A Life Without Weekends

I have kidded around for the past several years that when I retire I'm going to write a book entitled, "A Life Without Weekends." I suppose the subtitle could be, "The life of a Methodist preacher." I have envisioned the book as a tongue-in-cheek memoir on the mundane and the marvelous events in my life - a life in which weekends are not a break from work but when the essence of my work reaches its climax.

The tidal rhythms of my life, and necessarily my family's life, have been different from that of most people. You'd have to be a preacher to fully appreciate the difference. Sundays loom large on my horizon, like a mountain that must be scaled every week. It is a climb that begins in the valley of prayerful exploration of scripture, and the low hills of congregational life. These two elements are placed in my knapsack and get familiar with each other as I trudge the ever steeper slope. The "good news" of scripture and the realities of community life get mixed together like some sort of granola which I munch on throughout the week, giving me the energy and inspiration to make it to the peak at Sunday worship.

By the time I do my thing on Sunday morning I have just about made up my mind that this word I'm about to share may be the most important thing that's ever been said. Not because I'm saying it, but because it has become, amazingly, more than a word I have pondered, but The Word from God for my congregation. This Word becomes for me a matter of life and death, or so it seems, and I am bursting to share it. Far from being an ego-trip, preaching is the most humbling of privileges and responsibilities.

Then comes the crash afterwards. I've just poured out my heart and soul in a most public display (Mick Jagger comes to mind, "pouring his heart all over the stage"), and the comments as people come out the door are kind, "Nice sermon, preacher," and polite, "You gave us something to think about."

Not, "my life will never be the same!" or "I'm going to quit my job and become a missionary!" No, nothing like that . . . "Nice sermon, preacher."

The drop off the peak of the Sunday mountain can be precipitous and certainly unwelcome. Like post-partum blues, the post-Sunday melancholy is an emotional drain. But I wake up on Monday morning and open the text, more out of well-worn habit by now, rather than expectation. But my, oh my, as often as not, the words become The Word again. How does it happen? Again and again, week after week, the words of the page, "the letter that kills," becomes the Spirit that gives life. And I take that text and I put it in my knapsack next to the latest triumphs and tragedies of my congregation and, once again, I start trudging up that next mountain, always believing, ALWAYS believing that someone will be needing to hear that word become Word on Sunday, on the mountain peak. And it will be for them a matter of life or death. Even if all they say is, "Nice sermon, preacher!" Deep inside, they needed it more than life itself. I believe.

It's a miracle, really. And that's what keeps me preaching, and living without weekends.