I'm John Auer. Except when I preach. Then I'm John Auer and a Half. To save my soul, I can get myself out of preaching, but I can't get preaching out of me. Julie says she would not have married a preacher. She was already daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, about to be sister-in-law to preachers -- Missouri Synod Lutheran! Hadn't she given enough for homiletical hyperholiness?
My folks were Unitarian-Universalists, so Julie and I came from experiences about as polarly opposing as possible. We dated for a year and went to church only to see "Cup of Trembling," the story of Bonhoeffer. Next time we were in church together, we came out married. We thought Julie had married a writer at worst. Now, 45 still-standing years later, here's a first try at "writing."
I have a lot of respect for the writing that goes into preaching and into the surrounding life and work of the preacher. I am longtime master of the 250-word "haiku" required for Letters to Editors. Writing as one's primary vocation is a whole other hope to make sense of oneself; not to be taken on glibly! I once told my father plaintively I didn't think my life would ever reach writing. He gently observed, some are made to write on paper, some to write on hearts. I have not forgotten the sense of permission flowing from that.
My way of preaching, as I see and hear it, tends to be shouting, moaning, complaining, cajoling, pleading, impassioning, free-flowing associating, text-wrestling, issue-connecting, constituent-stirring, activist-organizing, altar-calling. Such as my writing is now, it's still preaching, sermonic discourse, almost however defined, and however defunct, defunked in a digital world.
I owe some rhetorical bent to my father, J. Jeffery Auer, classic and timeless respecter of words. Some I owe to my mentor, James M. Reed, preacher at drop of a hat, often starting from Sunday comics, or bargain-day film he just saw, ending in careful analysis, call to action, always in name, and spirit, of Jesus.
All the rest, and more, I owe to Julie, my savior from much would-have-been-preached embarrassment, and the only one to trust with whether or not any given piece of mine "rollicks." Her own honest, open, quizzical, little-nonsense faith-fumbling -- against any excluding and ranking language, and toward being her own person, not some pastor's wife, even spouse -- has driven me up the wall, and back down a much better person in a much better place -- Thanks, Lu! We remain through it all partners, lovers, colleagues, friends. We are happily humbled by our three children, Jeffery, Jane, Jacob, who seem to forgive us for church-raising them, and by their families.
Retirement after nearly forty years weekly preaching presents me with unequivocal opportunity. Next to swimming, sleeping, going to church, work through health hassles, reading and writing now feel like all I do. I assumed I would try some kind of "memoir," as Jeffery, family historian, has been encouraging, especially of our 24 years in Chicago, highlighted by the holy and secular movement called "Harold Washington!" Others thought that could wait. Besides, all our "documents" for those years lie in storage across the continent. I was persuaded to try something now, based on available sermons.
I began reading through sermons from Reno, the last six years of preaching, gleaning images and passages I dared hope might stand some test of time and reality. First I thought I'd be writing for other preachers, for younger and newer ones. I relished working with Field Education placements in our congregations through the years, and with candidates for ordination.
The more I remembered lay leaders and activists, church and community colleagues along the way, the more I wanted whatever I wrote to be useful, usable to them as well - in whatever their questions, challenges, confusions, doubts, solidarities, struggles. I desired to speak more candidly, precisely, concretely, simply, to issues and actions of our public lives. Mostly, I want this work to be heartening.
A compelling number and variety of ones I want to write for now crowd my consciousness. Many have given and meant beyond measure to me. I try to eliminate from the sermons much trivia, waste, pompousness, jargon, abstraction, and the defensive/offensive stuff that grows out of "lovers' quarrels" between congregations and pastors. I jot down in a notebook only what strikes me as somehow strategic and applicable. I want it poetic and prophetic, as refreshingly readable, albeit ponderable, as it can be.
Preachers use a lot of quotes. I like to think I saw attributed to Dr. King that "all good preaching is plagiarizing," oral tradition, since anything worth saying through these millennia has been put to every possible substance and shape. So this is a "chapbook" mixing, shaking up my words with many, better others. If anyone, preacher or otherwise, wants further to plagiarize, spread it around, please, as Abbie Hoffman says, "Steal this book!"
I am writing this in four quarters, seasons of the liturgical "EarthChurch" year.
1) Winter: Advent, Christmas, Epiphanytide; touching, more or less -- Human Rights, Slaughter of Innocents, New Year, Three Kings, Baptism of the Lord, Birthday of Dr. King ("Holy Ghost" to Washington's "Father" and Lincoln's "Son!"), Reconciling Sunday, Black History, Transfiguration.
2) Spring: Lent, Holy Week, Eastertide; Ash Wednesday, Women's History, Jewish-Christian Relations (Yom HaShoah), Archbishop Romero, Native Practice/Earth Day, Mothers Day, Memorial Day, Day of Pentecost.
3) Summer: Spirit as Sanctifier (Baptism, "Personal Holiness"); Trinity Sunday, Juneteenth, Fathers Day, Independence Sunday, Hiroshima/Nagasaki.
4) Fall: Spirit as Sustainer (Communion, "Social Holiness"); Labor Sunday, World Communion, Indigenous Peoples, Children's Sabbath, Reformation, All Hallows/Dia de los Muertos/All Saints, Christ the King/Cosmic Christ.
Appointed Common Lectionary readings lurk loosely and dimly in background, sometimes made explicit. I strive to do with as little traditional "God Talk" as I can. I seek to take off on my own riffs and scats wherever I'm led, playing off, and on, other works cited in sermons. These hope to be heated, if not yet hot, flashes of a mildly irascible lover of language -- from Johnny Auer Sports Desk collecting baseball books, periodicals, memorabilia as a kid, to Johnny Jubilee.
Coming Full Cycle: I see Jesus in Luke 4 announcing himself to be "fulfillment" of Jubilee; following from image and practice in Leviticus 25 and Isaiah 61; flowing into Acts 2 and the Acts of All Us Apostles of Spirit Justice and Joy! Pentecost and the Holy Spirit are half the Church Year us, and nobody would ever guess it. Jesus' Return as the Spirit, birthing the Church, the Body of Christ, stretches Jubilee to the Ends of the Earth: All is Forgiven! Future is Open! We are filled with more powers than we can ever be comfortable with. The Spirit is Comforter, yes; but Counselor, Advocate, the one who supports us called up before judges, heads of state, carrying on Jesus' resistance to death!
For me there is no more Jesus to "wait for." He is not "coming again" except every day. He is, as we say, "mission accomplished." Now he is "all up to us!"
I hope this is read with pleasure. In bits and pieces, in fits and starts. Aloud as often as possible. Not necessarily as a sermon prompter or a devotional guide. As a kind of a raucous, tempestuous partner in whatever crimes of life and love, justice and peace you're about at the moment. In 1972 a carload from Parish of the Holy Covenant -- whose people served as my seminary-within-my-seminary, firing my hope for congregations -- drove through the night to witness the verdict in the trial of the "Harris Seven" draft resisters. On the way, they composed this song to the tune of Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World." It still speaks for me, and I'd like it to speak for this work. Thanks.
Did you ever hear of Jesus, was a good friend of mine,
understood a single word he said,
But I helped him drinking his wine,
Yes, he always had some mighty fine wine.
Singing joy to the world, all the boys and girls now,
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,
Joy to you and me.
If he is the King of Heaven and Earth, this is what we should do,
Throw away the bars and the cars and the wars
And dance in a world brand-new,
Yes, dance in a world brand-new.
So let's love and Serve the People, Sisters and Brothers all,
We're the high night-flyers and the rainbow-riders,
We're the fools for God and having a ball,
Yes, the fools for God and having a ball.
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