Profile - A Little Church in NW D.C. PART FOUR

In December of 1966 I returned to the Little Church while on Christmas break from Bible school and preached my first-ever sermon. Walter Veasel was no longer there. I don't know why he left, hopefully he left to take another church closer to home. As mentioned in a previous post, a few years later when I met him again he was pastoring outside of Baltimore.

I don't recall the name of the new pastor. He was older than Walter and was welcoming to me. I really had no business preaching and I didn't do a good job. I preached from Leviticus 11, about clean and unclean animals and tried to extrapolate it into principles of holy living. It's kind of interesting that I'm writing this right now because last week a friend of mine remarked on the propensity of some preachers and traditions to excessively allegorize - of course I did it then because I'd seen others do it. [To be clear, I'm not opposed to allegory, the NT writers certainly use it, just look at Galatians 3:21ff. However, I do think it needs to be rooted in the Biblical fabric and not used as a stand-alone argument or teaching. Just because some folks misuse things is not an argument for their non-use; just consider the gifts of the Holy Spirit on that point.]

I'd say the only good thing about my sermon was its brevity - it only lasted 10 or 15 minutes. I didn't know that I was practicing one of the great principles of preaching - "when you've said what you have to say - sit down". So while I violated a number of exegetical principles I modeled a homiletical principal that a lot of preachers seem to have missed - when you're done just shut up and sit down - no need to repeat, "In closing", ten times before you actually bring yourself to stop speaking. 

My last time in the Little Church came a year or two later. I visited on a Sunday after  living outside the D.C. area for a while. As I was leaving the church that Sunday, the couple who had driven me to camp in the summer of 1966 asked me to call them. I was excited at the prospect of reconnecting with them, they meant so much to me. Perhaps they'd ask me over to spend time with them? Wouldn't it be great to catch-up!

The next day I telephoned them in anticipation of renewed friendship. The wife answered the phone and after some brief small talk said, "Bob, you really should shave your beard off." 

You see I had grown a fledgling beard during my time away. Blown away was my anticipation of seeing this couple who meant so much to me - they didn't want to see me, they wanted me to shave my beard off. My heart, which had been high with excitement, plummeted like a roller coaster after teetering at the top of a drop - and in this case the cars of the roller coaster came off the track. That was the last time I visited the Little Church, it was the last time I talked to anyone, other than Walter Veasel, from the Little Church.  It wasn't that I was angry - just hurt; and I didn't know how to handle it.

That last phone call has never colored my affection for the Little Church. After all, the people welcomed me, cared about me as best they knew how, and did the best they could. I'm sure they'd never had an outside kid wander in, a kid with no clue about their tradition, about bobbed hair or beards or women in pants. Consider this, these folks did not allow the generation gap to stop them from reaching out to me; they didn't say, "We are old and he is young, we don't know how to relate to him." They did the best they could and I'll always be thankful for that - hey, suppose they hadn't welcomed me? Maybe I'd be a Moonie today or something like that - maybe I'd be writing a blog for the Hare Krishnas or the Loyal Order of Cat Daddy Distillers.

My biggest regret about that season of life, in both the Little Church and in the sister church in Silver Spring, MD, is that I didn't have a mentor, an older man to counsel me and help lay a foundation for the future. I may unpack that in a future post.

Bob