The Preacher

If anyone were ever to write a book about me, I'm sure there would have to be a chapter in it about Gene Lowry. Anyone who has ever come close to me usually figures out that Gene plays a huge role in my life and ministry. In fact, I wouldn't be doing this crazy thing called ministry if it weren't for Gene. Some days I don't know whether to thank him or punch him in the arm -- hard. But Gene did more than get me into the pulpit, he got me out of my own proverbial fenced-in backyard. He broadened my horizons-- literally. He gave me hope.
It all started with a sermon. 1989. Ocean City, New Jersey. St. Peter's United Methodist Church. June. Hot and humid. I was 24 years old in body-- much older in spirit. My life was unexciting, and I had little prospects for any future possibilities of excitement. I lived on my own in a fairly nice apartment in Collingswood, NJ (hometown of Michael Landon) and worked in a real estate firm in Haddonfield, NJ (a.k.a. Uppityville) as a secretary. I knew this was not my life's calling, but I was beginning to think I didn't have a life's calling. I'd just broken up with a really good-looking guy from Pennsylvania who had a black belt in karate and drove a really nice white BMW. I'd thought he was was the one. Alas, he was not.
June, 1989, I was so bored I went to Ocean City after work to meet my parents at the Southern New Jersey Annual Conference Meeting. This is not something any normal person would do for fun, but well, that reflects the nature of my life then. We had a nice dinner, I got to see some old friends who were also attending the Conference, and then we went together over to St. Peter's UMC for the evening worship. At that point I'd only listened to one preacher, mostly, all my life, and that was my father. My father was good, mind you, but he was, after all, my father. It's hard to be inspired by your own father, especially after hearing him for 24 years, from womb to present. I'd heard some other preachers, and was not easily impressed. One might say suffered from Too Much Preaching. So I'd gotten into the habit of tuning out most preachers when I went to such meetings, daydreaming about something or other to get through till the next hymn. (I loved singing at Annual Conference-- there's nothing like 1,000 United Methodist pastors and lay people singing together!! John Wesley would have been proud)
But that night was different. I settled into the hard, wooden pew, that was kind of sticky with humidity-- St. Paul' was a large church, but old, and therefore had not invested in air conditioning. All the windows that did open were in fact opened, and occasionally we had a stray seagull fly through the sanctuary to get to the other side. Gene Lowry, the preacher of the evening entered the pulpit, and donned his bifocals. Oh great, I must have thought, this guy's going to be really exciting!
Gene looks a lot like Abraham Lincoln, and I would guess that's a compliment to Abraham Lincoln. He's tall, thin, gaunt in the face, with what one might call an "angular" face. He read the Scripture, Matthew 25:14-30; the Parable of the Talents. As he read the Scripture, he looked up often, raising his eyebrows, adding expressions and drama to the reading, so much so that it dídn't even sound like he was reading. I sat up, therefore unpeeling my shirt from the back of the varnished pew, and started listening. Gene dramatically removed his bifocals and laid them to the side of the pulpit... and began to preach.
Whoa!! How'd he do that? He drew me in from the beginning, so that I couldn't NOT listen. He made me laugh, chuckle, and listen to every word. He had no notes but just talked, told the story, in such a way that we were THERE. He described the scene, the people-- you could imagine the expressions, the feelings of those involved. At one point, my chest started to hurt, and I realized I was holding my breath. I let out a deep breath, and braced myself with my hands by my sides on the pew as I leaned forward.
As he talked about the third servant in the story who buried the talent that the Master had entrusted to him, I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. He talked about the man being afraid of the enormous gift that was entrusted to him, so much so that he panicked and hid it in a deep, dark hole in the backyard. Then the poor slob paced around that hole, lest someone KNOW where he'd buried it and come dig it up. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep, he just paced, while the first two servants took what they were given and doubled the Master's money through some clever dealings. When the Master finally got home, the other servants were commended for their cleverness, and the poor, sleep-deprived, nervy third servant, wringing his bony hands and whimpering, was reprimanded for being a coward.
Hey! I liked that guy! He...well, I could relate to him! Wait a minute, how did this Lowry dude KNOW? How did he describe... me? I felt the weight of my lostness in that moment, my hopelessness and lack of direction. Someone understood what it was to be me. But who WAS he? Then the admonition: "Get out of the backyard! Enter into the joy of your Master!!" And Gene's eyes looked over the expanse of the sanctuary filled with 1,000 people. Then he picked up his glasses... and walked away from the pulpit.
Hey! Where's he going? I sat back, again, sticking to the varnished pew, feeling utterly exhausted. How did he do that? I was shaking, I thought I might have to throw up. My mother looked over at me and smiled. "Good, huh?" she said.
I whispered back, "how did he know I was here?" She looked at me questioningly, and opened the hymnal to the next hymn.

My life changed after that night. Two months later I was enrolled in seminary at Drew University Theological School, still wondering what hit me. A lot of things had, in fact, hit me during those two months, landing me in the unikely landing of seminary. But my life opened up. The horizons opened up. I made straight A's for the first time in my whole education, I won awards and scholarships-- who WAS this person inhabiting my body?
A year later, it turns out my horizons opened up further. I'd fallen in love with a bearded second-career student named Larry who was the local cheerleader and unpaid 'human commercial for the obscure (to us) state of Nebraska. (Where WAS Nebraska anyway???) He couldn't say enough good about Nebraska. Weird guy. But he grew on me. By the time he left for Nebraska, I couldn't get him out of my heart. Over the summer, he racked up a $150 a month phone bill calling me (apparently he liked me too), and managed to drive the 26-hour drive (straight through) back East a few times to see me. This was ridiculous. He started looking into ways that he could serve a church in New Jersey while I finished seminary. New Jersey was full (it always is). There was "no way" I was going out to the God-forsaken Midwest (by then I'd found Nebraska on a map). Then in August, 1990, Gene Lowry came to Ocean Grove (different town than before) to preach at a campmeeting. I took a friend with me to hear him. I didn't want to meet him, he scared me to death. Anyone that could change my life completely with 20 minutes of words had to be pretty scary.
Gene, as always, was terrific. Inspiring. I decided to go back and hear him another night. This time, I took a 10-page typewritten, single-spaced letter I'd written, describing for him what happened to me that first time I heard him preach, and how my year had unfolded. I was nervous. Shy. Scared to death. The sermon was on the Gerasene demoniac (Luke 5), and the last thing Gene said was, "Go and tell what the Lord has done." Aw, crap. Ok. I will.
I nervously approached Gene with my thick envelope containing the letter, and awkwardly introduced myself, stuttering, stumbling over words, wiping my sweaty hands periodically on my pants. He was gracious, friendly even (I didn't know this was a Midwestern thing). He took the envelope and put it in his inside coat pocket and promised to read it later. He acted like he was really glad to meet me-- which, thinking back, why wouldn't he? How often does someone walk up to you and say, in essence, 'you've changed my life?'
Well, the rest is a very interesting, but even longer, story. There was more correspondance, more face to face conversations, and a few months later, I gave up my full-tuition scholarship to transfer to St. Paul School of Theology in another remote place out there somewhere called Kansas City, Missouri. That's where Gene Lowry taught preaching. Which happened to be about 6 hours from this bearded man I couldn't get out of my heart. How covenient. (I know, 6 hours? By New Jersey standards, that's absurd. In the Midwest, it's just a long car ride. Besides, it beat being 26 hours away!)
I transferred to St. Paul in January of 1991, got engaged to Larry, and we came back to New Jersey in August of 1991 to get married. During the first two years of my marriage, I commuted four hours (the Conference was nice enough to move us two hours closer) to Kansas City every week to school in my F150 pick up truck.
During seminary, but even more so after graduation, our friendship with Gene and Sarah Lowry grew. In 1994, I gave birth to Sarah Gene, with Gene's jazz piano music playing on the cassette player by the bed. The name of the cassette tape was called "The Sound of Good News." Sarah Gene was literally born to the sound of Gene playing the piano. Two months later, Gene and Sarah travelled up to Tilden, NE where we lived and pastored, to baptize Sarah Gene. Gene preached-- of course-- and played the piano for us all in celebration of Sarah Gene's baptism. Gene Lowry preached at my seminary graduation in 1993 and at my ordination as Elder in the Nebraska Annual Conference in 1996. In 1998 I got to be one of the speakers at his retirement from teaching at St. Paul School of Theology.
We travel to places where he's preaching whenever he comes near (even during our years in Pennsylvania), and sometimes we simply go to visit them in Kansas City. We email, we call, we keep each other posted on each others' lives. Gene didn't just teach me how to preach. He taught me how to hope, to dare, even to dream. He is a continual reminder when I tend to cut off the possibilities for myself, to see beyond the borders of my own "backyard." He made me be honest, and to stop hiding who I really was. He made me a preacher, sure, but he also helped me learn how to live.
I can only hope that my own life makes such a difference.