the consuming word

its that time of the month again - sermon writing time.

the thing that annoys me about writing a sermon is that it MATTERS.

unlike the papers i wrote in school - they didn't matter. they just needed to be written so i could fulfill the 25% or 40% of my final grade.

sometimes it felt like grammar mattered more than content, that how i said what i said mattered more that what i was actually saying.

not that i wrote bad papers while i was in university. they were well done, and i put a lot of effort into them. but only one person read it (the prof) and writing them didn't affect my life.

the main thing is that when i took a break from writing papers, it was a break. i never thought of it. i went to bed and didn't think of the subject, i watched movies and ate food and stopped thinking about prayer and superstition or thomas muntzer.

with sermons, i cannot stop thinking about it. i lie in bed worrying about it. i make supper and ponder the meaning of the text. i pour over books and the internet trying to find examples that are meaningful and personal. i drive to and from work wondering if i am living out what i am saying in the sermon, if my example are clear, how to put all my thoughts together. i am afraid that i will come across as insincere instead of genuine, if people will think i am a phony. i kill my back and and eyes staring at my computer for days on end and feel like crying when at the end of the day i have only written 300 words that i will actually use in my sermon.

what i say in my sermon MATTERS. i am supposed to be nurturing people. challenging people. they need to relate to it - it has to be inclusive. it has to sound good - not just be read, but spoken. i need to write it to fill a need. and what i say in my sermon will be analyzed and critiqued, not just for marks, but for who i am as a person or faith and what i believe.

i cannot walk away; i can't seem to take a break. it follows me. i look at people interacting with each other and search for a way to include what they are doing into my sermon. i read the text over and over. i read the passages around the text. i memorize the text.

writing a sermon is so difficult because i can never escape. i am continuously caught by the consuming word.