Peter Mayer and his family are singing as I write these closing thoughts from the last day of the Almost Festival of Homiletics. Peter Mayer is a guitarist, played with Jimmy Buffet, and maybe still does, I don’t know. But I know that he’s really good. He sings with his son Brendan and others from time to time appear. He isn’t really here, but it’s like watching to original MTV, when it was music videos. It is the best of Peter Mayer, music videos. Peter sings songs of faith, when he isn’t with Jimmy. Not that Jimmy Buffet isn’t a person of faith, don’t want to upset any parrot heads who might read this.
It was an interested final day of the Virtual Festival. After we were welcomed and blessed by another of the organizers, I forgot to record her name. But she thanked everyone she could think of, and had a better list than I did. It was a usual end of event kind of welcome. Thanking everyone who made it happen. Everyone who made a major shift to make this happen in this new way in a short period of time. And it worked. No, it wasn’t the same, but it worked. I am grateful for those who went out of their way to make this happen.
Then we worshiped together. I did catch the musicians names today. Uriah Moore was the pianist and singer, and Una Brown was the singer. They did a great job all week. The preacher for the service was Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, Senior Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Yeah, that one. I sometimes struggled to follow the pastors I had to follow. To preach from the pulpit made famous by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be daunting to say the least.
Dr. Warnock preached from the prophet Joel, and he called us to Lament. It’s a language unique to God’s people, he argues, a language that we seem to be losing in our self-sufficient culture. A language that just might save us. Lament. Not a whine. Not a complaint. Lament. It is a cry out to God. It is an acknowledgment of a difficult situation, it is an admission of helplessness. Lament. It is a surrender. It is a invitation to be opened up to new possibilities. Which begins when we learn how to praise even as we lament. How to cling to faith and cling to hope, even when despair seems the more logical step. Lament.
Later in the afternoon, the preacher was Bishop Robert Wright, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. His text was Psalm 42 and his title was “Like a Deer.” I think he should have named it Longing. That was the theme, or one of them anyway. His over all theme, with the theme of the Festival, was about the care of the planet. But Psalm 42 calls us to care by longing. Longing for a better world. Longing for a more faithful witness. Longing for a faith secure in the promises of God, not in the resources of our economy. Of course we need to live, we know that, God knows that, at least Jesus said so. But we don’t need to destroy. We don’t need to deplete. We don’t need to take from others that we might have more. We’ve got to live. But that we is an inclusive we. We all have to live. Bishop Wright quoted that well known theologian Theodore Geisel, or as some of us knew him, Dr. Seuss. The bishop quoted from that book that was banned in some circles because it seemed too radical, too environmental for our culture, The Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Maybe caring a whole awful lot means starting with Lament and moving toward Longing.
Part of what I long for is a place to preach more regularly. I do enjoy the freedom to have a Saturday, I must admit, and to face Sunday without the anxiety of proclamation weighing on me. But still, it miss it. It was a part of my life for a long time. Perhaps that is why I wasn’t terribly excited about the lecture titled “Less Stress Preaching and Prep.” It felt like an intro to preaching course. Admittedly the Rev. Dr. Raquel S. Lettsome, Associate Minister at Union AME and Managing Partner of Say AMEN!, had a solid presentation and she brought in the unique pressures of preaching during a pandemic and the shelter at home phenomenon. But I found my mind wandering as I imagined how I would be preaching now, what I might say and what I might try to do. Name your anxieties, Dr. Lettsome advised. So, I did.
The interview was with Rev. Neichelle Guidry, Liturgist and Scholar, Dean of the Chapel and Director of the Wisdom Center at Spelman College. She spoke with enthusiasm and passion about women who preach, and about helping victims of abuse find a voice and community of welcome. She talked about preaching as a corporate act, not dominated by a preacher, but shared as a conversation within the body of those who gather, believers and those who aren’t believers yet. I admit, it was fun listening to her passion for what it is that she offers.
There was music, as I said at the beginning. Peter and Brenden Mayer, and also Fran McKendree, who sang and played while we watched a slide show of previous Festivals, you know back when you could shake a hand and give someone a pat on the back. There were also slides of the behind the scenes people who made this year’s Festival possible, and screen shots of the speakers and preachers we heard. It was not the same, but it was good. I am thankful, but am still praying that next year we’ll be able to go to Denver and sit in the same room and worship together. Just like I am sure many of you are hoping that soon you can gather with your family and worship together. Let’s long for that together.
Shalom,
Derek
#Homiletics2020
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