Birthing Sermons
Several years ago, I attended a lecture by the Pulitzer-prize winning poet, Mary Oliver. The lecture was sponsored by a local and highly respected writer’s group with many young, aspiring poets in the front rows. Ms. Oliver shared that she had been writing for decades but did not try to get published until she was in her forties because— in her own opinion—her craft had not been honed enough. She had not observed, smelled, touched, or marveled enough at God’s wondrous creation to have something worthwhile to write until then. Moreover, she emphasized, this was much more difficult than what needed to be the distant and second task, to get published.
Preachers share roughly the same two tasks with poets: to marvel, and then to write. And just as for the poet, to have marveled enough at God’s being and the divine gifts offered us is much more difficult than writing the sermon.
This is not to suggest that writing a sermon is easy, especially when Sunday morning seems to rush towards us at an ever-accelerating rate. Still, over the years, we become adept with our scripture studies. We find our “voice.” It is hard work, but there is a measure of routine that invites the Holy Spirit to have her say.
The harder part is what we undertake before the routine such as noticing the gift of grace offered in any one moment and place. Grace given to all of humanity, yes, but more specifically the grace that is given uniquely to the preacher not as preacher per se, but prior to that, simply as a child of God. This is where our most authentic and faithful sermons are birthed.
Before we stood in a pulpit, before we submitted to the weighty hands that were laid upon our heads to authorize us to speak on behalf of Jesus, before we became Christians through the centuries-old rite of initiation, before we or Jesus or Moses walked this planet, and even before the Earth was formed, there was God. There was God and nothing else.
Already internally loving, self-differentiated, and relational, the primordial Trinity yearned for us. And unlike the gods from ancient myths, the Trinity wanted us not simply to stand in awe of the Divine but, instead, to be a part of that Divine Life, to be a part of what is holy and good, compassionate and grace-filled. Moreover, it is not enough to be a part of the Divine; we’re asked to express it, to share it with everyone. As such, our task as preachers begins neither with ordination, nor with commentaries and exegesis, nor with computers and deadlines. It begins when we bask in God’s presence and soak in the truth that we are God’s own.
We Begin with What Is in Front of Us.
There are countless, excellent books written about the spiritual life and how to be with God by relying on prayer practices and disciplines. But at bottom, all the guidance comes down to this: Notice. Attend. Respond.
Notice. There is a turtle in a pond early at dawn. It cannot name “the silky water, or the enormous blue morning or the curious affair of his own body.”1 But Mary Oliver goes on to write that she is so busy writing an altogether different poem, “so busy/scribbling and crossing out,” that she almost misses this turtle. When she does notice it, she grasps that her pursuit of a poem was limiting her vision to see what was right in front of her. This revelation causes her in turn to realize that to write a poem has to begin first not with pen and paper, but with the inner work to develop as a poet. For her to do so in this moment is to notice the turtle, to allow it to pique her curiosity and make her wonder. She notices the turtle.
Attend. To attend awakens awe. Ms. Oliver gazes at this turtle in awe. She watches it lift “its head into the air/like a great green toe.” And then her gaze shifts. She sees through the turtle’s eyes. “What it sees/is the whole world/swirling back from darkness:/a red sun/rising over the water,/over the pines,/and the wind lifting…” She and the turtle were made by God. They breathe the same sustaining Breath. They see the same dawn renewed by their Creator. They smell the same pines and feel the same wind. They are linked as one in the One. To attend is to experience the wonder that there is more. There is morein the moment than this turtle.
Respond. That she nearly missed this moment because she was too busy writing another poem ironically became the inspiration for the poem quoted above, entitled, The Notebook. It was her response after she “turned around” and realized that at first she hadn’t really seen the turtle. But when she finally did look, then looked again, and then looked, she saw that “there is still time/to let the last roses of the sunrise/float down/into my uplifted eyes.” The Notebook is Ms. Oliver’s response to a nudge from the Holy One to be a child of God first, to notice a turtle, and then attend to it. Afterward, she responded as a transformed poet, with gratitude and humility, and a new, more faithful, more genuine poem. Therein lay Ms. Oliver’s unique encounter with the Holy in that moment.
For the Preacher in Us (if not also the Poet)
So, that’s it. Notice. Attend. Respond. We can begin with whatever is in front of us. An object, a memory, a word, a line from scripture. Whatever captures our attention, pay fixed attention to it then respond, if only to say to God, “Thank you.”
It is a simple process, and yet, paradoxically, it is exquisitely difficult. How come? If we engage this process single-mindedly and reverently, we become freshly aware that we are in the presence of the Holy One. The Holy One who is loving and gracious, yes, but also unpredictable and whose regard is piercing. We don’t know in what direction this encounter will head or where we’ll end up. In short, it’s exquisitely difficult because it makes us exquisitely vulnerable.
When we notice something and then pay attention to it, we open ourselves to be vulnerable to God and an as-yet unknown grace. This requires courage, indeed, because we’re hard-wired to resist vulnerability. We’re wired to protect ourselves, to dash to safety into the crevice of the mountain in hopes that God will pass us by. Yet, absurdly, we’re asked by God to ignore our survival instincts and rely on the courage provided. We’re asked to step out of the crevice and plummet into the deeps head first, to be deposited bare, face-to-face with God.
It is our vulnerability before God that is the greatest gift we can offer, as Christians first, and secondarily, as preachers. I don’t suggest that we preach specifically about our encounters with God. Those moments are too personal to be shared. What I do suggest is that just as the greatest gift we can offer our children is the backstory of a good marriage, the greatest gift we can offer our congregations is the backstory of our courage to plunge in, come what grace may.
The most faithful sermons we can offer are born from the courage to practice our vulnerability before the Lord our Maker. Every encounter with God is unique to each of us. To notice that God is at hand, to stop and attend to that presence and grace, then respond however we are called to do so, is to make ourselves vulnerable before God. That makes it our first and hardest, most fearful and yet most joyful task as Christians. As preachers, the second is to write the sermon.
Notes
1. Mary Oliver, “The Notebook,” House of Light. (Beacon Press: Boston, 1990), 44.
