Wednesday, December 19, 2007

On Preaching

“Every preacher has a different routine for preparing a sermon. My own begins with a long sitting spell with an open Bible on my lap, as I read and read and read the text. What I am hunting for is the God in it, God for me and for my congregation at this particular moment in time. I am waiting to be addressed by the text by my own name, to be called out by it so that I look back at my human situation and see it from a new perspective, one that is more like God’s. I am hoping for a moment of revelation I can share with those who will listen to me and I am jittery, because I never know what it may show me. I am not in control of the process. It is a process of discovery, in which I run the charged rod of God’s word over the body of my own experience and wait to see where the sparks will fly. Sometimes the live current is harder to find than others but I keep at it, knowing that if there is no electricity for me, there will be none for the congregation either.”

(Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, p. 80)


Maybe the most descriptive quote of how I feel about trying to find yourself in the text I have ever read.

My goal is to inhabit the text. To tabernacle there. To listen to it speak to me and call my name. If it's a passage where a biblical character exists, then I want to know everything about that person and how he received what God had for him.

It is a helpless feeling until it happens. To still be searching for the voice of the text late in the week can raise the blood pressure and make one frantic. The hardest thing to do then is to slow down and listen.

The text needs to capture me, so I can turn it around and let it loose on Sunday.

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