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Another installment from my journal: A New York Times editorial comments on Hardees' new Monster Thickburger, calling it "an artery-clogging mountain of Angus beef slabs, bacon, American cheese, and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame-seed bun. …It weighs in," the editorial says, "at 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat—quite possibly one of the most lethal pieces of food out there."

"Poor nutrition sells," the Times says. And sell it has. Apparently, Hardees' sales have risen steadily ever since the Thickburger first came off the grill.

Just over the top of my computer monitor is a long shelf of notebooks which include most of my sermons preached over the last twenty-five years. Sermons preached before then are filed away in boxes. But I look at these books and wonder at their level of spiritual nutrition.Week after week people were kind enough to come to my preaching table and listen. And what were they given? I would like to think they received hope, grace, direction, encouragement, insight into the ways and means of God.

Sometimes, I was tempted to sweeten the ingredients of my sermons with stuff that sizzled like Hardees' Thickburger—clever stories, humor, tales about things that interested me. Don't misunderstand: there's an appropriate place for such things in sermons. But one can cross a line into something that's akin to poor nutrition. Now with all the cute possibilities offered by dazzling technology, the temptation grows.

James Denny once said, "No (preacher) can both convince a crowd that he is clever and that Jesus Christ is mighty to save."

I wonder: did my listeners grow? Did they feel the stab of conviction that leads to change? Were they challenged to push themselves into new opportunities? How many to whom I have preached saw Kingdom—possibilities for their week in the home, at work or at school as a result? Was I able to hand them off—as did John the Baptizer—to Jesus?

I marvel at the privilege of the preacher: that people would give us 25-35 minutes of monologue time to talk about "eternalities," to serve up a meal of truth and spiritual direction. It had better be good stuff. God save us from homiletical "thickburgers."

One of my favorites, an 18th century Anglican preacher by the name of Henry Venn wrote, "When I come into the pulpit it is after study, prayers, and cries for the people; I speak as plainly, and enter into all the cares of the congregation, as minutely as I am able."

A mid-twentieth century missionary leader, Fred Mitchell, received a card from a man who regularly attended a Bible class Mitchell taught. It read:

For me 'twas not the truth you taught,
To you so clear, to me so dim,
But when you came just now, you brought
A sense of Him.

Does the contemporary church make people who fit this kind of description? Just wondering.

And this from Bishop Wescott: "The mark of a saint is not perfection, but consecration. A saint is not a (person) without faults, but a man who has given himself without reserve to God."

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