What's The Good Word?

I still like listening to stories.  One of the positive aspects of my countless miles of commuting is listening to audio books.  I can’t even keep track of how many books I have listened over the last twelve months. The list includes murder mysteries, intrigue, autobiographies, fiction and non-fiction.  I love those sonorous voices cast to read these stories and the way they interpret dialog. Coming to the end of a novel is like saying good-bye to a friend. It is even more so when there is a voice attached to the story.

Mrs. Geezer, as some may know, is an elementary librarian.  Reading stories to children in primary grades requires a special knack.  She would never admit to being an actress but to capture the attention of 5 to 8-year olds requires a bit of theatrics.  Such a model helps a young reader become expressive in reading aloud rather than sounding robotic.  When I was in first grade Mrs. Bauman told my mother that I was an expressive reader—a portent of things to come, perhaps.

Words are precious.  I love how wordsmiths extract the richness of words for others to share.  When one can create a phrase that becomes memorable, it is priceless.  Likewise, when we are bombarded by words they become cheap and empty.  Maybe it is because I am an “I” on the Myers-Briggs scale, but I get uncomfortable around yakkers—those people who should wear a large button that says, “Help, I’m talking and I can’t shut up!”

This is why the reading of scripture within public worship is important to me.  It is also important that lay people read the lessons.  It is vital that we demonstrate each week that “liturgy” literally is “the work of the people.” Reading from the Old Testament and from the Epistles certainly is work.  It is not like reading the front page of the newspaper.  It requires thought and it requires practice.  Before Sunday worship the reader should know who is speaking in the lesson.  Is it Isaiah speaking for himself or is it Isaiah’s prophecy from God?  What’s going on in the Apostle Paul’s life that he should speak this way?  I want to be like a temperamental movie director shouting at the starlet, “What’s your motivation?  What’s your motivation?”  But, I want to keep my job.

I wish we could make the time we spend reading the Word in worship to be a special event and an encounter with the living God.  In my current site the reader comes to the reading desk and reads from a disposable piece of paper. (What does that tell us about the Word of God?)  The lesson is printed in the worship folder as another source.  Then, the text is also projected onto a screen next to the reader all in block print, not allowing for Hebrew poetry.  One can guess where the eyes of worshipers are focused—everything but the reader. We have just endured a volley of words that were supposed to be godly.  When the reader finishes the lesson and announces, “The Word of the Lord,” maybe the congregation’s response should be, “In a way.”

In my ideal setting I would have the All-Star team of readers from my 35 year of ministry. They would know if the speaker was Aaron or Zerubbabel.  They would have a sense of context behind the lesson.  They would have a sense of drama.  Instead of more projected print competing with the reader, there would be artwork projected illustrating the reading from artists of yore and from what the 2^nd grade class drew when they studied the lesson.  The Word of God would be given honor and be surrounded in beauty and holiness.

But this earthly kingdom is not ideal.  We are in the church militant and await the church triumphant.  There will be those readers who tell us that Jesus is for both the Jews and the Genitals.  They will list those present at Pentecost as visitors from Rome, both Jews and prostitutes.  They will offer a reading from the Epistle to the Collisions or Paul’s letter to the Philippines.  We will chuckle but in faith we will turn our ears to the truth that is given to the people of God.  Amid all the challenges to our treasure chest of words that become malapropos and verbal flubs we remember Isaiah’s prophecy from God, “My word does not return to me empty.”