Preaching to Myself
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I often preach before a congregation when I should be in front of a mirror.
This past Sunday, I worshiped at First Baptist Church, Morehead, Kentucky as I preached in view of a call to become the next Associate Pastor of this historic congregation in Eastern Kentucky. It was a special day for me and for many others for a myriad of reasons — one being that I’d be the first out Gay pastor of this congregation, as well as the first Gay Baptist Pastor Eastern Kentucky and anywhere in the state outside of Louisville and Owensboro.
On that beautiful morning, I preached on the healing of the hemorrhaging woman and Jairus’ daughter in the book of Mark. The first woman had been bleeding for twelve years and felt that there was no way out except for touching Jesus and receiving his healing power. She touched him and was, in fact, healed. Jesus was clear to her, though. It wasn’t the touch that healed her — but her faith.
I preached this before a congregation — and if you’ve never shared God’s good news in a pulpit before, it can be a humbling experience. As preachers share what can be quite complex sermons to their congregants, they often find themselves deeply in need of the very message they’re preaching. This past Sunday, I was one of those preachers.
Since this sermon, many traumatic wounds have risen again to the surface of my soul and left me wondering if, perhaps, God wasn’t delivering this sermon to me so that the congregation would learn something about their faith, but so that I would stand in front of a mirror and find in myself the ways in which I haven’t allowed my faith to lead toward healing.
As you might know if you’ve struggled with traumatic experiences, when you re-live them or pull them back up from their deep, dark, dusty, locked-up boxes, they lurk in your soul and manifest into mental, physical, and spiritual experiences.
I have struggled from my teenage years — and apparently still today — with deep relationship wounds in my family. For me, the struggle is a balance between loving family members who seemingly love me (but don’t always affirm me) with the complexities of my identity and who I am in the world.
On Sunday, I stood tall as I told the congregation to arise, for their faith will make them well. Those words are powerful. Very Powerful — and yet, as I think about the wounds that have re-surfaced in my own life, I don’t want to get up and I don’t know how my faith might make these relationships well. I just told folks how simple it was and yet I can’t seem to muster up the courage to do it myself. Sigh.
The more I think about it, though, the hemorrhaging woman was struggling with her wounds for twelve years. Did it take her twelve years of faith to heal? How many doctors did she go to? Was her wound bigger than mine? Why hasn’t my faith made me well?
I honestly don’t know, my friends. I don’t know how my faith might make me well — at least not for now. There is one thing I do know, though. Through God’s love, I, along with the folks on the other side of my wounded relationships have received a radically significant amount of grace that supersedes any immediate need to seal up these wounds and go on merrily about our lives. God, in this very moment, is giving us grace to be confused and get it wrong and get angry at one another and to fail at our multiple attempts to heal the wounds that are killing us.
Friends, this isn’t a one-time thing. Every time I preach, I learn something for myself. Perhaps you’ve experienced this same thing when you’ve yelled at your kiddo or tried to hold the moral high ground when you probably should have been humble.
So, remember whenever you find yourself confident enough to preach to others, make sure to do a test run in the mirror and find it in yourself to humbly accept that none of us have the correct answers and that all of us deserve some of God’s grace. Amen.
