The Sermon That Ended My Preaching Career
For years I carried a grudge against my stuffy, conservative professor. Now I wonder what I missed.
I preached exactly one sermon in divinity school.
It was about listening — not just to scripture, but to God’s ongoing voice in our lives. About discernment. About how to tell which inner voice is holy, and which one is just noise.
The class met in Harvard’s Memorial Church — a storied sanctuary built to commemorate “the Harvard men who died in the World War” that carries a hallowed, somber presence to this day.
This was my first day in Homiletics, a class for aspiring ministers to learn the craft of oratory. I grasped the aged oak pulpit and gave my best.
As echoes of my last, ringing words fell silent, I glanced down at the professor. A friend and seasoned minister had heard my practice recitations, and declared this first attempt admirable. I was hoping — yes, expecting — a smile. Perhaps a teensy attaboy.
The professor was sitting in the second pew, seemingly oblivious. After a moment he leveled his gaze on me and responded with a sniff. “I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.”
That professor was Peter Gomes — legendary minister, preacher to presidents, and one of the most celebrated public theologians of his era.
At the time, I didn’t know or care about any of that.
All I knew was that he’d dismissed my sermon — my first sermon — out of hand. No questions. No curiosity. No mentoring to help me shape my message better. Just a wave of his hand, elegant and crushing.
And I. Was. Ticked.
Oh yeah, and I dragged around that grudge for years.
Ahem: Decades.
Because it wasn’t just about a sermon. It was about someone, to whom I’d come for instruction — saying I wasn’t worth the effort. I made no sense. I didn’t belong.
And beneath the anger was a bruise I didn’t want to name, but I will now: resentment.
I was one of only two students from a state school. Most of my classmates had come from Yale, Oxford, Princeton, Tübingen, the Sorbonne.
I had spent much of my childhood in a trailer park in Alabama, and the Forrest Gump accent clung to me like humidity. Was it my lack of polish? My class background? My emotional language, shaped by rural Methodism and our “How’s your walk with the Lord today?” culture?
Peers unapologetically called where I came from “America’s Third World.” Not often, and never to my face, but in overheard conversations, yes.
Was it just that I wasn’t cut out for Harvard?
Or was he just a bombastic jerk?
For a long time, I didn’t bother to find out.
Others admitted that he was “difficult,” and that most students preferred a newer, more pastoral professor for homiletics. His classes were always full, alas, which is why I was able to slide so easily into Gomes’.
All this made it easy for me to assume he was exactly what he looked like to me that day: a buttoned-up conservative who didn’t know what to do with a mystic sermon in a semi-Southern drawl. I didn’t know much about his theology, but I figured it was some rigid, high-church version of sola scriptura — a closed system.
I’d encountered it again and again in the churches of my childhood friends — Southern Baptist, Assemblies of God, Church of God — when I’d sit mesmerized in the pews as red-faced preachers rained down Old Testament laws and punishments all over us.
Like an old adversary, I knew it well. And quickly tagged this troublesome professor as a Yankee version of that same old devil.
I never read his books. I didn’t want to learn more. Why would I? The fact that his name was whispered with saintly reverence by faculty and students alike only fed the flames of my dark heart.
So I shut the door. Dropped the class. Signed up for Creative Nonfiction instead and booked a ticket for my life journey to a different destination.
I was still that Methodist girl, listening for the divine voice; it never again asked me to climb into a pulpit.
What followed was years of writing for nonprofits, helping with the good work of providing housing, recovery services, healthcare, dental care, job coaching, and a seemingly infinite list of other things people need to make it in our world. I wrote grants and social media marketing, annual reports, donor asks and press releases.
My favorite projects were the profiles of the beautiful ones — those phoenix-from-the-ashes people who passed through our programs despite the horrors that were behind them — and moved on to healthy, happy lives.
Lately, however, something’s been shifting in me. My feet seem to be turning back to those old paths. After years of sleeping in on Sundays, I’m attending a local church, talking more God talk, and this time finding others on the same road.
Leading the women’s group on Saturday mornings, I’m back to talking about discernment. As a group of friends, we’re are exploring that tangled space between mysticism and orthodoxy, scripture, history, the archaeological record, and human experience.
And in the middle of it all, a surprising thing happened: the ghost of Peter Gomes arose in my thoughts.
And then there he was — one of his books on my minister’s shelf. For the first time, I felt the urge to pick it up. To pull it down and examine the cover.
I didn’t, but it’s coming soon.
I’m not an awkward student anymore. The years have made me old enough now to look him straight in the eye, with experience of my own that’s different from, but equal to his.
Maturity’s also put me in that vulnerable place again, asking, What did I miss?
Because here’s the thing — I don’t look great in this story.
That young me —she was angry. Defensive. Raw and stubborn, red dirt proud. I didn’t recognize the chip on my shoulder, but when I felt dismissed, you better believe I made him the villain.
Yes, he absolutely was abysmal that day, punching down on someone who was trying to rise up.
Yet who among us hasn’t been flippant when grace was needed? Sardonic and self-satisfied, when someone needed us to listen? If we had a record of every time we missed the mark we’d all hang our heads in shame.
The young me didn’t want some old-school, buttoned-down theologian casting dirt on my wild, beautiful, hard-won path to God.
But now I wonder:
How much was it him, telling me to talk to the hand, and how much was it me?
He’s gone now, and I’ve been graduated for years. There’s no going back to that moment. No change to ask for a meeting or even a quick message. I’ll never be able to determine what kind of man he was — as a human, apart from his books, his sermons, his reputation, his memorials.
Beyond that, I’m sure he never learned my name. In my mind, his voice agrees. “I have no earthly idea of who you are.”
But something in me still wants to try.
Maybe it’s not too late to learn something — not from the man sitting in the second row of Harvard Memorial Church, scowling up at the pulpit where we students, one by one, offered our best — but from the teacher I never let myself meet.
Wrestle with.
Beat myself against until I knew for sure which one of us had the heart of stone and then move beyond it.
I thought I was done with that story. But it turns out, that sermon left echos far outside that sanctuary.
I’m still listening.
Hello, Enthusiast! I’m a former military intelligence analyst turned nonprofit lifer—with two decades in housing, crisis response, recovery services, disability support, and mental health advocacy. The G.I. Bill funded my M.Div., which I used to study contemplative spirituality, resistance movements, and the deeper patterns beneath our politics.
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This makes me think of times I’ve had similar interactions. So many messages come when we aren’t ready to hear them. No matter how hard we try to listen. Some just patiently wait until we’re ready.