End of the Line

I used to daydream while attending Rankin Memorial Chapel.  Sunday mornings in Washington DC were split between Rankin and Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church. 

Mt. Pleasant didn't lead to daydreaming because the preacher was the same each week: Rev. Terry D. Streeter.  He didn't have a problem getting to church on time and proved to be worth the walk each week.  I went to the early service to hear Rev. Streeter and attended chapel before lunch.  

It took a few years for me to wake up.  "Sophomore" means "wise fool".  I didn't find Rev. Streeter, or begin to daydream in chapel, until my junior year.  Tardiness stoked daydreams.

Rankin Memorial Chapel at Howard University

Invited speakers were often late.  Traffic, parking, disorganization and daylight saving time wreaked havoc.  While we sang yet another hymn to buy time for the speaker to show up, I would daydream about being tapped to give the message.

"Alex, it's obvious that the speaker isn't coming this morning.  Your peers have gathered and a preacher is needed.  Would you mount the pulpit and deliver a word for the people?"

No one ever tapped my should and asked the fantastic question but the expectation that they would was real.  I was surprised when they didn't and began to crave spaces like Rankin whenever I studied the Word.

Biblical truth bubbled in me and I ached to let it out.  Dean Richardson saw what I did not understand and recruited me as a chapel assistant.  Song, scripture and prayer are the backbone of congregational preparation for proclamation.  Before my peers, I learned each section of the spine of worship.

Trust with a microphone to pray, sing or read quickened unexpected desire.  I knew what came next and the speaker was tardy.  Daydreams consumed me.

Daydreams were difficult to hide from neighbors while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  Among Ivoiriens, with the vocabulary of a two year old, I was invited to preach.  Rankin was the right time to dream but the wrong time to dare.  French-speaking Attie neighbors ignored my stumbling language learning, because they recognized a call to preach.  I was hesitant; who wants to hear a halting sermonic melange of French, English and local languages?  Despite my reticence, they knew God was calling me and so did I.

A call included seminary and a fifteen year career in parish ministry.  Every Rankin daydream was realized: counseling married couples, burying the dead, baptizing believers and weekly proclamation.  The balm of preaching heals pastoral hurts.  I was doing exactly what I was called to do until the time came for me to do something else.

Something else mixes theology, service and team-building near the intersection of faith and public health.  A chaplaincy among first responders requires many things but preaching is not one of them.  My wife and our two children attend a church and are enjoying the view from the pew: pastoral pain is in the past.

Past recognition of a call on my life are being reproduced in our church home.  Gracious invitations to preach, teach and influence discussions have been extended.  Remembering the yearning at Howard makes me hesitant to turn down opportunities to exercise God's gifts to me.  

I write because yesterday I turned down an invitation to speak.

"No" was a missing part of my vocabulary, partially, because ministry is such a privilege.  No one has to be bothered with me and preaching is a privilege.  Asking my host to find someone else, struck a match; this post kindles a fire.

This post is in line with what I've been saying for months: I need to write more than I speak and read more than I write. 

I read One Word That Will Change Your Life, rediscovered the word "troika" and began daydreaming about publishing.  Publishing frightens me in the same way preaching frightened me at Howard.  I knew, and know, what I want to do.  I need to publish; to risk people going berserk over my words; to hazard being misunderstood.  I daydream about publishing.

I daydream in spaces void of necessities.  Rankin didn't have the speaker we needed.  We gathered to hear preaching and were willing to sing another song or hear a testimony until the speaker arrived.  We were willing to a point...lunch loomed and Monday preparation awaited after lunch.  We were patient but we also had other things we had to get done.

Readers have been with me since 2015 but there is a void.  Much of my writing is in draft form.  What is needed is courage to post in plain sight.  

One Word That Will Change Your Life has been in plain sight for years but I paused to read it during the pandemic.  A troika is a three-horse team used to pull Russian sleds and I was drawn to the word after rereading the life of Solomon:

  At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, “Ask what I shall give you.”...Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”  ~ I Kings 3:5, 9

 In that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask what I shall give you.”  Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great?” ~ 2 Chronicles 1:7, 10.

Solomon is known as the wisest man of all time but the two versions of his ask show that he asked for three things: knowledge, wisdom and understanding.  The same troika litters the Book of Proverbs, many of which are attributed to Solomon.  While he was wise, Solomon didn't ask for wisdom, he asked for a troika.

A troika is a three horse team used to pull sleds in Russia.  At the center of the team is the shaft horse.  Harnessed directly to the sled, it's the horse that does the most work.  The other two horses are hitched to the right and left of the draft horse.  While the center horse gallops, the two flanking horses trot; while the center horse trots, the flanking canter; while the center horse runs, the flanking horses gallop.   It's a team but one horse takes the lead.

Among knowledge, wisdom and understanding, wisdom takes the lead, "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom..." (Proverbs 4:7).  Wisdom is the shaft horse of the sled that is my life.  Other troikas in scripture also show one member taking the lead.

  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.         ~I Cor 13:13

Troika: A Three Horse Team

 ...you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.             ~ John 14:28

Wisdom, love and the Father are shaft horses in respective troikas.  When I read of wisdom's troika, I see the wisdom associated with when, knowledge associated with how / what and understanding tied to why.  I can do the right thing and understand why I do them but if I do them at the wrong time, it's unwise:

• What: acting on daydream of preaching at Rankin
• Why: because God was calling me
• When: didn't follow through because it would have been unwise.

Preaching is a sled that Solomon's troika has been pulling for 20 years.  I finished Hopkins, married, had the children, started and stopped University Baptist Church when I should have.  Thank you Lord!  I preached at every single opportunity until yesterday.

Yesterday may have been the end of a preaching season and the beginning of a writing season.  No one knows but the Lord.  I am trusting the Father, love and wisdom in taking next steps.