Sermon - Pentecost 2008

Here's my Pentecost Sermon from last Sunday. To tell the truth, I was kind of disappointed with this one. It's okay, but not nearly as good as what I had come up with before I preached it. I had a very good sermon on my head which I then outlined on paper. I had the paper with the outline in front on me as I preached this. At a critical moment when I needed to make a big, insightful jump connecting initiation with love I couldn't remember what to say. I looked at the outline, but I couldn't find the right note on it to remind myself. Isn't that annoying?

So the sermon ended up being 10 minutes instead of 12. And it didn't quite come home in the way or with the spirit which I attended. How ironic on Pentecost! But that's the risk you take when your preaching relies so heavily on the proximal aid of the Holy Spirit!

I find that I can't really be critical of my own sermons to my parishioners. When I've said something in the past about a sermon that didn't live up to my own expectations, I usually get looks of alarm and dismay. I think part of the dynamic of pastoral preaching is that people look for things in the sermon they can grab onto, and criticizing it in retrospect deeply undermines the whole enterprise. I think it must feel like some bad faith. They know you're not perfect, but make a covenant to not point out your faults. So by criticizing your own sermons you break the good faith agreement that sermons will simply stand, in the public space, without criticism.

Of course, people will talk amongst themselves about your preaching, but that kind of private discourse is totally different from what they say the preacher! So I've learned that nothing good comes from criticizing your own sermons with parishioners.

Now, self-criticism is a totally different barrel of monkeys. There I believe we should be as critical and heartless as we care to be. In this case, what really frustrates me is that I was so in the spirit with this sermon a few hours before I gave it. Something changed on the walk from study to pulpit. I've experienced it before, and damn is it disconcerting!

It's ultimately a spiritual problem with a spiritual solution. Perhaps I didn't pray through the sermon enough? Perhaps I didn't spend enough time becoming convinced by own ideas? Conviction is the currency of preaching, and you have to believe what you are saying to the bone if you want to "land" it with your congregation. Sigh.



A direct link to the MP3 file...

Anyway, life goes on. I'm preaching again this Sunday, so I have yet another chance to say a meaningful Word to my people. Preaching is hard.

-t