The Comma

I think Sunday afternoons are different for preachers and parishioners in many ways.  We preachers have just finished some of the most intense work of our week.  Parishioners on the other hand can see their weekend winding down, and are either stretching out that time as much as possible, or gearing up for Monday morning. 

I’m reflecting on this because I am reflecting on sermons, and what happens to them once they’re preached.  After we leave the sanctuary on Sundays, what are we thinking about? And once we’re heading home, how much are we thinking about the sermon?

And in this way, I think Sunday afternoons for parishioners and preachers are probably the same.  Some sermons, even the ones I thought were pretty good, I forget immediately.  The moment has passed and we all move on.  Many sermons I remember pieces of- particular illustrations or points I made stay with me.  But every once in a while a sermon follows me, through the rest of the day, through my week, and even longer.  It might be because it felt like a particularly good sermon, or a particularly bad one.  It might be because the response of the congregation was especially strong.  And sometimes it is because the questions the sermon raised are ones with which I continue to live.

In many traditions, sermons are supposed to answer questions, not raise them.  A retired preacher said to me recently as he was walking out of church: “My homiletics professor taught me that I should never scare up more rabbits in one sermon than I can chase down.”  He went on to add that I had got the rabbits running that morning but he thought I had caught them all before the sermon ended.  Well, sometimes I don’t catch all the rabbits.  Sometimes I come to the end of the sermon and just watch those rabbits scatter, scurrying under pews and into corners and through windows and doors and out onto the street.  Maybe it’s inevitable when the topic is big and the time is limited.  When I get home on Sunday afternoons after those kinds of sermons, I might even find that a particularly persistent rabbit has come home with me.  

Because we have been addressing big questions of life and faith, this summer our series of sermons have been rabbit scattering sermons.  And one sermon has kept coming back to me.  The question was, “How do I decide what s the right thing to do?”  Those of you who heard the sermon might remember that I asked friends and family how they answered that question.  And though the sermon was written and preached almost a month ago, the question is still with me.  Those times when a sermon keeps on preaching are precious to a preacher, even when it is preaching to her. 

And I have discovered that others are still thinking about it too.  I am especially hearing from those who answered my inquiries before the sermon.  They are returning to me, telling me something else they have thought of.  Some of those thoughts are profound.  Or a new issue they are facing.  Some of those issues are huge.  Or just that they are still thinking.  Still chasing their own rabbits. 

All of that reminds me that this is no easy question, and there are no simple answers.  Yet every day we have to make choices, we are called to decide, and we try to do the right thing.  This leads me back to anther topic we looked at in this summer sermon series, another one that scared up a whole bunch of bunnies, and one that is also still with me.  “Why bother with church?”  And I guess one answer is, you all help me keep looking at the question of doing the right thing, and looking for more than simplistic answers.  You help me ask that question in big ways as well as in personal ways.  And then, most importantly, you help me live into the answers, no matter how tough they are.  Thank you.

I just returned from two weeks away, on my farm at first and then down to Yosemite National Park in California.  During that time I was pretty much out of the loop when it came to “news of the world,” and that was especially true the week before Labor Day, when I was backpacking.  So when I came back to “civilization” it was stunning to hear of an uproar over the President of the United States’ plan to address the school children of the United States on the first day of school.  I think being out of the media loop for awhile gave me a heightened awareness of the nonsense that we have been hearing all summer.  In fact, even more than nonsense- the hateful rhetoric has passed for political discourse this summer has been exasperating. When our president says that summer is the “silly season” for politicians, he is being extremely generous. 

 All summer I have listened to news reports where people drown out congressional representatives home for the summer and hoping to discuss health care reform.  I attended a town hall meeting with Congressman Rick Larsen in Coupeville, hosted by the League of Women Voters.  It was only the determination of a 4’10” woman who must have been a first grade teacher in another life that kept the meeting from disintegrating into a shout-down.  (Remember when our teachers had to say it?  “We will not continue until the room is quiet!”  That was her)  My time away was a nice break from all of that.

 But then I came home, and as soon as I was within radio range I began to hear the latest.  People who were saying that our president telling school kids to work hard and stay in school is some kind of “political” speech.  It makes me long for a bumper sticker or a t-shirt or something that simply says “Stop the Hate.”

 Stop the hate.  I know good people disagree with one another.  I also know we can do that in a way that does not cut off conversation, or disparage the other person, or destroy community.  I have seen it done.  In this congregation we have learned how to differ with one another without the shouting.  We have learned that the conversation itself, and how we have it, is as important as the conclusions we come to.  We have learned to honor the perspective of people with other thoughtful understandings on an issue.  We have learned not to yell.  We are not perfect at this, but we have learned, and we are learning. 

 Perhaps this is a cry in the wilderness, the call of a woman fresh from vacationland.  But still it seems worthwhile to make the request.  And perhaps if we begin to spread this around, it will make a difference.  Let’s be evangelical about it- a commitment to revel in the conversation, honor differences, and listen as well as talk.