Preaching & Einstein's Definition of Insanity: 2 Perspectives to Avoid Losing Your Mind
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The definition of insanity (often attributed to Albert Einstein) is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Does that describe preaching?
A preacher once described to me the “Sunday letdown.”
He leaves the church worship service feeling energized and jazzed about his preaching!
But by 4:00, his mood sinks:
"I have to do this all over again next week, and for what?
Does preaching make any difference?"
We preach week after week but often see few results.
The world's problems only seem to be getting worse.
When the only feedback most of us receive is the obligatory "good sermon" from our parishioners week after week, we may wonder if we're just banging our heads against the wall.
What does our preaching accomplish?
Is preaching week after week "insane?"
If we focus on the seeming "groundhog day" of sermon prep week after week, or on outcomes, or the dire state of our world, we might lose heart.
We might be tempted to step away from the vocation God gifts us with:
to preach a single message of good news each week
to testify to the places we see the divine born into the mangers of this world
to describe the agony of death, the painful hope of grieving and waiting, and the resplendent glory of resurrection
How do we keep preaching “sanely?”
Consider these two perspectives.
The Astronaut & A hundred Screws
I watched a documentary about the astronauts who repaired the Hubble Space Telescope’s mirror in 1993.
Shortly after its launch in 1990, scientists realized that the blurry images they were getting back was because the mirror had been ground in the wrong shape.
Ingeniously, they figured out a solution: give the mirror “glasses!”
When the astronaut arrived at the mirror to repair it during his risky space walk, to his shock and dismay, he discovered more than a hundred small screws that had to be manipulated in zero gravity: one. screw. at. a. time.
It took him hours to accomplish the job, following the same boring, meticulous procedure for every single screw.
When asked how he maintained his composure and sanity, he replied that he shifted his mind into a Zen-like state: work the problem as if each screw were the only screw in the universe in which he floated.
If he had counted them down or looked ahead to all the screws that remained, he would have despaired.
Instead, he stayed present to the one screw in front of him—only the one screw necessary...only the one screw necessary...only the one screw necessary—until he finished the job.
Our Christian spiritual tradition has many teachers who describe serenity and equanimity when we, too, stay present to only the one thing necessary God asks of us.
This includes crafting each, one, sermon.
Without looking ahead to the countless sermons we have left to preach, without assessing the impact (or lack thereof) of sermons we've already preached, we stay present to today's task:
Craft only the one sermon God asks us to preach today.
The Little Flower & Her Little Way
Thérèse de Lisieux was a Carmelite nun who died at the age of 24 in 1897.
During her few years in the monastery she came to understand what she might accomplish for God.
Wikipedia describes Lieseux's perspective this way:
"In her quest for sanctity, she believed that it was not necessary to accomplish heroic acts, or great deeds, in order to express her love of God. She wrote: 'Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.'"
Such was Thérèse de Lisieux's simple devotion to God that she was nicknamed "The Little Flower," and her description of this path to holiness she called "The Little Way."
I don't hear many preachers talk about this idea, perhaps because it feels overly sentimental or too personal, but it's an important question for us: How do you express your love for God?
Few of us are called to accomplish heroic deeds, and if we look through Scripture, we see that few of God's beloved accomplished "great" feats of glory.
Most participated in the daily grind and drudgery of ordinary life, but dedicated their ordinary life to God.
Take Mary, Mother of God, for example.
She spent years doing exactly the same thing that millions—billions—of other women have done.
She raised a child—cleaning, washing, feeding, and fretting over her child's safety.
It was the most ordinary of daily work, with each day nearly identical to the one before it.
Though Jesus' future was promised to be grand and glorious, there was little about the daily demands of child-rearing that were considered "grand" or "glorious.”
Rather than look for the grand, glorious, or heroic effects of preaching, perhaps we can follow the example of Thérèse:
We can express our love of God through the "Little Way": the unglamorous, often challenging, sometimes mundane process of finding words that illuminate the Gospel for our people.
Like the astronaut, we can put our heads down and work diligently at the single task at hand: to read, pray, discern, craft, and offer our words to the glory of God for this one sermon.
In this light, preaching is the most sane thing and loving thing in the world.
Each and every time.
Our first sermon just as much as the last one.
The Sanity of Preaching
Einstein not only (supposedly) wrote the definition of "insanity," he also discovered E=mc^2.
This famous equation does not describe an effect of light, energy, and mass. It describes their relationship.
When we discover that preaching = love x words x (Spirit squared), we learn that we preach not to create an effect.
Rather, our preaching simply describes the relationship between us, the Spirit, love, and language.
Do you ever feel guilty about prioritizing sermon prep in your work hours?
For years I've taught preachers how to prepare sermons here at Backstory Preaching. Along the way, I realized many were also struggling with a second problem: feeling guilty about prioritizing sermon prep during work hours. As though sermon prep weren't "real" ministry. As though other ministry demands deserved priority, even if that meant sacrificing evenings and weekends for sermon prep—and finishing the week on fumes.
The Golden Hour is a brand new offering that tackles this misconception head-on. With theologically grounded perspective, this 65-minute e-course offers a major reframe and a simple weekly planning practice that protects sermon prep time so your sabbath remains sacred. If prepping your sermon is regularly replacing time you'd otherwise spend resting, playing, or connecting with loved ones, this practice may create the shift you need.