And the weight of glory, if you held it in your hand
It would pass right through you
So now’s your chance
– Caedmon’s Call
——
“Only two things that are here on earth now are going to heaven with you, friends, just two things. It’s people! And it’s the Word of God!”
I’m in high school, listening to Mr. H, the earnest middle-aged Baptist preacher at a tiny baby rural church in New England (Pictured above: One room. One steeple. In a field). He was a Preacher Man on Sundays and a furniture upholsterer during the week. He preached an earnest and profoundly Gospel based sermon, Sunday after Sunday.
The service loped through its gentle, persistent rhythms. The same woman stands up from the back right: “We received a prayer letter from the Jones/Browns/Smiths who we support in Uganda/Brazil/Mexico.” How many could they support, a church of approximately 50 elderly people in a literal field in one of the least wealthy towns in the state, showing up, week after week, giving abundantly out of what they had?
They were so good natured that when the pastor, full of fervor for the Lord, added the Maranatha! Praise Chorus Books to the routine (we were 30 years behind the church music curve), they embraced it with open arms. Ten years later, in graduate school, I would learn how to encourage change in aging congregations – how to gently introduce new rhythms into community life or phase out unhealthy habits. When I look back at this tiny rural church populated by elders of the faith, I’m totally flabbergasted that when the pastor marched in with a big spiral bound Maranatha! piano songbook and 3 dozen paperback lyrics books, the congregation said “well, sure! Why not?”
I was the church pianist for a few years. My favorite thing was “Favorites.” We were a very ballsy little church, so these little blessed Saints would flip through that dang Maranatha! song book and pick a song that nobody knew including themselves, and would request “Number 31 in the Praise Chorus book!,” and the Jesus Movement of the 1970’s was a terrible, terrible time for rhythm so I’d gingerly pick my way through dotted sixteenth notes, and everyone would loudly sing the exact wrong melody and rhythm and the pastor (who was also the music leader, bless) would conduct his terrible congregational choir with unbounded enthusiasm.
“Only two things that are here on earth now are going to heaven with you, friends, just two things. It’s people! And it’s the Word of God!”
I used to listen to him preach while staring out the window at the huge overgrown field behind the church. I also doodled a lot. My dad didn’t love that I doodled while preaching happened – he said that he’s like to see me more focused on what was happening in the pulpit. I think I told him that doodling helped me focus, which was partly true. The biggest truth was that whether I was doodling or not, I was only listening to 25% of the sermon, which I’ve learned since becoming a preacher is more than most people listen anyway.
Which is why if you can say one true thing, say it – one thing that rings out and settles into people’s souls, because we’re going to forget almost everything that we read and hear and say.
I remember when the part-time-pastor and full-time-upholsterer told us that only two things on this green earth would make it up to heaven with us, and those two things were the people sitting around us and the Holy Bible sitting on our laps.
I’m not interested in parsing what is literally true or not true about his statement. What struck me was the way that the part-time-pastor called us to weigh sacredness.
He said, children of God, look around. The people that you are sitting in church with are sacred. Mary who is reading the prayer letters every week is sacred. Mr. Jones who requested that entirely unsingable song is sacred. Your dad who doesn’t want you to doodle is sacred.
The moments you spend washing dishes for a roommate or picking up a friend from the repair shop or grabbing lunch or picking up someone’s shift at work – those moments loving your sacred people are holy moments, because when you love a person, you acknowledge their dignity and affirm their sacredness.
I wonder how Mr. H weighed sacredness in his life, pulling and cutting and stretching fabric over chairs and couches. I think about how I’m preaching fewer sermons and holding more crying friends. I am listening to fewer lectures, and listening to more ancient bar regulars tell me about their mom passing away and the time their wife left them. I buy more sour candy for co-workers and buy a lot less communion supplies.
It is a holy thing to love your neighbor.
That doesn’t mean that we aren’t all called to use our gifts and talents in the most effective way to glorify God. I am called to pastor and preach and one day, I will.
But if I thought that pastoring and preaching was more holy than bringing PBR Tallboys to the lonely old lady that sits alone at the table by the window every Monday afternoon? If I thought that pastoring was a more sacred occupation because I talked about “religious things”? If I imagined that the spiritual importance of a thing rises with its popularity or fame or power? Well, then I am not properly weighing sacredness.
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels; if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains; if I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast; and do not love….”
Prophecy, faith, acts of charity, acts of justice, acts of wisdom – Paul laughs at them, because they have so much less importance than we imagine. Prestige, power, sacraments, protesting, pastoring – unless we give the human soul next to us proper sacred weight, they don’t mean a thing.
Preach! Prophesy! Upholster! Serve drinks, protest, quilt pillows, write books, teach yoga, do justice, love mercy – and love.
Give proper attention to what is heavy with the weight of Glory.
Picture of Walnut Grove Baptist Church by Jack Parker in Yankee Magazine, March 3, 2013
