One of the part-time pastors at Holy Communion is an amazing preacher by the name of Steve Wohlfeil- and he may very well be the most gifted preacher I have ever encountered. . . and in light of the preachers in my past and present life who have been truly outstanding, this is quite a compliment and I don’t pay the compliment lightly. But Pastor Steve has a truly exceptional gift for formulating a compelling idea and then delivering that idea in just the right way. But don’t just take my word for it. One of our visitors in church today was an older gentleman by the name of Phil Olson, who grew up at Holy Communion and whose greatest claim to fame was as the tenor soloist on the old Sing-Along with Mitch Miller television program. Phil was back because there was a memorial service yesterday for his dad, Noble. Anyway, he remarked to me afterwards that in all of his years of going to church, he cannot EVER remember a sermon in which such a large group of listeners was so incredibly silent. And it’s true- you could have heard a pin drop, and in a place as big as Holy Communion that is quite a feat. But Pastor Steve is one of those preachers where you have on his every word and it never once occurs to you to glance at your watch. How many preachers can do that?
Anyway, the sermon today was about “the abundant life” – what is it? He said that if you just stopped people on the street and asked them what this old phrase might mean, they would almost certainly say something about Having A Lot of Stuff. Steve said that one of those big storage garages is the most pervasive contemporary symbols of what most of us think of as the abundant life. But then he said that the heart of an abundant life is not in what you possess- not in what you have carefully stored away – but in the overflow which we are able to give away. And to demonstrate that, he stepped over to our free-standing altar and took out three or four different containers of different sizes – saying that abundance is not in what is truly full. It is in what overflows. And as he poured “something” – I thought it was coins – from container to container, increasingly small, there was soon an overflow. . . and I think the idea was that the size of the containers represents our own appetite – and that someone with modest expectations can find their life so much more quickly filled to overflowing versus someone who expects to have and believes that they deserve to have anything and everything that their heart desires. It was a wonderful picture – and he chose a superb vehicle for demonstrating it – and I hope that everyone there walked out of there as I did, thinking anew about our respective lives and what real abundance is.
Only later, in talking to Kathy, was it clarified for me that he wasn’t pouring coins – he was pouring M&Ms. Which made me love this sermon even more than I did before ! ! !
pictured: Pastor Steve delivering his sermon for second service – I took this from the sacristy, waiting for that moment when he poured M&Ms from the big bowl into the small one . . . with the excess spilling over in a wonderful chaotic spray of abundance. If you look closely, you can see Pastor Jeff Barrow looking on with great delight. . . one fine preacher appreciating the work of another.
By the way, the photo looks oddly framed because I cracked open the door just a little bit in order not to be too intrusive.