I have just finished delivering a series of three sermons at the church my husband and I attend. What a privilege! But it was also a lot of work… I’ve begun to understand the necessity of a pastor’s living into the text he/she is going to preach, to truly experience its meaning before being able to encourage others to take it into their heart and make it part of their life. It’s a slow process; it takes time to hear the Holy Spirit speaking into my life, helping me understand the meaning he has for me in these particular words.
The process reminds me of how I shop sometimes. I get it in my head that there is something I need to buy, a pair of shoes for example, and I know generally what I want. So I keep my eyes open. Whenever I am near a shoe store I go in and take a look around to see if they have what I think I am looking for. Not this one? I keep looking. Not in a hurry, not frenzied (at least not yet), just seeing what’s available that might fit what I’m looking for. Eventually, I find the right pair of shoes and buy them. To someone shopping with me, it may look like an impulse buy, but they don’t know that I have been living with the idea of those shoes for quite a while, constantly looking, thinking, reevaluating my idea until I find the answer to my shoe needs.
Preparing just one or even a series of sermons seems to be a lot like this. I know the passage on which I will be preaching and I read it many times. But I also meditate on it; I roll it around in my mind and heart, looking for and beginning to savor its meaning. The meaning begins to come clearer the more I interact with it—thinking, praying, reading, listening. Just like my looking for my shoes, this can’t necessarily be accomplished in a week! I need to live with my “shoe concept” for a while before I find it!
This is ideal. I know that it doesn’t always happen this way. Sometimes I never find the right shoes and I just need to buy them now because I need the shoes now. But as far as it is in my power, I want to be able to shop, that is to read, to meditate, to study and to let the words (and Word) of the passage sink into my heart and spirit before I need to put fingers to keyboard.
