Anne Patchett, the ultra-successful American author who is perhaps best known for her novel Bel Canto (2001), said this about her writing:
“I can't write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. I will forgive myself."
I find this a surprising reflection from a writer who churns out one beautifully crafted, best-selling book after another. It raises these questions:
What does she mean she can’t write the book she wants?
Forgive herself for what, exactly?
If she of all writers can’t write the book she wants, what hope is there for the rest of us?
And, paraphrasing her quote, how does this apply to preachers and preaching?
I can’t offer the sermon I want to offer
When Ms. Patchett said that she can’t write the book she wants to write, I understand her to mean that the vision in her head for her story never translates to the page quite as she hopes.
She feels emotions for the story that don’t correlate closely enough with the words so that the reader experiences the intended intensity of the story.
There are images she sees vividly in her mind that she doesn’t fully capture in print so that the reader moves inside the scene as fluidly as she does.
There are subplots and character traits that would enrich the world of the story, but because they aren’t essential and don’t drive the plot enough, she regrets to see them on the cutting room floor.
In other words, she sees the story, feels the story, knows what she wants to communicate, but the end result never quite rises to her knowledge of what the story could be.
I know this feeling well in my preaching.
I wonder whether you do, as well?
I know what it feels like to be ensconced in the conflict in a bible story and see its current-day application. Or identify with (or be repulsed by) the personality traits of and choices made by a character. Or see a glorious vision of hope of God’s reign taking place here and now—but my ability to accurately and fully communicate what I see, feel, believe, and hope eludes me.
Sometimes I come close, but it’s never the totality or depth of what I hope to extend to listeners, because in the end, we’re communicating a mystery, we’re describing the ineffable which, by definition, cannot be fully described.
Always, there is a lack.
I can’t offer the sermon I want to offer.
I Will Offer the Sermon I am Able to Offer
Not only is it difficult for even the most dedicated and practiced preacher to accurately communicate the Good News—in the end we all run up against the limits of our abilities—there are also many external factors that interfere with preaching at our highest capacities with our every sermon.
Time
One of the most common barriers is the limits of time coupled with the impending deadline to say something on Sunday morning.
The stress of the imminent, unrelenting, and implacable deadlines we endure as preachers is shared professionally perhaps only with print and broadcast journalists who must produce their stories no matter what while the seconds tick away to “go-time.”
Most other creatives, like novelists, have deadlines that can be pushed back (even if their publishers don’t like it).
Moreover, writing is not our one and only professional focus. It’s one focus among many.
Competing Priorities
We must create what we are able in the time we have available while running the gauntlet between pastoral care, administration, funerals and weddings, committee work, outreach, and ad judicatory responsibilities.
Unless the hours of our ministries are heavily skewed towards sermon prep and the above responsibilities kept to a minimum, we are even less likely to fully express the hope God places within us.
Lack of Feedback
In addition, other creatives have professional editors to review their work and return them for revisions prior to publication.
Not so for preachers.
If we are very blessed and very lucky, we have someone in our household or a trusted colleague who gives useful and candid feedback before we offer our sermons, but the vast majority of us are not so blessed or lucky.
We are left to revise our sermon drafts as best as we are able, and we cannot catch the raw differences between what we mean to say and believe we said, and what is actually heard.
And these constraints are okay.
It is good to offer the sermon we are capable of crafting—loaves and fishes style—within the limits of our skills, available time, competing demands, and lack of feedback.
We can trust God to multiply our efforts so that listeners receive the nourishment they need.
Your call is to offer the sermon you are able to offer.
I Will forgive myself
Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, we can forgive ourselves for the gap between our vision of a sermon and our ability to execute it.
We can forgive ourselves the sin of pride for believing that we should be able to close the gap, that there shouldn’t ever be a gap.
We can forgive ourselves the sin of pride that we should be superhuman, bypassing all preaching learning curves and catapulting ourselves from novices to experts in a single bound, simply by willing it to be so.
We can forgive ourselves for the sin of pride that prevents us from talking about being human, as if being human were a shameful secret instead of a glorious, vulnerable gift of God who made us very good as is, and which makes being human preachers (per St. Paul) boast-worthy in our weakness.
We can forgive ourselves so that we are our own best friends in this vocation, giving ourselves the dignity, compassion, and respect the Spirit gives us already.