Читать книгу Mentoring with Morgan - Karen Schlack - Страница 12

When I was two months into seminary, my aunt, who knew many of the personalities at the seminary, said to me during dinner, “You must meet Morgan.”

“Who is Morgan?” I asked. “Is he a professor or a PhD?”

My aunt just sighed and said, “You must meet Morgan.”

I put it off. I couldn’t imagine who this guy might be and why she thought I must meet him. Then one January morning, I slipped into the Field Education office of the seminary. After chatting with the office secretary for a while, I asked, “Is there a Morgan here?”

Her eyes brightened as she pointed to an open door. “He’s right in there!”

I lingered quietly at the door, peeking inside and sizing up the situation. I thought I saw a bald head hiding behind a large computer screen. Then I got the courage to say his name, almost in a whisper. “Morgan?”

He popped up from his chair and came right to the door. He had wonderful bright eyes and a huge smile. Something about him reminded me of Yoda, the master jedi in Star Wars.

Morgan had a whimsical quality, and he seemed to enjoy listening more than talking. This was a trait I hadn’t encountered very often as a seminary student.

Later that year, Morgan came to the first sermon I preached in front of people at my field education church. I worked and worked on that sermon. Polished up the words. Kept the stories simple and (I thought) compelling. I read the sermon with all the passion I could muster that day. Later, as we walked out to the car, Morgan said, “You could be a good preacher, but you must free yourself from the manuscript.”

Fat chance, I thought. Never in a thousand years did I want, or think I would be able to do, such a thing.

“Let’s have lunch,” he said.

Lunch? I thought I would have to go home and sit alone at my desk, pondering the impossibility of preaching without notes. Instead, here were Morgan and his wife, Nora, asking if we could share a meal and talk about “regular things.” That good meal helped me to swallow the mighty words he had spoken—“You must free yourself from the manuscript”—and created the possibility that those words might someday come true.

Later that summer, Morgan arranged for me to serve as a student pastor at a large church in Birmingham, Alabama. This was a church where Morgan had served as an interim pastor for three years. Before I left, Morgan pulled out the church directory to help me recognize some of the names and faces. I especially remember him pointing out a wonderful woman.

“Go talk to her,” he said. “She will tell it like it is.”

Part of my responsibilities there included preaching a weekly meditation at a nursing home. That is where I met the one who would “tell it like it is.” Her name was Robbie Sevier. Robbie faithfully sat in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs each Thursday, listening to me intently. Before I left, I sat down with her to have a conversation. She started out by telling me how much she had appreciated my preaching and how much she learned from my sermons. But then, quietly, she gently told me, “I wish you looked up from your manuscript. I wanted to see your face. I wanted to look into your eyes.”

Wow! I had no idea anyone would want to see my face or look into my eyes. I was just a lowly student, trying to get through a very difficult seminary education. I spent hours of time grooming and touching up those one-page sermons. I left no word unturned, not a sentence untouched. I wanted the words to be right.

But here was a person who wanted to see my face. Look at my eyes. She wanted that more than she wanted all those carefully written words. She wanted to see who I was. Did I really believe what I was saying? Was there passion in my heart? Did I care about her, a lowly person in a nursing home who probably spent many lonely days in her room?

Yes, I did care about her. But did I care more about her than I cared about my precious words? Not so much. Robbie taught me two important lessons. The first was to love the people more than you love the production and final product that is called a sermon.

The other lesson was people want to look at your face, look into your eyes. They are searching for something, and you are right there, in front of them, sharing things about the God who loves them. They may not be sure about God’s love, but they will figure out quickly what you love. And a look, a gesture, a graceful moment of eye contact, that is where they will find out the answer to questions like: Whom does she love? Does she really love God? Does she love me, too?

Those words stayed with me. As I journeyed home to Louisville from Birmingham, I tossed her words around in my mind, over and over.

When I arrived back on campus, I emailed Morgan about that first sermon he had heard and my experience in Birmingham

Morgan’s Reply

“I was very glad I got to hear your first sermon, and that we had lunch together. Let me make it clear that I was not disappointed with your sermon. I can tell by meeting with you that you are a very perceptive student. In listening to the comment from the lady at the nursing facility who wanted to ‘look into your eyes,’ you’ve learned a very valuable lesson about preaching. Preaching can be one of the most pastoral and personal activities in which we engage—that is, it can be. Whether they analyze it or not, the people in the pew want something more than a fine sermon. They want to know if the preacher cares more about them than the sermon. This does not mean that we can do sloppy work with our sermons, but it does mean that we should ask ourselves as we prepare our sermons whether we want to touch the hearts of our people in a pastoral manner, or whether our real goal is to be seen, admired, and praised for having delivered an entertaining, interesting sermon. Another way to say this is that we’ve got to decide whether preaching is testimony or entertainment.

“Sadly, there’s lots of entertainment going on in the pulpit. Maybe it has always been that way. If we’ve done a good job with our sermon and have been praised for our eloquence, it’s tempting to enjoy the praise and want to continue doing well. After all, it’s only natural to enjoy attention, and the attention we get, compared to what other professionals receive, is huge. Other professionals may receive much larger salaries, but how often do many of them get to enjoy having a large gathering of people listen to them, without interruption, for 20 minutes weekly? It can become very addictive, so much so that we come to enjoy the cultivation of our ‘stained glass voice,’ and all the praise and perks that go with it. And let’s be honest in admitting that one of the perks is moving on to a larger, ‘big steeple’ church, where the weekly audience is larger—and the salary higher.

“If that happens to us, what we seldom notice is that, despite the eloquence of our weekly ‘performance,’ little nourishment has been given to hungry hearts. I can remember the instance of one such ‘great preacher’ who moved onward and upward to larger and larger pulpits. Producing great sermons left him with no time for pastoral work; he delegated that to his associate pastors. But when he finally retired, one of the quiet, little people of the congregation told me, with sadness, ‘we really don’t miss him because, after all, he never knew us.’

So, dear Karen, learning to preach without a manuscript is still a long way down the road for you. I just wanted you to start thinking about it as a goal. Preaching without a manuscript can make your preaching very effective. You will have constant eye-contact with your listeners, and it will be as though you are having a live conversation with them. That doesn’t mean that it will be folksy, but it will have the power of an intimate contact with their hearts and minds.

“Added to this we must remember that preaching is one of the most personally revealing activities in which we engage. Sooner or later, our sermons reveal our hearts and what we love. That is why we need to remember that preaching is testimony, our weekly privilege of ‘speaking a good word for Jesus.’ As we write our sermons, and re-read them as we prepare for delivery, we must be asking ourselves, ‘Does this really matter to me? Do I really intend to live by these words? Will my people hear some loving word for my Lord in this sermon?’

“Two of the pulpits in the churches I served were inscribed with written reminders, visible only to the preacher. One read, ‘Sir, we would see Jesus,’ (John 12:21 KJV). The other had a quotation from, I think, Richard Baxter, ‘I preached as never sure to preach again, as a dying man to dying men.’1 Both were sober reminders about the sacred task to which we have been called. We are not in the entertainment business! Karen, you are asking the right questions, the questions that a faithful shepherd asks. You’re thinking about what is best for the sheep. Keep on listening!”

After receiving that email, I asked Morgan if he would help me with my weekly sermons at my pulpit supply church for the next two years of seminary. He said yes. But the words of his first email stayed with me for the many years of ministry that lay ahead.

My Reflections Years Later

It has been many years since Morgan sent me those words. During all these years, I have struggled with the performance aspect of preaching. I react to criticism of my preaching with sulking episodes. Revising the words, over and over. Picking apart sermon tapes. Examining gestures.

I still want, more than anything, to be a better preacher. Although I can correct gestures, sentence structure, and flow of ideas, the biggest problem remains. I still want to be admired. I still put myself at the center.

A few years ago, I asked the persons attending services on Christmas Day to write on a piece of paper one thing they wanted to “fear not” the following year. The “fear nots” were collected and poured on a blue blanket like the blanket Linus carried in the Peanuts cartoon. We had watched a portion of the Peanuts Christmas movie. In that clip, Linus goes center stage and tells Charlie Brown what Christmas is all about. At one point, Linus drops his blanket. It is the only place in the Peanuts videos where Linus parts with his blanket, the place when he says, “And the angel said, ‘Fear not . . .’”

We all gathered around the blanket and held it up like a flag is held over a coffin. I poured the pieces of paper that contained their “fear nots” on the blanket while I repeated the Scripture story in Luke again. When I read the words, “And the angel said, ‘Fear not,’” we all dropped the blanket and those slips of paper. I rolled up the blanket with the papers in it and stashed it away in my office.

A month or so later, I had to move the blanket, and when I did, all the slips of paper fell out on the floor of my office. I saw that one of them had opened and I became curious. I took the papers home and read them. What fears do people bring to the sanctuary every Sunday? I was stunned. The comments included:

Harm to the earth, loss, hate and gossip, illness, nuclear war, college and adulthood, people with opposing opinions in my personal life, depression and anxiety, despair, trouble breathing.

I kept all those slips of paper in the room I use for study and prayer at home. Before praying, I look at one or two of them, remembering those who wrote them and asking God to help them fear not.

The people in the pews want something more than a fine sermon. They want to know the preacher cares about them and the things they carry in their hearts. When I looked long and hard at each one of those slips of paper, I realized their fears and needs were so much more important than my being admired! When people come to church, they are looking for a place where they can lay their burden down and listen for a whisper of good news. For years after coming home from services, I have collapsed in my chair, exhausted. Why? I didn’t think standing in front and preaching for twenty minutes should wear me out.

But when I saw the contents of that blanket, I realized when I come home from a worship service, I am carrying in my heart the hardest questions people face. I am humbled to stand up and speak a word of good news during such basic, deep, human concerns. And I have found out I cannot do that unless I scrape around in the dark places of my own heart and face the darkness that dwells within me, too.

I worked for years in jobs where I was always wanting to move on up. Not anymore. This journey isn’t up, it’s down. Down to the places where we hide. The questions we dare not ask. The moments when all that really matters is whether I will care more about the people than the excellence of a sermon.

1. Baxter, Reformed Pastor, 1620.