Faith Works 3-5-22

Faith Works 3-5-22
Jeff Gill

Crutches and healing and strength
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Last week we had Garrison Keillor in town for a show at the Midland Theatre. I had the opportunity to interview him in advance for this paper, and on the phone he was generous with his time and spoke at length about a variety of subjects, much more than I could get into the article I wrote earlier.

Keillor is known best for storytelling, and his renown in that field on the radio was already growing when I was in seminary in the 1980s. Many of my peers in preaching found his approach to narrative and public presentation to be a healthy corrective to the sometimes overly academic model we were getting in class, focused on a manuscript and a systematic presentation, controlled and cautious.

On "Prairie Home Companion," when Keillor moved into the portion of the radio program called "News from Lake Wobegon," for this listener it often seemed as if he was a high wire walker on stage, working without a net. There was both a spontaneity and a sense of carefully crafted speech in what we would listen to, leaning in even sitting in the car as he would pause and in many small subtle ways communicate that he was thinking out loud. And for me, at least, it was impossible to hear his delivery and observe the effect that kind of narrative had on other listeners, and not think about preaching the Gospel, which deserved careful preparation but also seemed to call for a mutual humanity in how the Good Story is told and re-told.

Mind you, I'm not saying this is the only way to preach, but for me it felt like an approach worth investigating. And it shaped my time in the pulpit. So I was interested in talking to the man about church and faith and preaching.

He was more than willing to speak on those subjects, but his observations kept coming back to his local parish, the church he clearly attends regularly in Manhattan. When I would ask about narrative theology and preaching as storytelling, he would respond with a comment about how the sermon works in a wider context, and it was more as a parishioner than as a preacher he spoke.

In talking about some of his own personal journey, and internal struggles after some public controversy he experienced, he came back a few times to his church's healing service, a weekly part of their cycle of worship which is focused on prayer as a congregation, and the opportunity to come forward and be prayed for by the ministers fo the church.

"I went forward," Keillor said about one such service, "and the deacon at the front put her hands on my shoulders. It meant so much, I can't tell you, to go forward and say it out loud. I said to her 'I hurt,' and she looked right at me, and I felt listened to. I felt the burden of anger lifted from my life."

That was not about preaching, but it was about a minister being truly present to someone. He didn't have to make the connection for me. Effective communication is about that kind of presence and openness to someone who is hurting, who is in need. Sometimes it happens in sermons, sometimes in other acts of pastoral ministry.

A few decades ago the governor of the state of Minnesota, Keillor's home, said "Christianity is a crutch." He said it was for "weak people." I've always appreciated the clarity Jesse Ventura brought to this conversation. I think he's right, even if we come to different conclusions on what that means.

Only a person who's sure they'll never need a crutch can laugh at them. If you are confident you'll never want to have a commode chair handy, I guess you could find one ludicrous, worth a chuckle. But if we all are likely to need a crutch, a place to find relief, or even hope to find a healing hand on our shoulder, then we probably should be careful about making fun of weakness, before we find we're just mocking ourselves.

In Lent, we have forty days to reflect on our own weakness, our own needs, and the promises of God to lift us up, and sometimes even to carry us. To say to the Lord "I hurt" and know we are heard, and in that knowledge find healing.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's had his weak moments in and out of the pulpit. Tell him where you find the crutch you need to carry on at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.