My Dear Shepherds,
One Sunday a long time ago, in the middle of the third point of my sermon, I lost my nerve. On Friday and Saturday doubts about the usefulness of the message had muttered darkly in the back of my mind, but I’d pushed ahead, ever the good soldier. But Sunday at about 11:40 a.m. my faith fled the field! My growing anxiety peaked. This is terrible! What am I doing up here?? Outwardly I kept preaching (or more accurately, talking) on autopilot. Perhaps no one in the congregation noticed but inwardly I was looking for a shortcut to the benediction.
I had lost faith. Not the Faith, not faith in the Word of God, but I lost my confidence that God was speaking through me in that hour. It’s the loneliest I ever felt in the pulpit. It was kind of a spiritual panic attack.
Few in our congregations realize that preaching—heralding the Word of God from Scripture—is not just the week-after-week product of Bible study, good outlines, and the chutzpah to talk in front of a crowd. They take for granted the nearly preposterous belief that God himself will speak through the likes of us, no less a miracle than if he spoke to them out of a burning bush!
That morning after the benediction I beat a hasty retreat down the aisle and through the foyer to my study without so much as a nod at an usher. I pulled the door shut, locked it, and crumbled. Another service would start in a few minutes, and I didn’t know what to do. There was no time to remodel the sermon so I did what you would do—I begged God to make his Word clear from what seemed like the jumble of my sermon.
It was a defining experience. I realized as never before that it isn’t preaching if I’m not actively trusting God to speak through my weakness. Preaching is, by definition, an act of faith so some Sunday’s doubt will lurk in the shadows. Feeling vulnerable is part of the package. It’s one reason why preaching can be so powerful. In the upside-right ways of God’s kingdom, weakness is always a distinct advantage.
All these years later I have no idea what my text was. If I remembered the date, I’d go back and see if it was as flimsy as it felt. The sermon was probably true to Scripture even if it faltered. Maybe I felt my thoughts were garbled or perhaps I was expecting some emotional mojo which didn’t come. I forgot that sermons don’t rise or fall with logic or passion but with the prayer-infused faith of the preacher.
The sermon which ought to be stopped dead in its tracks is one that doesn’t let Scripture get a word in edgewise and filibusters the Holy Spirit. But when we proclaim Scripture humbly and diligently, God is in the habit of taking our skeletal, dusty creations, lifting them to their feet, and breathing into them the breath of life.
I can’t really imagine Paul losing his nerve the way I did but if he read my story I think he’d nod his head in understanding. Whether we evangelize the lost or edify the found, we preachers have this in common:
I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Cor. 2:3-5)
Be ye glad!
Lee Eclov
