A Thousand Sermons

I've been reading American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists. It's no doubt the most comprehensive, accurate, and moving biograpy I've read in years, and, surprisingly, there are so many correlations between now and then (especially around issues of itineracy, clergy families, salaries and insurance) my head is spinning.

Reading about how many miles Francis Asbury travelled on horseback and how many sermons he preached seems, from the outset, to be so amazing . . . and it was for that day and time. Miraculous, actually. But as I sit down and consider what I have done in nearly thirty years of pastoral work, I find myself saying, "This can't be right, can it??"

For example, take travel. A few quick calculations last night showed me that I've travelled an average of five thousand miles a year (by junk car) in pastoral service. Multiply that by, say, twenty years (very conservatively) and I get 100,000 miles. I'm not sure how far that is, but isn't that several times around the world? Gads!!

Or how about sermons? Being a Methodist, like Asbury and his ilk of yesteryear, I do keep copious records of my pastoral work, too: weddings, baptisms, confirmations, and sermons. Another quick calculation has revealed that I have preached something like 1020 sermons in my lifetime. Good Lord of the Post-It Note, that's a lot of sermons.

Funny thing is, I don't have most of these sermons, nor is there any record of them (unless they exist on audio tape, CD, or some other digital format somewhere). When I was taught preaching by the esteemed Richard Lischer "back in my day" . . . it was drummed into my head that preaching was, among other things, an oral and auditory pursuit rather than a written or visual one. For the most part, I agree . . . and hence, I have never written my sermons. I have no manuscripts. And in most instances, I have only cursory outlines that I either used in the pulpit, or memorized and offered without notes. So, my life in preaching is, for the most part, without record or history--although I could probably dig up the sermon titles and the dates I preached over the past thirty years.

Over a thousand sermons? Okay, even I have to admit that seems like a lot of sermon prep--especially when on considers that the early Methodists moved each year, and could "re-use" their supply of sermons in their new annual appointments. In that regard, I've probably written more sermons (or a wider array) than most of these first and second generation Methodists. Not to take anything away from them. They were amazing people.

But considering the travel mileage (and the time I've spent in the car) and the sermons (and the time I've spent creating and practicing them) I'm amazed I still have anything new to say . . . or maybe I don't. Perhaps it's all been said before, just in different ways.

Still, it's good to know that the mind still works, still creates, and that the Spirit still speaks in new ways. Every week God gives me a message, and usually a whole bunch of humor, and several chapters, and essays, and blogs, and poems, and proposals and stories. I guess I should be thankful for my fingers, which can still type quickly. Only God knows what I should do with all of this material after I write it.