Five years ago in March, the Disciples of Christ's gift to preaching, Fred Craddock, passed away. He was a gold standard for myself and other pastors who sought to talk of God to people, rather than talk at people about God. While preaching gets taught as a class in seminary, his gift for it was something that could not quite be taught, try as many of us might to unsuccessfully emulate him. I wondered who would fill the void he would leave behind, and I have been beyond humbled by how preachers like William Barber II and Cynthia Hale are our gold standard now, taking preaching to places Craddock may not have, and demanding more of the rest of us pastors in turn. That, to me, is the hallmark of a great preacher--that they are doing things with their preaching, and their interpretations of Scripture, that you wouldn't have imagined or thought possible until you saw and heard them do it. Pastors Barber and Hale are that standard for me now. Craddock was, too.
Fred Craddock's impact on me was such that, five years ago, I wrote a post on my
previous blog
defending his legacy against a churlish, petty review of his work by a seminary president in my hometown that just so happened to be published on the day of Craddock's funeral--timing that was meant to unambiguously be a slap in the face to his memory and to those who cherished him.
I share all this by way of trying to communicate how deeply moved I was to see Craddock's sermons not only cited, but provided as an entire framework, for a testimony on surviving the coronavirus by David Von Drehle for the
Washington Post. Von Drehle drew from Craddock preaching on Psalm 30, which contains the famous verse "weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning." (30:5, NRSV)
It is a powerful verse embedded in a powerful psalm about recovering from sickness, a message so many of us could surely use in this moment that we, as humanity, collectively face together.
It is also a psalm that I know is not the story written for the tens of thousands of people who have already succumbed to this pandemic, and the tens of thousands--if not hundreds--still to come. There may be rejoicing in that they are no longer suffering, but the weeping...the weeping will-and should--be positively cacophonous.
How we respond to this grief that is encompassing the globe may not be new to the church--after all, it has survived plagues and pandemics for millennia now--but surely for this incarnation of the church, when the last such comparable global pandemic, the 1918 flu, was a century ago. For the current incarnation of the church, this is all terra incognita.
Clergy colleagues and I have hastened to put as much of our ministries online as we possibly can (in some cases, only doing so after years of resistance to it). I have put existing ministries on online platforms, begun new ministries for our online platforms, and continue to experiment and tinker with the array of tools at my disposal. We clergy are coming up with new ways to care for our people from a safe distance, knowing that this distance--difficult though it might be--is also part of our care for them, to protect them and ourselves as best we can from a global pandemic that as yet has no cure.
Disorienting as this is, I've had to work mightily to keep focus on the strengths my own voice, ministry, and expertise offers--not only a pastoral presence to persons, but a prophetic presence in the public square. Millions of us are vulnerable, and many were vulnerable to begin with, and even more so now. Being married to a physician and public health expert, I am witnessing the colossal effort being poured into fighting this virus outside any of the pandemic's epicenters, but in a place where the number of cases continues to rise. I know that for the medical and public health personnel inside those epicenters, life has become genuinely harrowing and post traumatic stress-inducing.
I work, so far as I am able amid my own concern for my loved ones, to balance offering the non-anxious pastoral presence of care to those in my life and offering the righteous witness of the prophets of old in the face of great injustices. And make no mistake--what has been done to deprive our medical and public health personnel of the tools they need to save us is such an injustice, and it is but one such injustice of many that exist right now.
I do know that things will continue to get worse before they get better. We are entering an economic recession for sure, possibly a depression, and that puts all sorts of people even further onto society's margins. More of us will get sick, more of us will die. Joy may come in the morning, but the night promises to be long and harrowing--most especially for coronavirus patients, and their loved ones and caregivers--their testimonies, like Von Drehle's, make that vividly clear--but also for every single one of us.
In the dark of night, it may seem more difficult to take aim at all the problems, stresses, worries, and fears that face us as a country and as a society--in no small part because those problems were ignored for weeks, months, and years. That, too, has contributed to the night we now experience together, and so it also demands a pastoral and prophetic response from us clergy.
If we find it tougher to take our aim, I hope we can remember those who have gone before us to illuminate the path forward. For me, it is the Fred Craddocks of ministry, those who showed me the way before passing on, but it is also the William Barber II's and Cynthia Hale's of ministry, who are showing me the way in the here and now. Because of Fred Craddock, and pastor-storytellers like him, I found my aim to begin with. But because of pastor-storytellers and activists like Barber and Hale, my aim has been even more finely honed, and ever more true.
Five years later, and my aim remains true. While I shall hope and pray that joy comes in the morning, I remain a prophet trying to lessen the weeping that takes place before the dawn begins to break, and a pastor prepared to respond to the weeping when it sadly and inevitably rises up in this moment that we all must persevere through together.
May joy indeed come in the morning.
But neither ought we go gentle into that good night.
Vancouver, Washington
April 3, 2020