Planting Seeds

Sermons as Lures for Feeling
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I am a priest and a gardener. My bishop has asked me to say a word about my philosophy of preaching. I need to mention Whitehead.

One of the best courses I took in college was a careful reading of Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Reality. The course stretched my mind in a wonderful way, and I was introduced to ideas I had never considered—ideas about God, time, experience, creativity, and the becoming of the world.

At the end of the course, our professor made a comment that has stayed with me ever since. She said: “Remember, all of Whitehead’s ideas are lures for feeling.” And then added one of her favorite quotes from Whitehead's text: "The sole appeal is to intuition."

In speaking of lures for feeling she was drawing on Whitehead’s concept of propositions—not abstract truths nor concrete facts, but something in between: living ideas. Propositions in his philosophy are "proposals" for how we might live in the world. They may or may not be true, but they are, at the very least, interesting. They invite us into relationship. They move us. They awaken response.

That phrase--lures for feeling—has shaped the way I understand preaching. When I step into the pulpit, my goal is not to deliver conclusions. I do not aim to present doctrine to be accepted or arguments to be won. I see my calling as a preacher as offering possibilities, shared with care and trust. I hope to offer lures for feeling—propositions, stories, images, and silences that might settle into the lives of those listening, and perhaps begin to grow.

I think of a proposition on the analogy of a seed being cast into the wind. This is where the gardening side of my life comes in.

Like a seed, a proposition carries more than it seems to. It is compact, but it holds within it the potential for transformation. It drifts on the air, vulnerable to the breeze, waiting for a place to land. It does not impose itself—it offers. And if it finds receptive soil—a heart open to wonder, a mind willing to wrestle—it may take root. It may grow. It may blossom into insight, compassion, action, or change. But it does so in its own time, not on command.

Sometimes an idea lands right away. People come up after the service and say: “That story really spoke to me,” or “I’ve never thought of it that way before,” or even just, “Thank you—I needed that.” Moments like that are gifts.

But more often, it doesn’t. More often, I trust that the sermon plants a seed. And seeds take time. They settle quietly into the soil of someone’s life, often unnoticed at first. Days or weeks later, the idea might return—maybe in the middle of a walk, or during a hard conversation, or in a quiet moment of prayer. And then it begins to grow. Not because I made it grow, but because the soil was ready—and the Spirit was at work.

I do not expect instant results. I trust that what’s spoken today may rest quietly in someone’s heart for weeks, months, or even years. A phrase. A story. A silence. These may return in a moment of loss or joy or decision, and become something real. Not because I said it, but because the Spirit used it—and because it found fertile soil.

And when it does return, it will always be transmuted—shaped by the life, heart, and context of the one who receives it. What a proposition means to me is not what it needs to mean to them. The Spirit takes over. And the Spirit is omni-adaptive, endlessly responsive to the contours of each person’s life.

And so I hope not that people will agree with everything I say, but that they will feel something—even if faintly. And then, I hope they will question it. Live with it. Let it deepen or compost. Let it change shape. Let it become their own.
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For me, sermons are not instruction manuals. They are not conclusions. They are invitations. They are lures for feeling.

And often, it’s not even the “idea” that carries the power—it’s the story, the image, the gesture, the moment from scripture or life that bypasses the intellect and reaches the heart. These are what T.S. Eliot called objective correlatives—concrete moments that evoke a reality beyond words. Sometimes those moments are the sermon.

​ I don’t always know what takes root. That’s not mine to know. My task is to speak with love.

To trust the soil. To wait with hope. And to remember that I am soil, too.

I receive sermons every week—from the lives of those I serve, from their questions and their stories, from their griefs and joys. Their lives preach. Their doubts and discoveries shape me. I am in process, too.

This is my philosophy of preaching: To invite, not to impose. To stir, not to settle. To offer.

The sole appeal is to intuition.