WHAT DO YOU BRING IN YOUR HAND? [Su, 10-6-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of an Old Man—WHAT DO YOU BRING IN YOUR HAND? [Su, 10-6-24]

 

We have a commandment at our house: don’t go empty-handed. It’s mostly a commandment to self. We are old and don’t walk well, so don’t want to make unnecessary trips. We are also absent-minded and leave stuff where it should not be. So, if we are going from one room to another, and have an empty hand, or two, we look around, and if we see something that belongs in our destination room, we take it. “Don’t go empty-handed!”

The first thing I remember from a sermon is the question, “What do you bring in your hand?” Oh, I had heard sermons before, but nothing that I remembered. But when Paul Burns was preaching at Forsythe that day, he made me remember that question. And think about it.

I was a teen-ager, probably a freshman or sophomore. Paul was not our regular preacher. He was the postmaster in Oakland City. He was also a lay preacher. Not real high on the rung of lay preachers. In those days, there were about three levels. Each a different kind of “license” to preach. The lowest levels had the least amount of education specific to preaching and were basically qualified only to fill in on Sunday mornings. The highest levels could be appointed to a church full-time, serves as the regular pastor. Paul was at the low, fill-in level.

The District Superintendent tried hard to find someone to appoint at Forsythe who could be more than just a Sunday preacher. Sometimes it was Gene Matthews, a factory worker in Evansville, thirty miles away, or Kenwood Bryant, an Evansville school teacher. They had mid-level licenses. Still part-time, but ordained enough to serve communion, and do funerals and weddings. When they were not available, though, Paul would be called into service.

That Sunday, that was his repeat phrase. [1] “What do you bring in your hand?” It was a speaking technique I had never heard before, or at least not noticed. Maybe I noticed it because he asked the question several times. That’s why speakers repeat phrases, after all, to get us to notice and remember.

But there was something about the image of a full hand vs an empty hand. I don’t remember what scripture text he used, although I can make a good guess. I knew that my hand was empty. But because it was empty, something significant might be put into it. Then I could answer the question: What do you bring in your hand?

Several years into my ministry career, I had occasion to need some help in my church. I knew that Paul was retired and had suffered a late-life divorce. I thought he might like to come work with me, to have something to do, to feel needed. I wrote and asked him. I told him what his preaching had meant to me when I was young.

He declined. “I’m too old,” he wrote. [I understand that well now.] “But to know that you thought of me, after all these years… and that you got something from my preaching back then… that means the world to me.”

I’m sorry we didn’t get to work together. I knew he would bring something useful in his hand.

John Robert McFarland

1] Sometimes called an anaphora.