community-oriented philosophy and egalitarian working relationship amongst the staff also appealed to Read’s interest in serving the various needs of a fully rounded congregation and not playing the role of a pulpit star. In 1956, then, the Scottish implant became the minister of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, and ended up serving the congregation for thirty-three years, retiring in 1989, at a still vigorous eighty years of age.
Throughout his career, David Read never comported himself as a pulpit star or ministerial big shot. He liked in fact to tell the story of the inflated preacher who says to the secretary, “Tell that nuisance to go to hell—I’m composing a masterpiece on Christian love.” That Read never screamed at people is something to which I can personally attest. I once drove him to the airport in Toronto after a preaching seminar in nearby Hamilton. Plying him with questions, I shot right past the exit for the airport. For a few tense moments it looked like my pulpit hero might miss his flight back to New York. Read’s voice, as I recall, grew a bit testy, but he didn’t scream. Fortunately, he didn’t miss his flight either.
In the preaching seminar that I mentioned earlier, Read encouraged us to play a tape of one of our recent sermons. The group then discussed each sermon in turn. Our comments were largely appreciative, especially at first. But as the seminar wore on, we became more and more critical of each other’s efforts. In fact at one point, I suddenly realized to my chagrin that Read’s voice was the only unreservedly positive one in the room. The rest of us had forgotten, it seemed, his introductory remarks in which he had stressed that preaching is not a competition but a response to Christ’s call: “Go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” It doesn’t matter, Read said, whether we respond to the call with one talent, two talents, or ten. The important thing is to respond, and thus share the good news with whatever talents the Lord has given us.
On the final day of the seminar Read played a tape of the Christmas fantasy sermon that he had delivered on Christmas Sunday a few days earlier in his church. I well remember the hush that fell over the room at the conclusion of the recording of this sermon. No one said a word. No one murmured polite little compliments. And certainly no one offered a critique! We all just sat there kind of stunned and thinking: Ah, that’s what it means to be a ten talent preacher.
The bulk of this book features forty-one sermons by this super-talented preacher. All but one of the sermons is published for the first time beyond the in-house press of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. The sermons have been arranged according to the pattern of the church year, and brief introductions have been added by way of elucidating Read’s theme and style.
A list of David Read’s books that remain available today through www.abebooks.com has also been included along with some brief reviews that I have written, highlighting the contents of some of these works. Finally, David Read’s sermon Virginia Woolf Meets Charlie Brown is reprinted at the end of the book, giving the reader a taste of the kind of homiletical material that remains available through www.abebooks.com.
Ministry after David Read
After David Read retired in 1989, an interim period followed, and then Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church called the Rev. Dr. Fred Anderson to replace Dr. Read. I am sure I wasn’t the only person in the ecclesiastical world who wondered how Fred Anderson, how any minister, was going to replace a pulpit giant like Read. Recently I contacted Anderson and asked him how, in fact, he managed this feat. What Dr. Anderson told me was so moving and instructive that, with his permission, I am relaying exactly what he said:
“When the Presbytery’s Committee on Ministry approved me for membership, allowing my name to be announced to the congregation, I asked if my wife Questa and I could visit David and Pat in their new apartment the church had provided them for retirement. There were some things I needed to talk over with him. The following morning, we went to see them for coffee. We sat in their sunny dining alcove having coffee and biscuits, and exchanging pleasantries. Before long, David began to fidget. Wanting to smoke his beloved pipe, he said, ‘Fred, let’s go to my study,’ and so we did [it was the only place in the new apartment Pat would let him smoke!]. Once we were settled in the privacy of his study I said, ‘David, there are three things I need to say to you. First, few people have the opportunity to follow who they think is the very best at what they do, and that is what is happening here—you have been a preaching role model for me since I first read your sermons in Seminary. Second, you are still a Pastor at MAPC, and I expect to see you in worship on Sundays when you are in the city. It will be intimidating for a while, but I will get over it. But you need to be in worship and the people need to see you, for you are still their pastor—we can share them! Third, when they ask you to do a wedding, funeral or baptism, please direct them to me so I can invite you. You are welcome to do as many as you like, or not, but better yet, we can do them together.’ David broke into a broad grin, saying, ‘I can see we are going to get on together very well.’
“And we did. For the next several years we shared all sorts of liturgical events, he always taking one of the six lessons-sermons for the three-hour Good Friday services, vesting and reading scripture in festival services, sometimes calling on parishioners with me—he always casting his mantle over me, telling folks I had given him back his church. We even toured Scotland together one spring after Easter. It was a momentous trip. I met him in London (Pat stayed behind in London to visit her brother, Jimmy, and then went on to their new home in Majorca). We took the train north to Glasgow, rented a car and drove the countryside, retreating for three days at Iona, visiting all of his old friends from war days ranging from the captains of various industries (Forres) to Dukes and Duchesses (Argyle and Aberdeen), St. Andrews, his brother in Edinburgh, where we returned the car, and from there back to London, again by train. We rounded it out, with a wonderful few days, joining Pat and her older brother, John, at the Read’s retirement home in Majorca.
“In the first few years of retirement David was a bit lost—as first years of retirement often seem to go for pastors. After re-reading all of his P.G. Woodhouse books, he fell into a bit of a depression, and I encouraged him to write another book. He agreed and began making a few notes. But as was his practice with sermons, he really couldn’t get into the swing of things with his writing until he had crafted a title. Then one day, a year or so later, he called me on the phone and said, ‘Fred, I’ve got it. What do you think of God Was in the Laughter?’ ‘It is perfect,’ I told him. He began to write, and I began looking for someone to help with the type-script and then finding someone to publish it, as most of his older publishing connections were gone. The book includes David’s reflections on his own impending death, and it is classic David Read! Shortly after finishing the book, he fell into physical decline, becoming homebound. We celebrated his 91st birthday, January 2, 2001, with a few close friends from the church. Five days later, I celebrated communion with him and Pat and two elders in their apartment at his bedside. He died peacefully, later that night.”
N.B. God Was in the Laughter is published in conjunction with David Read’s earlier autobiographical works: This Grace Given and Grace Thus Far (cf. p. 273).
Please also note: A CD recording of David Read preaching on three memorable occasions is available. Contact John McTavish for information ([email protected]).
David H. C. Read’s Sermons at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church
All of the sermons in this book were preached by David Read at New York’s Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church with the exception of “The Smug and the Saintly,” which was preached by Dr. Read at St. James’ Episcopal Church on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1984.
Jesus, the Killer of Hate
Editor’s Introduction
Hate crimes were on the rise when David Read preached this sermon in 1973. Sadly, such crimes are on the rise again today. What sick passion prompts the human heart to turn with hatred towards
