Adventures in Downsizing

What do I do with a career-worth of sermons?

Of course, I cannot do much about the sermons themselves, not as they were preached. They have long been absolutely free of my ability to retrieve them. Like all spoken words, once they were said they could not be taken back.

But the manuscripts and/or notes from which I spoke them are in several large cardboard file boxes stowed in our attic. Being who I am, I’ve kept them all. The earliest are from my college days (mid-1960s). The latest is from two weeks ago. All neatly stapled along with the worship bulletin for that service, which usually includes announcements about life in that congregation. In a way all of this paper is not only a record of my preaching, but of my whole ministry.

What do I do with a career, perhaps even, if I dare, a calling?

It has seemed too hard to me to simply pitch the whole lot of them. I guess I have too much invested in how I spent much of my time on this earth. But I know I will never go through them all, Sunday by Sunday, in order to learn what I can about me and my ministry from their witness. I certainly do not want anyone who survives me to have to decide what to do with them all, although it would probably be easier for them to decide to pitch them than I want to admit. And publishing some of them, as some have most graciously suggested? Nope…too much work, too little pay-off.

So I came up with a grid whereby I select four sermons from each year in an ordered yet random way, one from each quarter of each year, but from different Sundays in each quarter. That’s the best I can explain it. This method most likely leaves me with a mix of the good, the bad, and the indifferent. In order to allow myself some freedom of choice, if I see a title or topic that somehow sticks in my memory as worthy of saving, I keep that one. But then I move forward according to my pre-ordained plan.

I’ve culled my sermons through 1996, so only a couple more decades to go. A very small box holds the blessed remnant of 32 years of my pulpit wisdom. I feel good about that.

It’s been a worthwhile process so far, reminding me of many things I’d forgotten. I’ve found some memorable correspondence from folks and some interesting articles I saved filed between the manuscripts. It’s been a quick review of my career, of my calling. And in some ways going through all those boxes is clearing space in my brain and heart for the writing I am doing these days.

But I haven’t yet pitched all the manuscripts my systematic approach has determined I shall not keep. I moved them back into the attic, until… And I know all of the sermons from the 90s on are saved in my computer, so what about them? They are sadly easy to keep. And what will become of the invaluable but small box or two of the saved sermons that I will likely want to carry to smaller quarters one day? What do I really expect anyone to do with them? Who will have to decide about them if I do not?

A career-worth of sermons is no small matter to me.