JUST A LITTLE OFF THE TOP [T, 7-26-22]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

 

My friend, Paul Unger, had a long and distinguished career in ministry. even though his mother did not want him to be a preacher, he told us recently.

This surprised me. I knew his mother. I was her pastor for several years. She was a totally dedicated church member.

That was the problem, Paul explained. Barbara knew how churches could mistreat their pastors. She didn’t want her son mistreated that way.

Instead, she wanted him to be a barber.

At first, that sounds like a rather large disconnect. I mean, preachers and barbers exist in rather different strata of society. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that barbers are a lot like preachers, but without the mistreatment.

I mean, if you don’t like your haircut, you don’t try to get the barber fired. You just go someplace else.

In the meantime, just like preachers, barbers: listen to confessions; listen to complaints about weather and politics; tell stories; give opinions; deal with uncooperative children; put up with boring people; try to make things look better; sweep up the fallout at the end of the day.

Similar jobs, but barbers don’t have to deal with bridezillas and bickering trustees and annual evaluations. Maybe Barbara was on to something. But maybe not. She raised her son to be able to deal with anything that came up with calmness and humor. He was a good preacher. I’m sure he would have been a good barber, too.

John Robert McFarland

I’m going to preach again, or at least tell stories, at St. Mark’s UMC in Bloomington, Indiana at 10:30 Eastern Time on July 31. You can “attend” by clicking on the livestream button on the smumc.church web site. [Not smumc.org.] Or you can get it via the archive button any time after noon on 7-31. I don’t intend for this to be a regular thing. My eyes and back and voice are already too old for preaching. In fact, I’ve dragooned a friend into leading the rest of the service so that all I have to do is preach. But one thing I can do for our pastors, and thus our congregation, is give them some rest time. Besides, Jesus came to teach us how to have a good time [John 10:10], and I think preaching is fun.

 

 

 

 

 

STORIES IN SEARCH OF A SERMON [AGAIN] [Sat, 7-23-22]

I never doubted my ability to preach well. I sometimes did not preach well, either because I was ill prepared or misunderstood what the congregation needed, but I knew that I had “the gifts and graces.”

That is surprising. There were no models in the family for me, on either side, and I was by nature shy and easily embarrassed and unwilling to try new things.

I gave one 3-minute speech, required, in high school. I chose the history of basketball. It went okay, but barely. I was quite nervous, which isn’t surprising, since research shows that death is the average person’s second-greatest fear, right after public speaking.

Then at IU, I had Speech 101, where mostly we learned how to outline a speech, starting with I and going on to A and then 1 and so forth down the page.

I

 A

   1

    a

 In 60 years of preaching and speaking, I never used that outline.

I do remember giving a speech in that class about the roaches in the water at Solsberry High School. They had to call off school for a few days. I had read about that in the IDS [campus newspaper], and thought it was a good topic for a speech. I think I excoriated the school administration.

Then, a year later, I was the preacher at the Solsberry Methodist Church, and Willie Eller, the high school principal, was a member of my church. So were his two teen daughters. His wife, Thelma, had designs on me on behalf of the older daughter, Sue, who was only a couple of years younger than I, but even though I did not cooperate with her on that, she was always one of my staunchest supporters, even after I married Helen.

Anyway, I thought it was some sort of sign, that I had spoken in speech class about Solsberry, and now I was speaking in church there every Sunday. I did not know what the sign meant, though.

Fast forward 60 years. Helen and I had moved back to Bloomington and went to church one Sunday morning at Solsberry, where we encountered the younger daughter, Shirley, now an old lady, who immediately said, “Oh, I’ve got to call Sue.” Fortunately, I do not know what Sue said.

Other old women crowded around us and told of how they were in the Methodist Youth Fellowship when I was pastor there and won a District MYF attendance contest because all the girls in town came to MYF because of me. I had no idea that was why our attendance was so large, and Helen still doesn’t believe it.

I think maybe I assumed I could preach well because other people assumed I could, like the folks at Forsythe, the little open-country church where I grew up. They always assumed that anything I did would be good. Then the summer after we graduated high school, Bob Robling and Bob Wallace and Dave Lamb and I went Sunday by Sunday to whatever church in our District needed a pulpit supply that week. We sang as a quartet, and I preached. Up until his death, 62 years later, Bob Robling always said, “The best preacher I ever heard was an eighteen-year-old kid.” If your friends think you’re good at something, it’s much easier to believe it yourself.

I didn’t know how to preach when I was 18, but I knew that when I heard a sermon, what got my attention, pulled me in, made me think, what I remembered…were the stories. So I told stories. Stories from the Bible. Stories from books. Stories from life. Bob saw that as good preaching.

I said above that I had no preacher models in my family. That was not quite true. There were no preachers or public speakers in my family, but there were a lot of story-tellers. Well, that’s why I never doubted that I could preach well; I had heard a thousand stories that were just waiting for a chance to get into a sermon.

John Robert McFarland

I’m going to preach again, or at least tell stories, at St. Mark’s UMC in Bloomington, Indiana at 10:30 Eastern Time on July 31. You can “attend” by clicking on the livestream button on the smumc.church web site. [Not smumc.org.] Or you can get it via the archive button any time after noon on 7-31.

HEALING TOUCH [W, 7-20-22]

My Crumble Bum friend, Charlie Matson, said recently that he likes to be a greeter at church because it gives him an excuse to touch people. “Men don’t touch men,” he said. “But we need to. We need that connection. When I’m a greeter, I get to shake hands.”

Crumble Bums are meeting this morning. I’m going to shake hands with Charlie. And, just to be sure, give him a hug. [1]

When I was on chemo, and thinking I would die “in a year or two,” my close, long-time [1956-2015] friend and colleague, Bill White, drove down from Bloomington, IL to Arcola to spend time with me. He sat beside me on the sofa as we talked, and when he was ready to leave, he put his arm around me and held my hand to pray for me.

It was the first time anyone but my wife and daughters touched me, except for the medical people, whose touches usually brought me pain.

It got me to thinking about how no one ever touched Jesus. He did a lot of touching, especially in healing. He was the one who touched the feet to wash them. But no one ever touched him, except through an intermediary object, like spear or hair or whip.

With men, surprisingly, hugging is now the preferred mode of touch, even more than hand shaking. That was not true for a long time. Men did not hug anyone, even women. The worst thing that could be said, “S/he is a hugger.” You avoided those people.

I’m not exactly sure when the flip came. I think hippies and flower-children changed that. Now, [at least before covid] it is de rigueur to hug anyone you haven’t seen for more than 2 days. Certainly, any kind of celebration “calls for a hug.” But, you know, hugging isn’t really touching. It’s less intimate than shaking hands, especially when men do that one arm “bro hug.” It’s just cotton to cotton.

Yes, I know that shaking hands can be perfunctory, and a way to pass viruses from one to another, but there is something uniquely human about a skin to skin touch. In an age of Zoom and Tik Tok, we need personal touch more than ever.

When Bill was in the hospital, dying, I held his hand.

John Robert McFarland

1] We got our name by meeting at Crumble Bakery for coffee. We met at Glenn’s invitation, because, he says, “From the time I was a little kid, I wanted to be part of a group of old men who sat around telling stories.” That is, I think, a unique dream. When the virus came, Charlie and Tony and Ron and I switched to drinking coffee in Glenn’s garage, and eating goodies that Helen or Allyson baked. 

 

 

A REASON TO GET UP [Sat, 7-16-22]

 

Grandson Joe has a new job. It starts at 5 in the morning! You have to get up EARLY to clock in at 5 a.m.! It’s even earlier if you’re used to going to bed about then. His grandmother asked him if he’s adjusting okay. He said, “It’s not hard to adjust if you have a reason to get up.”

That’s faith, which is the most necessary element in the list of the 8 necessary elements for brain health, reported by brain researchers Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Robert Waldman in their book, How God Changes Your Brain.

They don’t necessarily mean religious faith, although they think religious faith is a positive thing, but the sort of faith represented in Joe’s statement—a reason to get up. It’s faith in life. There is some reason to get up and start the day. That’s a “good attitude.”

A good attitude. That was one of the elements we were told we needed as cancer patients. Just what is a “good” attitude?

I recall Jim Phillips, from my cancer support group. He had a terrible attitude. On purpose. He was a contrarian. He just had to disagree with everything. So he was out to prove that you could survive cancer with a bad attitude. His oncologist, Pat Johnson, played along. “I thought you died,” she would exclaim whenever she encountered Jim. He loved it. It kept him alive. His bad attitude was, for him, a perfect attitude. He had a reason to get up.

“Whatever floats your boat,” as we used to say. Or, even better, “Keep the faith.”

John Robert McFarland

IT’S NOT WRITING, BUT THERE WILL BE ENOUGH [T, 7-12-22]

 

Helen predicted that I could not stop writing, and she was partially right. Only partially, though.

I’m posting something here occasionally in Christ In Winter, but it’s not really the result of writing. It’s just accidental, words slopping over from my brain onto the “page.”

I stopped writing because I need to concentrate on soul work. Writing distracts me from soul work.

Writing is a different kind of work. If I am a writer, every idea that comes into my brain, I go into writer mode. How can I write this so that others can get something from it?

It’s the same thing I have done with preaching for lo, these 65 years. Every idea… will it preach? Not what does it do for my soul, but where does it do for a sermon?

Now, I let the ideas just work on my soul. I don’t think about writing. [Or preaching] If some idea gets onto the page, and then into this blog… well, who knows why…

Well, I’m sure that you did not come here, intentionally or accidentally, to hear a boring monologue on something relevant only to me, so here’s an entry from my poetry journal, from 5-21-22, a little something for your trouble.

THERE WILL BE ENOUGH

I would like to store up

against the coming darkness

The green carpet of grass

The slow rising of the sun

The gentle muttering

of the breeze

The friendly waving

of the trees

But I have tried before

to hoard these things away

in the storehouse of love

and God keeps saying

No need

Wherever, there will be

more

 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

ALWAYS FAITHFUL: JERRY NICHOLS [7-7-22]

 

Today is the official send-off for Jerry Nichols. We can’t be in Champaign, IL in person, so I shall say to good-bye to my 45-year friend and colleague this way.

Jerry was one of the kindest, most gentle, people I have ever known. An ideal pastor, except…

His wife, Nancy, was not the traditional model of a pastor’s wife. She was a singer and actress. Not flamboyant, but not interested in discussing the color of the new carpet for the church lounge. She did her own thing, in her own way. Church members did not appreciate that.

Today, most churches wouldn’t even notice an independent preacher’s wife. Some would even applaud it.

My last appointment was to a vibrant congregation in a small, old-fashioned town. Jane Jenkins, our Lay Leader was an elegant woman who had started in the office of a large corporation in a city near us and had worked her way up from part-time secretary to vice-president. It was a multi-national corporation, and she traveled all over the world for her job. She was a 21^st century woman in a 19^th century town. But she was a committed church woman, who still lived in her home town. Some folks didn’t understand how far she had come. She said to Helen, “Thank you for being here. You check all the boxes for the perfect preacher’s wife, but you’re also a full-time teacher. It gives legitimacy to all the rest of us women who work at full-time jobs.”

That was the 1990s. But back in the 1960-70s, when Jerry and I were new in ministry, society was changing so rapidly. People wanted the assurance of a church that clung to the old values. That meant a preacher’s wife who acted like one. That wasn’t Nancy.

Nancy died in January this year. I met her because Jerry and I became friends as we worked together as neighboring pastors, but she became a friend to me in her own right. She got colon cancer very soon after I did. We went through treatments together, in different places, but together in sharing experiences and fears and hopes. It was she from whom I got the phrase, “Cancer is the answer,” that I used in my cancer book. [1] Remarkably, she dealt with a colostomy for 30 years.

Jerry and I had a lot of good times together, lunches and cuppas [aka, “coffee with…”], when we pastored in neighboring places. We shared dreams. So, after Helen, he was the first person I told when the bishop said he was going to appoint me to a large university church, “the perfect place for you.” I was excited about it. I was sure he would be excited for me. Instead, his face fell. “I guess that’s never going to happen for me,” he said.

I knew what he was thinking, because we had talked about it. Nancy. For all her gifts, as a preacher’s wife, she was a handicap. The ever-kind and ever-patient Jerry said to me, “I try to be faithful to God, and I try to be faithful to Nancy.” But he knew that despite his faithfulness, Nancy would always short-change his career.

So, that’s how I became the secret DS of our conference.

District Superintendents are sub-bishops, presiding over an area that contains 100 or so churches. It’s the bishop who, technically, makes the appointment of pastor to church, but it’s the DS who really makes the match. Except for big churches, where the senior pastor “hires” associate pastors, and the DS and bishop stamp their approval on it.

Jerry needed an appointment that was “the perfect place for you,” where he could use his gifts, be faithful to God, but where Nancy would be able to be herself, too. I decided to get Jerry that place. I called Roger Rominger, who was senior pastor of the very large downtown church in Springfield. He didn’t know Jerry, but agreed to interview him. Later he told me, “That’s the best thing anybody ever did for me. Jerry’s a gift. He is the pastor of the building. I have to be all over the place. So do other staff members. Jerry is always there in the office. Someone needs counseling, he’s there. A homeless guy needs a meal, he’s there. Somebody has a complaint, he’s there. Some emergency arises, he’s there. He handles everything that comes up with the same grace and kindness. He's the daily face of the church. He makes us look better than we really are.”

That worked so well that I continued to broker those situations directly. Many preachers complained to me about unused gifts. So I continued to act as a go-between for them and those who could get them into position to use their gifts.

After Jerry retired, he continued to preach, at a small village church, for 15 years, while he also became a hospital chaplain, a position he continued almost until his death. Always faithful to God. And to Nancy.

John Robert McFarland

1] NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Faith & Life for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them.

COOL AT LAST [F, 7-1-22]

 

We finally got around to using our OG gift card. [Olive Garden, not Old Gangster] We’ve had that card for a long, long time, because the OG is across the great divide, that being I-69. That mighty road divides Bloomington with an intersection that makes people move to Los Angeles for easier driving. It takes me a long time to get up the courage to cross the great divide.

I ordered online for curbside pick-up. In return, the OG web site told me to park in one of the appropriate spots and “A To Go Specialist will bring your order to you.”

Wow! “A To Go Specialist!” What a cool title. I wish I’d had a cool title like that when I was a kid with tattoos and a nose ring and purple hair. [Those seem to be the qualifications.]

It would have made my first job so much easier had people called me “A Detasseling Specialist.” I’m sure those old hens would have stopped pecking my hands [early forms of tattoos] if my title had been “Egg Gathering Specialist.”

I just wasn’t cool. Not like a “To Go Specialist.” Or Benny Albin.

He was a senior when I was a freshman at Oakland City High School. I wanted to be cool like Benny. He was smart and good-looking. He was a starter on the basketball team. Most importantly, he was Editor of the Oak Barks school newspaper.

His other qualities were beyond my possibilities, but I was the freshman reporter on that school newspaper, and figured that by the time I was a senior, I could be the editor of Oak Barks.

In the meantime, during lunch periods, when Benny was mocking up the newspaper in Mr. Morrow’s typing room, I would join him for lessons in cool. Occasionally, he would say, “McFarland, I need two column inches to complete page two. Write something.” So, all the school events already covered, I would write some lame opinion piece, about how students should be more patriotic, or a human-interest bit, about the natural violence of chickens. It was pretty bad stuff, but it filled up the space, so that when the typing staff came in to put the pages onto the plasticized nitrocellulose stencils, they were ready to go. [Can you imagine a cool person describing the stencils that way?]

Of course, Benny did fail me that one time. I’ve written about it before. I wanted to ask Jeanette Richardson to go to the junior class play with me. Benny drilled me for many noon hours on how to do that, coolly. “If she says this, you say that, etc.” The one thing he did not think to tell me was what to do if she said, “Why?” Which she did. I can’t remember what I said or did. I think I just ran off and avoided her for the next four years. I did know that I would never be cool.

But, “never” is a long time. Last month, Helen and I were asked to tell the kids at VBS what St. Mark’s UMC was like, back in medieval times, when we were the first couple married there. The program listed us simply as “Cool People to Know.”

John Robert McFarland

There was one especially cool thing about that experience. As we talked to the kids, we sat in exactly the same spot in the old, old part of the building, what was then the sanctuary and is now part of the pre-school, where we stool sixty-three years ago to exchange our vows.