Amen, Reverned Moyers, Amen!

April 30^th is the last segment of your journal, Reverend Bill Moyers. I know there’s a certain presumption on my part in using the adjective “Reverend;” I’m familiar with your stories, told to Terry Gross on an “NPR Fresh Air” segment of how, as a college and serving a small church every other weekend, you inflicted your “opinions on some very patient people.” I know how your path led you away from a pulpit and into politics and journalism, but you, sir, never stopped being the preacher.

“The Lord,” they say, “works in mysterious ways.” And the Almighty surely did so with you. That kid preacher inflicting opinions on patient people found his way to the White House and worked on domestic policy for Lyndon Johnson before becoming his press secretary. You were part of the escalation of the war in Vietnam, although I’ve learned you had your doubts. It was a war of which you later said, “We were wrong so and the country paid a terrible price.” Thank you for that.

From the halls of power you wandered over to the halls of Public Broadcasting, and there, sir, I began to regularly sit in the pews of your sanctuary where you analyzed what was going on about our country and our world. There are many who say you have this unique ability to ask the right questions. They may be right in that assessment, but to my mind your unique ability came from you propensity for asking the God questions. You, yourself, admitted that politics and journalism were a diversion for you. It was in the asking of those questions you preached sermons that reduced those of us who stand in pulpits to babbling babes of homiletics.

Go figure, you were a child of the South, a Southern Baptist child of the South at that, familiar with the stories of the faith and the teachings of Jesus. And yet you never used the Bible as a life jacket but saw in the starkly human characters of the Biblical stories a mirror in which we see ourselves. You titled one of your series “Genesis: A Living Conversation,” and in that series you held up the resources of our faith in a lively and refreshing way. Your introduction to the series spoke of Noah who, you admit, “… hardly behaves the way we’d expect a model of righteousness to behave.” And then you begin the sermon: “His story is full of contradictions and divine mystery – just like most of the stories in Genesis, just like our own.” [www.pbs.org/wnet/genesis]

Other mini sermons popped up throughout your career. I loved the time you told Terry Gross on a “Fresh Air” interview, “Splitting the difference between two opinions does not get you the truth; it gets you another opinion.” And there was that great statement: “If you see an audience of consumers you want to sell them something, but if you see an audience of citizens you want to share something.” I try to remember that one whenever I step into a pulpit.

You also pointed out to us that religion should never be reduced to just another interest group and we should never allow Jesus and Moses to become mere lobbyist.

So on the occasion of the last edition of your journal I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for turning down the position of Chief of Staff to a President. Thanks for turning down the office of Secretary of Education. And thanks for all those programs I’ve watched over the years, those programs that sometimes quietly got me thinking and those programs that slapped me in the face with challenge. Thank you, Reverend Moyers, for all the sermons.

I’ve heard a story about you I hope is true. The story I heard is that once President Johnson, deferring to your being a “Reverend” asked you to say grace at a White House dinner. The story I heard is that everyone bowed their heads and you prayed. When you completed your prayer President Johnson commented, “I asked you to say grace not deliver a pastoral prayer.” And, so the story goes, you replied to the President of the United States, “Mr. President, I wasn’t talking to you.”

Ah, but Reverend Moyers I and many others in your congregation are much better for having sat in the pews as you talked to us. And I truly mean it when I say, "I really enjoyed that Journal, preacher.

Amen, Reverend Moyers, Amen.

This post was plentifully informed by an edition of Fresh Air which presented a collage of interviews Terry Gross had done over the years. That interview is available HERE.