Emergency Instructions

From my journal: It sounds almost liturgical. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome aboard U.S. Air flight 354 to Charlotte. In preparation for departure, be sure that all carry-on items are placed under the seat in front of you. Seat backs and tray tables must be in their upright position.”

There follows a description of the safety belts (metal end into the buckle), oxygen masks (adults first, then children), water-flotation devices (pull on this handle), emergency exits (two here; two there), and the smoking rule (don’t!).

Admission: I usually do not listen to this airline liturgy, having heard bits and pieces of it a thousand times. But on this occasion I am impressed with the dreary monotone, speed-speaking voice that emerges from a bored heart. And it hits me! The voice speaks of things that will be very, very important to me if something goes wrong. If the cabin depressurizes in flight, will I really know what to do with the mask? If a swift exit is necessary, do I really know where the doors are (and how they open)? If we land on water? This information will be significant.

But in the routine moments we all just want to get past this as quickly and painlessly as possible: both the speaker and the hearer.

How many sermons have I preached in a lifetime? How many public prayers prayed? How many one-on-ones in which someone sought a question’s answer, a word of hope, a better way? And on how many of those occasions did I do my thing with the jaded voice of someone who’s done this too many times? I hope the answer is a very small number.

Those of us brought up in the non-liturgical traditions sometimes have sometimes blanched at the voice of a priest or liturgist who reads the prayers or the homily with no more reverence or passion than one employs to read the directions for cooking a TV dinner. But liturgy is not the issue. There can be as much lifelessness in the words of my Baptist forefathers who didn’t even know what the word liturgy meant.

No, it’s all in the voice (and the heart behind it), which projects mystery, joy, profundity, humility, care. And each time the voice (my voice, for example) speaks, there is need for freshness and urgency, as if this is the first time the words have been spoken or heard. You never know when the passengers (er, the worshipers) are headed out the sanctuary door into one of life’s emergencies.

The words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. … A voice crying in the wilderness: prepare ye the way of the Lord,” were not spoken in the tone used by this flight attendant.

Graham Scroggie (renown Bible teacher of the early 20th century) wrote: “Will you permit me to say that I can never forget that day nearly forty years ago, and some 13 years after my conversion, when my whole life and ministry were suddenly challenged—when it was revealed to me that I was little more than a middleman between my books and my people—when I was given to see that I was more anxious to be a preacher than God’s messenger, that my master-passion was not the accomplishment of the will of God at any cost, and that my ruling motive was not the love of Christ.”

Stuff I’ve been reading: Any one in leadership must read George Barna’s Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions (Regal, 2003). Avoid this book at your own risk. Barna writes: “You simply cannot raise a child to be a compliant workhorse and then expect him or her to turnaround and become a majestic thoroughbred when he or she is older.”

During this past month, my mind was stretched by Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (W.W. Norton, 1999). My heart was broken by Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (Picador, 1999), a must-read if you see the movie Hotel Rwanda. And I enjoyed a little recreation reading David Halberstam’s The Teammates (Hyperion, 2003), a small memoir of old Boston Red Sox.

What do I do with this story? George Bernard Shaw attends a concert given by Jascha Heifitz and writes to the violinist when he gets home, “My dear Mr. Heifitz: My wife and I were overwhelmed by your concert. If you continue to play with such beauty, you will certainly die young. No one can play with such perfection without provoking the jealously of the gods. I earnestly implore you to play something badly every night before going to bed.” (No one has ever written a similar letter to me about my preaching.)

Pastor and author Gordon MacDonald is chair of World Relief and editor at large of Leadership.

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