My sentiments concerning my first sermon are comparable to the sentiments that the late Patrick McManus had toward his first deer . . . so please allow me to relate to you how it all happened.
I had joined the Navy while still in high school, on a delayed entry program. So right after I graduated from high school back east, in the summer of 1971, I came with my folks on their move out to Idaho. I was not due to report to boot camp until November, and so with nothing better to do, I accompanied my parents here. I had about four months of free time before heading off to San Diego. This was during the same time period when my father started an offbeat ministry called God’s Garage, which I will tell you about some time.
Shoot, why not now? I should tell you about that now. Won’t take but a minute.
We had rented a house in Moscow just off the grounds of Moscow High School, on the west side. There was a big slope down to our back yard, and clusters of students would come down there to step off school property in order to smoke. The place was called, perhaps affectionately, Doper’s Ditch. At any rate, one morning my father looked out back and saw that a police officer was dispersing the kids, encouraging them all to put an egg in their shoe and beat it. Ever mindful of evangelistic opportunities, my father ran out back and asked the officer if it would be all right if the kids smoked in his garage. The officer was game, as in “it’s your garage.” So the policeman herded the kids into the garage, and with all of them thinking that Mr. Wilson was the coolest person ever. My dad then got a pop machine put in, a wood stove, and a bunch of used telephone wire spools to sit on. My brother Evan painted a bunch of Jesus people stuff on the walls, and I ran our “rap session” ministry there until I went to the Navy.
Now when we first arrived here in Moscow, the “happening place” spiritually speaking was, believe it or not, Emmanuel Lutheran. Pastor Larsen was a gracious and godly leader, and I am confident he had a lot to do with the mojo that was happening there. And because it was the happening place, and because the cresting Jesus movement was just starting to lap at the shores of Idaho, the church naturally had a youth-group-choir sort of thing with a very seventies name—Salt Unlimited. Work with me here—I just used the phrase rap session earlier, if you remember. Leave me alone. If I recall correctly, there would have been about twenty kids in the group. As I had some time to burn, and I play the guitar, I joined up with them during those free months.
The director of the group was a young firecracker of a Lutheran lady named Marva Gersmehl, and she kept us all in line and on pitch. We did versions of various songs that were floating about at that time—I remember a song Day by Day, which I think was from Godspell. One Sunday we all headed out to a rural Lutheran church in the area in order to provide some special music for them. As I was really new to the Palouse area, I didn’t have the grid of any map settled in my head yet, and so I unfortunately do not remember what small town it was. I don’t even know if it was north, south, east or west. But it was a small town and a small church out in the sticks.
When we arrived there, such was the nature of the times, when every man was doing what was right in his own eyes, Marva learned from the natives that we were expected to take over the entire service. We thought we were going to do a song or two, and it turned out that we were responsible for the whole shebang. Okay, these things happen, and the seventies were sort of a liturgical Wild West, but then Marva came over to me and said, “You’ve got the sermon.” It’s all fun and games until . . .
Now this was problematic, and on numerous levels. As levels go, this was a nine-layer bean dip. I was just out of high school, and had just turned eighteen. I was commissioned for this task by a woman who was not even a theologian. She determined my qualifications for preaching the sermon, I am guessing, from the fact that I talked at Bible studies, probably too much. But that is only a guess. Whatever the reason, however, I was handed the task of the sermon, and was also handed the baby at the same time. I had, oh, minutes to prepare.
I decided—don’t ask me how or why—to preach on the paralytic who was lowered through the ceiling in the gospel of Luke. This was my text.
“And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him. And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone? But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts? Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things to day.”Luke 5:17–26 (KJV)
I had grown up on the King James, so that is probably what I used. But perhaps not, because it could have been a pew Bible, I don’t know. I would have brought my guitar, not my Bible. I started using the NASB later on, I think during the Navy, so I am guessing KJV maybe. Or maybe a pew Bible. Beats me.
So, the sermon itself. I cannot imagine what I said, and I think I could make my forehead get really hot if I allowed myself to think about it for any length of time. I think that I gravitated toward the phrase “power upon earth to forgive sins.” At least I hope I did. But I got through the ordeal without falling over and the assembled Lutherans did not show any signs of wanting to storm the pulpit. I am sure they must have been nice because I don’t remember getting pelted with anything . . . so other than what I think about it now, things went fine.
Everything about it was highly irregular. It was not what the prophet had in mind when he said “a little child shall lead them” (Is. 11:6). But, as I am fond of saying, God draws straight with crooked lines, and however angular and awkward it was, I knew that Jesus had forgiven the paralytic’s sins. I knew that much.
But there is more to the story. Time like an ever-rolling stream, bears all her sons away . . .
Many years later, decades later in fact, I was listening to an episode of Mars Hill Audio, hosted by Ken Myers. Over the years, I had gotten a lot of great book recommendations from Ken, and listening to him was one of my staples. I had started when it was on those pre-Cambrian cassette tapes, and I remember that when he moved to CDs, it seemed like the age of technocracy was upon us. Anyhow, in this particular episode he was interviewing a well-known Lutheran theologian, a woman named Marva . . . Marva Dawn. My mind started to wonder . . . wait a minute. Wait a minute. I started listening while piecing together clues in mind. A Lutheran. Named Marva. She mentioned something about eyesight troubles which the Moscow Marva had also had.
Sure enough, as it turned out, the woman who had landed me my first preaching gig had not had that dark secret from her past catch up with her. She had gotten away with it, scott-free, she did.