loved and chosen

In her book Grace (Eventually), Anne Lamott relays a story about teaching a Bible class to a group of young children. She recounts the experience moving from her initial decision to separate two trouble-making brothers (four and five years old) placing them on either side of two six-year-old boys, as well as welcoming a 3 year old (and his weary mother). As class began, she helped them get out their wiggles with a game in which they scrunch up their bodies and faces and hold it for a few seconds and then let loose and go completely limp. Once they are seated and calm...

I sat on the couch and glanced slowly around in a goofy, menacing way, and then said, "Is anyone here wearing a blue sweatshirt with Pokemon on it?" The four-year-old looked down at his chest, astonished to discover that he matched this description--like, what are the odds? He raised his hand. "Come over here to the couch," I said. "You are so loved, and so chosen." He clutched at himself like a beauty pageant finalist. Then I asked if anyone that day was wearing green socks with brown shoes, a Giants cap, an argyle vest? Each of them turned out to be loved and chosen..."

Captivated by the grace of this game, I could not even finish the chapter.

I spent the next hour devising ways to try and recreate this with several hundred adults one Sunday (not my most productive hour in the office, I will admit, but I'm getting at something so just let it go for now...).

You see, here is what's crazy... I spend so much of my time caught up in a really dumb trap. As I prepare sermons, I get lost... not lost, I get misled... actually, I get tempted. I get tempted to try and be incredible. I want to dazzle and impress. I want to remove all doubts that anyone in my church might have that I am really talented as a preacher. I work hard to come up with fascinating and spectacular content that is served by powerful and grandiose visual aids. I want to finish a sermon to a round of applause, or at least a lobby full of parishioners telling me that I just said something that they had never heard before or never considered. Really... I love the way those statements make me feel. (And all this for God's greater glory... yes, of course.)

Maybe that's a little exaggerated (maybe!), but you get my point. I have a friend who is also a preacher, and he has told me several times that I am the hardest working preacher in the pulpit he knows--I have no clue if this is a compliment. But, if I am honest with myself, the reason that I work so hard often has more to do with producing something original and impressive than it does with the simple, necessary, good news.

Sometimes I finish preaching and I wonder why I went into everything else when the one thing I really wish I had communicated was...

you are loved and you are chosen.  

The reason I couldn't read anymore of the chapter was that God was telling me what I really needed to hear most. I think most of us need to hear that. It's not amazingly smart or impressive. Nor is it all that original. But even better than those things... it's true. And it's a truth we need deep in our bones.

What if I just said that every week until we all believed it? Especially me. 

The bottom line is that no one in my church, no teacher, no mentor, no blogger can get me out of this trap. The only way out is to trust in God's grace to get me out--to trust that God's grace is enough not only for my soul, but also for my sermon.

The brilliant poet W. H. Auden once wrote:

"Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about."


What makes the trap so dumb is that I am the one creating it. I know some churches are preacher-eaters--but mine is not. No one at my church tells me I have to be amazing. No one even tells me that I have to be smart. What they really want most is for me to be myself--to be my creative, passionate, odd self completely  captivated by the mystery of the grace and love of Christ.

That voice telling me I have to be amazing is lying. I know that. People don't need amazing; they need real.

The voice of truth invites me onto the couch in my blue jeans and blue striped shirt and tells me, "You are loved and and you are chosen... you will win some and lose some, you will hit some out of the park and you will strike out, but never be afraid to trust that no matter what you do you are loved and you are chosen... and you are not alone either. Go tell everyone that there is more room on the couch, because they are loved and chosen as well."