 Dr. John E. Harnish Senior Pastor |
Bugles in the Afternoon
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I borrow my title from the outstanding British Methodist preacher and world Christian, Colin Morris. He titles his volume of sermons Bugles in the Afternoon. He says his title is based on the legend that Satan was a fallen angel who rebelled against God and was thrown out of heaven. Sometime later, the tradition goes, Satan was asked if there was anything he missed from heaven. Satan responded: “I miss the sound of trumpets in the morning.” Glorious image, isn’t it? “Trumpets in the morning.” It brings to mind autumn Saturday mornings in Ann Arbor when the largest crowd gathers in the largest stadium—106,000 Maize and Blue faithful. Then the voice of the announcer echoes across the multitude: “Band, take the field.” The drum cadence begins and the band prances out in double time, instruments held high. Then the drum major raises his baton and they break into the brilliant strains of the “Michigan Fanfare”…the thrilling sound of “trumpets in the morning.” And you might as well know that on football Saturday mornings, you are likely to find us in the south end zone, section 11, row 88, seats 9 and 10. Ah…the sound of trumpets in the morning! Colin Morris says, “Truth to tell, I seldom hear the sound of trumpets in the morning, the clarion call of victory, the clear bright sound of a brass fanfare. My faith is more like a bugle than a trumpet.” The bugle, by contrast, is a humble instrument, maybe even vulgar by comparison. It is used as often for blowing retreat as for advance, not as grandiose and glorious as the trumpet, but still able to rally the troops and motivate action. And I am familiar with the bugle as well as the trumpet. My father-in-law, well into his eighties, would regularly awaken visitors to the house (especially his grandsons) with the sound of reveille played on his old Boy Scout bugle. I have to say, those octogenarian lips did not pucker as well as they once did, nor was the rendition as accurate, but it certainly had the power to rouse those slumbering boys at 7:00 a.m. The sound of the bugle. But what of the “Afternoon” in Morris’s title? Afternoon is what he calls “flat time,” the time between. Not the freshness of morning or the glitter of night life, not the glory of a morning sunrise or the glow of an evening sunset. It’s ordinary time…the mundane of the day…flat time. And isn’t that where most of us live, most of our lives, most of the time? Not the emotional high of an Easter morning. Not the silent hush of a Christmas Eve. Most of us live out most of our faith, most of the time, in the in-between time, ordinary days and average ways, the flat time, the afternoon of life. Our
faith…more like a bugle than a trumpet. So Colin Morris concludes: Let the bugle sound in the afternoon of life! Mine has never been an adequate faith, but it’s the only faith I have to give away...bugles in the afternoon. First sermons are meant to introduce the preacher as well as the preaching…the central themes to my faith and ministry, the notes you are likely to hear sounded from time to time. And what are the few modest notes on my tin horn? The first comes from our Methodist tradition and what I understand to be the context and scope of our ministry. When John Wesley was asked to explain himself…his practice of “field preaching,” moving out of the box (the pulpit, that is) to share the good news…the answer he gave has echoed the Methodist movement ever since: 1. “I LOOK UPON THE WHOLE WORLD AS MY PARISH.” Central to my life and witness, the conviction that underlies my call and motivates my vision is: “The world is our parish.” One of the things that excites me about coming to Birmingham is the breadth of mission represented in the life of this congregation. From Prague to Pontiac, from Costa Rica to Cass Avenue, from Maple Road to Mexico to Memphis, this congregation is a global church with a global mission, a vision of ministry that begins here and reaches around the world. More than 35 years ago, Judy and I were dating college students, yet to be engaged. She was considering an opportunity to go to Argentina as a short-term missionary and I had been greatly influenced by a roommate who had grown up in Africa and Brazil as an MK—“missionary kid.” Then during our first year in seminary and our first year of marriage, we took our first trip outside the U.S. with a mission team to Colombia, and we determined early on that wherever we served, the global mission of the church would be a part of our life and work. Back then we had no idea that the journey would take us to two dozen countries, preaching in Mexico City and the British Midlands, worshiping in war-torn Liberia and house churches in Estonia, riding a donkey cart in Cuba or Aeroflot in Russia. (I don’t know which was the scariest!) With John Wesley, I have come to look upon the whole world as my parish, and I celebrate the opportunity to join in the mission of this congregation at work around the globe. The first note on my feeble bugle of faith is the context of our mission…the whole world is our parish. And the second note has to do with the message we proclaim: 2. FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT…“GOD IS FAITHFUL.” The central theme of the Old Testament is the word of covenant:
In contrast to the capricious pagan gods around them, the people of Israel clung tenaciously to the belief in Yahweh, the God who is consistent and dependable, the God who can be trusted, the God who is faithful. While I was pastor in Dexter, the congregation purchased an old Boy Scout camp along the Huron River with a vision of relocating from the little white church on the corner to a beautiful new site. In the intervening years, that vision came to fruition. And as you know, a son of this congregation, Matt Hook, is now the pastor there. It’s amazing how connected we are in the Methodist connection. Back in those days, each fall we held what we called the “Family Gathering” on the site…a weekend of worship, games, food, the ice cream social, outdoor worship and pig roast all rolled up in one. One year, I left the gathering on Saturday afternoon to perform a wedding and returned about 9:00 p.m. When I turned the corner onto Huron River Drive, I was greeted by a sheriff deputy and flashing red lights. She said, “I’m sorry, you can’t go down there.” I told her who I was and she let me pass. It seems six-year-old Andy had slipped away from the crowd and gone down by the river. He lost his footing on the muddy bank and fell into the swift current. I arrived just as the helicopter was lifting off to carry him to University Hospital. I rode with the parents to the emergency room and wept with them as they held his lifeless body. And the only Psalm that made any sense was this one:
God is our refuge and strength, Through Andy’s death and a host of other tragedies, I have long since given up on the notion that “God has a reason for everything.” But deeper still, I have become more and more convinced that in everything, God is our refuge. God is faithful. Following the tsunami last December, Nathan Nettleton in Australia preached a sermon called “A Christmas Tsunami Lament.” In it he said: Can we stand in the mud and debris of Banda Ache or Phuket and speak of one who is called Emmanuel, God with us? Where was God when the wave hit? Wasn’t God right there, bearing the brunt of it? Wasn’t God there clinging to his beloved child, only to be overwhelmed by the waves and have the child ripped from his arms? Wasn’t God there as he was when the surging flood of hatred battered and smashed his own son to death on a cross?
Any theology that can’t be preached in the presence of parents grieving over their slaughtered children isn’t worth preaching anywhere else. (Nathan Nettleton, “A Christmas Tsunami,” Jan. 2, 2005, http://www.laughingbird.net) One of my favorite hymns says it well:
Great is thy faithfulness, O God
my Father; The Old Testament note on my bugle…God is faithful. And the third note comes from the New Testament, the witness of the Gospels and the church through the ages: 3. “JESUS IS LORD.” St. Paul proclaims it when he speaks of Jesus: …who though he was in the form God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but empted himself, taking the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even death upon the cross.
Therefore, God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. (Philippians 2:10-11) The central creed of the early church, expressed in three simple words: Jesus is Lord. Over against the might of the Rome which demanded the pledge of allegiance, “Caesar is Lord,” this tiny band of brave disciples was bold to say, “We beg to differ—Jesus is Lord.” And that simple creed shook the Empire to its foundations. Andy died that night at University Hospital. I spent the rest of the night with his family and went home about dawn to clean up and try to pull some thoughts together for the morning worship. Several hundred people gathered in the tent, including Andy’s exhausted and grief-stricken family. It was supposed to be a joy-filled celebration, but of course, the congregation was devastated. One of the toughest assignments I have ever had in ministry was that morning when Andy’s kindergarten Sunday school teacher came to me and said, “You need to talk to the children. They are asking questions and we don’t know what to say.” Frankly, I can’t remember a thing I said that morning. But I will never forget one of the songs we sang. We sang it again three days later when we gathered for Andy’s funeral:
Because he lives, I can face tomorrow; The older I get, there is less and less of which I am certain. But the one thing I will bet my life and ministry on is the reality and presence of the living, Risen Christ…Jesus Is Lord! While I was serving as a denominational executive, I received one of the best introductions I’ve ever had. Bishop Alfred Norris was introducing me as the preacher for the Northwest Texas Annual Conference. A powerful African American preacher himself, Bishop Norris got a laugh as he rattled off my ridiculously long title: “The Rev. John E. Harnish is the Associate General Secretary of the Division of Ordained Ministry, Section of Elders and Local Pastors for the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church.” He sort of frowned and raised his eyebrow, then paused and said: But I want you to know, I know him as Jack, and all I know is he’s a church bureaucrat who loves Jesus. Lloyd C. Douglas, well-known author and preacher, tells a story from his student days. At the time, he lived on the third floor of an old rooming house. On the first floor lived a retired music teacher, now confined to his wheelchair. Douglas says that every morning when he passed the old man’s apartment, he would stick his head in the door and ask, “What’s the good news today?” The old man would pick up his tuning fork and strike it on the arm of his wheelchair and respond, “That’s middle C. It was middle C yesterday and it’s middle C today. It will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat and the piano in the parlor is out of tune, but that’s middle C.” In Jesus Christ, “middle C” has sounded. He is Lord of the past, Lord of the present and will be Lord a thousand years from now. The unchanging note of hope and faith in our constantly changing and uncertain world…Jesus Christ is Lord. My father-in-law, the bugler, died in 1996. Not long before his death, he said he wanted me to preach his funeral. When I asked him what he wanted me to preach, his eyes twinkled and he smiled and said, “Oh, you know the one…‘Bugles in the Afternoon.’” Not many days later, on a glorious May morning, the bugle sounded one last time. And to those of us who loved him, it sounded for all the world like Taps, last call, the end of the day. But for him, for him it was reveille and the promise of a whole new day in the presence of the Risen Christ! Well, there you have it…the few feeble notes of faith you are likely hear in the years to come. With Colin Morris I confess, Mine has never been an adequate faith, but it is the only one I have to give away. So let the bugle sound in the afternoon of life. The
World is My Parish.
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