I spent all of last week on study leave, reading the Bible and trying to get better at preaching.It was a great week. I love the group of people that I spent the week with--passionate, articulate, faithful souls. I love the exercise of sitting with Biblical texts and talking them through--finding the "nuggets" that shimmer in any sea of black words on a white background. I love dreaming of sermon ideas to preach...
But I return to the world and I'll be darned if it doesn't take about 24 hours for the whole thing to come crashing down! That beautiful calm of the study leave is gone. The notion that I get the Bible--that I get Jesus--or what it means at all to believe or to follow--all of it disintegrates.
Returning to worship at Marble this past Sunday, I struggled to listen to what was, in most respects, a rather remarkable sermon. I found myself doing nothing but critiquing it internally. I found myself arguing against it, pulling apart pieces that didn't make sense to me. Instead of being enriched, I felt angry.
And now, I turn that sharp criticism on my own preaching--as I face the challenge of standing up and speaking to a congregation Wednesday night who will gather to hear something... some thing... that resembles good news. And I've got nothing of the sort....
I'm talking on the subject of the soul, which, it turns out, is a brutally hopeless subject to try and speak on. The best sources I've consulted are pretty sure that no such a thing exists. Wish I'd have remembered that when I chose this sermon series 3 months ago....
I am totally humbled and defeated by the task that lies ahead. Every time I approach a sermon, I find myself in a Jacob-and-the-angel-wrestling match... struggling in the dark with an unknown foe. Maybe the fact that I preach at all is a sign that I, too, am wrestling at least to a draw with my subject matter.
But in the meantime, the preparation feels like it destroys me... in the days leading up to my sermons, I feel like an obsessive, humorless, jerk. A sleepless, obsessive, humorless, jerk.
Am I alone in feeling relieved at this post? David it seems so effortless for you sometimes. I am glad that you struggle as we non-clergy folk do as well. The pressure of standing up and saying something "important" every week must be great. You pull it off so well though. I think the beauty lies in the struggle for something great.
ReplyDeleteBilly is not alone. I am not yet at the point where I need to come up with regular sermons, and yet each time I have had that responsibility--in church or in class-- my perfectionist over-acheiver self chimes in to tell me that whatever I say really has to touch people, really has to mean something, really has to be the best sermon I could possibly come up with. It is overwhelming, stressful, and exhausting. And I think it also causes me to leave little room for the Spirit to work, which is what I'm trying to do in the first place!
ReplyDeleteThe pastor at the church I attend now often begins his sermons with the familiar prayer that the words of his mouth and the meditations of his heart be acceptable in God's sight. But then he adds that if he speaks truth, let it be heard and understood, and that if he speaks untruth, let it simply fall away. He gives room to himself to make mistakes and say the wrong thing when he preaches. It is something I will try to take with me into the pulpit.
Wow! I'm sorry to read the last paragraph! Talk about turning the knives in on yourself ...
ReplyDelete