Tuesday, January 29, 2008

So I have a wee bit of writer's block.

Last year, I preached an Ash Wednesday sermon that just all came together. I went back and read it, which was a mistake, I might add, and wondered how on earth I wrote it. It worked on a number of levels and was profound and funny and true.

A few years ago, I also did some extensive work with the lectionary text from Genesis assigned for Lent 1. Now that sermon had some good things going for it, but all the time and research and questions I asked about the text are still there, though I have some different ones this time around. I'm preaching then, too (and we have convention this weekend, so I'm trying to get a jumpstart on all this).

I haven't had too many multiple encounters with texts to preach yet; I'm still too new. The next time around has a different feel to it, and, right now, it feels a little off. I'm not quite sure how to work that all out yet.

Is the thrill already gone?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm facing Transfiguration Sunday again. And I don't know if you were there when I preached T-fig--in November (not my choice--it was the lectionary) at chapel? I worked on that sermon until I was blue in the face and it was really good.

I'm facing next Sunday thinking, NOW what can I say? Usually it's not that bad, though. Usually I feel like there's somethign more or different to say, or I preach one of the other texts....but if you work really hard on a sermon, it's so hard to re-preach that text!

Diane M. Roth said...

hey! I used to think sometimes I peaked early -- before I was ordained. I had a couple of sermons I thought were really good, and how could I ever top them?

scary to say that I've been doing this for about 14 years now. I still feel sometimes like you -- where did that come from? can I do that AGAIN? (or am I mis-readig what you are saying?)

apbs said...

no, that's pretty much it, diane. will the holy spirit show up again this time, or be out to lunch?

Diane M. Roth said...

will show up, I'm pretty sure:)