Wrestling the Sermon

This has been one of those weeks when the sermon has not come easily. It hasn't come easily because it's speaking to me on a very personal basis. However, that personal connection is not something I can share with the congregation. I'm working with a passage from Acts 16 this week. The Apostle Paul wanted to go to Asia, then Bithynia, but the Spirit wouldn't let him. He had a dream in which a man asked him to come to Macedonia. So, they went to Philippi, where Lydia became the first European convert.

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I've been reading the story and thinking about my own search for a new position. There have been several times that I was convinced that this was the church where I wanted to serve next. Each time, the Spirit said no. Both of my calls have been very unexpected, and to places I wouldn't seek out. As a young white woman, I went into a tough inner city neighborhood to pastor a multiracial church and oversee a large service program. After leading them into becoming a majority African American church, I came here to a very white rural congregation. There couldn't be two churches that were any more different than these two. I find myself thinking about the type of church that would be ideal for my next call. Like either of the first two were ideal? Yet the inner city church gave me Daughter, the first baby I baptized. This congregation provided a place for us both to heal from the chaos and stress of the inner city.

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Part of me says, "Okay, Lord, I've had two challenges. Can't you give me something easy this time around?" Most of the time I wait patiently. Occasionally, though, I talk to a committee and do research on a church and community and convince myself that this is the church, this is the place where God is going to call me. The waiting is hard. So I read this passage and hear God saying, "See, you aren't the first person I've told no. You aren't the first person who had to wait for me to tell you where to go." I get the message, but it's not one I can preach, not yet, anyway.

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So I know what the message is for me, I just have to hear what God is saying to the church. It's one of those weeks when it's going in unexpected directions. I like it when God surprises me. I just don't necessarily like getting to the surprise.