What is Preaching?

I started preaching in early summer of 1989. I was 28 years old and had just become the pastor of two small rural Presbyterian churches in South Carolina. After 17 years of preaching each Sunday in three different pastorates, I have shared the pulpit with the Reverend Sonya McAuley-Allen since the summer of 2006. With Sonya moving at the end of this month, I will be preaching every Sunday again as before.

I have stacks of handwritten sermon notes from over the years. Even though I don't hand=write anything else, I still hand-write most sermons. It is just an old habit. One thing has changed in the past couple of years. Unless I think it was a particularly good sermon, I simply throw away my notes when I am done. I had previously kept all sermon notes. Over the years, a sermon has come to seem less about the notes written in preparation, and more about the communication (or lack) when preached.

And,sermon notes,even when I am preaching, don't seem like "the sermon" anymore. The notes are preparation, but not the only preparation for preaching. There is the readiness of the heart and mind and openness to the moment of preaching. For me, right now, I am hoping to communicate in a very basic way with those who are gathered with me for worship. I don't want to let worship services come and go without making a sincere effort to speak a true word. And, truth to me is beginning to seem like something very simple, even primitive. The many thoughts have to give way to one thought; the jumbled feelings have to give way to a peace that can hold all feelings.

When I reach this way of being during preaching, something good seems to happen. When I don't, even the most interesting ideas seem to fall not only on "dead ears," but to rise from a "dead heart."

Of course, there is always "life" in me - in my heart and soul and body. But, that "life" when cut off from the life of God, has a deathly character to it. Life with the character of death is anxious life, bitter life, envious life, despairing life. Life in union with God's life is creative life, peaceful life, hopeful and purposeful life.