30 September 2009

On the Journey

                            The Great Church—Keeping the story of Jesus of Nazareth alive

              Fred Craddock is one of my favorite preachers. I first heard him during my days at Southern Seminary when he offered some lectures on preaching. At that time, he was a professor of preaching at Emory, down in Atlanta.

In my soul, I can still feel the first sermon I ever heard Fred proclaim. It was about Lazarus and the rich man. I say, “feel,” because that is exactly what I did. As Fred preached about the rich man and Lazarus, he pulled my mind down into my heart, and I felt the power of that story. Fred’s words caught me off guard, and the gospel of Jesus Christ got a’ hold of me that day. This kind of thing happens almost every time I hear Fred preach, and the Holy Spirit takes up the both of us.

My admiration of Fred Craddock meant that no price was too high to be paid for his latest little book entitled, Reflections on My Call to Preach: Connecting the Dots. Before I even opened this little volume, I knew it would be a different kind of book. Somehow, I knew that Fred would talk about his call to preach by telling stories. Fred is a wonderful storyteller.

I carried Fred’s stories about God’s call to preach with me to Klinsty this summer. Being small and thin, it did not take up much room. I read slowly, savoring all 117 pages. With some reluctance, I listened for the story of my call, as Fred told his stories.

     Fred begins where all our stories begin—in our families. The main characters are always our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters. Somehow, while we are listening for God’s call, we turn to those closest to us to affirm what we are hearing. Fred’s mother was a very devout woman who attempted to strike a bargain with God when Fred almost died of diphtheria at eight months old. As the doctor sat with Fred through the night, she ran to the barn where she could not hear her baby gasping for breath. Through her tears, she prayed, “Dear God, if you will let him live, I will pray every day that he will serve you as a minister.”[p. 19]

     Little Fred survived, but his mother never told him this story until many years after he became a preacher. She didn’t tell him because, on the one hand, she thought it was disrespectful to bargain with God. On the other hand, she didn’t tell him because she didn’t want her son to become a minister because he knew his mama was praying for him to become one. She was such a wise woman.

     Fred’s father was another story. He was an alcoholic and his drinking created both great upheavals in the family and deep crevices of misunderstanding. He was not a church attendee and his faith in God, if there was any, was carefully concealed.

Fred believes he learned to tell stories from his father. His father gently shaped  Fred’s call by presenting him three books while he was quarantined with malaria. The books were: The Life and Times of Billy Sunday, the King James Bible, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare would open the doorway for Fred and his father to speak about faith and the church.

     Fred’s father was dying of cancer of the throat in Veteran’s Hospital in Memphis. On the table by his bed, Fred recalls there was stack of get-well cards, “everyone of which came from persons and groups in Central Avenue Christian Church, the church he often criticized and whose ministers he belittled in their efforts to reclaim him.”[p.45] The rigors of surgery, radiation, and treatment prevented Fred’s father from speaking. He wrote a line from Hamlet on a tissue box, “ ‘In this harsh world draw your breath in pain to tell my story.’”[p. 45] Fred inquired about his father’s story. He wrote: “ ‘I was wrong.’” [p. 46, Bold mine]

     Several days ago, I recalled this story told by Fred Craddock, as I was reading some notes sent by my mentor and friend, Buddy Shurden. Since his retirement, Buddy emails a little preaching journal out to his friends still striving to serve the Great Church in various places. Buddy wrote: “The church is the only institution on earth charged to keep the story of Jesus of Nazareth alive.”[Walter B. Shurden’s Preaching Journal, Vol. 2, Number 17] My mind keeps conjuring up these words even in my sleep—“the only institution on earth charged to keep the story of Jesus of Nazareth alive.”

     Now I am aware of the criticism that the Great Church receives. Some of it we have earned. Some of it is undeserved. After all, the church, as an institution, is composed of people with all our frailties and stabs at faithfulness, our inconsistency and attempts at sacrifice, our hypocrisy and obedience. Yes, we are seeking to follow Jesus wherever He leads, but we have gone our own ways more times than we like to admit. Yet, despite all of this, God uses us as a tool to do the bidding of the divine in the world. Yes, as gleaned from the Craddock story, a stack of cards can convince a dying man he was wrong.

This may be the big picture we need to keep in mind. Despite our failings, we are called to keep the story of Jesus of Nazareth alive. Beyond our buildings, we are called to keep the story of Jesus of Nazareth alive. Aware of our own struggles to be faithful and obedient disciples, we are called to keep the story of Jesus of Nazareth alive. With our organizations and programs, our only purpose is to keep the story of Jesus of Nazareth alive.

     This is a challenging time to be the Great Church of Jesus Christ. Some people are running away from the church. Others have simply wandered away from her. Still others are reluctant to enter her doors because of the caricatures of her designed by the media, critics, and comedians. With all the challenges we face, we could just sit down a give up. We could throw in the towel. We could, because the message we hear repeatedly is that the church is irrelevant to people in the 21st century.

Yes we could, but we won’t. At least I won’t, for I do believe we are called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to keep the story of Jesus of Nazareth alive on this earth. In this time, perhaps more than any time in history, it falls upon us to live up to our name, Immanuel, which means “God with us.” For you never know when a word scribbled on a card on Wednesday night may make all the difference in the world as one is drawn to Jesus of Nazareth, whose story we keep alive on this earth. Let us live as frail and faithful people for Jesus’ sake!jamie