Of life in the still-Christian South (a retired cleric’s occasional reflections)…

On preaching (Part 2 of 2)

“Paul, is preaching different in the South?” By many and many times I have been asked this question.

Prior to retirement, I last served an Episcopal parish in Washington, D.C.; making that tenure of nearly 17 years my immediate and distinctive frame of reference for preaching in the South.[1] It is in the light of contrast that I wrote: “(W)hat I have found, what I have felt in the bones of my soul is people’s hunger to have an experience of God through the Bible. In this, I recognize the difference of preaching in the South.”

My life and labor with the good folk of that D.C. congregation were interesting and vital, at times, taxing, yet never dull! The people, to a person, were accomplished in their varied vocations, well-traveled and well-read, intellectually inquisitive and insightful, and passionate in their engagement of the issues of the day and times. They were and are those who desire to make and do make a difference in the world for good.

A heartbeat of that community was a tolerance, verily, an acceptance of ideological difference, particularly in the welcome and embrace of skepticism. Questioning was a high and fine art, cherished for its probative value in the investigation of all things, including the Christian doctrine and biblical lore of “the faith once delivered to the saints.”[2] Within this milieu, the communal view of the scriptures[3] was more as ancient literature and less as sacred text; more as chronicles of the human quest for God and less, in the language of the Catechism, as “the Word of God (Who) inspired their human authors and…still speaks to us.”[4] In this, I make no judgment of good or bad, right or wrong. Rather, this is simply, only my observation.

In preaching with this community, I sought to make a conscious connection between ancient scripture, which I do believe is holy writ, and, I also believe, the sacred texts of our lives daily being written through our every thought and feeling, intention and action; and this in an effort to help us all make sense and find meaning in our human existence. Here, too, I make no judgment of good or bad, right or wrong. Yet, for me, this approach to preaching was something (I hasten to add not less, but rather) other than inviting folk into a shared experience of listening for the vox Deus, the Voice of God. This distinction is but one of the ways that I understand the difference of preaching in the South.

Footnotes:

[1] For years and for some, it has been a matter of debate whether Washington, D.C., is, in fact, a Southern city (or, to be precise, district). President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was noted to have said, “Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.” Though what he meant is open to speculation, his observation raises the consideration that Southern-ness is an expansive idea; one that can be understood in other ways than the place or the geography of the eleven states comprising the olden Confederacy or what some term the “Deep South”, generally including Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Southern-ness can encompass the historical socio-economic terms, among them, rural landscapes, agrarian-based economies, fewer large cities, political conservatism, and large English and African-American populations; this latter, through the 19th century, being visible evidence of the thriving institution of slavery. On this last count, before the Civil War, Washington, D.C., I would aver, was quite Southern; since then, not quite so and on the other counts, never quite so.

[2] The Letter of Jude 3

[3] I stress the communal view to indicate my sense of how the congregation as a whole, therefore, not each and every individual, approached the Bible.

[4] From An Outline of the Faith commonly called the Catechism, The Book of Common Prayer, page 853

take this call and shove it (with apologies to Johnny Paycheck) – a meditation for the 1st Sunday in Lent

Jesus is baptized. Rising from the water, he beholds heaven torn open, receives God’s Spirit, and hears God’s voice. Then he steps up on the riverbank, determined, destined to follow the Spirit. And where does the Spirit lead, “drive” (shove) Jesus? The wilderness to be tempted by Satan. (Apparently Jesus needed encouragement! Who wouldn’t?)

Matthew and Luke, in their accounts of Jesus’ temptations, provide details of the 40-day fast, the conversation with Satan, the particular temptations. Mark, in his characteristically spare style, cuts to the chase. What matters is not the specifics, but rather that Jesus was compelled by the Spirit to contend against everything that denies and defies God, so to come out of the wilderness with clarity of vision and mission.

I don’t remember heaven ripped open, the Spirit’s descent, and the sound of God’s voice, but I do remember when my father died in 1996, I accepted a call to care for my mother afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease; a test, increasing in difficulty year to year, ending in her death last month.

I don’t remember torn heavens, descending spirits, and the vox Deus, but I do remember being called as rector of St. Mark’s, Capitol Hill in 1998, and, as an African American in a white congregation, engaging in that ministry, from which I recently retired, the active testing of a community being real about race and racism and becoming more conscious of the dynamic process of tolerance and acceptance.

I don’t remember heaven opening, dove-like spirits, and a divine voice referring to me as “son” and “beloved,” but, in the crucible of conflict in the church and the world, I have heard a call to be open to “the other”, all those with whom I disagree, and to be tested by the discomfiture that such encounters inexorably yield.

Every call comes with testing. I guess that’s why Jesus needed to be encouraged, shoved into the wilderness. Me, too.

I like baptisms. Not wilderness. But that’s where Lent calls me. To enter my soul’s wilderness to encounter my “wild beasts” – my haunting memories of unforgettable mistakes, my impulsive inclinations that undermine my highest, most honorable hopes, my anger, rage at my unfaced fears, unmet needs, and unresolved pains.

I’d rather try to continue wearing the mask of my polished, practiced persona of peace and good cheer. The mask that conceals my spiritual poverty of a lack of clarity of vision and mission. A lack that leaves me to respond to frequently self-posed questions – Who are you? What are you doing? Where are you going? – I don’t know.

But Lent, God calls once again to a prayerful, purposeful walk into my soul’s wilderness to face my self, in the words of the hymn, “just as I am without one plea.”

My wilderness where I face Satan, all that is within me that denies and defies God, so to know my self “just as I am poor, wretched, blind.”

My wilderness where I also hope to find, face a Savior, the One who, having gone before me into the wilderness, accepts me just as I am “though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings and fears within and without.”

The One to whom, in relief and release, I can sing, “O Lamb of God, I come.”