Carl Parker died recently. The Reverend Carl Parker. Not heard of him? Then that means you have never praised God in a church that bears the name of Wampee, Little River, or Indian Field. For 50 years he preached the gospel at places like that.
During his last days, when I attempted to comfort him, saying, “Well, Mr. Parker, it seems as if the Lord is giving you a peaceful leave,” he roused himself, looked at me from his bed, and said, “With the churches I have served, the Lord owes it to me.”
His father before him was a Methodist preacher—barrel-chested, with a thunderous voice, swatting flies in a forlorn little Methodist church while preaching his way through both Testaments in one sermon. His stepmother was also a Methodist preacher, first in the South Carolina Conference in the 1950s, picking up the gospel from the drooping hands of her ailing husband just before he died. Between them they served a half dozen churches at one time. The Reverend Bessie Parker went on to be a legend within the annals of the South Carolina Conference.
Preaching was in his blood.
No wiggle words
A district superintendent is in charge of a score of preachers. The district superintendent does not serve one congregation, but supervises the preachers. That meant that Mr. Parker spent many Sundays in the pew rather than in the pulpit, a situation that he detested.
One particular Sunday, the preacher was a master of ambiguity and equivocation. “We need to be more committed to Christ … but not to the point of fanaticism, not to the point of neglect of our other important responsibilities. We must have a greater dedication to the work of the church. Now I don’t mean that the church is the only significant organization of which you are a member. Most of us have obligations to various community groups …” On and on the poor preacher continued to flail away, poking here and there at his biblical text, rather than delivering it.
Mr. Parker squirmed in his pew as the preacher carefully qualified every statement. Mr. Parker withdrew his large railroad pocket watch at five-minute intervals throughout the sermon—the watch that had been given to him by some thankful congregation of the past. He would check his watch, shake his head, thrust it back into his pocket, and groan slightly, surprised that so little time had elapsed.
After the service, all of us in the district superintendent’s party brushed right past Mr. Milk Toast with barely a word of greeting. Mr. Parker led us down the sidewalk back to the district parsonage, like ducks in a row. He went right through the front door and charged up the stairs. Pausing midway up he whirled around, shaking a finger at me and thundering, “Young man, if God should be calling you into the pastoral ministry, and if ever you should be given a church by the bishop, and if ever God gives you a word to say, for God’s sake would you say it!”
This was the only instruction he ever gave me on homiletics. It was enough.
Retired but not retiring
On a pleasant June day, after Mr. Parker had announced that he was really, completely, absolutely retiring, the little church had a special day for him. The church was packed—about 100 people. Mr. Parker preached on a favorite text, in which Paul sings of the height and depth, the breadth and width of the love of God.
It was Father’s Day, and Mr. Parker mused a bit in the beginning of the sermon about our love of and gratitude for our fathers, “and yet, the love of God is deeper, richer, and more persistent even than the love of the most wonderfully dedicated human father.”
Then he recited from memory one of his favorite stories by Jesus—the story of the shepherd seeking the lost sheep. This was followed by a somewhat surprising digression in which Mr. Parker reminded the congregation of the upcoming execution of a convicted criminal on death row in Columbia. We then heard a narration of this man’s terrible crime spree—killing, raping and maiming five or six people before he was apprehended.
“And yet, according to today’s text, and the beautiful story which Jesus told, God Almighty would go to Columbia, to death row, and seek this man, would stand beside him, and plead with him, until (the story says until) he brought him home. And furthermore, when God finally reaches this lost one” (Mr. Parker was reaching the climax now, pounding on the open Bible before him), “Jesus says that there is more joy in heaven over this one lost sheep coming home than over 99 righteous people—like us!”
Now turning to an usher, he said, “Joe, how many people would you say we have here today? I’d say about 99 of us, all hunkered down safe in the fold. More joy in heaven over Jesus’ embrace of that murderer for the kingdom than over all of us good ones here today! What a great God we’ve got!”
I noted that, after that sermon, the people in that little church seemed much more willing for preacher Parker to go ahead and retire.
Low country, high calling
In one of his novels dealing with World War II, James Jones tells the story of a group of soldiers who took and held an obscure crossroads in France, shortly after the Normandy invasion. Most of them lost their lives in the effort, but the unit held its post until reinforcements arrived. Jones says that victory finally came in the Great War not so much because of the major battles that were fought and won, but because of heroic skirmishes by a few people in a thousand obscure and out-of-the-way crossroads.
If the kingdom of God ever dawns in its fullness and glory, at least in Low Country, South Carolina, it will be because of the many preachers like Carl Parker who stood their ground in a thousand out-of-the-way crossroads. Their lives, and the sacrifices they made, are a great testimonial to the truth of another preacher who did most of his preaching in obscure, out-of-the-way crossroads.
Will Willimon is bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church and a speaker at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego, Feb. 22-26. www.nationalpastorsconvention.com. This article is excerpted from Leadership, Fall 2005, and first appeared in The Christian Century.
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