There is a time in every worship service when I
become a child for a few seconds. It only lasts a moment or two, but that's all
I need.
It happens right after the sermon is finished.
Can you understand this? It is finished. It is over. I lived a week waiting for
this sermon to be born. When the time came for it to be delivered, I entered the
world of sermons, a world that includes me, the text, the people, and the words
coming out of my mouth. It is a time of absolute focus. You enter that world and
no other worlds matter. In this regard, preaching is almost like a drug. It
takes away whatever else is in your mind. In this regard, preaching is also very
dangerous for the one doing it.
I give myself to preaching because that is what
it takes to preach. But sermons are not an essential part of Christianity. They aren’t mandated by scripture. And
I have a feeling that in the eyes of God, sermons are often very silly things. I
know mine must be. They even seem silly to me at times. But how am I to know
this? How am I to know about sermons and whether they should or should not be? I
never get to hear them. I only speak them. I can't remember what it's like to be out
there in the chairs.
Sometimes you are called by your community to
do a thing. It is your calling, so you do it. The big questions are fine, but
you’ll answer them while you are carrying out your calling. If you are the
woodcutter for your village, you may have questions about woodcutting. You might
want to explore the possibility of coal. You might fantasize about some kind of
rotation schedule where everyone cuts wood. But while you work all this out in
your mind, you cut wood because the village needs fire.
I am in a constant state of trying to
understand preaching. I wonder what people get out of it in the long run. I
wonder if it ultimately does more harm than good. Am I contributing to the idea
that the ancient spiritual journey of Christianity can now mean nothing more
than showing up at a building and listening to some person talk? I used to think
I would work all of this out along the way. And now it's been fourteen years,
and I'm still uncomfortable with preaching. I'm beginning to suspect that the
day you think you understand preaching is the day you should stop doing it.
The whole thing is very…ummm…adult. Yeah,
adult. You know, carrying out your responsibilities in spite of how you feel,
thinking about the big picture, all that adult stuff. So I don't think it's any
coincidence that I become a child every Sunday after the sermon is over.
At our church, after the sermon, I invite one
or two of my little friends to come and take up the offering. They walk among us
and pass around the plates. They scamper up and down the aisle, sometimes with
bare feet and always with pure hearts. They are children, and this is their
calling at our church. They don't understand it completely, but it is their
calling and they are faithful to it.
Sometimes it is Anna, sometimes Steven or
Kevin or Adam or Jacob, sometimes Lillian or Rachel or Madison. Sometimes they
work in pairs. Sometimes it is a child who has
never helped before, like last Sunday when Ellie came forward for the first time. I never know who
will heed the call.
While they do their work, I sit down on the
hearth of our fireplace. I sit like a little boy on a curb. Usually my elbows are
on my knees, and I often rest my chin in my palm. I get comfortable; I don’t
know how it looks. I wait patiently while the children get the plates passed
around. Then
the magic happens. Whoever was passing the plates will come and sit beside me
while Cathy finishes playing the piano. For just a moment, we are children
sitting together in front of the fireplace in complete innocence. During that
time I sit very still, and I don't like to make eye contact with any grownups,
lest the spell be broken.
In those few seconds, while the piano music is
winding down, I am a little boy. I don’t have anything to offer anyone, and it
doesn’t matter. No one expects anything from me. Just these few seconds are all I
need for the week. Just a few seconds to help me remember who I am. Then we stand together, my little friend and I, and everyone
in the church offers a silent prayer. During that prayer I lean down and whisper
something in my friend's ear. It is a secret thing I whisper. Only the children and I know what I say.
As far as I know, there is only one picture of
me sitting at the fireplace in those few moments while the music is still playing. Here it is.
I look like a man trying hard not to lose
something. I look like a man trying to hold onto something precious. Anna, on
the other hand, looks like someone who lives forever in that moment. She knows
nothing but the present moment, for she is a child.
There is wisdom here, for those who can find
it.
rlp
