Some Sundays, my first words feel like the first steps off a cliff, and the Holy Spirit lifts my utterances like an updraft and then sends me dive-bombing into the canyons of my people’s hearts. “How did you know?” they remark later. “How on earth . . . ?” Other Sundays are a grind, a fight for coherence from the first syllable to the last. On those days, I’m the one muttering, “How on earth . . . ?”
Most sermons, however, fall somewhere in-between a grinder and a glider (a “glinder” perhaps?).
Glide or Grind?
I wish I could better predict on Monday whether my sermon will glide or grind on Sunday. It’s the strangest thing: the wackiest week will precede the most wonderful sermon. The next Lord’s Day, after a week of faithful preparation, ardent prayer, undemanding parishioners, regular exercise, and 70-degree weather, the sermon falls flat. “A-ha!” you say, “that’s God keeping you honest or, at least, keeping you humble.” Fair enough. I need plenty of that medicine. However, I’m not convinced that’s the only explanation, since the pattern is hardly that predictable: good weeks produce good sermons, too, and vice versa.
It’s not entirely a surprise, though, when my words hit the atmosphere in fits and starts. Preaching a clunker is not like discovering a strange sound beneath the hood 500 miles from home. No, most preachers know what they’re in for the moment they pull out of the driveway on Sunday morning. They know whether the next few hours will be a glide or grind and will sometimes choose the radio station accordingly. The preacher’s wife knows it too. She can spot a grind-in-the-making simply by the way her husband snaps off the lamp Saturday night, the sigh he releases as his head hits the pillow, and the last few words they exchange before sleep. It’s all there, pinned in the darkness, on the edge of Sabbath rest.
Post-Sermon Soreness
On those mornings, when my sermon outline looks only vaguely familiar to my bleary eyes, honesty helps tremendously. As we gather to pray before the service, my fellow pastors may ask, “How do you feel about the sermon?” and I will tell them, “Just ok,” or “I’m excited about the second main point . . . and that’s about it.” Afterward, as microphones are stashed and belongings are gathered, one of my colleagues asks the same question, now in the past tense, and I return often to that word: grind. That’s not me complaining. That’s me feeling the work of the Holy Spirit or, better yet, feeling worked out by him. Post-sermon soreness is like tender muscles the day after the gym, reminding you that your body engaged in rigorous activity. Preaching involves the rigor of speaking for the Creator-God to his child-like creatures, beginning with your own toddler self.
As any pastor will tell you, God uses the grinders as well as the gliders to powerful effect. He never ceases to amaze in this way. The God who made the heavens rain bread still conjures feasts for his people out of seemingly nothing. Jesus still works miracles with the homiletical equivalent of five loaves and two fish. The Holy Spirit not only translates our prayers into what we really meant to say, he apparently offers similar upgrades for our sermons. I should mention (because I often forget) that every sermon—not just the grinders—requires this sort of divine intervention. Gliders do, too. Without the Spirit’s anointing, my best sermons are little more than spiritual confetti: a light shower of colorful words that explode with a bang but are quickly brushed off, swept up, and discarded. With the Spirit, however, my worst sermon may, in fact, make the difference between someone spending eternity in heaven or in hell. It’s that dramatic of a difference.
I suspect some will be mystified by this whole discussion, particularly those who don’t preach every Sunday. For the first three-quarters of my life, I never gave a second thought to the roller coaster my pastor dismounted in order to climb into the pulpit. Like most people in the pew, I was much more interested in the finished product than the process. I’m convinced that’s for the best: they’ve just heard the marvelous drama of redemption. They don’t need to hear my drama, too.
God Uses Grinders Too
Nevertheless, as I shake hands after the service, I can’t help but notice how uninspired some folks seem by that drama. Were it not for the donut table behind me, I’m convinced they would be running for the door. But mostly, I find that people are thankful for what I do. At the door, their handshakes are warm and reassuring, their words sincere and kind, their mere presence encouraging. They have learned to listen this way, these people who show up week in and week out, with charitable curiosity. They’ve always wondered why Elisha called for the bears when those boys taunted him or why Jesus shushed his disciples when they figured out who he really was. They want to know the end of that story from the sermon I neglected to finish. They’re eager to share how your words, together with other words from other places, are sending them out into the world with a renewed sense of God’s presence and purpose.
Any other time, these conversations would be just plain weird, veering suddenly into intimate places and then, just as suddenly, back out again into the wide expanse of current affairs and politics and college football. On the back end of a sermon, however, these meandering discussions announce that my sermon has landed, whether it launched as a grinder or a glider. They reassure me that the Holy Spirit is an expert junkyard picker, somehow salvaging God’s Word from my five pages of 12-point, Garamond font.
Preachers recognize they can’t hitch their hearts to these moments. People are too fickle and preachers too vain. But I suspect most will reluctantly admit how often God uses those Sunday debriefings for Monday morning motivation to ascend the cliff again, pray for the Spirit’s breath, and trust that one man’s grind is another man’s glider.