When Preachers Only Have One Sermon (and why I’m banking on mine)
There is an old joke about preachers only having one sermon.
I remember when I first heard about it, I either laughed or judged. It was funny because the idea seemed to be such an observation from a distance. Or it was a critique of homiletical laziness.
Either way, I didn't think it was real.
But now I've been preaching every weekend for pushing 13 years, I can tell you I agree with the statement. And I also pushed through both of my first previous thoughts already. Yes. At times I have preached in such an unplanned way I keep coming back to the same conclusions, applications, and endings. I would also use the term sloppy to describe my preaching at times. It wasn't lazy, but I took the easy way out.
The idea of only having one sermon is a sort of the idea of what I call "preaching islands" also. That topic or idea you keep coming back to is whether the congregation wants to go there. It means holding a group of people hostage while you talk about something for 30 minutes.
That is the negative side of the phrase.
But as I grow older, I don't think the phrase is negative.
Over the last 6 months or so, I can see my own development of this season's "one sermon". I even warned my current congregations there will be a few things I won't stop talking about.
My one sermon these days is always about thankfulness.
What I have experienced in my own personal spiritual journey over the last couple of years is a continual experience of thanksgiving and thankfulness.
And it pretty much creeps into much of my preaching.
Here areas a few reasons thanksgiving is a core spiritual practice.
1. Thanksgiving keeps us grounded
You can't read the Psalms without coming to terms with thanksgiving. It serves as this crucial beginning point to worship.
Give Thanks to the LORD, for he is good; His steadfast love endures forever.
Psalms 118:1
But thanksgiving is also not something happening in moments of utter joy. Or in the setting of the congregation in the work of worship. I love the complexity and personal story of Psalm 30.
I will exalt you, Lord,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
Lord my God, I called to you for help,
and you healed me.
You, LORD, brought me up from the realm of the dead;
you spared me from going down to the pit.
Psalm 30:1-3
To take part in thanksgiving means we include another in our life. We intentionally move beyond a space of personal definition. We say that another one has helped us. And to say that means admitting we needed help.
One of the ways this has worked its way through my own life is a journey to stop calling things coincidences. When I experience goodness, I thank God for it. It might be a small thing, or it might be a large thing. And when things turn out for me, I especially make sure to be thankful. This practice turns my own mind to be more directed toward God's involvement in my life. To be thankful is to openly acknowledge living in a larger world. One that you are not the center of.
2. Thanksgiving transports us
Are you ever tired? Do you feel anxious? Maybe you don’t feel like things are working out. Life seems off.
I have found participating in thanksgiving keeps me focused on any experience as temporary. I also know it is important to build up thankfulness reserves. Because I will need them one day. If we never take the time to be thankful, we are always living in the present. I need to be intentional with my thanksgiving.
Putting intentionality behind thankfulness means writing down, daily, the things we are thankful for. It gives us the memory of the past. It gives us hope for the future. Sure, we get to put a pin in whatever we are experiencing at the moment now. But it also reminds us that the present is not our constant.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
Let Israel say:
“His love endures forever.”
Let the house of Aaron say: “His love endures forever.”
Let those who fear the Lord say: “His love endures forever.”
When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord;
he brought me into a spacious place
Psalm 118:1-5
I love this idea of a “spacious place” we see in a few places in the Psalms. It comes from an earlier dispute over water rights between the Patriarchs and others in the land of Israel. God moved them into a new land, with enough room for them to grow and flourish.
In the midst of whatever we are dealing with in our current moment in time, there is an eternal promise of engaging with the Lord and the journey towards a place big enough for us to be at our best.
3. Thanksgiving Re-aligns us.
So are you thankful?
Maybe a better question is “How do we need to be thankful?”.
Are we living our life in a way that even allows thanksgiving to be part of it?
You might be reading this and asking yourself a few questions about realizing you aren’t practicing thanksgiving. A pat on the shoulder every now and then…but nothing that could be called thanksgiving. It actually gets us to an even larger question.
Can I be following Jesus if I am not thankful?
Alan Roxburgh, in his book Joining God in the Great Unraveling, asks big questions about what it means to live in a season of chaos. One of his recommendations for both discernment and action is to examine the “language worlds” we are creating. This engages the constructionist principle of Appreciate Inquiry.
What worlds do our words create?
I ask this because, and I know it sounds crazy, but I believe if we are thankful, life will be better. Being intentionally thankful affects our lives, and spills over into the worlds we inhabit. What does it mean for us to not join in the conversations of doom with those we are with? What could happen if we intentionally take the posture of always offering a thankful response in tough situations? By us communicating thanksgiving, we are creating situations of thankfulness around us.
What I have found is when I am out of alignment my thanksgiving is off. When I begin putting into practice thankfulness in my life, I begin discovering equilibrium again. I believe in it.
So yes. I have one sermon right now. And I might have another "one sermon: in the future. I am happy to see what it means for my own sermon to move and flow within my larger preaching. But for me…at this moment…I am banking on the power of being thankful in my life.