“The old priest couldn’t sing, the new priest can’t preach,” is what they’ll say. And what with one thing and another, even though Mona makes an early supper and gets Sanna to bed and tries to steer him to his study, it is dreadfully late when he sits down to work.
And sits and sits, deep in self-contempt, thinking how much he needs someone to guide him through the key points here too, the verger and the organist, so that there will be a sermon. What is the matter with him? Why is he pleasant, collected, and wise when he has other people around him, and why does he feel only emptiness and panic when he sits down by himself to concentrate on writing a sermon?
And sits, in a kind of panic-stricken hubris, his need to be dazzling, brilliant, unforgettable an impediment to his preaching. As if the purpose was to show off Petter Kummel rather than the Word. Which it is his duty to administer and expound.
The Word, the Word, Pastor Kummel reminds himself over and over as the minutes pass. He looks at the texts yet again but has so little time that he can’t manage to read them carefully. There’s nothing wrong with the lessons. It’s the lead-in that’s lacking. And the payoff, the elegant conclusion. And the brilliant discourse in the middle.
Would he have become a priest had he known how nerve-racking it was to preach? Not a chance. When he wrote his practise sermons at the university, he thought they would flow automatically once he was free from all the supervisory eyes and acrid comments. Once he could “speak with his own voice”. So he’d believed. Word for word.
So now here’s your chance, Pastor Kummel. Your own voice. But there is silence. He can picture himself climbing up into the pulpit, praying a little prayer and looking out over the congregation, people who are five times as critical as the theology faculty, people who have spent so much time in church that they know at once that he’s on thin ice. He opens his mouth and hopes that something will come out, but nothing does. Then he reads the day’s lesson, and when he’s done he closes his mouth. He opens it again, but nothing comes out. Then he reads the notices and gives a signal to the organist for the collection hymn. It starts up a little sloppily. There is a great agitation in the church. His first sermon—silence.
Mona looks in. “How’s it going?”
“It’s not.”
“You’re too tired. We have to start going to bed in the evenings. We’re running ourselves ragged.”
“It’s not just that I’m tired. I can’t do it. I’ve got no talent for it. I’ll have to resign the post.”
“When we just got here? Don’t talk nonsense! Use your sermon from last autumn. Nobody here has heard it.”
“That’s real bankruptcy, a priest recycling his sermons.”
“It will give you an idea. It’s here in this box somewhere. Read through it calmly. Then go to bed, and during the night it will all come together. Tomorrow morning you’ll know what you’re going to say.”
“What would I do without you?”
“Don’t be silly. Thank heaven you keep your papers in order. Here it is.”
“Thanks, I’ll look at it. Go to bed now. I’ll be in soon.”
He hopes she’ll fall asleep quickly, tired as she is. She’s been cleaning furiously, and baking. The whole house smells good. They’re going to have the parish council and the vestry for coffee after High Mass. How is he going to be able to look these intelligent people in the eye after his fiasco? His fiasco—there he goes again, thinking only of himself and the impression he’ll make. Instead of what he was put here to proclaim: the Word of God.
It’s not about his own brilliance. It’s about conveying the Word, which is without blemish, the support and bulwark of every second-rate preacher. But the introduction, the personal touch that puts the text in a new light? Something to make them listen? Something from their own world, which they understand and take an interest in?
In this specific instance, it’s the new pastor they’re interested in, however much he tries to convince himself that his own person is of no importance. Is it then wrong, is it simply ingratiating to say things they want to hear, to talk about his first impressions of the parish?
This thought fills him with strong, clear pictures and he knows what he will say. And he is calm, not deceptively calm, but calm enough to sleep. He looks at last year’s sermon with new eyes, sees that he can use bits of it after his new introduction. It’s going to work.
Almost unconscious, he staggers into bed. Mona is already asleep, clearly not as nervous as he. It is soothing that she seems to think he’ll manage. It’s far too late for him to get up early, but he’ll still have time to think through the text and get it under control.
Or so he thinks, the simpleton. Because in the morning, Papa has to mind Sanna while Mama does the milking, and Sanna is not the kind of person you can just dump in a crib and close the door. On top of which, Sanna is irresistible when she has Papa to herself. She smiles and chirps and puts her cheek against his, and he thinks that he must be allowed to spend a few minutes every day with his daughter. What does it say about his Christianity if he won’t let his own child come to him?
Then Mona comes back in a rush, changes clothes and bangs about setting the table. No miracle occurs in his study. He gathers up his prayer book, the parish announcements, his old sermon, his new ideas jotted down as notes. He’ll have time to glance through them before it’s time to go, he thinks, but then there’s a commotion in the passage where someone has wrenched open the swollen door. Because the church handles all vital statistics and the parish record-keeping, people bring their administrative business to him right before the Sunday service, since Church Isle is a bit out of the way and now here they are anyway.
Perfectly understandable, and once you’re aware of it, you can make allowances, but this first time it’s unexpected. He hurries to his study door and meets the man with a smile, because he can hear that Mona is not very welcoming. “Come right in!” he says warmly, although she’s in the act of saying this isn’t a good time. And when the matter has been dealt with—and the good cheer and the high hopes—it appears that the clock has taken a jump and it’s time to put on his cassock and collar. Mona helps him, proudly. The cassock was tailored at considerable cost and fits him very well! He’s told her about the priest bell, and she keeps a close eye on the clock so she can send him off at a quarter to. She’ll follow along with Sanna a bit later. Of course she wants to be there for his first High Mass and to see the congregation. She’s more nervous than he knows. It’s important that he should see her calm and without misgivings. If only he could organize his time so he was better prepared!
The church bells have already rung at ten-thirty, a lovely racket in the clear air. At a quarter to eleven, they see the verger climb into the bell tower again, and so he takes his Bible, his prayer book, papers, and notes and gets ready to go. Faint-heartedly, he prays a silent prayer that all will go well, a schoolboy’s timorous prayer for help in a fix for which he can blame no one but himself. Sanna whines and wants to go with him, and Mama is angry. “Hush, Sanna! You can’t come to church at all if you can’t be quiet!”
It feels like when the first Christians were driven out into the arena, except they were heartened by confidence and faith. He is fearful and timid, a poor servant of Our Lord. Unworthy of his calling, he opens the door and walks out onto the steps.
Such a lot of people already gathered in the churchyard! He stands for a moment on the steps and sees a steady stream of people walking up from the boats past the parsonage. When they see him on the steps, they leave a space for him, and he moves out into it. The priest bell starts to ring.
Only the small bell, as the verger said, and it tolls more sparely than the rich sound of the two bells swinging together. As the pastor walks and the bell rings, he becomes another person. He lays aside Sanna’s screaming and Mona’s scolding. Mona’s nervous silence, her hopes that it will all go well. He sets aside his ego, his fear of inadequacy, of making a fool of himself, of being criticized and mocked. He is no longer his own imperfect self, he is the congregation’s shepherd, who unravels mysteries for them and provides them with the means of grace. He walks towards the church the way priests on this island have been doing since the Reformation, maybe even in the days of the cloister.