Preacher woman.

To hear Barbara Brown Taylor preach is not to be wowed by a fire-and-brimstone booming voice or otherwise dramatic delivery. Instead this Episcopalian priest must have been named one of 12 most effective preachers in the English-speaking world for what she says, not how she says it.

And what she says has been inspiring listeners and readers since she was ordained in 1984. That's why many were shocked when she left parish ministry, a journey she chronicles in her recent memoir Leaving Church (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006). Now teaching religion at Piedmont College in rural northeast Georgia, she continues to inspire through her speaking, writing, and yes, preaching.

When asked why she left parish ministry but not the priesthood, Taylor says her notion of priesthood has broadened. "1 decided to stay and try to stretch the boundaries of what priesthood is--more of a priesthood of all believers."

The editors interview the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor

Do you think most people in the pews are satisfied with the quality of peaching today? And what should preachers--or the people in the pews--be doing about that?

What do you think? (laughs)

Actually I have great sympathy for both sides. Half the clergy are just coloring inside the lines because they're so tired of people complaining. It beats them down. I know lots of frightened clergy, either consciously or unconsciously, who play it very safe because of that. So if I could remove an obstacle for clergy, it'd be fear. I would tell preachers to think of something else they can do for a living and they'll be more fearless preachers.

I think congregations could do more than say "thank you" or "how dare you" or "that was so boring." There are ways for congregations to participate, and not to see the sermon simply as a performance they get to grade.

From the congregation's side, if I took up their defense, I would say to clergy, "Will you please stake out some time to read a new book, think a new thought, and dig deeper?" I feel for congregations who are starving. I look out before I preach at all those hungry people and I can almost see it in their faces: "Don't let us down again. We're such fools. We line up for this every time expecting something new, and it's just the same old thing again."

I really feel for people who come so hungry and they get only a tablespoonful in their bowl. They deserve more. But I do see both sides. As pastor of a diverse congregation, you can't say one word that everybody hears as gospel. What one person hears as gospel, somebody else hears as blasphemy. So a lot of us turn out white bread sermons because we want to be shepherds to the whole flock.

So how do you deal with controversial subjects in preaching?

When I was a pastor of a congregation, I took my cue from Jesus. Jesus preached through metaphor, image, suggestion, inference. So if I'm preaching on the Ethiopian eunuch from the Book of Acts, I might preach about how all people need to be welcomed into the Body of Christ. I'll talk about the radical inclusion of an Ethiopian who is sexually suspect, in the same way that we suspect gay and lesbian people today. But I'll never say it so directly that people clamp their hands over their ears. I preach by indirection, so that people can make connections, but if they're not ready to make the connection, they won't. Other preachers can say controversial things flat out, but that doesn't have enough art in it for me.

When I am a guest preacher, I have less trouble preaching more directly. Sometimes pastors even ask me to address a certain controversial issue, because they can't. I'm happy to do it because I can leave. It also leaves some liberty for the listener who can say, "Well, she's just a guest." I really like to respect the autonomy of the listener.

Even though preachers sometimes don't feel powerful, they have a great deal of power. They have the microphone. I'd rather tickle something in a sermon and then say, "I'll meet you in the parish hall following the sermon, and we'll have a discussion where everybody gets to talk about this." I don't think it's fair to open and shut the book when people can't talk back. I think maybe that's where some of the resentfulness about sermons comes from. People can't ask their questions.

How do you prepare to preach? In some Catholic parishes, the priest meets with parishioners to break open the scripture for the week to prepare for preaching.

I love that. In some circles, that's called round-table preaching. It gets the preacher out of the role of being the performer, the person who disappears into his study and comes out with a masterpiece that people can grade.

The priest becomes the mouthpiece for the community. I know congregations where the group tells the priest what they need to hear. As long as the preacher doesn't become beholden to people's different lobbying efforts, I think this sets preaching in its proper context, which is an act of the community and not the act of an individual.

You have said that you prepare for preaching by hanging laundry on the line. What did you mean by that?

I meant that I prepare for preaching with my whole life. My preparation for preaching is hanging laundry on the line and eavesdropping in restaurants and paying attention to what happens in the post office and getting eggs out from under the chickens.

I am less keen on preparing from books, because then the implicit message is that the truth about God is in books, and they're in my books, not yours. But to preach from life is to teach people that God is all around them and to lend them eyes to see. That, to me, is a better model for preaching.

Is preaching a gift or can it he taught?

Both. I compare it to music. For some it's a gift, but you can be taught. Not everybody can play music like professionals, but we can make music. I think preaching is the same. There are geniuses, people with a real gift. But it would be a mistake to be discouraged by their example because it's also possible to learn to be a good preacher.

How do you teach preaching?

A lot of it is about taking the risk of saying something fresh or giving a new perspective. It's important for clergy to resist the temptation to deliver only what people expect. I worry about clergy who have given up wrestling with texts because they think people just want to hear what they expect to hear.

I hear a lot of clergy who've learned to fake their way through, just to say something pious-sounding or tell a story they got off a leaflet. That's not the job. The job is to be available to the people who are listening to you, to run the Word through your own flesh and through their flesh, then to prepare and preach a sermon with this congregation, this community, this world, these headlines, this weather in mind. Deliver it like you would a love letter. You don't want to use a form letter for a love letter.

Are certain voices missing in the pulpits? Certainly in the Catholic Church we wouldn't have your voice as a preacher.

Yes, but those voices might not flourish if they were brought in. Including them doesn't have to happen in the pulpit. Jesus preached in the fields and in boats. I think there's a whole lot of room for preaching in different forms.

The question of who's missing is important, though, not only in the pulpit, but at the table. You may not get all God's people into the church, but you can go out and find where they are talking and listen to them and quote them.

How has it affected the Episcopal Church to have women's voices in the pulpit?

Well, what can I say? I think it's been a good thing. (laughs) I had heard so many baseball and golf stories. Now diapering and cooking have made it into the pulpit, to the point you can see some guys rolling their eyes. But it's really brought more of life in.

Again, I do believe that kind of change can happen even where women are not ordained.

Is there the danger of the sermon or homily being all about the preacher?

I'm big on sermons that connect directly to human experience, and I'll always start with my own. But there are other ways to do that than always saying, "I." You can say, "Have you ever wondered ..." or "Once upon a time there was a man ..."

Sometimes young clergy think it's all about "I." Unfortunately there is some narcissism in preaching, too. I've heard clergy who didn't have any place else to tell about their summer vacation. And there are clergy who get up and tell you about all their brokenness.

David Buttrick [formerly of Vanderbilt University] taught students to never say "I" in a sermon. I would never make that rule, but I'd love to work with clergy around other ways to use their own experience.

What's it like for you to be in the pews and listen to others preach?

Again, I have huge compassion for people who preach regularly. But there are times I get upset with preachers and I just want to say, "We deserve better than this."

But I'm probably upset only about 15 percent of the time. Most of the time I'm interested in what people are saying. Sure, I notice the moves they make, but I'm as hungry as anybody else. I'm listening for good news.

Do most priests get honest feedback about their preaching? One bishop used to take a group of priests and have them critique each other's homilies. Does that help?

I don't know of another communication loop that's never finished. What other public speaker never finds out how he or she was heard? Clergy don't get feedback, and when they do, they get it from other clergy. They need to be getting it from laypeople.

You need to carefully pick six representative people and ask them questions about your sermons for a limited period of time. In other words, don't just sit down and say, "What did you think?" Ask what they thought your theme was. Where were they most engaged? Where did you lose them?

That's what's missing in the model you're talking about. Clergy are OK listeners, but they don't listen like laypeople listen, and they're not hungry for the same things.

Do you have lay preaching in the Episcopal Church?

We can license lay preachers. It's a good idea theologically, though I understand why my bishop has concerns. For us preaching is sacramental. So if it's sacramental and laypeople can do it, why can't laypeople celebrate Eucharist?

You can do pastoral counseling, prison ministry, and teach school as a lay person. But he argues that preaching and celebration of the sacraments are the two marks of call to the priestly vocation.

When I was in a little country church, it struck me as a crime for people to have to listen to me every week. I got some clergy associates pretty quickly, but if I hadn't, I would have gotten a lay guild of preachers going. I would have actually loved that. What's it like to hear the dean of arts and sciences preach? What's it like to hear the auto mechanic preach?

Do you have much experience with Catholic preaching?

I'm never invited. (laughs) Once in Clarkesville, [Georgia], I preached in the Catholic church for Thanksgiving. This little girl in the front row looked up and said, "Mommy, I told you women could preach."

What Episcopalians and Catholics share is the idea that there's always Eucharist. I have always preached in the context of the sacrament. I'm a liturgical preacher.

What does that mean?

First, it means a short sermon, a 10- to 12-minute sermon, which I think is plenty for anybody.

Liturgical preaching also means that if I don't feed somebody, there's food coming up. I have always loved the idea that I don't have to do it all, that my sermon is a piece of the service, but it's not why people come.

I get invited into some Protestant services where the sermon is all there is, and I'm asked to preach for 20, 25, sometimes 40 minutes with nothing coming after me but the passing of the plate. It's very disorienting.

What is the relationship for you between the preached Word and the table?

Sermons try to feed the head, heart, and will, but for me Eucharist is the enactment of what I hope I just talked about. It's the time to shut up and just bodily move into the gospel.

I almost don't hear the words at Eucharist. I'm so fixed on kneeling and the smell of candles, it all turns into light and bread and wine and smell and taste for me at that point. It's a very embodied experience of the gospel, in which I'm fed and renewed and enlivened and refreshed and knit into community. It's like the dance of the gospel for which I just tried to give the directions or the choreography.

Leaving church but not losing faith

When people ask me what I miss most about serving a church, the answer is: I miss baptisms and funerals, parish picnics and hospital calls, but what I miss most of all is celebrating Communion with people I love. I miss being a lightning rod, conducting all that heat and light not only from heaven to earth but also from person to person.

Most of us do not live especially holy lives, after all. We spend most of our time sitting in traffic, paying bills, and being irritated with one another. Yet every week we are invited to stop all of that for one hour at least. We are invited to participate in a great drama that has been going on without us for thousands of years, and one that will go on as long as there is a single player left standing.

If this terrific mystery is not apparent to most people sitting in the pews, then there are at least two things wrong. One is that worship has become too tame, and the other is that those who come have stopped bringing their own fire. The two may even be related, but neither is easily solved, nor am I sure that many people want them to be. Tame worship is easier to agree on than any other kind, and bringing fire requires a lot more energy than simply showing up. When life is pretty good and church is pleasant enough, who needs resurrection?

But there may be something wrong with giving one person so much power, so that the starring role in the drama goes to the same person every week. I did not think about this much when I was one of several clergy on a large church staff, but at Grace-Calvary [Church in Clarkesville, Georgia] I felt the heat more keenly. Week after week, I was permitted to stand up in special clothes and talk while everyone else sat quietly and listened. Week after week, they heard the gospel filtered through my sensibilities....

If I sometimes felt like a hostile parent and my parishioners like overmanaged children, it was not all our fault. We needed a different way of being together before God, shaped more like a circle than a pyramid. We needed to ditch the sheep paradigm. We needed to take turns filling in for Jesus, understanding that none of us was equal to the task to which all of us had been called. We needed to share the power.

Reprinted with permission from Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor (HarperSanFrancisco).