Lenten inspiration
Calvary took chance, thought bigger with preaching series
Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Helson II preaches alongside Rev. Eyleen Farmer at Calvary Episcopal Church during the Lenten Preaching Series. Lunchtime services that once were led by white, male, retired Episcopal clergy now include female, minority and non- Christian speakers.
It was five minutes after noon on a dreary February weekday in Downtown Memphis, and about half the pews inside spacious, gracious Calvary Episcopal Church were filled. Appetizing aromas wafted from the Waffle Shop downstairs, but the people in the pews didn’t come just for lunch. They came — as they do every weekday during Lent, as they have every Lenten season for 90 years — for spiritual nourishment.
On this particular day, the main course was served by a Presbyterian minister from Washington, but it could have been a priest from North Carolina, a rabbi from Indiana, an imam from New York, or a lay person from Lucy, Tenn.
This particular sermon referenced the Book of Genesis, but, depending on the day, it could have pointed to the New Testament, the Quran, or even a secular text.
This particular preacher talked about the epidemic of gun violence in America, but the topic could have been abortion or war, poverty or plenty, compassion or hate, loving God, or your neighbor, or your enemy.
“The church of Jesus Christ can no longer stand idly by and declare that this is not our problem while innocent children and adults are killed all across this country,” said Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, a former Memphis preacher, now a Washington social justice strategist for the Presbyterian Church (USA).
“We are so busy trying to protect ourselves against our neighbors that we have stopped loving our neighbors.”
Nelson’s 20- minute sermon was sandwiched between a hymn and a prayer, a simple order of worship that gives midweek worshippers plenty to contemplate, and plenty of time to enjoy a waffle and chicken hash or fish pudding and corn sticks before they go back to work.
Calva r y ’ s Lenten Preaching Series & Waffle Shop has been providing food for lunch and thought since 1928 — the same year the Orpheum opened, and about a hundred years after the congregation was organized by a missionary from North Carolina.
But what began as a Lenten luncheon with a short worship service, generally led by white, male and retired Episcopal clergy, has become an interfaith, interracial and influential theological forum.
“I would still cite Calvary’s long-standing and venerable annual Lenten series as one of the best examples anywhere in this country of what an urban church can do, if it is willing to relax and give itself away,” said Phyllis Tickle, best-selling religion author, scholar, regular Lenten series speaker, and longtime Calvary parishioner.
Tickle, a resident of Lucy, Tenn., made her final appearance at Calvary on Friday. “What moves me about the Lenten Series is its frank, unabashed, unapologetic presentation of faith in its many expressions and possibilities,” she said.
“Those who are invited to speak, like those who come to hear, are not all Christians. Nor are all the Christians gathered there, whether they be speakers or listeners, of the same mind about what being Christian means or about how the faith is to be lived. But every Lent, Calvary becomes, almost magically, a safe place, a place where men and women of faith can worship together without censure or uneasiness about their differences, a place where the abiding goodness of God rests briefly upon all because all who come are there seeking it.”
That Tickle, who is not ordained, has been one of the regulars at Calvary’s annual faithfest is a testament to the series’ inclusiveness, which transformed it from a parish event into a community one. The transformation began in 1980, when Calvary’s new rector, Rev. Douglass Bailey, began looking for ways to rejuvenate the flagging series.
“We either had to give the series a good burial, or go into the restaurant business during Lent, or take some risks,” said Bailey, who left Calvary in 2001 and became founder and president of the Center for Urban Ministry Inc., in North Carolina.
Bailey and the congregation decided to take some risks by opening the pulpit to preachers who were not white, male, Episcopal or retired.
Bailey invited AfricanAmericans to preach, including Alvin Jackson, Harry S. Wright and Calvin O. Butts. He invited women to preach, such as Tickle, Barbara Brown Taylor and lesbian Lutheran Barbara Lundblad. He invited rabbis to preach: Harry Danziger of Temple Israel was first, followed by Micah Greenstein, who has become a regular.
He invited such theologically divergent figures such as Bellevue Baptist Church pastor Adrian Rogers, who spoke in 1994, and Jesus scholar Marcus Borg, who has spoken at the Lenten series every year since 1995.
“Initially, my reason for returning a second and then a third year (and continuing) was how impressed I was with Calvary’s impressive ministry as an urban downtown parish,” Borg said. “I had never seen anything like it, and I have probably been in 300 quite successful parishes over the last 15 to 20 years. Since then, friendships have formed, and so they are an additional reason for returning.”
Bailey’s biggest coup might have come in 1996, when he invited Rev. Bernice King, daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It was only her second trip to Memphis, and her first time in a Memphis pulpit.
“I have been struggling for some years to deal with the assassination, the death of my father, the loss of my father,” she told a standing-roomonly crowd at Calvary. “I’ve been a little skeptical about coming to Memphis. I thank God that He has delivered me from that fear.”
During Bailey’s 23 years as Calvary’s rector, the Lenten series’ daily crowds grew from dozens to hundreds, and its prestige expanded across the community and the country.
“I wanted to make the Lenten series a model for theological education as well as a place for community healing, a downtown table that would bring together the entire faith community,” Bailey said.
After nine decades, it still does.
“I participate because this series and Lenten/ Passover season embody what it means to celebrate our different paths to the same God,” Greenstein said.
“We get shaken, even we ministers of large pulpits. We get caught in the details of our ministries, and we lose sight of the bigger picture. But when we are in a state of expansive thinking, as this series urges us to do, then our true purpose, our connection to one another, to all creation, to something larger than ourselves becomes clearer. The Calvary Lenten Series is where that miracle happens each year.”
Calvary’s annual Lenten miracle requires more than preachers and pancake syrup.
Each year, dozens of volunteers serve on no fewer than a dozen committees, handling everything from booking, transporting and entertaining speakers to parking, shuttling, greeting and ushering guests. Priests and parishioners arrange dinners and get-togethers for all out-of-town speakers.
The Waffle Shop is staffed by volunteer cooks and servers from various church, school and civic groups across the community. Proceeds are used to benefit programs that serve children, the hungry and the homeless. Artist Suzanne Henley makes a gift for every speaker. Rev. Ray Hatton, music minister at First Baptist Church of Memphis, chauffeurs speakers back and forth to the airport.
“The whole idea of Lent was not part of my Texas Baptist upbringing, so this series introduced me to a season which began to meet a need in my life,” said Hatton, who began attending services in the 1980s and volunteering in the late 1990s. He also serves on the Lenten Series Planning Committee.
“Seven years ago at one of our committee meetings, I learned that more volunteers were needed in the Waffle Shop kitchen, so in 2007, I took on a new Lenten discipline: giving up my day off on Mondays to slice tomato aspic, shrimp mousse and make luscious mounds of chicken salad,” Hatton said.
“I even learned to pipe rosettes of homemade mayonnaise on each dish. My wife tells me that I cannot count it as a Lenten sacrifice since I have so much fun doing it. But seriously, I feel it is an important time for me and many in the wider Christian community to welcome those from other faiths to God’s table, where we break bread together, garnished with love.”
Calvary’s annual interfaith lineup is the product of years of tradition, but also months of hard work. In the past few years, that work has been led by Rev. Eyleen Farmer, Calvary’s associate rector who began attending Lenten services in the 1980s, when she was a Baptist lay person.
“I was a Baptist girl seeking someone to help me make sense of my faith,” Farmer said. “I was so confident that anything that was said from the pulpit of Calvary Church was going to give me a clue, I’d arrange whole days around going to Calvary at lunchtime. It’s surprising and ironic that all these years later, I’m here at Calvary organizing the Lenten series.”
Some speakers — Tickle, Greenstein, Borg and former Memphis Episcopal priest Dan Matthews — are invited every year. Some, like Rev. Andy Andrews, dean of St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, are speaking at Calvary for the first time.
“I do want to express my deep appreciation for Calvary’s flair and courage for this whirlpool of inspiration called the Lenten Preaching Series,” said Andrews, who speaks next Wednesday. “It is a very generous offering.”
Some speakers are suggested by others. For example, Tickle recommended that Calvary invite Imam Feisal Adbul Rauf, an imam from New York who was involved in the so-called “Ground Zero mosque.” Rauf, who spoke at Calvary last month, was the second Muslim cleric to address the series. Yasir Qadhi, resident scholar at the Memphis Islamic Center, was the first in 2011.
Some want to come, but can’t make the schedule work.
Making the schedule work is Farmer’s biggest challenge. This year, she managed appearances by 16 speakers from 12 cities to cover 27 services over six weeks. “It’s like putting a puzzle together, and the pieces are cubes of Jell-O, and they’re melting fast,” Farmer said.
That puzzle is getting more expensive. All local speakers get $ 400 per sermon. Out-of-town speakers generally require more. Rhodes College and Church of the Holy Communion co-hosted two speakers to help Calvary get them here. Including costs for travel and accommodations, Calvary is spending about $50,000 on this year’s series.
Despite the rising costs, Calvary’s new senior rector, Rev. Chris Girata, says the parish will continue to sponsor the series.
“More than ever, preaching the gospel, the gift of making God’s love known to each us, is more and more important as our world continues to change dramatically every year,” he said.
“This year, participation and attendance at Calvary’s Lenten Preaching Series has increased, and I believe that the Lenten Preaching Series will be a more vital beacon of light in our city in the future.”
Farmer already is working on next year’s lineup.
“This is Calvary’s gift to the community,” she said.