Memories Stirred

One of the benefits of going through my old sermons and making sure they are posted on SermonCentral.com (to which, dear reader, you may link via this blogsite, in order to read my deathless preachments!) is that old memories are stirred into glow once again. To post a funeral sermon is to remember the one for whom the funeral was conducted and, in most cases, to remember the occasion itself, with its tributes and its trials. To post a Sunday message is to remember what I was trying to communicate to my church, and, all too often, to recall how skillfully that message was ignored! Memories stirred are a good thing, because most of the time our memories are quite selective.

Without something to prompt me, I would likely not remember those occasions when I sinned against my parishioners, usually by procrastinating a vital visit or by muting the counsel I could have offered. But to read one of these sermons is to stir memories of that shortcoming, and to pray again forgiveness. Without something to prompt me, I would likely not recall the gaffes, the mis-speakings, the exaggerations with which I often peppered my sermons, just for dramatic effect; but I do praise God for a wife who did not hesitate to tell me when something was too preposterous. Reading all this material again stirs those memories.

And so yesterday, as I watched the Washington-Dallas football game (at least they SAID it was a game ... to me it looked more like a punting contest) I thought about the irony that the teams representing those two cities should be squared off on November 22. That day of days, for Dallas! But I heard nothing and read nothing about what happened on that fateful day in 1963 in Dallas. The nation has grown younger while I have grown older, and they do not remember Kennedy's assassination. I, however, am of that generation who remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when it all happened -- I was working in my office at the Berea Baptist Student Center, and the Minister of Education from the church came running across the parking lot to get me and urge me to come look at a television. I shall not forget; I was, in my own small way, involved, because it had fallen my lot to preach the Thanksgiving Day chapel service, a required even for the entire student body, and I had to deal with the nation's loss as well as to help them (and me) find reason to be thankful. I shall not forget. (Nor will I forget the perception that I did an anti-Catholic smear in that sermon, rescued by the attentiveness and forthrightness of some of the Baptist students with whom I had just started to work).

And so now we come to Advent. The story is the same, the prophecies unchanged, the score of "Messiah" quite traditional. So what is new? Nothing, and that's the point. It is time to stir memories. It is time to be reminded of a maid and a manger, a babe and Bethlehem. It is time to know again, in mind and in heart, that ours is a visited planet. God with us, Immanuel. I need to hear that, see that, feel that, again, and to have my spiritual memory stirred, lest I forget or worse, lest I spin the story to my own advantage.

I hope our church sings ... and I get to play on the organ ... "O come, o come, Immanuel ... Thou Wisdom from on high, Who orderest all things mightily; To us the path of knowledge show, And teach us in her ways to go." And work in us to stir our memories.

This Strange Compulsion

Here we go again ... every time there is an opening for a ministry position, I begin to fantasize myself in that role and to savor its possibilities. What strange compulsion is this, to keep on working?

Hello? Am I not age 71, closing in on 72? Didn't I retire from my pastorate five years ago? Didn't I just announce my retirement, again, this time from the Foundation? What is it with this need to be in a role, to have a title, to be involved in some responsibility?

I have seen men who just could not give up whatever perks they thought came with being ordained. I know of one who left instructions that he be buried in his clerical robes and with a Bible in his hands, as if he would need to be ready to preach once he passed the pearly gates! Pretentious? Compulsive? Perhaps. But I am beginning to understand it.

In part it is that we men are defined by and validated by our roles in life. Our socialization has made us feel that we are what we do. Whether it be teacher or engineer, preacher or financier, many of us of the male persuasion cannot conceive of ourselves as anything other than our work. And that's really a form of works-righteousness, isn't it? It leaves little room to be a husband, a father, a grandfather, without carrying around in the back of our minds that we ought to be "doing something." No ... relationship IS doing something.

And in part it is that old habits die hard. I have not been unemployed since I started work at age 16, except for a couple of brief intervals. Something I have been doing for 55 years is second nature to me now; that's almost as long as Robert Byrd's tenure in congress! Do I look as ridiculous as he does? Have I lost my effectiveness, as he has in large measure? It is not something I want to admit to myself; it is easier to poke along the old path than it is to figure out how to live another way.

But, at the same time, it is also the desire to be useful in the Kingdom. Pardon the piety-speak, but I do still feel called. I feel called to preach, to teach, to lead, to administer, to serve. For that I need no title, but I do need some vehicle, some framework. One does not just do ministry in a vacuum. And so, dear reader, bear with me a little longer as I work through the issues with which I began this blog: "allegedly retired" but now actively considering three new possibilities for further involvement! Or not ... stay tuned.

It's Really All About Relationships

One of the aspects of being "Allegedly Retired" but still living in the area where I served as a pastor is that I get involved, in one way or another, when members of my former parish die. I am grateful to the current pastor, Dr. Ernest Trice, for his graciousness in inviting me to visit those who are in their last stages and to participate in their funeral services. I do try to be appropriate, but, while one may retire from a responsibility, one cannot retire from a relationship.

This past Saturday I read Scripture, offered prayer, and made a few remarks at the funeral of Robert Thomas Stephens. Bob and his wife Dorothy joined Takoma Park in 1995, and in their wake several other of their friends came on board as well. They made immeasurable contributions to that congregation as well as to me and to Margaret, inviting us to their home and connecting us with their lovely family members. In the end, when Bob passed away in his 93rd year, I felt a reservoir of relationships there, far more than I could catalog, and unrepeatable. It's really all about relationships, isn't it?

And then this Saturday night the death of Howard Abernethy -- the longest-term member of Takoma Park, having joined when he was a boy of about ten years of age, but now in his 70's. What a friend Howard was! Steady and sure when the work of the trustees had to be done, though in his shyness and with a speech impediment it was hard for him to negotiate with vendors; accomplished and frugal in his care for the church building, fixing locks that others thought would need replacing; encouraging to this preacher, even to the point of asking why he had not heard a sermon on "temperance" in a long time; and, most of all, letting me into the most awesome places of his life -- the death of his first wife, Elizabeth, and the marriage, all too soon cut short by his death, to his second wife, Malinda. Howard stayed at Takoma Park through good days and bad, faithful to his church and to some primary relationships. Howard saw no reason, as the membership added more and more African-Americans, to turn and run to a "white" church, though he lived much closer to that kind of congregation than to Takoma Park. Howard lived out honest, forthright, steady relationships; "faithfulness" was his mark, and both Margaret and I felt that and loved that in him. I have been asked to bring the message at his funeral service in a few days, and will cherish that privilege. It was, it is, and it will continue to be all about relationships.

For God so loved ... not God so decreed or God so ordered ... but God so loved. Relationships.