I gave my sermon at church this morning! Today is Reformation
Sunday, so I preached about Martin Luther. I was really nervous before
the sermon. Now that it's over and done with, I'm not sure how I feel.
Am I giddy about having done a good job? Am I thinking that maybe I
didn't do so good of a job? Probably a mixture of the two. One thing
is clear: I'm glad it's over, at least for now (since I may preach in
the future)! Tomorrow, I'll probably come down to earth from out of my
cloud and perform the deeds of my day-to-day life.
One
lady told me that I did well, but I needed to speak more slowly. She's
probably correct about that. I spoke as quickly as I did because I was
nervous, and also because I wanted to get in as much as I could. (In
practicing my sermon, I went overtime a couple of times.) But my sermon
might have been better had I done it as I practiced it last night:
being slow and methodical in my speaking.
Someone
else was thanking me because of what she got out of my sermon: about
Luther's life, the politics involved in the Reformation on both the
Catholic and Protestant sides, the fact that both Catholics and
Protestants did good and bad things, and Luther's anti-Jewish writings.
As she remarked, we all have feet of clay. Yet, as I was saying in my
sermon, God is assuring us of God's love. I appreciated her feedback
because it showed me that I got my points across. I was revising my
sermon as late as last night, for I felt that some of my sermon was
historical obscurantism that the congregation may not find particularly
interesting, plus I thought that I should attach some of my points to a
spiritual lesson rather than leaving them hanging as mere historical
facts. I'm glad that my work on this was fruitful, on some level.
Someone
else, a seventh grader, was telling me that he was learning about
Martin Luther in school. I found that to be cool. I remember when I
learned about Luther in my ninth grade World History class. The teacher
was saying that Luther did not sign the Ninety-Five theses with "the
Phantom," but he was putting his name to his complaints and challenges
against the Catholic church!
Anyway, I'll be happy to listen to someone else give the sermon next week!