The Preacher's Toolbox: Seeding the Sermon

I do not usually go looking for preaching advice from record producers, but then again Rick Rubin is not just any producer. The man in the studio behind legendary musical acts like the Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash, Metallica, the Avett Brothers, and many more, Rubin truly is “the guy behind the guy.” He also looks vaguely like a Muppets character, which is a plus.

His recent book, The Creative Act, has been straddling best-seller lists for months, and so I gave a listen to the audio book narrated by Rubin himself. It is a fascinating and often enlightening read (or listen) on the creative process, with a number of insights and practices that are plenty applicable to preachers. Here, I will focus on just one, what Rubin calls “The Seed Phase.”

Servants of the Sower

In the Seed Phase, he writes, “We are searching for potential starting points that, with love and care, can grow into something beautiful. At this stage, we are not comparing them to find the best seed. We simply gather them” (143). This idea has resonances with what classical rhetoric called the Inventio or “Discovery” stage in preparing an oration (or sermon, as the case may be).

His choice of metaphor is a felicitous one for us as Christians generally and preachers in particular. The Lord is the great Sower, and He enlists us as His servants to go out and cast the seed of His Word. This casting is, of course, principally done in the process of preaching and teaching the Scriptures. If I may press the metaphor, though, in the Seed Phase we are incubating the potential plantings, and seeing which words start to sprout.

The creative czar Rubin, as my you might expect, is not terribly methodical in laying out the process of the Seed Phase (“Seven easy steps to your most creative work yet!”), so let me come behind him and in good Lutheran fashion do a little bit of systematizing.

Systematizing the Seed Phase

The first step of the Seed Phase, Rubin writes, is the collection. This typically does not involve much effort: “It’s more a receiving of a transmission. A noticing” (144). For the preacher, this collection will commonly come in the course of weekly study, but it might also include those unexpected moments of inspiration when you are at the soccer game or watching TV (which is why keeping your pocket notebook is vital; it is your little seed packet).

The second step is, so to speak, a non-step: Withholding judgment. “As the seeds arrive,” Rubin writes, “forming conclusions about their value or fate can get in the way of their natural potential. In this phase, the artist’s work is to collect seeds, plant them, water them with attention, and see if they take root” (144). Suspending your verdict on the value of a particular “seed” or idea can be difficult. I often find myself forming snap judgments, which is fine; that is itself data to consider. But the point is not to be too presumptuous about the direction of the sermon at this early stage: “Placing too much emphasis on a seed or dismissing it prematurely can interfere with its natural growth” (145).

Placing too much emphasis on a seed or dismissing it prematurely can interfere with its natural growth.-Rick Rubin

Thirdly, Rubin encourages us to gain some distance. He writes, “Collect many seeds and then, over time, look back and see which ones resonate.” He primarily has in mind artists who do not have a deadline of, say, every blessed Sunday, but his point is well taken. The distance he is talking about does not have to be weeks or months. In my own process, Monday is my main day of study/“Seed Phase.” Then, I am able to ruminate on those seeds throughout the week. Even twenty-four hours away from them allows for some time to see what starts to germinate.

Rubin makes the natural corollary that “the more seeds you’ve accumulated, the easier this is to judge” (145). For preachers, this means you just get everything down on paper: Exegetical insights, potential illustrations, insightful quotations... all of it. Cannot figure out whether it fits, or where yet? That is okay. It can get chopped later. To paraphrase Hemingway’s famous adage, you can often tell the quality of the preacher by how much is left on the cutting room floor.

Not by our hand alone

Rubin’s final point about the Seed Phase sounds to my ears delightfully ironic, in the classical sense. He says much more than he realizes. He writes:

“At this point in time, it’s helpful to think of the work as bigger than us. To cultivate a sense of awe and wonder at what’s possible and recognize that this productivity is not generated by our hand alone” (146).

This almost sounds like a midrash on Jesus’ parable of the growing seed: “The Kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how” (Mark 4:26-27). Our Lord is the great Sower, and we are privileged to enter into His labor.

As we “seed” the sermon, we see week-by-week how the creative act is finally not ours at all. Though we can do our level best to prepare the soil, the words and thoughts and ideas take root and bear fruit according to gracious forces well beyond our control.

A crazy-haired record producer reminded me of that.