Of Sermons and Puzzles
Writing a sermon is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle when pieces of several puzzles have been dumped into one box. Only some of the oddly shaped bits will fit together to create a whole picture. It often happens that I have information gathered in the process of researching a sermon that just doesn't make it into the final oration.
While researching Abraham Lincoln I listened to lectures and read a number of articles. After each bit of research I thought about how it might fit into a sermon. For instance, I heard a scholar muse on Lincoln's Kentucky origins and if he was perceived as a Southerner. I made note to mention Lincoln’s Southern origins. Another lecture left me with the new understanding of how emancipated blacks influenced a culture of appreciation for Lincoln as the premier hero in the drama of freedom. I wanted to point out in the sermon that black Americans fashioned an understanding of Lincoln's accomplishments that persists today.
I also listened to a lecture that reflected on the one time Ralph Waldo Emerson and Abraham Lincoln met. The night before they were briefly introduced to one another, Emerson delivered his American Civilization speech in Washington. Emerson's point was that civilization rests on morality, and that the end of slavery was an essential condition for building a truly civilized America. Despite the fact that Emerson was the pre-eminent lecturer of his day, Lincoln wasn't present for the speech. He could likely have read it entirely or excerpts from it in the morning newspaper. It would be very unlikely that the topic of Emerson’s lecture would have escaped the President. Yet, Emerson recalled in his journal that when he was introduced to the President, Lincoln spoke of another speech altogether. Lincoln quoted to Emerson his words that described Kentuckians as people who present themselves to be accepted just as they are. Given the context, and the pressure radical Republicans were placing on Lincoln to emancipate all people held in slavery immediately, Lincoln's words carried an ambiguous message. One could conclude that he meant to say "I'm a Kentuckian, and the President, and I haven't put emancipation ahead of saving the union. Deal with it."
None of that fit into the sermon when it finally came to be written. Neither did a critique of the screenplay for Spielberg's film, Lincoln; or quotes from Emerson's American Civilization, or a half-dozen other pieces that didn't have the right shape to fit into picture emerging as I wrote. Now, they are just a few pieces laid to the side of the puzzle, the ones that didn't fit the whole picture of one twenty-minute sermon, too important to be lost.
(Note: I am today resolving to post to this blog once a week until my sabbatical begins in August. Wish me luck...and sign up for the RSS feed to receive each post as it happens.)
