Barbara Brown Taylor
Westminster John Knox Press, 242 pages
Reviewed by Anne H.K. Apple
Serving as a pastor of a church in great transition, and navigating leading and being Christ’s church in the throes of a pandemic, I strongly recommend Barbara Brown Taylor’s book “Always a Guest.” In each chapter, a well-crafted sermon and a reminder to stay in God’s Word. In each chapter, a priceless reminder to trust that the Holy Spirit will make necessary connections. In each chapter, a reminder that we are always guests wading in cavernous pools of God’s good love in Jesus Christ. In the days when restaurants packed droves of people into small spaces, by circumstance I shared a table with a shaman in Utah. The hostess said, “If you two will sit together, you can eat.” It is not precisely how the prophetic hostess said it, but it is how I remember coming to that particular table. He was in overalls and I was from the South and loved Jesus — so it seemed safe enough.
It was a time when a bivocational career, marriage and a geographic move made the discernment of a pastoral call difficult. More days than not, I grumbled that there was not a place for me at the church’s table, although confidently I treasured the place I had at Christ’s table.
In Utah, I was attending a Presbyterian conference on Sabbath where big words like “predestination” mingled with the profound simplicity of “gift” and “call.” The shared lunch and conversation with this stranger felt like I’d been sitting with my family after a Thanksgiving meal, lingering in love’s story. We covered the geography found in cow paths to that of tattoos on teenagers. That no-longer-stranger was Barbara Brown Taylor’s husband, Ed.
Fast forward 20 years — years that in retrospect feel like days, and God’s people have been forced to leave the church in pandemic droves. Staying in the church, as the body of Christ, is made difficult. The COVID-19 pandemic prohibits the ease of connection developed by singing together in sanctuaries and hand laying, praying and weeping at bedsides. A sermon that reminds us of the intimacy of Christ’s foot washing is what we need lest we become amnesiacs to God’s grace in Jesus Christ in a predominantly virtual world.
We worship that we might praise God, offer our prayers and strengthen our identity as God’s baptized, beloved and sent. We are living in days when each encounter with another human being requires great risk assessment. And preaching matters.
If you are hoping to take an hour off from the despairing headlines, read this book of sermons; you will find the connections of being bathed in Scripture and making a joyful noise before the Lord. If you are weary from realizing that we fight for that which we love, read this book of sermons; you might find yourself renamed as “Dumbstruck.” If you are needing the connection of Christian believers, read this book of sermons; and like those Easter believers who gathered in 2010 at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, you might find yourself with the four living creatures, saying, “Amen.” Might it be so.
Anne H.K. Apple, wife to Jim and mother to three young adults, serves as the executive associate pastor and acting head of staff of Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee.
