Thanks, I needed that! (Plus: In the right place at the right time.)

It has been so long that I had forgotten just how much impact writing a sermon can have.  When people go to church and hear a sermon preached, they can listen or not listen; they can tune in to the message or blow it off completely, try to understand what is being said or daydream.  The person who preaches does not have all those options.  The person who preaches has to stay awake and listen to what he/she is saying whether it is worth listening to or not.

Writing a sermon demands actually searching out the meaning of the Biblical passage or passages for that Sunday.  It has been a while since I needed to pull out the Greek New Testament.  The grammatical form of the word I wanted to look up demanded getting out the Sprachlicher Schlussel (need to know a little German to use it) to get the right spelling of the root word so that I could look it up in my nine huge volumes of the Theological Wordbook of the New Testament by Kittel.

Writing a sermon demands figuring out what a particular passage has to say that makes a difference in a person’s ordinary life.  A sermon is not a lecture but an attempt at providing a lucid enough communication so that a person can actually encounter the presence of a loving and forgiving God through that communication.  The preacher’s goal is to say enough to connect the Bible passage to people’s lives, then get out of the way so that the people listening can themselves engage the passage or passages.

To write a sermon with that in mind is a powerful experience.  If no one finds so much as a speck of value in it when I preach this sermon in ten days, I will have already gained enough to make it worth writing.

The Right Place at the Right time:

There was an unusual convergence this evening.  I went to the church to meet with a Confirmation student for whom I am Mentor.  I came early.  The first person who greeted me was Les.  After our initial greeting, he reminded me that just a short time ago, he was diagnosed with ALS.  He was in last Sunday’s prayers, so it is public information.  We had a long conversation in which the strength of his faith was clear as was his courage in facing a harsh reality.  Once again, the years of dealing with Mary Ann’s illness, and his awareness of that, opened a level of conversation that might otherwise not have come so readily.  I was grateful to be at that spot at that moment so that our conversation could happen.

I was tugged away from that conversation by a couple who told me about the fall yesterday and broken hip of someone who has come to be a good friend.  He is in his early 80’s and has some mobility issues, but up to now has been driving and able to walk unaided – slowly and carefully, but unaided.  At least for a while, that will no longer be the case.  He is one of two people whose funerals I have promised to do assuming I outlive them.  (Those two promises have the stamp of approval of the current Pastor.)

After a good (at least for me) time spent with the Confirmation Student in the Mentoring session, another Member shared with a couple of us information on the upcoming surgery of her Spouse.  There are unsettling questions until the surgery is done.  We could talk for a bit about the feelings associated with not yet knowing the answers to those questions.

Next came a conversation that was also very significant.  A fellow retired Pastor is caring for his wife who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.  The progression is creating significant challenges.  Many of those challenges are not unlike ones that Mary Ann and I dealt with.  Somehow it feels as if value is being added to Mary Ann’s and my life together when what we went through and how we dealt with it provide understanding and insights helpful to others.   We talked at length.

This has been a couple of days of tapping into 40 years of experience, using muscles that have been used very seldom since I retired three and a half years ago.  It remains to be seen whether or not those muscles still work.    Then comes the matter of whether those muscles will continue to be exercised in some way as my future unfolds in this new stage in life.  I continue to wonder how to respond to the Call to Live in the time I have left.

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