The Blanche Devereaux Rule
I love to hear a good sermon. On a personal level, as a Christian, a good sermon can inspire me and deepen my faith just like it can for anyone else. But on a professional level, as a preacher, a good sermon can give me scriptural or theological insights and demonstrate rhetorical techniques that I can then incorporate into my own sermons and share with my own congregation. We shouldn’t simply mimic or copy other preachers, but we can definitely learn from them. We can learn from the masters of the art; our preaching can be shaped and enriched by theirs. We can also learn from bad preachers too.
In addition to listening to ourselves preach, I think it is critically important for preachers to regularly listen to other preachers preach. I admit though that this can be a somewhat masochistic endeavor at times. There are so many bad sermons out there. It can be painful to sit and listen to another preacher spew pointless drivel or make (what we may consider to be) obvious theological or scriptural mistakes. But still, the practice of listening to other preachers’ sermons (even the dreadful ones) can make our own sermons better.
I have a little rule that has helped me in many areas of life. It has especially helped me to redeem many hours of listening to bad sermons. I like to call it the Blanche Devereaux Rule.
In season 6, episode 19 of the classic sitcom The Golden Girls, Blanche Devereaux, a notoriously “social person” is upset because a date has cancelled on her.
Blanche: For your information, I'm upset because I had a date, and he called and canceled.
Dorothy: Oh, honey, I'm sorry. Was it anybody special?
Blanche: Well, that's not the point. He might have taken me someplace where I'd meet someone who is.
Even if your date isn’t that special, along the way you may meet someone who is. That is the Blanche Devereaux rule in a nutshell. In the show, the joke is about Blanche being superficial, but in my life at least this simple rule of unintended consequences has redeemed a lot of time (and a great many dull sermons). Sometimes the preacher that you are listening to may not be that special, but that preacher just might take you to a place where you will meet someone who is.
A sermon may be dreadfully boring or uninspiring, but if in my ennui I am lead down a path where I have an idea, or an insight, or an encounter with the Holy Spirit that leads to a good sermon, then my time has not been wasted. I certainly don’t go looking to listen to bad sermons anymore than Blanche went looking for bad dates, but they inevitably happen. The Holy Spirit can still show up though. Sometimes I may feel convicted to preach the exact opposite of something I just heard, sometimes I may want to take a preacher’s idea and go in a slightly different direction, sometimes I may want to preach on a prayer in the back of the prayer book that I was led to out of desperation and boredom at what the preacher was saying. Who’s to say that each one of those instances isn’t the Holy Spirit at work? I believe it is, and that is good news whether you are standing in the pulpit or sitting in a pew. God comes to meet people. Sometimes it may be through your best efforts; sometimes it may be despite them. Sometimes your sermon may not be that special, but that doesn’t mean that someone sitting in the pews won’t hear one that is.
Take the time to listen to other preachers on a regular basis. For preachers working alone as the sole clergy in a congregation this can take some intentionality, but it is worth the effort. Naturally you will want to seek out the best preachers and the best sermons, but don’t be dismayed when you encounter those that don’t quite hit the mark. Remember the Blanche Devereaux Rule: the preacher you are with may not be that special, but he or she can still take you someplace where you will encounter the preacher who is.
