Festival of Homiletics

Wow! I'm in Nashville. Walking down Broadway there are country music bars with live music at lunch time, neon guitars advertising happy hour, multiple stores for getting your cowboy hats, boots and authentic western wear at discount prices (Three pairs of boots for the price of one!), and fiddlers on the sidewalk, hoping for donations in their open fiddle cases.

What am I doing here? Attending the annual Festival of Homiletics. What is (or are) homiletics? Some strange cult? Some sort of 12-step support group? I'm sure the city of Nashville is wondering about the sign hanging outside the entrance to First Baptist Church. Well, "homiletics" is the art of preaching. And here we are, some 800 preachers gathered, not to preach but to hear others preach, to learn more about the art of preaching, to be inspired, to celebrate the gift we have been given, the privilege we have been awarded, to preach week-in and week-out. As Nashville singer-songwriter, Ashley Cleveland, belted out her opening spiritual, "I was born to preach the gospel," we joined in giving thanks to God for the joy of preaching.

Of course, some of our lecturers have pointed out what we all know, there is a burden to preaching as well. The act of preaching is both bane and blessing. There is the weekly necessity of coming up with a word for Sunday which, in the midst of pastoral emergencies and the pragmatic needs of daily church life, does not always feel like a Word from God. But, every now and then, there is an "aha" moment, when the text of scripture calls forth a sermon that almost preaches itself (Lauren Winner likens it to the rush of heroin addiction - perhaps too dangerous an analogy!). That "aha" moment is a gift from God which keeps preachers like me coming back to the scripture week after week expecting the same thing to happen (perhaps a healthy and holy addiction).

I have often said that as a preacher what I need most to nurture my spiritual life is to hear other preachers. So, this week I am feasting my ears on the best preaching the church of Jesus Christ has to offer, in the company of others who have been called to this peculiar vocation.

In my first church, in the mountains of North Carolina, more often than not, when people addressed me, they called me "preacher," not "reverend," not "pastor." Ever since then I more often am addressed as pastor, and only in formal introductions as reverend. I miss "preacher." Because that is who God called me to be, a caretaker of the Word. A proclaimer of the evangel. A prophet against the powers and principalities. The world laughs at preachers - irrelevant, outdated, insignificant. But God promises that when the Word is spoken faithfully, it will not return empty. So, bouyed up by my colleagues in this homiletical art, and encouraged by my congregation, I prepare each week to do this strange (in the eyes of the world) task. But then, I can't help but do it. Like Ashley Cleveland sang, "I was born to preach the gospel, and I sure do like my job!"