4. A wise pastor having difficulty with an overly familiar text would do well to use another of his lifelines—a game-show technique—and phone a friend. Prayer is his first lifeline. Always. A friend is the second.

Pastors having trouble with a familiar subject should do what my friend did this week: Call a couple of veteran preachers. If anyone understands the quandary of the young pastor, they will. (That still, small voice that inhibits the preacher from asking an older minister for help is called ego, and he should reject its fearful counsel.)

You would like to know if this pastor friend has an insight or a story that will jump-start your own thinking on this text. Often, he can put his finger on the very issue without a moment's hesitation. A lifetime of preaching and walking with Jesus enables him to do that.

5. Then, a technique I have used a time or two when experiencing sermon-blockage: Go to the food court at the mall (or wherever large numbers of busy people are coming and going). Sit in a corner with your notebook, asking yourself what possible meaning such a text has to these people. I've gone so far as to engage a few of those shoppers in conversation on this very thing. That might require some explanation. I do not approach strangers with such, but invariably you will see someone you know and get into a quick conversation. So, you say, "Bob, do you have 60 seconds to help me?" He will. You say, "I'm preaching next Sunday on the Golden Rule, do unto others, etc. How does that apply in your world?" And take notes.

6. Cut yourself some slack. You'll not hit a home run every time. When the sermon ends, you may decide some parts worked and some did not. Some people were engaged and with you throughout, while some were bored.

What else is new? That happens every week anyway, I assume.

However, presumably, you will be coming back to this text or this subject from time to time over a long ministerial career. So, keep the subject active in your mind.

My story, which I've related before on these pages, has to do with "love your neighbor as yourself," another subject I probably had never preached on for the simple reason that it's so well known and so clear that there is nothing more to be said about it.

Wrong.

In a restaurant in a Mississippi town where I had stopped for lunch, two men sat across the table from me and one wanted to talk politics. When he found out I was from Louisiana, the man asked about our politics, in particular about a former KKK leader who was running for governor. When I said, "He believes things most of our people do not buy," he said, "For instance?"

"He believes in the superiority of the white race," I said.

The man was ready and loaded. He had had this conversation before.

"Well," he said. "That's a little hard to argue with."

I closed the book I'd been trying to read. "I'll argue with it."

"Then why," he said, "down through history whenever whites and blacks have lived alongside each other, have the blacks ended up as slaves of the whites?"

I'd heard that before. It was based on bad history.

I said, "Sir, you will be happy to know that did not happen often. But whenever it did, it seems to me that if the whites were making slaves out of their neighbors, it would say a lot about the inferiority of the white race."

Dr. Steve Greene is now sharing stories, teachings, and conversations with guests who lead with love on Love Leads, a new podcast. Listen now.

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