Writing sermons is hard (part 1 of many)

This is finally making its way through my thick head:

Preaching is hard.

I heard it and heard it, but I didn’t believe it. I sneered at my classmates who said they wrote their sermons on weekends. I actually visited at the home of one of my best friends, a priest, who trotted himself off to the bedroom on Saturday night to write his Sunday sermon, and proceeded to chew him out. And then I found out that one of the better Episcopal preachers I know actually writes his sermons on Sunday morning.

I’ll confess something, on behalf of my brethren clergy in the Episcopal Church: most of us can’t preach our way out of a wet paper bag. Some of us are too scholarly, still stuck in seminary. Most of us are too centered on sacraments, and consider preaching just one of the things of lesser importance that happens on Sunday, in contrast to the Eucharistic celebration, which is the biggest thing. (While, theologically, I can see their point, it’s also the kind of mentality that leads to moving the candlesticks an inch to the left to maintain the symmetry and scowling darkly at the acolytes because they’re wearing flip-flops under their robes.) These folks are lazy, I thought. They’re not taking this seriously. Many of us are afraid of talking in public, and have never mastered that fear. A few of us, Lord have mercy, think we know better than the average sinner in the pews, and have become pompous and arrogant and judgmental.

Maybe it’s having been dipped in the Baptist tradition for a few years, but I think the sermon is equally important with anything else the church does. That the 10-25 minutes I’m going to stand up and speak are the most important minutes I spend all week.

At Seminary, I read all the books on the homiletics professor's suggested list. He would mention a few more in passing during lectures or in conversation. Read those too. I currently have...um...three books on the art of preaching and three books of sermons sitting on my on-deck shelf.

This week I led chapel for the school. I led morning and evening prayer. I visited the sick and the shut-ins. I consoled the grieving friends of one of our own, who died after a long illness. I prepared for and taught two Bible studies. I scheduled visits for Eucharistic ministers. I bought the card stock for invitations to my ordination as a priest. But this is a week when I’m preaching, so none of that has given me a sense of accomplishment. Nothing has brought peace. The upcoming sermon hovers over all.


I had it in my head that I would have this routine. Based heavily on the advice of Fred Craddock, one of the great teachers of preaching. Monday: exegesis. Tuesday: main point and outline. Wednesday: draft. Friday: revision. Saturday afternoon: delivery practice. Sounds good, seen from afar. Worked, too, while I was in seminary. And then I went to a congregation and got busy. And then the senior pastor went and gave me Mondays as my only day off. Tuesdays are staff meetings, which, to my great irritation, eats half the day. Now my schedule is shot, and I haven’t even started.

Add to it that there’s really no finished product for a sermon. It’s pages of text, printed out and scribbled on, delivered into the open air of a meeting of God’s people. I don’t get to see it land. I don’t see results. When someone weeps or laughs (and when that might be a good thing), I take a mental picture to hang on to. When people write me notes about my sermons, I save them in a drawer. Seriously.

Most awful of all is knowing what I’m daring to do. First the Bible is read, Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle. Then a section of the stories about Jesus are read. The lectionary wizards are pretty good about stringing them together so that there’s a textual crescendo. And then I get up, poor damn fool in a round plastic collar, and dare to speak God’s word in the present day. Sounds crazy.

I’m not such a fool as to think that my words are going to save someone or bring life. That’s Jesus. Got that pretty clear. But that’s not an excuse for not giving it my best effort.

And here it is, Friday afternoon, not a word down on paper. My four-year-old is in extended after-school care, and I'm feeling more and more guilty about that as the clock ticks on. Tomorrow we have things to do. I can't just drop them and come back up here and write. Knowing that other first-year ministers struggle with this doesn’t help. I’ve read their blogs, too. The comments to their posts are usually jokes about procrastination and red-eyed Saturday nights.

Maybe it’s the season. Secular Christmas=be nice to other people. (and spend lots of money on stuff nobody’s going to remember next year) And I categorically refuse to preach banality. Maybe it’s the text. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. The one coming after me is greater than I; I’m not worthy to untie his shoes. Maybe I don’t want to preach repentance.


This is the thing saving me at the moment: advice from Eugene Sutton. Instead of making the preparation for preaching, and the preaching exercise, an expenditure of energy, instead, make it an energizing thing. This is what I was called out to do. This is what God takes delight in. To quote one of my top-5 favorite movies: I believe God made me for a purpose. For [missionary work in] China. But He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.

And I do. Sometimes. But not right now.