Saints and Sinners: Practicing what one preaches
He’s kind of the Edgar Guest of the pulpit, mixing whimsy with homespun wisdom.
Now nearing 80, Rev. Robert B. St. Clair is a retired United Methodist clergyman who carries on his ministry today by mail. His monthly newsletter, with a mailing list of about 100, is called the Fireside Chat. A widower, he lives in a cottage on the Methodist Camp Grounds in Lancaster, Ohio.
He has just completed his “Devotions Book 2,” (Lancaster, 1998), a collection of his Fireside Chats through the years. Sprinkled throughout the 100 pages is St. Clair’s brand of gentle humor, much of it directed at his largely elderly following.
“You know you are getting older,” he says in the paperback volume, “when you get winded playing checkers … when you sink your teeth in a thick steak and they stay there … when you pray for a good prune-juice harvest … when everything hurts and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work … when you feel like the morning-after and you haven’t been anywhere … when you look forward to a dull evening.”
I first heard St. Clair preach several years ago at the large open-air tabernacle on the campgrounds where the great evangelist Billy Sunday once preached. He had had a serious heart operation a few years before, which caused him to curtail his preaching. Though he had no intention of preaching on the Sunday I visited the campgrounds, the scheduled speaker had to cancel his appearance at the last minute. It was not without some trepidation that St. Clair stepped into the vacant pulpit.
“If I should go silent in the middle of my sermon,” he told the congregation, “pray for me.” I think we all prayed for him at that moment.
His text was from the first chapter of the book of James. That makes a good text for a hot summer Sunday since the congregation does not have to follow a complicated line of thought. Each verse has its own independent piece of advice. Miss one admonition, you can pick up on the next.
St. Clair had a lot to say about verse 19: “Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.”
He said, “The Lord has given us two ears and one tongue. Therefore we should listen twice as much as we speak. … If you give everyone a piece of your mind, you won’t have any peace of mind for yourself. … Be careful of your tongue. It’s in a wet place and it’s easy to slip. … We’ve all been to ‘organ recitals’ where the slick insist on telling us about the state of their liver, their kidneys and their heart. Nevertheless, we ought to listen to the sick. Silent company is often more healing than words of advice.”
I expected to find St. Clair greeting his congregation at the tabernacle door at the end of the service, but he was nowhere to be seen. I finally found him in the dining room down the hill. He was pouring lemonade in the cafeteria serving line — not exactly where you would expect to find the minister after church.
But St. Clair isn’t exactly what you would expect to find in a minister. During the school year he volunteers as a teacher’s aide at a nearby elementary school and takes daily walks at the mall, where he strikes up conversations with shoppers.
The week before, he said, “I took one young man to get a haircut and bought another a pair of tennis shoes. I needed a pair for myself and the discount store where I go had a sale — buy one pair and get another for $1.”
Are you ready for some more of St. Clair’s homely philosophy? Sample these:
“Do you know that old folks are worth a fortune? They have silver in their hair, gold in their teeth, stones in their kidneys, lead in their feet and gas in their stomachs.”
“I like to see a player score or make a catch, then keel briefly with his finger pointed toward God.”
“Keeping a vegetable garden is worth a medicine cabinet full of pills.”
“If people say unkind things about you, live so that no one will believe them.”
(George Plagenz is a syndicated columnist.)