Does Your Sermon Bleed?
Somewhere along the way of my early career in ministry, it dawned on me that the central task of preaching is simply to tell the truth. Actually, to tell the truth twice. The first truth is the truth of our lives. Our hopes and disappointments, our accomplishments and set backs, our dreams and fears. What matters is that it is true – deeply, candidly, courageously true.
The second truth is God’s truth – the truth of God’s unrelenting mercy, grace, goodness and love. The truth of God’s acceptance of us just as we are. The truth of God’s profound and sacrificial love made manifest in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Both of these truths matter; indeed, are intimately related. Think about our everyday life. The one thing we want more than anything is to be loved and accepted for who we are. But unless you’re completely honest about who you are, you can never be sure your beloved actually loves you as you are, and not just the person you’re pretending to be or trying to be or have promised to be. But if you show yourself, if you allow yourself to be known – warts and all – then your beloved may very well discover he or she doesn’t love you. Because the truth is that we all do have warts. Each one of us is a combination of virtue and vice, courage and cowardice, glory and shame, good and evil. And we’re afraid to show that, afraid that if we’re completely honest we may be found unacceptable. Which is what makes vulnerability so hard, as it at least permits, if doesn’t just plain invite, the possibility of rejection.
Which is where the second truth comes in. For in Jesus we see that God does not reject us but, indeed, accepts us, loves us, cherishes us…enough to die for us. Without the first truth you can’t believe the second. Without the second truth we can’t overcome the anxiety of the first.
This means that preaching, above all else, has to be real. Or, as my friend and colleague Andy Root says, the sermon needs to bleed. It needs to bleed the same blood that we bleed, the same blood of hopes and fears that courses through each one of us, including the preacher. Only in this way, as Andy shares, will the sermon matter – to the preacher…or to us.
So watch Andy’s video, give some thought to the recent sermons you’ve heard or preached, and ask what it was that you most appreciated about them. My guess was that one of the consistent elements of the best sermons you’ve heard was that they told you the truth, the truth about ourselves and about God, a truth made manifest in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ and proclaimed again through the blood, sweat, and tears of preachers the land over.
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This is a great reflection on what needs to happen with a sermon, and I completely agree with the premise. My struggle is that a pastor has a much different relationship with her/his parishioners than a songwriter/singer does with those who listen to her/his music. I can’t tell the congregation some of my struggles because then it would get in the way of my being their pastor. My struggles with faith and my role don’t always line up with one another.
I just finished readin the book “Leaving Church” by Barbra Brown Taylor and she writes about her experience which mirrors what your response is to today’s blog post.
I’d highly recommend reading this book.
Sharing your struggles with your community, puts humanity around you.
Just my opinion.
Thanks for your comment, Adam. I think it’s a mark of maturity to distinguish between what can and cannot appropriately share with our congregation. But I’d also like to keep thinking about whether our doubts and faith struggles can be a part of our preaching. On the one hand, if you’re sharing your doubts because you need help with your own struggle and journey, I think there’s definitely the risk that the sermon ends up being less about the Gospel and more about your own needs. But if you can share them in a way that invites others to see that they are not alone with their doubts, that even the preacher struggles, then that might become an occasion where people are strengthened in their faith through your sharing. A friend of mine captures some of this – and the question of what to share in stories more generally – by saying that preachers should “show their scars, not their wounds.”
Thankyouthankyou.
(bled but one for each truth)
I found this post and this video to be very true. But one problem I often face is, “How can I speak the truth and not have it be cliche?” In other words, one truth is we’re broken and the other truth is God loves us. Great – but I’ve heard that before. And, I hope, so have the people in the pews. Part of preaching, of course, is saying what we’ve said before (We’re broken, but God still loves us) – partially because it’s the truth we’re called to proclaim over and over again and, in a practical sense, because repetition helps it stick in our listeners. On the other hand, of course, I wonder how many “bad” sermons are bad simply because they say something that’s been said before? In the video, Andy Root said the record producer didn’t want Johnny Cash to sing the Gospel song because he (Johnny) didn’t believe it. I also imagine that the record producer had heard that song before – and Johnny singing it wasn’t making it any more true. (“Don’t give me this ‘Jesus loves me’ stuff.”) I wonder how many people in the pews want to say the same thing to the preacher. “You don’t believe what you’re singing. Plus, I’ve heard this song before anyway.” People may yawn or nod off or criticize the sermon for being too long because there’s nothing new in what the preacher is saying. There’s no creativity in it. But, my struggle, I imagine, is like that of a musician (even Johnny Cash) who wants to write to write a real, honest, and true song: I can’t force myself to be creative. (For example, how did Johnny Cash come up with the second song he sang for the producer? I don’t imagine he was just winging it there in the studio.) I think creativity and inspiration are totally the work of the Holy Spirit. When they happen, praise be to God. When they don’t, well, I pray that God can still take this little bit that I offer – and, even if it doesn’t miraculously feed 5000 people, that it can at least feed someone. Because, really, it’s all I’ve got.
But back to the question, though, telling the truth is fine and good and it’s what we’re called to do. But how can you tell the truth without telling cliches? What role does the preacher have in making creativity and inspiration happen when the Holy Spirit seems pretty quiet? How do you “make it bleed” when you’re not feeling any life in it in the first place? Do you just pray that God can put life into these dry bones again or what?
I think preaching – honest, real, and true preaching – is one of the hardest callings there is. But when it happens, when the Holy Spirit blows through and both the preacher and the people are fed, when inspiration happens and creativity opens up new life and new worlds, it is also one of the most amazing and humbling callings too. I wouldn’t trade it for anything – but I really need God to keep me going in it, because I know I can’t do it by myself.
Thanks for your comment. A few things in response:
1) I think the creativity comes in by taking both the specific text you’re working with, the particular context in and to which you’re preaching, and your own journey and experience seriously. Often by allowing these three to interact you’ll come up with something distinctive.
2) On my last Sunday at my first congregation, I confessed that I felt that I had feared for several years that people would eventually come out of church and say “you say the same thing every week!” because, in a sense, that was true. After the service, one person said, “But you say it again each week because it’s so hard to remember and believe.”
3) In some ways I would think about each sermon along the lines of this: “Okay, so in light of this text, what one truth am I going to name that all of us know but fear talking about so that we can then hear God respond to it once and for all.
This all doesn’t, of course, negate your concern, but perhaps adds some perspective.
Not named specifically, but integral to the discussion about preaching truth are the qualities of being genuine and authentic. If the preacher is speaking out of his/her own experience, or sharing something real and vital to the preacher and the people, then relating this to a biblical text or core theological premise, the congregation usually can find some resonance in their own lives.
On the night Robert Kennedy was gunned down in California, our 4 1/2 son died suddenly. It was 1968, a time of racial strife all across America. You perhaps can imagine the turmoil that affected all of us who knew of both deaths. Ten days later I preached. It was the most difficult moment of my entire ordained ministry.
I was honest about my grief but did not wallow in it. Neither did I claim that either death was God’s will, although more than one clerical colleague tried to comfort me with that bromide. I tried to show how I was wrestling with tortuous questions, not settling for answers I did not beleive.
I spoke of the Cross as I never had before, identified what parishioners and friends did that helped, and also what did not help, how God was with me even when I was spirtually depleted. Out of the depths of my suffering people could see and hear the voice of a man, a husband and father being genuine and authentic…and still believing, believing God was present to me in the agony of tragedy.
John Fletcher, a priest and seminary professor, wrote a monograph in which he claimed a congregation, perhaps unkowingly, looks for authenticity in their pastor. They find it- or don’t- by seeing how the pastor deals with a crisis that affects the parish. That test of authenticity then can lead to how they regard what comes from the pulpit.
Oh my goodness, Bob! My heart goes out to you, even these 40+ years later. I can only imagine how difficult that was, how powerful your witness was, and how critical the reality and need for the cross was at that time. Blessings to you.
I think being a pastor has to be one of the hardest jobs ever. My step-daughter is a pastor and so we see church struggles from both sides. Although I find the posting here very inspiring, it disturbs me for one reason. The truths need to be reversed. God’s truth, God’s word and God’s message Always come first. Then our own stuff can go out there.
Today, seems like our needs, truths, agendas are put out there and then we “work in” what God has to say. Don’t mean to be harsh but just think perhaps a reversal of truth priorities is in order. I love Brown Taylor’s book but what I took away from it was a need to find God in a place that does not disguise Him through the human lens that is often clouded with politics, doctrine and “churchiness.” God is never to be assigned second position on anything, ever. We work from His truths, He does not work around ours.
If we put His truths first, I think it will clear up what needs to be shared from our own truths and how we do that for the healing, hope and inspiration of others. That’s the purpose of our story – to show His glory and remind others that no matter what “The Victory Belongs to the Lord.” This is true for us lay ministers as well.
Blessings,
llp
Bleeding in Colorado right now.
Thanks for your comment, Laura.
I should probably clarify. I’m not starting with “our truth” because I think it’s more important than God’s truth, but rather start with “the truth about us” because it clarifies our need for God. In classic theological terms, our truth is called “the law” which Luther described as a mirror that shows us unfailingly how much we need God’s grace. The law prepares us to hear, in turn, “the gospel,” the good news of what God has done for us and all the world in and through Jesus. The law, in this sense, is like a diagnosis, the gospel the prescription. Like a lot of prescriptions, it makes little sense apart from a diagnosis. “We’re going to operate.” “What?” “Oh, I forgot to tell you, you have a tumor.” Similarly, “you’re forgiven,” not only doesn’t make sense but is downright offensive if you haven’t first recognized that you need forgiveness.
Thanks, again, for writing.
3 points & a poem:
> People cannot tell for sure if what you say is true, but they can tell if YOU believe it.
> Somewhere I read that a sermon should make the hearer want to DO something, a challenge to remember every time you write a sermon.
> A sermon feedback survey in Willimon’s Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching includes the question: Is it clear that the preacher LOVES the congregation?
One of my father’s earliest sermons included the poem (variously attributed):
You are writing a gospel, a chapter each day
By the things that you do and the words that you say.
Men read what you write, whether faithless or true.
Say, what is the gospel according to you?