It's good to see you. I wouldn't
say I'm sorry I missed breakfast
with you, but that wouldn't be
true.
Extraordinary facility built
here, this is the first time
Nadia and I have been in it.
It's most amazing, but when we
come in here, I feel at home,
and around the faculty and the
students, I feel at home, the
hospitality is the same. It is
good to be back. I retired here
in 93, intended to teach into
94, but I had that strange
paralysis, Guillaume Marais, and
the dean didn't want a lot of
cripples on the faculty, so
thanks,
friends. But it's good to be
back.
The final work of grace in
anybody's life is to make the
person gracious, and you've been
that to us. We appreciate it
very much. Well you know our
topic is storytelling in the
pulpit. Like any other method of
preaching, it can be corrupted
easily, degenerate into just
entertaining, telling stories,
having a good time, letting
every story kind of rule the
roost, because stories are kind
of arrogant. They don't like to
wear the harness. You hit them
up to the gospel, some of them
won't pull, they won't work.
Just let them go. Don't use it
if it will not wear the harness.
It's tempting, of course, to
find something like storytelling
and make that the method you
use, story after story after
story, and it's entertaining and
people like it. But it's a
mistake to do that. As
Kierkegaard said once, something
may be true when whispered, but
false when shouted. What he was
talking about is with the proper
sense of proportion, a lot of
things are good and right as a
method, but if you enlarge on it
and make it the end of all other
methods, it's a mistake. There's
room always for direct speech as
well as indirect. And to
alternate them appropriately is
biblical because you have both
within the scripture. It's not
right to let storytelling and
the pulpit diminish alternative
methods of preaching. All the
methods that I used to poo-poo
when I was teaching here, that's
the thing you do, you know, is
make fun of everything besides
what you're doing. But all those
methods still are effective on
occasion, and it's up to the
minister to choose that which is
appropriate to the occasion. The
first law of good communication,
by that I mean the first law of
good communication, is to be
appropriate to the audience. A
lot of wonderful things are said
to the wrong group at the wrong
time. In that sense of
appropriateness is key in the
life and teaching, speaking life
of the preacher.
I may have given the Apostle
Paul a short end of the stick
yesterday, I didn't intend to.
He is a direct, not an indirect
speaker, but I want to say two
things to modify what impression
I may have left. One of them is,
even though he speaks directly
to the churches with authority,
shall I come with love or shall
I come with a stick? He was
tough. But all of his letters
are filled with eulogists,
donksologists, hymns, poems,
Christ poems. It's just amazing
how much beautiful indirect
material are in his letters. And
on the other hand, I gave the
impression maybe that you don't
narrative Paul, you can. Mike
Graves gave a good answer to
that question. How can you be a
narrative preacher if your text
is from Paul? It's not
difficult. He's not here to
resist it, so you can do it. But
no, it's the natural thing to
do, and I'm sure many of you do
it already, but you didn't call
it narrative. Take for instance
the letter to the Romans,
judging from the ending of the
letter. He wrote that in Corinth
in the winter, waiting for the
ships to begin to move again in
the spring, spent three months
in the house of a man named
Gaius, his host, who was also a
host to the whole church. The
apostle Paul wrote the epistle
to the Romans while the choir
was rehearsing in the back
bedroom of Gaius' house. That's
why it's such a musical letter.
You understand that, I'm sure.
But he had Jerusalem on his
mind. If he looked to the north
and east across the sea was
Jerusalem, I have to go. I've
collected all this money for the
churches, it's money from
Gentiles to Jewish Christians. I
want you to pray for me, pray
that the mission to Jerusalem
will succeed, agonize with me
that they will accept the gift,
because when it comes from
Gentiles, they may just throw it
on the ground and spit, pray
with me that they'll accept it,
and that I will not lose my
life, because, and then he would
look to the north and the west
and say, I want to come to see
your people in Rome. There's a
lot of stories circulating, I've
never been there, I intended to
come, but I hadn't had a chance.
And I know there are a lot of
stories circulated about me,
some of them true, some of them
not true, but I want you to
understand that I am a Jew
called in Jesus Christ and
separated for the gospel of God,
but I still love my people. My
conscience bears me witness. The
Holy Spirit bears me witness. I
am telling the truth before God.
I would almost, almost wish
myself to be damned if it would
save them. That's his passion
for them. So in that marvelous
sweep of chapters 9, 10 and 11,
you're preaching, but you can
back up and tell his arriving at
that point and get some sense of
his feeling. That's a narrative,
you can call it whatever. It
taken in the context is what we
used to call it, but that's
narration. So whenever the
apostle objected to when I said
yesterday, he'll forgive me, I'm
sure. I've got some things that
I need to ask him anyway.
People will give you the
impression that they prefer
direct preaching. Direct
preaching seems to be, now
that's preaching to Bible. I
mean, just bend their axel so
the wheels won't roll. I just
lay it out there plain as day.
I'm not one of these preachers
that's been to seminary and tip
toes around. I just go at it
straight. I go for the juggler.
Now most people who say that
don't do it, and those who do do
it by mistake.
The direct is no more
authoritative and in some cases
no more effective than the
indirect. But it just seems that
way. People come outside. Well,
you really stepped on my toes
today. I feel like a stomped on
frog. That was a good sermon. I
loved that sermon. People like
to feel bad, feel good about
feeling bad. I personally don't
care for it. Wherever we have
lived, we've always tried to
join in what they call union
Thanksgiving services, where
churches come together that will
and hold a service on Wednesday
night. It wins the evening
before Thanksgiving. Usually the
crowd is much smaller than it
would be if only one church were
doing it. It's hard to get
churches to cooperate. They're
so competitive. But you go and
the designated preacher for the
evening, raise the tax from
Luke. About the ten lepers were
healed. One came back to give
thanks. Jesus said, we're not
ten healed. Where are the nine?
And so the preacher says, that's
the tax for tonight. Where are
the nine? Now where are the
nine? Where are the nine? And
says it about 20 times. And
you're sitting there saying,
those nine are where I would be
if I had good sense.
Now that's called direct
preaching. I don't
mean to be disrespectful, but
you're going to have to
ascertain in your own mind what
is preaching, because the likes
and dislikes of people will be
followed you. You'll know.
You'll know. So either form, any
form of preaching, if it's made
messianic, should not be so.
It's to take its place along
other methods that are
effective. So we are talking
about storytelling. Mike has
said to you, and maybe he passed
it out. He said he had a list of
a hundred sources for good
stories, or good stories. I hope
he did that, and I hope you have
it. That's always a good source.
Experience is a good source.
Most of my stories arise out of
things I have observed. I go
once in a while to a waffle
house. Have you ever been to a
waffle house? You have to go
home and take a shower.
All that fried food, and you can
watch it burn while you're
sitting there. But there's a lot
of good conversation you're
joining in. And they make some
of them make a pretty good BLT.
But I go mostly to listen. This
waitress, I hadn't seen her
before. She's probably up her
sixties, came over. You know
what you want? Yes, I think I
do. Give me a minute. Well,
where are you going to drink? I
said, coffee. She said, I'll
bring you your coffee. I said,
good. She brought me my coffee.
I said, do you have any cream?
She says, yes. And she started
fumbling in her apron. And she
says, I know I have some here
somewhere in this capacious
apron. Capacious apron in the
waffle house. Capacious. I
didn't get capacious here at
Emory.
And so she put out about six of
those little creamers. I said, I
just need one. And she said,
everybody's entitled to a little
excess. I said, well, but I only
need one. Well, it's better to
have and not need than to need
and not have. I said, great
honk. I'm dealing with a
philosopher here.
So I said, well, that's probably
true. But wouldn't it be better
if you didn't have and you
didn't want? And she said, sir,
very few reached that level of
freedom. I said, who are you?
And she said, I tell stories and
I write stories and I serve
food.
Delightful experience. Probably
has no value for anything except
just to remember it. At Cherry
Log, we have, through the
Craddock Center, have had for
several years, Appalachian
Festival and all. We invited a
few years ago up from the
boundary in Cherokee, North
Carolina, Cherokee Indians to
come and share their lore and
their crafts and their
conversation. We had a great
time. I fell into conversation
with one of the older men. They
were calling him chief. I said,
are you a chief? He said, yes.
What does it take to be chief?
He said, you're going to live a
long time. He said, I want to go
home early. I don't want to
drive in the dark. I don't drive
in the dark. And I said, well,
it's only, it's less than an
hour. You'll be all right. But I
have to rest for our big
festival. I said, oh, you have a
festival there? Oh, yes. The big
festival, Harvest Festival. I
said, well, I hope you have a
good one. He says, it's the big
festival of the year. You see,
we celebrate the creation of the
world. A lot of people don't
realize it, but the world was
created in the autumn. The world
began in the autumn. I said,
really? He said, yeah. When
everything was ripe and all the
melons and the pumpkins and the
fruits and berries and nuts were
ready, we just had fruit and we
had bread and all the children
could be fed. It's just a
wonderful festival. He says, the
reason God started the world in
the autumn was that all winter
long, people could remember how
great it was and they could look
forward to how it'll be the next
time. And that gives everybody
memory and hope. And he said,
that's what makes you a human
being if you have memory and
hope. Otherwise, he said, we'd
all be barking like dogs. That
was a nice visit. The other
source of stories for me, of
course, is I make them up.
Create them. Making up a story
sounds kind of illicit and
irregular, but Jesus made up
parables as far as we know. He
created them. It's fine. But as
I said yesterday, put a tag on
it that says it's a created
story that somebody be led
astray thinking it really
happened when it didn't happen.
And any kind of tag will do once
upon a time. There was a certain
person, suppose that. What if
that gives, that sets you free?
And my custom is always to tell
something ridiculous in the
middle of the story. And then
everybody will know it didn't
happen. I know when I taught
here and we lived down in
Chambley,
driving down, I guess there's
Scott Boulevard every morning, I
noticed a bright yellow old
cutlass sports car. Yellow old
cutlass. Man, pretty. I'd see it
every morning. One morning I
looked at it. It was parked on
the front next to the street,
had $300 on the windshield. I
said, man, so going back home
that evening, I pulled in there
to look at it. It was good
looking. I said, you left off
some of the zeros. You just have
300 on here. He said, that's the
price, 300. I said, it can't be
the price. And I kicked the
tires like I knew something. I
don't know anything about it.
And I said, $300? Does it run?
He says, turn it on. I put the
key in there and turned it on.
Home like a sewing machine. Man.
I said, what's the catch? This
is not $300. I looked at the
odometer, been 61 miles.
He said, no, that's the price.
That's the good one. He said,
there's one little peculiarity I
should point out. I said, what's
that? This car, for some reason,
will only take you where you
should go, not where you want to
go. Are you interested? I said,
not at all.
Now that didn't really happen.
I'm trying to help you here.
Our subject is stories.
Stories are indirect discourse
as over against direct. Indirect
discourse is a powerful,
powerful way of talking. Telling
something that happened to
somebody else, somewhere else,
but it seems appropriate for you
to know it. It's a remarkable
way to communicate. Parents do
it with their children all the
time. We do it with each other
in conversation. But questions
have been raised about its
appropriateness for the pulpit.
Well, indirect discourse is,
story is only one form. There
are other forms of indirect
discourse that are first cousins
of a story. And we use them
without any question. Well,
maybe one question. I'm thinking
of poetry. Poetry is a first
cousin of the story. Both of
them are in no hurry to get the
gist of the matter. No hurry to
say, is that it? What's the
bottom line here? Poetry and
stories can hint. Can suggest,
conceal, reveal, offer two
possibilities of interpretation,
provide insight. It's a
remarkable way to express
something that is difficult to
express. I've noticed, I'm sure
you've noticed, that in this
country when there's a great
calamity, like the astronauts,
hardly got off there from
Florida and that thing exploded.
And all the school children in
the country knew about it. And
good teachers, good teachers,
had the children write stories
and write poems. And the paper
publishes some of those poems,
the children write, on the
occasion of calamity. Why are
they having them write poems and
write stories? Because it's a
way of expressing the mixed deep
feelings I have about it. I have
to get it out. It's indirect
discourse, powerful and very
effective. The one question
that's asked about poetry, and
probably about story as well, is
whether or not poetry is able to
carry the freight. Can you
really preach the gospel with
poetry? I asked Maya Angelou
that one time. We were on a
program together. I'm not giving
the impression we were close
friends, but I've known her for
years. And I asked her one time
after a program in which she
read some of her poems and she
sang a little bit and she danced
a little bit. She's some
remarkable person. And I said,
given the tough battle you've
had all your life, in behalf of
the black women in this country,
why did you choose so fragile a
weapon as poems?
And she said, well, nobody ever
asked me that. Let me think
about it. Then she said poems go
straight to the heart. A lot of
preachers seem to be content
about just beating a dull axe
against the tree and just
bruising it and bruising it. I
think we need to go straight to
the heart. And a poem does that.
And she does that. Lying last
night, thinking. How to find my
soul a home where the water is
not thirsty and the bread loaf
is not stoned. I came up with
one thing and I don't believe
I'm wrong. Nobody, I mean
nobody, can make it all along.
That's her weapon. That's her
method of choice. But can that
carry the freight? Walter
Brumman suggests. When he gave
the Beecher Lectures they were
published under the title
Finally Comes the Poet, a line
from Walt Whitman. Finally Comes
the Poet in which he pictures
the prophets of Israel as poets
with rapier like wit and power
and insight into the condition
of the country. But not
everybody agrees. When the
revised standard version of the
Bible came out, the New
Testament was about 1946, the
complete Bible in 1950, 51, long
in there. There was a huge
bonfire of burning RSVs over in
a certain city in North
Carolina. They were burning
them, inviting everybody to
bring them and burn them, burn
them, burn them. These
translations, this translation
is put out by people who don't
believe the Bible is the Word of
God. And the leader said, look
here. And he opened it up to
Jeremiah and then to Isaiah. And
the prophetic oracles, the
prophetic oracles were indented
in a different kind of print as
though they were poems. And
said, see, they don't even
believe the prophets are
speaking the Word of God. They
think it's poetry of all things.
That was their estimation of
poetry. It boils water, but it
doesn't make soup. That was some
indictment. But it was a
beautiful thing the translators
did to point out that here in
the Word of God, here in the
inspired Word of God, here in
the Holy Scripture, the mighty
preacher for God is using
poetry.
Poetry is indirect discourse
with the capacity to create
feelings and thought and stir
and linger in the mind and heart
of the listener. And then take
it with them past the parking
lot and past the cafeteria at
noon on Sunday. And it clings to
them like a piece of tape on the
fingers of a child who can't get
it loose.
I hope you'll read one poem a
day. Now, don't read so many. I
know how you are big appetite
and all that. Just read one
poem. Even if you have a book of
a thousand poems, read only one
a day and let it soak in. It's
moving. Why do that? It affects
you, makes you a different kind
of talker. And some of the
phrases of that poetry, maybe
they're not the whole point, but
some of the phrases, some of the
lines will stick to you. You
memorized them? Well, I didn't
know I was memorizing them. They
just lingered in my mind.
There's single lines.
Oh, that this too, too solid
flesh would melt and thaw and
resolve itself into a dew.
I used to say that a lot in
class. There's got to be
something better than this,
Hamlet. Draw your breath in pain
to tell my story. When I
consider how my light is spent
there half my days in this dark
world and why John Milton was
blind at the age of 43. Does God
exact day labor light deny? I
finally asked.
You need to hang on to phrases
like that. They fit. They just
fit. And you will find them
coming to the surface when you
didn't realize it. One of the
great, great preachers I ever
heard. I heard him when he was
in his 80s. He was a teacher of
Shakespeare and a preacher. He
sprinkled his sermon that day
with lines from Shakespeare, all
the plays and some of the
sonnets. And I asked him later,
have you memorized all of that?
And he said, all of what?
And I said, you use so much
Shakespeare in your sermon. He
said, oh, I wasn't aware that I
did that. Was it all right? And
I said, oh, yeah, it was all
right. He said, I wasn't aware
of it. And you know, I have been
looking, I have been looking,
and I've been listening for
somebody who preaches the Bible
that is so filled with the lines
and phrases of Scripture that
they don't even realize how many
times they move over the
marvelous texts of Scripture in
the sermon. Did I do that? I
guess I've been at it so long,
I'm not even aware. Ah, that's
seasoned and well done.
Read a poem, just one poem every
day. You'll have a favorite.
Some of them are powerful. Adela
Rogers St. John, great reporter
for the Hearst magazine in
Hearst Newspapers years ago, two
generations ago, put out the
book of her life, her
autobiography, and entitled it.
What was the title of that? The
Honeycomb. The Honeycomb. Why
did she call it the Honeycomb?
Because she was converted to
Christianity when she was in her
70s by listening to an old
silent movie, Cowboy, named Tom
Mix. Tom Mix would read poetry
to people who hang around there
in Hollywood making movies, and
he quoted Ezra Pound's poem,
Simon Zelotēs, Simon the Zealot.
And that poem, which is about
Jesus and Jesus is still alive,
and it ends with that marvelous
line. I have seen him eat from
the Honeycomb since they hanged
him on a tree.
So she puts out this big book
entitled The Honeycomb.
You'll have a favorite. I have
odds and ends and pieces of
poetry in me, and I forget
sometimes who said them. If your
outlook on things has changed,
this is not the main thing. If
you feel like laughing in old
dreams, this is not the main
thing. If you recall eras of
which you're now ashamed, that's
not the main thing. Even if you
know what you're doing now,
you'll regret some other time.
This is not the main thing. But
beware, lightheartedly, to
conclude from this that there is
no such thing as the main thing.
That's the main thing.
A schoolteacher in California at
the beginning of the 20th
century wrote a poem that was
called The Anthem of the Working
Poor for the next thousand
years, The Man with the Hole. I
read it every once in a while
about some people whose lives
have been so oppressed by harsh
owners and employers
that lived all their lives, what
the poem says, beyond the reach
of song, bound by the weight of
the centuries leaning on the
hoe, gazing at the ground, the
emptiness of ages in their face
on their back, the burdens of
the world. Wow, is this the
creature that the Lord God has
made to have dominion over land
and sea? You ought to know that.
Labor Day Sunday should be
recited in full. Oh ye lords and
rulers of this land, you'll have
to give account for this.
Because it's still true, you
know, still true. How much do
they pay you for doing this? Or
just minimum wage, oh you're
kidding, minimum wage? Yeah, and
she told me what she made and I
said, that's not minimum wage,
that's less than minimum wage,
it is? Yeah, it's a point, it's
a point.
Well, you'll find your own and
enjoy them and love them.
But just read one every day.
Wendell Berry, I think it was,
who said, the thing about poetry
is it slows words down. You pay
attention to them, so don't be
in such a hurry. Don't go to
supper saying, guess what, I
read 500 points, someone will
get us. You're a profane person,
don't do that.
Closely akin to the poem, of
course, is the song. There has
to be a song. No civilization
can survive without songs and
without parades. People will
find something to celebrate,
even in the dire circumstances,
and they need to sing, there has
to be a song. The apostle Paul,
who probably couldn't sing a
lick, said to the churches,
speak to one another in psalms
and hymns and spiritual psalms,
singing and making melody to the
Lord in your heart. That's the
natural, normal way to express
what you have discovered in
Jesus Christ. How can you keep
from singing? The most
extraordinary act of worship in
the whole universe is
congregational singing. People
come together, look at the
words, get the tune. You know,
Pliny, Pliny the Younger, was
governor up in northern, what is
today, northern Turkey, Bithynia
Frigia.
He's the earliest reference
outside the church to the church
that we have, about 111, 112 AD.
And he was investigating this
club he called Christians. What
should I do? He wrote back to
the Emperor Trajan. What do I
do? Arrest them? I don't know
about them. Investigate. And he
said, I found that they meet
early on upon a day and they
have two parts to the service.
There is a sacramentum. It
doesn't mean the sacrament on
the table. It meant a pledge
that the members present made to
each other that they would live
honorably and as disciples of
Jesus Christ that week. It was
the sum of the ten commandments
and they made a pledge that they
would live that way. True to
their marriage, true to their
word, true to their job, true to
their family. I'll do it. And
then there was the antiphon and
said they sang these antiphons
to someone they called the
Christ as though he were a God.
112 and the governor says
they're singing. I'm sure he was
saying to himself, how in the
world can that little rag tag
bunch sing? When we were in
South Africa some years ago, we
passed one of those two
frequently seen villages just
made of tin and cardboard and
people living under a piece of
tin and all that. And out in
front of this little huddle mass
was a girl that
guessed transistor radio and it
was playing some music. She had
it turned up loud and she was
just dancing. I wanted to stop
and ask her how in the world can
you dance? Don't you know where
you live in? Don't you know you
have nothing? You have no
future? And she just dancing
away. There has to be a song. It
will not survive without a song.
Martin Luther knew if the
Protestant Reformation is to get
off the ground, there's got to
be music. John Wesley said if
the word is to go to the whole
world, the field is the world
and if the word is to go to the
world, we have to sing it. And
he put together and his brother,
they put together 1487 million
songs. I've never known such
production. Just such a
marvelous thing to set the
gospel and the world and
creation and providence to music
and to sing it and turn the
churches loose with a hymn book.
It's true in this country when
the Mormon formed and moving
west to Utah, they got a fellow
to
create a hymn to select
appropriate songs for the
movement. We can't exist without
music. My own little movement
that I belong to, the disciples
of Christ, one of the first
things done in the early days of
the movement was to create a
songbook with instructions on
how to use it. Just a little
pocket size book with all of, no
music, just the words. Do you
have one of those songbooks of
any denomination? That's just
the words, not the, everybody
ought to have one. I brought one
here.
This is the Methodist, British
Methodist songbook.
Due to the good offices of Gene
Zimmerman
and his wife, they had Nettie
and me go with them down to the
Bahamas and those poor churches
had been washed away by
Hurricane Andrew. They didn't
have anything, but at the close
of a service one day, this woman
came up and said, we want to
give you our hymnal. I guess it
might have been one that didn't
get washed away from the
officers and members, Wesley
Methodist Church, Palmetto Point,
Eleuthera, Bahamas. And they
gave me this. And I use it as a
devotion book. I don't have the
music in here, but I couldn't
sing it if it did. But I just
read the words to zone. Great is
thy faithfulness, come thou
fount of every blessing. How
firm a foundation is laid. It's
just marvelous poetry, marvelous
poetry. You want to have one of
these. If the publishing house
doesn't put them out for the
Methodist Church in this
country, go to them and say,
Tisk, Tisk. Put it out so
everyone can have one with them.
As Eric Routler said, when
someone in the family is ill,
when we rush to the hospital, we
take the Bible and the hymnal.
The great poetry and the great
music of the church. There has
to be a song. You can't make it
without a song. General Custer,
when he was going upon what
happened to be his last battle
against the coalition of
Northern American Indians,
General Custer, of all things,
he requested of Washington that
he have a band. And the band
would play music on the way to
what amounted to death. You've
got to have a band. You've got
to have music. You can't succeed
without it. In 1955, in a
movement called Hollander Folk
School up in Montego, Tennessee,
there was a gathering place for
people who wanted to work in
nonviolent change, work for
civil change, for the rights of
people. And they said, we need a
song. We've got to have a song.
Pete Seeger was there and said,
you've got to have a song. And
the group sat around humming and
thinking and humming and
thinking, and then somebody
remembered. And the Charleston,
South Carolina mills, before
they were allowed to have unions
and get better conditions and
better wages, the people would
go outside the building and
sing. And they sang a version of
an old Negro spiritual, we will
overcome. And they said, maybe
that would work. And Pete Seeger
said, well, we will overcome.
It's not too good. We should say
we shall overcome. And they sang
in a while and got interested in
it. And then Guy and Candy
Carawan traveled over the whole
country, teaching we shall
overcome. However many stanzas
as you want to sing. And it
caught on. And it is the most
effective piece of music that
has been sung in this country
in, I guess, ever. You can just
start humming it or start
singing it and you're flooded
with feelings of pain and joy
and gain and loss. You've got to
have a song. In the mountains in
the sixties, conditions poor,
nobody was paying attention to
the rural people at the time.
And old John Jacob Niles,
strange little fellow, sometimes
told the truth, sometimes he
didn't. But he sang a little
song. Jesus, Jesus, rest your
head. You have got a manger bed.
All the wicked of the earth
sleep on feathers at their
birth. Jesus, Jesus, rest your
head. You've got a manger bed.
The poor and the rich. And the
poor sang that with gusto and
with great joy. Some of the
great music, at least I thought
it was great music, it was
singable during the sixties in
the revolution when all the
students and the universities
around over this country were
sitting around sticky cafe
tables plotting revolution
against the old folks. Blowing
in the wind, that was a good
one. Bridge over troubled
waters, boy, that was a good
one. Where have all the flowers
gone? Long time. Where have all
the flowers? Man, those were
powerful. You get a group around
in what do you call it, a
hootenanny or whatever, and get
to singing those songs. And even
the weak-eyed, gentlest wonders
in the group get all bold and
want to go out and do something,
even if it's wrong. It just
stirs people. You can't make it
without a song. Jean Richie, who
writes the same songs for the
Appalachian people, I read a new
stanza that she wrote, or
several new stanzas she wrote,
for an old Christmas carol in
Judah's land. And she added
stanzas about in the valley,
that God's Son came to us in the
valley. And it occurred to me
that a song will pick up the
feelings and geography of a
certain place in the valley.
Valley in Appalachia is a
negative word. We're all going
down the valley one by one.
We're going down the valley,
though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death. Red
River Valley, Bright Mohawk
Valley. Oh, they say you're
leaving this valley. It's a dark
word. It's a painful word. It
has a death sound to it. She
sings those songs in the cabins
of Appalachia and stirs a lot of
people. You need to get that
song, Jean Richie, and let your
choir learn it. And if they want
to know, well, why in the world
are we singing this? They all
know reason in particular. It's
just good for us to know how
some people feel about their
lives.
If you get words on the hymnal,
turn to the pages that say your
favorites. One of my favorites
is, when peace, like a river,
attendeth my way. I want you to
listen to that. When peace, like
a river, attendeth my way. When
sorrows, like sea billows. See,
in Israel, the sea and sea
billows, that's a negative.
That's a terrible thing. That's
the enemy of the land. The
ocean, the sea, that's there.
Sea billows, that's a negative.
But peace is like a river. The
living water, the running water,
the controlled water. It's in
there. It's in the Psalms. If
you get one of these, you see,
you won't worry yourself about
trying to sing it. Just treat it
as poetry and let it stick to
you like a good meal. It'll
change you. My mother used to
make up Psalms. She did them as
a way of raising her children.
There are five of us. She cooked
for us and cared for us. We were
rural people and poor people.
But once in a while, she would
head out to the smokehouse. We
had a little smokehouse and
would smoke a ham and a shoulder
of pork. There was a ham out
there and she headed for the
smokehouse with her sharp
kitchen knife. We knew we were
going to have ham for breakfast.
This is going to be a big day.
Whose birthday is it? Anybody's.
This is great. Look at mama.
Here she comes. She came back
with just the knife. No ham.
Mama, what's the matter?
Somebody stole the ham. Stole
the ham. We were mad as bald
owls. We wanted to kill whoever
did that. We were breathing,
threatening and slaughtering
against anybody. If I got a hold
of him, I'll shoot him with my
slingshot. Why? He ought to be
in jail. We got so mad and
stirred up and hostile. Our
mother was a pacifist and she
didn't like hostility or hatred
or hitting or verbal abuse. She
just didn't like that. Her job
was to curb our anger.
She started humming and pretty
soon she had some words. We have
biscuits. We have jam. Let him
have that greasy old ham. How
can he eat that greasy old ham
when we have the biscuits and we
have the jam? And she got a
little tune going. We got to
singing that in the kitchen
there. And that's right. We have
the biscuits. We have the jam.
How's he going to eat that
greasy old ham? And pretty soon
we were feeling sorry for the
fellow.
It's called nonviolent change
and she did that making up all
kinds of little songs using a
French harp for her instrument
and changed us and shaped us by
songs. I don't know if there was
any music in your house. I hope
so.
Well, I've got to keep going.
It's going to be church in here
pretty soon.
Close to songs, close to poetry,
close to story, all indirect
discourse lies very close
another cousin and that is the
proverb or the aphorism or the
maxim or the wise saying.
The world is full of them. Every
culture has them. The Bible is
full of them. Books devoted to
proverbs sprinkled through all
the books, proverbs in the New
Testament. Just Matthew alone
has wise sayings. A city set on
a hill cannot be hid. Why should
you take the splinter out of
your neighbor's eye and leave
the beam in your own eye? It's
easier for a camel to go through
an eye of a needle than for a
rich man to go into heaven. A
city set on a hill cannot be
hid. James has them. James has a
lot of proverbs. It's the book
of Christian wisdom where the
truth of the experience of the
church is boiled down to some
sayings and they're in there.
Whoever knows what is right to
do and doesn't do it to him and
his sin. Faith without works is
dead. They're just complete,
digest, boil off all the water.
This is the stain in the bottom
of the cup. This is what's left.
And it all boils down to this.
That's a marvelous piece of
material. There's some in the
pastoral letters. They're called
faithful sayings. Faithful is
the saying and worthy of all
acceptance. Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners
of whom I am the chief. That's a
wise saying. A faithful saying.
Read first and second Timothy
and Titus and you'll see a lot
of them. Where somebody took the
time to boil down the truth of
the Christian faith and the word
of God in Jesus Christ and made
it rhythmic, memorable,
portable, easy to hang on to,
easy to repeat, easy to say and
witness and evangelism and
teaching. It's a remarkable
thing. It's not just because
it's in the Bible, but it's in
our culture. These are revered
and keep life going. They're
effective as in sermons. Martin
Luther King Jr. had a lot of,
some people call them one
-liners, but they were actually
wise sayings. He said this, the
old law about eye for an eye
leaves everybody blind. That's
true. We may all have come on
different ships, but we're in
the same boat now. That's good.
The difference between heaven
and hell is just a cup of cold
water. That says it, doesn't it?
No one can make you feel
inferior without your
permission.
Eleanor Roosevelt. But it's not
that they're useful in sermons,
but they are in the history of
American education related to
story. A man named William
Holmes MacGuffey published,
well, as in 1836, his first
reader. You've heard of
MacGuffey's reader. Do you ever
see a MacGuffey's reader? Any of
you old enough to have a teacher
who used MacGuffey's reader? I
had one teacher who used
MacGuffey's reader. The
components of the raw material
of his reader were maxims or
sayings, some from Scripture,
some from common life, with
stories that go along with it.
There's a story and a maxim, a
maxim and a story. And the
children who used that and the
teacher who used that, you had
to take a saying, a wise saying,
and make a story out of it. Or
you take a story and boil it
down to a wise saying. It's a
marvelous exercise. I'm making
this assignment. I won't see you
now in a few days, but I want
you to do it. Take some story
and distill it into a saying.
Take a saying and explode it
into a story. This is what he
did. And he didn't believe you
really learned it until you
could go up to the front of the
room to the recitation bench and
take your turn and recite. State
the maxim or the saying and then
tell the story. Everybody, all
the children, had to learn to
express themselves. Out of it
came the great oratory of the
late 1800s. I say great. It was
remarkable for its flair. The
people trained to go around with
Chautauqua all over the country.
Many of them were trained
MacGuffey style. They could
really speak. William Jennings
Bryan was MacGuffey trained. And
he traveled the whole country
making those remarkable
speeches.
He debated... You remember he
debated down at Dayton,
Tennessee? He debated Clarence
Darrow about the teaching of
evolution in the school. Debated
evolution. Clarence Darrow of
course just got all over Bryan.
Bryan was getting old and it was
hot in the courthouse and he
just didn't do well. I know one
of the days they were talking
about proof that the world is
older than 6,000 years. Bryan
thought the world was 6,000
years old. He said it's in the
Bible. And that suited him. And
Darrow just poo pooed the idea
and said, well you can just look
at the rocks. Just go outside
and look at the rocks and you
know the world is more than 6,000
years old. And Bryan got up
and said, I'm not interested in
the age of the rocks but in the
rock of ages and everybody
thought it. He lost the thing,
goodness gracious, and poor man
died. But he was trained to
speak. Robert Ingersoll, Peoria
Illinois, probably the greatest
agnostic humanist we ever had in
this country, was trained this
way and could he speak? My land
of living. Life is a narrow veil
between the cold barren peaks of
two eternities. We know not
whence we come over that we go.
We try in vain to see beyond the
heights. We cry loud and hear
nothing but our own discordant
cry. Then he had paused. But in
the night of death, Hope sees a
star. Love hears the rustle of a
wing.
He was trained McGuffey style.
125 to 130 million McGuffey
readers made and sold and used.
30,000 a year used in homes
where they do homeschooling. The
McGuffey style. Now here's a
saying and I want you to make a
story out of it. Here's a story.
I want you to boil it down to a
saying. They're related. Closely
related. Here's one. Here's the
assignment. I'll give you a
maxim and you create a story. A
crown is fine, but it will not
protect you from the rain.
I'm not going to repeat these.
You're not taking notes.
Why, it's only a star, said the
candle.
Those who rise to the top often
are the ones who lacked all
those immediate gifts that tend
to detain you at the bottom.
Boy, how true that is. A lie
will take you far, but it will
not take you home.
Have a story and make a maxim
out of it. Here's one McGuffey
had. If I can remember it
correctly, I don't have a
McGuffey reader anymore. Used
to have one. A man and a boy
leading a donkey going into
town. And some people on the
side of the road said, look at
there, how stupid they must be.
They have a donkey in there,
they're both walking. So the boy
got up on the donkey and they
went on their way and some
people on the side of the road
said, look at there, making that
poor old man walk and that boy
getting to ride. So he took the
boy off and the old man got up
there and then went along and
somebody said, look at there,
making that little boy walk. So
he put both of them on the
donkey. The man and the boy rode
the donkey and the people along
the road said, look at there,
two of them riding that pitiful
little donkey. Have they no
feeling? They came to a little
creek, a river. The donkey was
spooked, jumped over the side of
the bridge, into the water and
drowned. What is the saying?
When you're trying to please
everybody, you don't please
anybody, not even yourself.
That's McGuffey. You could do
that, we don't need McGuffey,
my land, we can do that.
Here's a saying, the heart can
sometimes hear what the ear
cannot. Make a story out of, the
heart can sometimes hear what
the ear cannot. A friend of mine
who worked for Dupont Sponge
wanted to take me through the
factory and he picked me up one
morning and went out to work and
as we went into the gate,
beautiful factory landscape out
there, flowers and cannas growing
around the flagpole, and there
was a man with both hands off
and he had those metal hooks and
one artificial leg. My host
said, he's a veteran and he was
out there raising the flag. It
was hard for him to do, but he
did it and finally got it
unfolded and off the ground and
up and up and up. And my host
knew him and he slowed down
there and said, well, how you
doing? Fine. For what you're
doing, what you need out here is
a good band playing the national
anthem. And the crippled flag
raiser said, well, I can hear
it, can't you? Now, what's the
saying? The heart can sometimes
hear what the ear cannot. Do you
ever have any time, do you ever
have any time to teach yourself
things? I want to be skilled at
the use of words because that's
all I have. I need to listen. If
anybody suggests a way I can
learn on your word or put words
together in some kind of
discourse that would affect
other people. We were in
Ireland, Nettie and I were some
friends in a rented car and
lost. Stomped at a little pub
and went over to a man standing
outside the door. I guess he was
full of the day's drink. And he
was standing out in front and I
went over to him with a map and
I said, we're trying to go there
to that old church. But I don't
know how to get there. Could you
tell me how you get there? And
he said, have you the petrol to
go the beauty way? And I said,
yes sir, I think so. You're on
it. The beauty way. You notice
how powerful that is? Beautiful
would be weak. The beautiful way
that doesn't fit. The beauty
way. Take a noun and make an
adjective out of it. Every day
gives you an opportunity
to use words in such a way that
they are the linguistic
incarnation of the Word of God.
And that doesn't mean scouring
around for something I can use
Sunday. I want something I can
use Sunday, whether it fits or
not. I'll just drag it into my
sermon, kicking and screaming
because I thought it was a good
stuff. Come on. I'm begging you
to be creators. Be poets. Be
storytellers.
Play tricks on yourself. Say
something and then make it into
a story. Luke and Dub, a couple
of boys, lived in a little
rental house close to us on the
farm when I was growing up. Luke
and Dub, that was their name. I
don't know if Dub was named Dub.
We called him Dub. At any rate,
Dub put his hand there. We were
out splitting wood and he picked
up an axe, fooled around with it
a little bit, and then he walked
over to the chopping block and
he laid his finger hands down
there and he said to his
brother, Luke, I bet you can't
cut off my fingers. Luke said, I
bet I can. He said, I bet you
can't. He said, wow, it all went
to fingers. You know what Dub
said? I didn't know you were
really going to do it. You know
what Luke said? I thought you
were going to move your hand.
What's the truth of the story?
Don't ever presume that you know
what the other person is
thinking. I'm just playing games
on myself up here. But that's
the way I spend time. When I had
that long siege of paralysis my
last teaching year here, I made
up little games and then played
the game and answered the
question and made notes to
myself, conversations with the
nurses or whatever. There's
every day the opportunity for
you to jot something down and
promise you won't forget it
until it's appropriate to the
time and the place to say it.
Well,
what we have finally to offer
the congregation really is
ourselves. If you have integrity
and are committed to preaching
the Word of God, what you have
to offer is yourself. If you
have integrity you're worth all
your salary and three times
more. If you have no integrity
you can manufacture sermons out
of cardboard characters and get
to retirement time and do fairly
well in everybody's eyes, but
your own.
It's a wonderful thing to be a
minister, to be someone who
lives in the community as a
person, as a person. And you,
something of the feeling, the
good and the bad and the hurt
and the gain and the loss, the
suffering and the recovery of
the whole community resides in
you. You're a person who, in the
language of Abraham Lincoln,
stirs the better angels of
people's nature. Just being
around you makes people better
people. There will be folks that
will come up to you and say, I
may forget what you've done, I
may forget what you've said, but
I will never forget how I felt
when you were our minister. Wow,
what a gift. It's a wonderful
thing to be a minister, to have
a congregation, to share in the
Word of God. Some of you just
starting, you're at the
butterfly morning of your
ministry. Some are in the
wildflower afternoon of your
ministry, and some of us are in
the whipper-will evening of the
ministry, but it's all the same.
And what is next? I was given
this poem. People give you
poems. Some of them are good,
some of them are not so good,
but they're genuine. This fellow
lives now in Berea, Kentucky. I
don't know him, really, except a
friend of his was a friend of
mine, a medical doctor serving
in eastern Kentucky mountains.
Good guy, was a schoolmate of
mine, and this fellow knew him,
and they got acquainted and
appreciated each other, and I
asked this fellow, what do you
do? And he said, nothing. I
said, well, I mean, how do you,
he says, I'm on welfare, and I
write poems. Would you read a
poem of mine if I gave it to
you, but wait till you leave,
don't read it now while I'm
here? I said, okay. And he gave
it to me, and this is what it
said. It's a brief poem, and I
would ask your permission to let
me read it, but it's not yours
to give. I want to read it
anyway.
I want to be a specialist on the
dawn, an expert in day-breaking.
Then I could tell of morning's
first light and point to the
exact time when the birds hushed
their singing as triumphant day
advanced over conquered night. I
could branch out into the field
of new beginnings, and if I
became an authority, I would
dare even to speak of hope. His
name's Graham, Berea, Kentucky.
He wanted me to read that.
I appreciate your graciousness.
I'm supposed to quit at some
time. I don't know what it is.
Well, we're there.
If you have questions, consider
them answered.
Thank you.