This is What Preaching Should Be
On Monday she selects the scripture for Sunday’s sermon. She reads it. She prays. She thinks. She reads what others have said about the text. She doodles. She frets. She puts the bible aside and goes about her business, but the passage is always on her mind. She becomes a watcher and a student of life. She is on the trail of new connections and new ways of seeing.
Tuesday is the day of pain and joy. She is sometimes broken by the passage and sometimes carried away to places unspoken. What is suggested by the text is beyond belief, like a madman’s story. She is out of her mind with hope. She is a dreamer and a wisher and a punch-drunk pilgrim.
She would never claim to have an absolute handle on scripture, but on Wednesday she thinks she has heard the story.
On Thursday she begins searching for a way to tell this story. She wants the bible to come alive for her friends the way it lives for her. She talks to herself a lot in the second half of the week. Her spouse has gotten used to this.
By Friday afternoon she must have her outline. The intro is huge. How will we begin this journey on Sunday, she wonders? The transitions must be smooth. She wants to tell one true thing and tell it well. She NEVER uses canned illustrations and cheap stories. God forbid.
On Sunday morning she arrives before the sun, stands in the pulpit and preaches to the darkness. When she is as ready as she will be, the work is done and the relief makes her giddy. She relaxes and peeps out the window to see if her friends have arrived. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.
This is the preaching life. This is the life she has chosen and the life chosen for her. Don’t ask her how both can be true. They just are.
The big moment comes, and she stands before her dear friends. She has not earned the right to speak, but she has been called to do so. She would NEVER presume to preach to others. Only those who have asked will hear her story.
Her little secret is that Richard Pryor taught her to preach, taught her to make them want to listen. She is funny but never tells jokes. She speaks first of her own journey with the bible that very week. She is transparent just beyond the point of comfort, when people start to look away. Careful, not too transparent - watch those boundaries. She lives on the razor edge between preaching and sharing.
She never, ever goes too long.
When the sermon is over, she does not want to make eye contact, but she does. She is ashamed because she is proud when she moves them. She has never been able to conquer her pride.
On a good Sunday, she can see that her friends have engaged the bible with her in an authentic way. What they do with this is out of her hands and perhaps none of her business.
For the first 5 years she believed she had done something very important when she delivered a good sermon. In year 6 she began to realize that sermons aren’t so important in the scheme of things. That year she said publicly that the woman watching the children during the service was giving the greater gift.
In year 8 she truly began to believe this.
She does everything possible to de-emphasize the sermon. She does not leave printed manuscripts in the foyer. She does not sell tapes. She does not post sermons on the church website. She is not strong enough to withstand that kind of temptation. Every sermon is a sand painting, created with all the energy she can muster and blown away on the winds of her voice.
They love each other, the woman and her people. They are in this together, for the long haul. Her best sermons are like the whispers of dear friends and lovers.
3:46:43 PM 
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