Where the best sermons come from…

So I started this website and blog back in August. I had (and still have) a list of articles waiting to be written on a host of subjects related to preaching. It is now November, and this will be my first new post in two months. What happened?

Life.

A lot of life has been happening over the last couple of months, specifically the life of a rector. We have had six funerals, a wedding, a major parish outreach event that got cancelled because of flooding, a major parish outreach event that DIDN’T get cancelled but GOT flooded, an ongoing issue with vandalism and theft that has necessitated repeated calls to the police, a broken boiler, a leaking roof, and what else? I honestly struggle to remember at this point. This is of course all in addition to just the normal Sunday masses, weekly worship and bible study, Sunday School, Children’s Prayer Breakfasts and day to day administration and pastoral care.

Then there is my own life that has been happening right alongside parish life, with raising a toddler, dealing chronic pain and health issues (both my own and issues of loved ones), trying to take a vacation and visit family, and just generally dealing with the day-to-day stuff that we all deal with. Then the dog died. Sigh.

So, as I said, a LOT of life has been happening over the last couple of months. Please don’t take any of this as a complaint or a whine though, because it’s not meant to be. I am blessed. I have a wonderful parish with devoted and capable people. I have wonderful staff members and volunteers. For the first time in my ministry, I have a curate who is excellent and helps to share the workload of parish priestly ministry (including preaching). I have a wonderful husband (who understands this job because he is a rector too), a beautiful child, and family and friends that continually offer love and support. As I said, I am blessed. Many people have it MUCH worse, and everything I just listed above can be pretty much par for the course for any rector working just about anywhere. There is just a lot more to keeping a parish going than many people realize, even under the best circumstances.

So, the thing I haven’t had in abundance lately is much free time to think and write deep thoughts about the art of preaching. In fact, some of my own sermons over the last couple of months have been the proverbial “Saturday Night Specials,” when the first chance I have had to organize my thoughts has been when I finally crawled into bed on Saturday night. It’s not ideal, but sometimes it just is. You do the best you can. In seminary I imagined that my sermon preparation time would look a lot like Yentl pouring over the holy books, comparing translations and ancient commentaries for hours on end and getting into spirited debates with colleagues; or maybe like some dusty old professor sitting by a fire reading classic Christian texts from the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Well, it doesn’t quite work out that way, at least not for most of us. You can try to manage your time all you want, you can schedule sermon prep, you can delegate responsibilities and you can set good boundaries. These are all great things and you SHOULD do them. But just be prepared to hear the Devil’s laughter when you do. Because boilers and copiers and rainstorms and roof leaks and sickness and death DO NOT care about your schedule. Sometimes a Saturday night may be the only time you get. It’s OK. God works miracles with what we give him.

Now obviously I take preaching very seriously. I think that sermons can be critically important encounters with the God of scripture, and they always deserve more attention than we preachers are able to give them. We preachers have an obligation to make sure that what we are saying from the pulpit is accurate and scripturally defensible at the very least. But there is not, in my experience, a direct correlation between the length of time preparing a sermon and the quality of that sermon. I have heard plenty of terrible sermons that the preacher obviously spent a lot of time on. Preaching isn’t always easy, but sometimes we make it MUCH harder than it needs to be.

Here is what I really came here to say: the best sermons come from a lived faith. Period. Preachers who I know to have a deep and vibrant faith that infects their entire lives tend to preach better sermons. Your personal faith will affect the quality of your sermons more than the amount of time you spend staring at your computer screen. And by “personal faith” I don’t mean your personal opinions or unique interpretations of scripture. I mean your faith in Jesus Christ; Your faith in the Resurrection; Your faith in the truth of the Good News. That faith is where good sermons come from, not gimmicks or clever jokes. Naturally I believe that theology matters, scripture matters, and history matters, but it is crucial to remember that this is a sermon, and not a term paper that you read out loud. Knowing Greek is great, but it is no substitute for really knowing Jesus. Preachers who look for and find Jesus in their daily lives tend to be better at helping their congregations do the same. That is why the best sermons come from the lived faith of the preacher.

What this means in practical terms though, is that good preaching doesn’t take less preparation time, it takes more. If your own personal lived faith has a direct effect on the quality of your sermons, then everything you do to strengthen and nurture that faith becomes a part of sermon preparation. Saying the daily office and/or engaging in some form of regular, prayerful scripture study (that is more than looking at the readings for Sunday), that’s sermon prep. Seeing Jesus at work in the lives of your congregants, that’s sermon prep. Reading books that nurture your faith and deepen your understanding of God, more sermon prep. Going for a walk to clear your head and pray for guidance, sermon prep. Trying to find God in the midst of broken boilers and dirty diapers, yes that is sermon prep too. Everything I do to nurture and strengthen my own faith is sermon prep, even if on the surface it has nothing to do with this week’s gospel reading.

I don’t encourage anyone to wait until Saturday night to start writing Sunday’s sermon. Having specific days and/or hours during the week where you regularly sit down and study Sunday’s scripture readings either alone or with colleagues is a good thing and preachers absolutely SHOULD do it. But four or five hours with a text and a commentary is no substitute for a life lived in active relationship with the God of ALL scripture. The best sermons come from the faith that is already alive in you. So, say the daily office, study scripture regularly, and read (or listen to) good books whenever you can. Look for God in everything you do, no matter how mundane. Pay attention to nurturing and feeding your faith in God first and good sermons WILL come. That is where the best sermons come from.