Why I Don't Preach Finished Sermons Anymore

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
-Galatians 5:16

On ownership and leaving room for the Spirit

I recently surpassed twenty years of preaching sermons just about weekly (not every week though, thank you team!). I'm thinking about it again this morning, as I've realized how much my sermons have changed over the years and why. Sometimes I look back at some of my earliest manuscripts and notice... 
Wow, I was so confident and clear. I gave an easy-to-follow action step at the end of every talk! I was very persuasive. And a bunch of my closings used to be really inspiring. Hmmmm... 

In recent years, things have shifted. Many of my Sunday messages now end with something along the lines of: 
Well, that's what I've got for this passage. Now what should we do about it? 

This is on my mind for several reasons. One is that this past Sunday, our passage was an amazing one that I've preached on a ton of times... yet my normal applications just felt a little hollow. The second thing is that I have fully come to realize that when a beautiful, beloved, complicated church community comes together every week, each person is walking in with a completely different set of situations and realities at the forefront of their minds. One beloved person is dealing with the loss of a loved one, another is trying to figure out how to parent their 12-year-old with both love and boundaries, another is really angry at the president (me too), and another is wondering if they will be home in time to watch the 1pm kickoff.
Oh yeah, that and the fact that there are no longer ANY easy answers to address the divided and volatile state of our world right now. 

And so I realized just this morning: 
I don't think I preach finished sermons anymore. 

Something within me has changed (evolved?) and I no longer feel comfortable telling people exactly what they need to do or how God is speaking to them. I still long for all of us to so deeply connect with Jesus that our very spirits and desires are shaped by his Spirit alive within us and his view of God's kingdom. But how that looks to a retired person and to a 22-year-old finishing up college? Good Lord (literally), that's way above my pay grade to discern.

I share this because I wonder if we church leaders have done our congregations a disservice over the years. A few weeks ago when looking at Jesus calling disciples in John 1 ("come and see"), I wondered if maybe our language of Jesus being "the answer" is insufficient. Rather, it seems like Jesus is the "invitation." Jesus is the invitation to wrestle and explore what God's heart is all about. Jesus is the invitation to think more deeply about life, to pursue truth and justice and redemption in community, and to discover healing in our unique situations. Jesus is the invitation to receive God's love.

And guess what? My "5 practices of happy Christians" sermon probably won't do you much good. Because you need to hear more than my opinion, well-researched (and even spirit-led!) though it may be. My goodness, I never want to steal the role of the Holy Spirit when I teach. You need to drink from the living water. I do too. 

Scripture is living and active, and that means that as we wrestle, passages will move and flex and point us toward Jesus. They'll speak to us in ways based on where we're at in life, and when we share that with each other, we both end up growing. 
We have a communal faith. But we also have to embody things ourselves. I've come to believe that faithful spiritual leadership cannot tell us what to think, but only help us learn how to see. 

About ten years ago we made it a standard practice in our LifePath Sunday Gatherings that after every message, we'd have an open dialogue time to work out what God is speaking to us together, and individually. We examine scripture through teaching, but then we apply it to our lives together as we all try to follow Jesus in our own unique contexts. It's beautiful. 

And wow, are the insights ever different from each other sometimes! But when we're humbly open to the Spirit together, it makes me want to follow Jesus more than the best TED talk ever could. 

We don't need more sermons with three great things to go and do. We need more encouragement to see the world in light of God's mercy, and live each of our lives accordingly.

I like to say that our messages don't end the conversation, they just start it. And as we make space for the Holy Spirit together, real transformation occurs. 

So maybe this is an encouragement to you today to make sure you're thinking for yourself and not simply doing whatever the person with the platform is saying (how very anti-authoritarian of me). Or maybe it's an encouragement to invite shared relational dialogue into your wrestling, and to hear more perspectives on what Jesus is doing around you. Maybe it's a reminder that real discipleship is about following Jesus and not learning more content. I'm not sure. That's the point. But I do know that a sermon is never truly finished until it becomes good news in each of our unique lives. 

Jesus, lead me deeper this week into personal reflection on your way of love. 
Peace,
Keith