Respite

You may have noticed that today is Saturday, and the post before this is from Wednesday. Yes, my friends, I have failed at my goal of posting every day in Advent. I was so distracted having Sabbath and fun on Thursday and Friday that I didn't get anything written here. I apologize, and I hope you won't think I'm terribly disappointing for having not posted as regularly as I'd hoped.

Thursday was a full workday, and then I traveled a few hours away to visit a dear friend. We spent the evening relaxing and playing, sharing in conversations both holy and goofy. It was exactly the sort of unwinding and fun that I needed in the midst of this crazy season. Then on Friday I returned to town just in time to go out with some friends. We saw White Christmas on the big screen, then enjoyed a much-needed girls night out. Again, it was just what I was looking for. But both nights I was busy and out late, so I didn't get to my keyboard to write.

Today has been a much quieter sort of day. I finally hit the deadline for my sermon, so I spent several hours wrestling with ideas and trying desperately to make the words come out clearly. I wasn't the only one struggling this week, though. A few of my friends were also down to the wire on sermon-writing this week, and all of us seemed to be struggling with the same problem: redundancy. The season of Advent and several of the weeks leading up to it are all focused on the same major themes in the lectionary: preparing for Christ's return and the eschaton, which involves repentance and hope. The texts almost seem to repeat themselves. The gospels and Isaiah tell us over and over again to prepare the way, to repent for coming judgment, to look with hope for God's promised future. And after several weeks of these same things, my friends and I found ourselves wondering how many times, how many different ways you can say, "Jesus is coming, look busy!"

A few days ago, a church member asked me how long it takes to prepare a sermon. I explained that it varies. There are weeks when the passage speaks directly to your heart and your context, when God seems to put a word directly into your mind and it flows almost effortlessly onto the page. And then there are weeks like this, when you read and exegete and pore over commentary after commentary, and then sit staring at a computer screen for hours, typing and deleting, typing and deleting, muttering under your breath, and giving your dog and any other bystanders the distinct impression that you've lost your mind. I have struggled and wrestled and I have a manuscript draft. Tomorrow when I preach it we'll see whether the Spirit spoke in the struggle.

This evening I popped "The Preacher's Wife", one of my favorite Christmas movies, into the DVD player. I've seen it probably thirty times, but today I saw things I'd never seen before. For the first time, I recognized the clergy burnout in Henry, one of the main characters. Most of the movie takes place during Advent. You see Henry struggling with the feeling that his ministry is failing, worrying that he's not making any difference. You see him struggling to manage all of the church obligations with his family responsibilities, concerned that the church won't have enough money to get through the year or really serve their community. He doesn't even recognize the angel in his midst or believe that God sent help.

Every time I watched this movie before, I saw Henry as a bit bumbling. I'd watch him working instead of spending time with his family, I'd listen to his negativity and his hopelessness, and I'd think, "What a fool! How could anyone get like this?" But that was before I was a pastor. Now his actions make some sense. I get what Henry means when he says he has to make hospital visits in the evening or go to meetings. And I understand how he could wonder if his work is making a difference, or if there will be enough money or energy or resources to accomplish all that we've been called to accomplish. I don't fully understand the family pressures, but I know how he could lose faith like that. It's a temptation every time a meeting goes badly, every time a hospital visit is heartbreaking, every time you preach a sermon to blank faces. But I hope that whenever that temptation becomes overwhelming I'll see a glimmer of hope, a glimpse of God at work. So I'll keep looking for it.