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Sermon Notesfrom a Jazzman
Robert Young
West Chester, Pennsylvania
A few weeks ago, a jazzman roused in me the remembrance of a ^ ach in g prineiple . It goes by many names. He ealled it the importanee of “the absence of sound,” a.k.a. the pause. The jazzman was Buster Williams, now 70. He has jammed with the likes of Miles Davis, Count Basie, Herbie Haneoek, Sarah Vaughan, and Naney Wilson. Reeently he spent three days at a Montgomery County private sehool doing what he eould to make sure a new generation will piek up the beat in the twenty-first eentury. He was listening as Exteen-year-old Alex Wood played the jazz standard ”Misty” on the piano. But Williams was listening for a (Quality he ealled “the absence of sound.” Then he elaborated, “Allow the spaee and the air in the musie to be part of the improvisation.” On that afternoon in Jenkintown, his words struek a chord, the reporter wrote. Wood played again, and there was more nuance as he lowed, allowing quiet moments in the music instead of running through the piece like the ^ s lc a lly trained pianist that he is. Williams loved that. “What he learned in that short time,” the jazzman said later, “was to trust not only what he had to say; he trusted what others were saying. You don’t have to fill up space just to fill up space.” Great preachers of the last century had excellent content, scholarly and imaginative . Story and narrative were replacing theological lecture style. However, there was also a nuance to what they said that involved pregnant pauses. In fact two master preachers were talking to each other about a recent preaching mission one of them had. Bryant Kirlkand, the returning preacher, light-heartedly characterized his effort, “I was practicing my pauses.” He might have used the jazzman’s words “allow space and air in the words.” It is the pause that allows what has been said to sink in. It creates anticipation for what will come next. It allows the listener to catch up, perhaps to take meaning down unexpected paths. It is a pregnant pause that prevents overpowering the listener and makes preaching a collaborative experience rather than a “tour de force.” In such a pause there is even a note of suspense before words begin again. A suggestion of this is in the Book of Revelation where “there was a silence in heaven for about half an hour” (Rev. 8:1). The reader wonders, ‘”What next?” Seven angels who had seven trumpets made ready to blow them. “Are you ready for what is to come?” Or, if an apocalyptic setting is “too, too,” think of the conductor who strikes the baton and holds it in air before bringing it down for foe music to begin. ?ractical illustrators of the pause are often comedians, ?ublic radio has been airing lives of Jack ?aar, Johnny Carson, and Jack Benny. Note foe number of times they say something and wait, look off into space, often with a deadpan expression while foe humor sinks in. What mileage they get out of foe pregnant pause. Buster Williams might say, “You don’t have to fill up space just to fill up space.” Strangely, rather than a pause lengthening a sermon, it is one of foe ways good preachers can be brief about it.
Journalfor Preachers
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