Day 206: An Awful Silence

 DAY 206

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of fait

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty    Tuesday 6 October 2020

An Awful Silence

“For one pastor in Illinois, the experience of preaching in an empty room seemed to lack power at times….after preaching only to a set of cameras, ‘there is suddenly this awful silence, and you kind of wonder if you just did anything.’ This bewildering feeling of ‘awful silence’ gave way for him to what was, perhaps, the greatest lasting benefit of pandemic preaching: a renewed conviction that preaching is from God and for God.  Half the pastors interviewed in a recent survey said the lack of feedback and human interaction during the pandemic ultimately reminded them to seek affirmation from God for their preaching rather than from people.” - From a current publication on preaching from a Christian magazine.

It was a traditional Presbyterian church in terms of service liturgy with one exception – it had an “amen corner,” a kind elderly man who loved Jesus and who also loved to say “amen” when he felt like it during the sermon. I must confess I subconsciously began to listen for and even depend upon his vocal affirmation during my sermons, and when he died an ‘awful silence’ of a different kind unnerved me – I had become ‘amen-dependent.’

I have preached in churches where ‘amens’ during the sermon have been the norm. The only problem with people saying “amen” while you are preaching is when they don’t, an ‘awful silence’ that says you are not connecting with them. When your source of affirmation shifts, ‘amens’ don’t influence you. A homiletics professor years ago told us “Preach to an audience of One, God in the balcony. Always keep your eyes there as you preach and God will use you.”       

Now we preachers are forced by circumstances to shift our focus from those to whom we preach to the One for whom we preach.  Preaching to no one but my iPhone was difficult at first, but I  have now come to prefer it – the absence of people whom I am hoping to satisfy makes it just God and me in the room, and it is freeing. And for those who listen? Hopefully, sermons are more edifying. This is ‘an awful silence’ out of which redemption can flow. I can live with that.

Reflective question: As you listen to sermons, for whom do you think they are prepared?

Reflective Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:22 – KJV – “…it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save many.”

Reflective hymn:

“I Love to Tell the Story”

I love to tell the story of unseen things above,

Of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love;

I love to tell the story because I know ‘tis true,

It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.