Back on the Horse

Last week's sermon was a clunker.

Virtually the entire book of St. Paul's letter to Philemon, paired with Moses' exhortation in Deuteronomy to "choose life" and the shockingly difficult message of Luke 14 - whoever does not hate father and mother ... whoever does not take up his cross and follow me ... whoever does not give up all his possessions ... cannot be my disciple.

Somehow, I ended up with at least one and a half sermons awkwardly stuck together. After more than a week of wrestling with it, smote on the hollow of my thigh, I limped to the weekly pastors' text-study group and read it. We all worked at dissecting the thing. There was some good material in there, all agreed, and some wisdom on making one sermon out of it.

I tried again, and this time I felt that the needed truth was beginning to rise out of the text in a way that I could bring to those who would hear it.

And on Sunday, I delivered a sermon. And it was dead on arrival. When I'm with colleagues and we talk about preaching, it seems we all know the feeling of delivering what we thought was a good healthy sermon, only to be painfully aware of the air going out of the room, of the thing dying under us even as we preach.

I use the word delivery advisedly, as a sermon is a living thing. It's dynamic. Creating it is one stage of the delivery, often complexly layered, and part of the role of those who preach is -- after having discerned the wisdom in the Word -- to bring order out of chaos. In a way, it's like baking bread.

After years of practice, most of the time when I bake bread, it rises when it is supposed to, rising a final time in the baking to yield a light, springy loaf with a good crust. On occasion, though, it just doesn't happen. Usually, the dough will communicate along the way: my hands will tell me that something isn't right.

Sometimes, I have a sermon that I'm not thrilled with; it's okay, but it's not great. I think it's going to be dead on arrival. But then the Holy Spirit blows through the pulpit, and the sermon lifts off, rising in the oven, and the ones who hear it are fed and nourished.

So here it is Wednesday - I've had a couple of days to lick my wounds and reflect on why my worst expectations were met for the sermon.

What will the congregation hear on Sunday? They'll hear a new sermon. One based on the lectionary texts for the week. And I'm actually excited about what I've crafted so far and hopeful about how it's shaping up. 

That's the thing about sermons (not exactly breaking news): they keep needing to be created. And once a week is not the maximum for everyone. I don't have any funeral sermons to craft. I don't lead a church that expects new sermons on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. One a week is usually all that's expected. 

Which means that, regardless of the clunker I delivered on Sunday, I've gone back into the heat of the kitchen and am shaping another sermon, another living, dynamic creation, and praying as always that the Holy Spirit will blow through the pulpit and let it rise.