The cute little math professor waited until all the other worshippers had gone by me at the door. Then she grabbed my pulpit robe by the lapels and pulled me down into her face and said, fiercely, “You don’t know it yet, but when you’re in that pulpit, you’re something special. People will believe what you say just because of the way you say it. So, you be damn sure that what you say is the truth.”
Phyllis was a PK, preacher’s kid, daughter of a Baptist pastor. She knew about preaching.
In my most recent column, I wrote of how nothing you say in preaching can remain hidden. After all, preaching is a social medium. I don’t worry overmuch about that, about saying something that should have remained hidden, because each time I have entered the pulpit since 1964, I have made sure the sermon passes the Phyllis test.
Phyllis Graham and I were friends from age ten, for 55 years, until she died. We were in high school together until sophomore year, when her family moved away. I forgot about her until I graduated seminary and was appointed to be the campus minister in Terre Haute, serving Indiana State U and Rose-Hulman University, then called Rose Polytechnic Institute. There I met this new math prof, a new PhD from IU. New math prof, but old friend.
I’ve written about Phyllis before, including how she became part of our family, friend to Helen and aunt to our little daughters, how I officiated at her wedding to Jim Parr. We shared a lot over the next 40 years.
I miss her, but I think about her every time I preach. I give the sermon the Phyllis test.
When I preached at her funeral, I made damn sure that what I said was true.
John Robert McFarland
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