The scary life of Hermeneutics

Tossing a posh word in like "Hermeneutics" always makes it sound as if you know what you are talking about! Well, you can fool some of the people, some of the time ... or however that quote goes.
Well, I know something of it, because "Hermeneutics" is the art or science or whatever, of preaching the Word of God. Something that I, like many of my brothers and sisters in ministry, do sunday by sunday.
And preaching - sunday by sunday, is from my perspective lots of things .... it's a call from God, it's a challenge to be careful and faithful to the scriptures, it's a honour and a huge and scary task to teach the people of God.
When I was at Spurgeon's between 88 and 92, the dreaded Sermon Class was at it's height. The experience was far from pleasant: each student had to preach and lead worship before the whole of the college - faculty and students, and then be led to another second lecture room (execution chamber) wherein two faculty critics and two student critics would then tear and tuck into you. And literally, they would pull no punches and sometimes with style and poetic licence and an element of drama, they would pulverise you into the floor, whilst the rest of the student body looked on. The final injustice was to then watch the video of it all with your college tutor, who supposedly picked out the good bits and attempted to put you back together.
Sermon Class was the event to be feared most in the 4 years of life of every Spurgeon's student. I am told that in the older days of Spurgeon's that it was even worse, for a student had to experience it twice - first having freshly arrived at college, and second in the 3rd or 4th year. But for those who are not ordained ministers, it is worth knowing that at least for Spurgeons trained ministers, that the road to becoming a preacher, has been painfully forged and tested, to arrive at the well expereinced scenario of preaching for some, maybe 3 times on a sunday, week in and week out.
For me, the practical truth of preaching is that some Sundays I will be feeling great and the sermon will be steaming, and other sundays - perhaps more often than I care to admit, i will completely miss the mark and produce durge and bore people to tears. I have learnt though the painful truth that the sermons I thought went well were rubbish (and to which many nice comments were made afterwards), and that sometimes the sermons that I thought were rubbish, sometimes were the best and blessed some people (and to which perhaps one or two comments might have been made afterwards). I have learnt that I have the capacity to bless or destroy, to hit the mark or miss it, more often the latter - to miss it! I have learnt that, despite my ego's desperate desire to feel applauded and appreciated with nice comments after a sermon, that many of them have little to do with whether God was present or not and so despite my pride, should be disregarded. I have also learnt that its not about a sprint, but the long distance run, that is to say that the faithful attempts to preach the word of God week in and week out provides a stable, healthy diet for a church family. I have learnt that preaching is all about presenting Jesus Christ, and not Sam Griffiths - I am not an entertainer or stand up comedian, I am to be a humble soldier of Christ. I have learnt that the bible will feed, regardless of whether or not I hit the mark - that scripture about the Word not returning void is vital, otherwise none of us stand any chance! I've also learnt that I have to prepare properly and that a good sermon needs a good days work, but that I cannot ever do it in a day, and that I will often need to let the sermon "cook" in my mind and heart, for it arrive ready to eat on a sunday morning. In short, I feel the awfulness of preaching, it's high calling, and I am all too keenly aware that whenever someone confronts me either by email, letter, phone or face to face, that however much it hurts me - and yes, it always hurts me deeply, that there is always a grain of truth in what it said. Above all else, I have learnt to please God and not people, and have at times been tempted and given in to pleasing people, more than I have God!