Fun with Preaching

The last few months have been a bit of an adventure for me. Still unemployed, but suddenly getting a lot of random invites to preach or speak at various locales. Preaching has never been the greatest of my ministry gifts, but I would say that I`m competent. I was never sure exactly what I had to offer as a preacher, except perhaps a day off for the pastor of a particular congregation!

However, recently I`ve begun to notice some things about the way I preach, or rather, about the types of responses that I`ve received following my sermons. One, I am often approached by older women who respond to my messages with quite a bit of emotion. Two, I hear comments about how the hearer has gained a better understanding of the biblical story. 

I grew up hearing primarily male preachers, but occasionally female ones as well. It wasn`t uncommon to have a female pastor speak and my family has never taken issue with women in ministry so I grew up thinking that we didn`t have a female pastor at our church because none had applied. Now, the situation is far more complex than all that, but suffice it to say that I didn`t experience a great deal of tension surrounding women in ministry during my childhood and teenage years. And I don`t think a whole lot about the fact that I`m female now when I`m preparing a sermon either. However, the last time I preached I remember thinking, wow, these are interesting sermon analogies and stories that I`m sharing. I`ve never heard stories like this from the pulpit before. I had no sports analogies, no stories about my children or my spouse, no stories about construction or building projects and certainly no Simpsons references. And I started to wonder about what I had to offer as a preacher, not in terms of my gifts of oration, but in terms of my life experience. I am single, I am female, I am...me. I have a particular history, a particular family, and particular experiences that shape how I interpret scripture, that shape how God speaks to me and how I am led to present the Word of God to others. And perhaps who I am, speaks to particular persons in the pews. 

At least, this is what seems to happen. Almost every single time I have ever preached I have been approached by older widows (usually over 80 years, either members, or visitors) and thanked profusely for my message. Many have tears in their eyes, many comment on the sermon content, or how they have been challenged, or how they appreciated the way I used the biblical text. I get responses from others as well, but for some reason I seem to speak to the experience of older, single, women. At first I thought, wow that`s a pretty small demographic to be addressing in sermons, shouldn`t I be aiming for a broader audience. And then I thought, hell no! These are cherished members of our congregations. Members that are often overlooked. I wondered how many sermon illustrations they had listened to over the past 85 years that didn`t speak to their experience and I thought surely these women should also be able to hear the Word of God in terms that resonate for them. 

To clarify, I am not intentionally trying to speak to only this group of people. In fact I put a pretty concentrated effort into trying to listen to scripture through the lens of many different people when I prepare a sermon. But if who I am connects with these women, then I am only to happy to serve as God`s conduit through bun baking analogies, something I`m rather passionate about. 

The second comment I have heard occasionally after I preach is that the hearer has a better understanding of the biblical story. And I have to say that I have never experienced any comment that made me feel prouder of the work that I had done. I was taught to preach starting with a text (even better, a story)...always. This is not to say that one can never do a sermon series on a particular topic, but that when drawing out the message that God has for us  we always start with the text, not with what we want the text to say. I love the analogy that I once heard from Thomas Long at a preaching seminar, that the act of preparing a sermon or engaging the biblical text is like going into a strange cave. The preacher goes in, wrestles a bear, and then if she lives to tell the tale, stands behind the pulpit on Sunday morning and bares (no pun intended) witness to what she has seen and heard. This is how I experience the act of preaching.

I am passionate about the biblical text and believe it can speak powerfully to our whole being in profound ways...but only if we tell it. There is no way for God to speak to us through the biblical narrative if we leave it lying there, black words on white pages propped up on the Communion table. Some of the most glorious sermons I have heard have come from preachers who loved the biblical story and allowed it to take root in them. They did not have the funniest jokes, or the most fabulous analogies. What they had was the Word of God, the living and dynamic biblical narrative and the willingness to allow it to speak through them in authentic ways. 

I don't aspire to be a fabulous preacher. I don't feel that God has particularly called me to a preaching ministry and as I said earlier, as a preacher, I am merely competent. But I do know that I have been called to tell God's story and in this particular time and in this particular place it seems that that means being a traveling preacher. Somebody get me a horse.