I think a secret, latent desire of some clergy is to be invited back to the seminary to deliver a sermon. Show the profs, the colleagues, and those know-it-all rookie seminarians how well we are doing, how much better we’ve gotten since the days of theology school. That will probably never happen to me. I graduated from the seminary at SMU in Dallas. The people invited to do sermons there are accomplished authors or big name preachers. But . . . I did get to preach to a seminary crowd—St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Seminary in Houston. I was invited by the Rector to address the assembled congregation for the Liturgy of the Hours Evening Prayer on a Sunday evening. I used as my text the first few verses of 1 John 1 and basically pointed out the enthusiasm that John had about his relationship with Jesus, and sort of wondered out loud where our passion, our enthusiasm might lie? The theologues listened intently, much more so than the normal Sunday morning crowd who may often interpret my musings as something they have to put up with in order to get to the end of the worship hour. The seminarians wanted to see my manuscript. They noticed that I hardly looked at it. How had I arranged it? Look at the enlarged font I had used. Where did I come up with such a novel way of proclaiming the word? Did I know how closely that reading fit in with the gospel reading for that selected day, etc. All in all it was a very heady occasion for me. I loved it. It fed my soul. It was neat preaching to such a younger, thirsty set of men (and Betsy!)
