Looking for Hope

Sunday's sermon is up.  The text is here.  

Over the past year my process for writing a sermon has been changing.  When I first started, I wrote my sermons way in advance and practiced them over and over to get them perfectly polished for the day.  Once I was ordained and in full time ministry, that ceased to be practical, but I always went to bed on Saturday night with a sermon written.  I couldn't sleep otherwise.  However late, I would finish it.  I might tweak a line or two on Sunday morning or during delivery, but basically what I had on Saturday night was what was what it was going to be.  

My process has been evolving into a more stressful process that involves less sleep.  Now on Saturday night, I frequently have something written, but it's not quite right.  And then on Sunday morning at 5:30 am, usually in the shower, I get the inspiration for fixing it.  Then I scramble to edit it in time for church.

This past Saturday I went to bed without a sermon.  Not because I hadn't been working on it for most of the day or thinking about it for most of the week.  It just wouldn't come.  I had too much to say.  I'd seen the movie, Just Mercy, that afternoon and wanted to include it along with so many things going on in the world.  Trying to figure out how the scriptures were connected and could provide guidance, comfort, challenge, or insight into these events.  Tossing around big abstract words like hope, justice, mercy, and peace, and struggling to make them concrete without being partisan or suggesting there's one right way to achieve them.  I hear my brother and sister preachers suggesting we have to address things going on in the world specifically and directly, but I have to be careful that I'm not just preaching the Gospel according to Lauren.  And I want people to be able to hear the Good News, whether they agree with me on certain issues or not.  It's a real wrestling match.

So on Saturday night at 11pm, I realized I was getting nowhere.  What I had was boring.  I didn't know what my point was, and I knew I wasn't going to get it finished.  I needed sleep.  I went to bed, set my alarm even earlier, and actually slept.  When I woke up I said, "Okay, God, we've gotta get something written."  And, as usual, in the shower, it started to become clear.  I rushed downstairs to start writing.  But there wasn't enough time, and I really needed to be dressed to go to church.  I hit print, and took what I had, but there wasn't an ending, and I hadn't had time to read over it.  I had a selection of different paragraphs at the end, not sure where they would go.

When I preached at 7:30am, it felt like a mess to me.  The order was all wrong.  I did my best to tie it all together, but then I hurried to my office before the next service to fix it.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time, so I was running down the sidewalk at 9:14 to get to the 9:15 service.  Somehow God must have played a little with time, because I was walking in the door at 9:14 and by 9:16 I had put the sermon in the pulpit, gone to the sacristy and vested, come out to thank the rector for waiting for me, and was standing in the back ready to process.  "This is too stressful, God," I prayed several times over the course of the process.  

But this is what I've learned.  Even though sometimes I worry that I'm just satisfying my ego with all this last minute polishing, trying to make the "perfect" sermon, the truth is that the rewritten versions are SO MUCH BETTER than what I have before I go to sleep.  Sadly, it sometimes takes me the whole morning to get to a coherent message with a solid point.  And no, preaching extemporaneously is not the solution.  I'm not a straightforward thinker, and though I can kind of wing it on mid-week services, I ramble and repeat myself over and over and over when I try to preach without a manuscript.

My point this week is about hope and placing it in God.  Apparently, from the feedback I've received, it was a message people needed to hear.  If I hadn't been willing to keep working on it, I wouldn't have gotten there.  I'm grateful that I'm learning to hear the Holy Spirit on Sunday morning, even though I sure wish she would show up a little earlier in the week.  But I'll take it and give thanks for the opportunity to let God speak through me.

Slow Thinker: Blessing or Curse

You've heard of slow cookers?  Well, my brain is a slow thinker.  If you're looking to me for Instant Pot answers or explanations or ideas, you've come to the wrong place.  Things have to simmer quite a while before I figure out what I think.  Now before y'all start fussing and telling me that I think just fine and I don't need to be so hard on myself, this isn't a criticism of my brain; it's an observation.  I've observed that I think slowly.  Sometimes it's a blessing, and sometimes it's a curse.  Sometimes it simply is.

I've always been careful about decisions large or small in my personal life.  Christmas shopping takes me forever because I have to go around to all the stores and see what the possibilities are before committing to purchasing something.  When I was younger, back when all shopping happened at the mall, I had to visit every store to see what they had.  Once the circuit was complete, I would double back, finally certain of what I wanted to buy.  Christmas shopping with me is a lengthy process.  Online doesn't help much - items lay stranded in my cart for months before I'm ready to hit "purchase." Sometimes the purchases never get made because I simply can't decide.  That's when the slow thinking is not helpful.

With big decisions I'm also slow.  I don't know until I know.  All the possibilities have to marinate before I'm ready to put the meat on the grill.  Whether I'm buying a car, deciding which seminary to attend, choosing my health insurance, or discerning call, I need time.  This can be frustrating to those around me, and even to me, but I can't decide until I've weighed the variables, considered the options, consulted with wise advisors, listened for God, and then waited until I know.  How do I know?  I can't tell you.  But when I know, I know, and when I finally do know, I can act pretty quickly, sometimes to the surprise of others.  Until then it's waiting for the slow cooker to finish.

Slow thinking can be a real challenge in ministry.  I don't enjoy teaching much, because people always have questions, and I rarely have quick answers.  Newsletter article writing, sermon writing, program planning, announcement creating all need to be done at a faster pace than I easily move.  And being Acting Rector at Bruton this year highlighted how slow my brain is.  Each day issues and questions came flying at me faster than I could process them.  Unlike Katniss in The Hunger Games, my reaction time is slow - I wouldn't have made it far in those contests. I learned to step it up a bit, but to the end, I continually felt like I was moving through Jello when I needed to be a Nascar driver.

Our world is fast moving, and technology has made it so much faster.  You snooze, you lose, as they say.  There's nothing wrong with slow cookers or crock pots - they perform very valuable services.  We need more slow thinkers - or perhaps more slow responders.  Impulsively saying or posting every thought that comes in our minds doesn't seem to be enhancing the global conversation.  But in a world of Instant Pot, the slow thinkers are often too far behind to contribute.  I love to listen to witty banter, and sometimes I really wish I could make strong points in a debate, but by the time I've thought of what I want to say, the moment has passed. Seems best to observe from the sidelines though that can mean my voice isn't heard.

Most of the time I don't mind being a slow thinker.  I like that I take time to consider decisions and I don't jump into things hastily and then have to back out with regret.  Giving food time to marinate is a good thing - brings a lot of flavor to what you're cooking.  While the cook is out getting things done, the pot simmers along, ready at the end of the day.  I admit that sometimes, I wish I could just dump the options in the Instant Pot and have the decision made quickly!  Better yet, how bout the Microwave?

When I'm the person in charge, being a slow thinker often feels like a curse, but overall, I consider it to be a blessing.  In 2020 I sense that some of the things that have been simmering on the back burner of my brain may be just about done.  I'm eager to see how they'll taste!

Deus Nobiscum: God With Us

On the First Sunday of Advent, I preached this sermon.  The text is here.  In it I spoke about my experience in the theatre with deus ex machina or "God from a machine" who descends from on high to fix all the problems.  I made the case that instead of that Greek tragedy kind of a god, Christianity has deus nobiscum, Emmanuel, "God with us."  On this 8th day of Christmas, this first day of a new year, this first day of a new decade, I think I could preach the same sermon.  God is not coming to magically resolve all of our issues with the wave of a magic wand (as much as I often wish that were so.)  Rather, God is here with us, in the midst of our suffering, in the midst of our joy.  God is here with us, loving us, equipping us, crying with us, and rejoicing with us each and every day.  May each and every one of us know God's presence with us and do our part in this new year to be the people God created us to be.