me now? Curious where this scene is going? Wondering how these power dynamics may play out?

Why does it matter?

The more your audience feels what is happening—sees it like a movie on the big screen—the greater the impact of the story. And the less abstract the Bible and your sermons will be.

It’s one thing to say Jesus was tempted with food after 40 days of fasting.

It’s another to feel the sacrifice when he turns down that flaky croissant with steam still rising from its golden, buttery crust. Especially when we hear his stomach rumbling in anticipation of his first bite in 40 days.

It’s one thing to say Jesus encountered a tempter.

It’s another to imagine a successful power-broker dressed in the finest attire, whose upturned nose and rod-straight spine dare Jesus to disagree with his impeccable logic. Especially when Jesus is dusty. When his eyes have dark circles from nights of fasting and prayer. When he’s been disconnected from any human contact for over a month and has grown immune to his own stink. Maybe this tempter knows what he’s talking about after all. It certainly looks like his decisions are working out better for him.

If you want your audience to feel the story you’re telling, to truly understand the depths of the struggle, conflict, temptation, or choice, you must draw in their senses.

Practice this week.

In your sermon prep, put yourself in the scene and brainstorm lists of sensory details you notice. Then choose the handful that will best set the scene and draw your listeners into the drama.

You may find them talking and thinking about your sermon long after it ends.

They may just recognize that feeling of desire or inferiority the next time they’re tempted by a successful, fast-talking, power-broker of their own. And realize it’s fool’s gold. So they can find the inner strength to follow Christ’s example.

Which is, after all, the aim.