FROM THE PULPIT: The foolishness of preaching

I preached my first sermon at Wynnton United Methodist Church in Columbus in December 1975, a 27-year-old untrained young adult called into the ministry. I didn't know the difference between Ecclesiastes and Ephesians; didn't know a homily from hominy. But with newfound conviction and great fear I preached that Sunday.

Forty years later, I still marvel about the awesome power of the spoken word delivered by imperfect, utterly flawed messengers. As Phillips Brooks had it, preaching is "truth through personality." The Apostle Paul's pungent phrase "the foolishness of preaching" is well understood by all who stand in pulpits or sit in church pews.

This verbal foolishness attracts millions each week to come to church, turn on their radios or televisions, sit at computers or activate MP3 devices to hear sermons, homilies, devotionals and Bible teaching. The effect is still explosive.

It is foolishness to believe that messengers of God armed only with Bible and vocabulary are more powerful than the world's armies, carry more mega tonnage than the world's bombs and convey more inspiration than the world's greatest music.

But these past four decades have convinced me that the right word, spoken at God's right time, can be and often is life changing and world changing.

Some preachers are well-trained in seminary while others disdain higher sophistry, trusting God to supply the words independent of book learning or advanced study. God uses all types. No matter the path to the pulpit, every preacher wrestles with the craft of preaching.

Seasoned pastors often tell those struggling to discern a call, "If you can do anything else, by all means do so" -- an acknowledgement that faithful preaching can be practiced only by those utterly cornered by God. The Apostle Paul mourned, "Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel." That's preaching as necessity.

This exasperating compulsion is rarely effective unless the preacher expends great perspiration at the writing desk and prayer bench. Sermons, like all communication, are hard work.

Jerry Seinfeld took 10 years to perfect a punch line of one single joke. Ernest Hemingway, asked why he rewrote the final sentence of "Farewell to Arms" 39 times, replied simply that he had to get the words right. Preachers understand this.

Once the messenger of God steps into the pulpit -- trained or unlettered, eager or resistant -- he or she is often overwhelmed by unpredictably divine power sweeping the speaker off their feet. Some traditions call this anointed or Holy Ghost preaching. But even the most prepared homiletician gets hijacked by the Spirit of God, carefully chosen words and persuasive points elbowed out of the way by a higher power. Perspiration and inspiration sometimes cooperate with each other and sometimes do battle.

There is no single definition of "good preaching," but most of us know it when we hear it. Seeds are planted weekly in pulpits across Macon and beyond -- sometimes dramatically, other times gradually. God's messengers speak out of the necessity of the prophet Jeremiah whose fire in his bones could only be extinguished by proclaiming difficult truth.

God's word -- through human words -- convinces and convicts utterly. Hope appears, repentance surfaces, assurance dawns and life emerges ... through the foolishness of preaching.

Creede Hinshaw, a retired United Methodist pastor of 36 years, can be contacted at hinnie@cox.net.

This story was originally published January 22, 2016 at 9:01 PM with the headline "FROM THE PULPIT: The foolishness of preaching ."