This is an excerpt from the Fall 2024 Parish News
The theme of the Parish News and the 2024-2025 Program Year is The Beauty of Our Faith
COLORS AND LIGHT
Fred Garry
In 1629, at the age of 35, George Herbert left London, became a priest, and got married. He would die four years later of consumption, being of poor health for most of his short life.
He was the rector of a small, rural church in Bemerton about 75 miles southeast of London. Herbert was known as a devoted pastor, a good musician, but mostly as a man who gave up political ambition for a quiet life in the country. He was a dean at Oxford and a member of parliament when he left politics. Although not the first one to resign from power, he is perhaps the only one who then became one of England's greatest poets.
In the year of his death, 1633, he bundled a collection of poems he had written during his brief pastorate; he mailed the bundle to a friend. His direction was: if his friend found the poems could bring relief to poor souls, then publish them. If not, burn them. The poems were published with the simple title: The Temple. The name is drawn from the way Herbert's poetry was what he saw in the small church where he preached, his "temple" as it were. All his poems have a literal meaning drawn from the parts of the church (floors, windows, altars) and they all have a metaphysical meaning, a transcendent sense. Notice how "Church Windows" become the preacher and the sermon.
Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word? He is a brittle crazy glass;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford This glorious and transcendent place, To be a window, through thy grace.
But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story, Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers, then the light and glory More reverend grows, and more doth win; Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.
Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe; but speech alone Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the ear, not conscience, ring.
Herbert was a clever poet, and a devoted believer, yet the power of his words is most often to be found not in sophistry or composition, but in a simple truth found in the poem above. When we serve God, when we pray, when we love and sacrifice, when we sing we are changed. What was "waterish, bleak, and thin" becomes "light and glory." We become beautiful as we "combine and mingle."
What in us changes; how does this change occur; can we seek such change or must we wait for it to come to us? Is light and glory the substance of beauty? Although I have asked these questions in beautiful settings, in museums and works of art, in song and verse, for the most part I have sought the answer in preaching. When a story or a parable unlocks the heart because "doctrine and life, colors and light ... combine" we can see the true "art" of preaching.
I have asked these questions now for thirty years. Last week was the 30th anniversary of my ordination. While I have preached in different churches and practiced different disciplines of sermon writing, to become a window as Herbert describes has been the constant, the binding of all the words. To become invisible so those who gather for worship can see and hear their heart. This artistic attempt with words and image, stories and confessions, perhaps it should not be confined to the pulpit, restricted to the writing of sermons.
Yesterday I listened to Scott Walters tell a story about hitting a homerun as a boy and how his father greeted him at home plate. As Scott told the story of his father's joy and delight and moment of pride, I felt engulfed in "colors and light." I keep coming back to the afterglow of his memory and each time the beauty of it reveals something more. My life for just a moment had a "strong regard and awe." Perhaps, I thought, perhaps the art of preaching is merely a way to train our "ear" to hear the truth everywhere. Perhaps the "transcendent" pulpit is a moment to survey how truth is all around, in each heart, in word and song. Perhaps. However it may be understood, one thing is sure: for just a moment I was different and life was beautiful.