Not long ago, a church member snagged me after worship. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about your sermon from a couple of weeks ago,” she said.
I genuinely love a good homiletical or theological conversation, but in that moment, I’d have preferred a question about predestination. At least then I’d have had a prayer of saying something reasonably intelligent in response — or at least something more thoughtful than, “Ah. Well. If you can remind me what it was about, I’d love to talk about it.”
Fortunately, she provided a summary that jogged my memory. But good grief. If I can’t always remember what I preached, why should I expect anyone else to remember it? This interaction points to the inescapable tension of congregational ministry: we all want to do our very best on any given Sunday, but another Sunday is literally always looming. They arrive like clockwork. In my 16 years of ministry, the universe has never failed to deliver.
Once I remembered the sermon the church member was referring to, I also remembered that I’d felt pretty good about it. It’s just that I’d written about 8,000 other words since. Wasn’t it Norman Maclean who wrote, “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it”? I know, I know; he wasn’t talking about sermons. But he could have been.
But other sermons take on a life of their own. Recently, a couple of my sermon series garnered attention well beyond Columbia, South Carolina. In the summer of 2024, I preached a five-part series titled “UNholy: The Heresy of Christian Nationalism.” In January 2025, I preached a four-part series titled “Inaugural Words,” pairing Jesus’ first words in each of the four Gospels with a portion of the U.S. presidential oath of office.
Both series emerged from a growing awareness that my congregation was longing to think about national, political news through a lens of faith and a carefully considered conviction regarding what the Gospel had to say about it all. The “Inaugural Words” series was planned a few months ahead of time; “UNholy” began less than two weeks after the idea first came to mind.
I was at home recovering from a case of COVID-19 I acquired at the 2024 General Assembly when shots were fired at a presidential campaign rally in Pennsylvania. I began hearing from congregation members immediately. I outlined a possible series and let it sit overnight. In the morning, still convinced it was the right thing to do, I sent it to my pastoral and program staff colleagues and asked them to consider it for 24 hours before responding. As the primary preacher, the responsibility and ultimate decision were mine, but I wanted their input and reflections. The next day, we scrapped the series we had planned for the rest of the summer, and I began a crash course in White Christian nationalism. (My internet search algorithms still have not recovered.)
I had to embrace the idea that saying something that mattered was more important than saying something perfectly.
Both series were written for Shandon Presbyterian Church. Thanks to livestreams, YouTube, archives and all things Social Media, they quickly wound up being shared widely. I had to embrace the idea that saying something that mattered was more important than saying something perfectly. I developed a newfound empathy through rereading the letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to a handful of people at a particular time in their shared lives — letters that are now read and critiqued by people Paul never imagined. Even now, roughly a year later, I think of things I’d say differently. But what was said has been said, and the internet will forever bear witness.
What is heartening is knowing that preachers who feel they can’t take the same approach in their own pulpits have asked to use the sermons in a Sunday school setting, inviting conversation about White Christian nationalism by discussing someone else’s words. Many other wonderful sources are available from historians, theologians and those who have studied these matters far more extensively, but if 20-minute sermons from a Presbyterian in South Carolina can help further the conversation, then wonderful.
Both series received some criticism. Internet-dwellers I’ve never met otherwise emerged from dark corners and had a field day. However, far more frequent and profound have been words of gratitude and expressions of the desire for meaningful conversations. In the end, that’s all I can ask for. In the end, that’s all the Gospel asks of any of us who are foolish or called or courageous enough to climb into a pulpit.
