I intend on writing two columns before the Lord takes me up in a chariot. I also plan on leaving my mantle and a double portion of my blessing for the next pastor. That is to say, I have left a 25-page transitional memo for the next pastor on James’ old desk, detailing some administrative and other matters.
In this column I want to say some words about how much it has meant to me to preach in this congregation.
I don’t know exactly what a sermon is, but I know one when I hear one.
I have even occasionally given one. Perhaps that is the verb: to give. It is a gift to live with this dangerous and alive text and it is a gift to love this dangerous and alive people we call the congregation. The text and the people are dangerous because they require something of the pastor: that the pastor might need to live what he preaches. Sometimes I do. Sometimes not.
The sermon is a gift because it is this wild and creative force in my life that is always changing and surprising.
The sermon is a gift because it is always heard in a way that is different than I intended, and therefore a weekly reminder that it is not about me—it is about God.
The sermon is a gift because the text which serves as its life is so richly textured and mercurial that it explodes the longer you let it linger. (To borrow a phrase from Walter Brueggemann….texts that linger, words that explode).
The sermon is a gift because God first gifted us with words, and the Word, and endless interpretations and variety, all of which leads to life.
I have said to a few people I know that Northside has the freest pulpit I’ve ever encountered. By that I mean I can say exactly what I want and need to say for those minutes. And I can do so knowing that there is a trust that even when I feel like I’m taking a risk, the risk is held and honored by a people who value risk.
It wouldn’t be much of a sermon, I suppose, if the preacher took no risks and there was no cost to its utterance. Sermons have cost me a lot here, which is the highest praise I know to give to you. I gave plenty of sermons in other places that cost me little because I risked little.
Most of my colleagues in ministry life spend a lot of time looking around and over their shoulder. How will this be heard and can I say that? I am not immune to this, of course, but I have learned to do it less and less over these years. So much so that, with a dose of irony, I am freer now having resigned than I have ever been.
The truth is that the pulpit and the people were always free, and it was me that needed to be unbound. I needed to get dangerously close to the edge in order to realize that the edge was always further out.
I’ve got one more to give. Thank you for allowing me the privilege to give it.
Daniel Headrick, Associate Pastor
