“Anniversary”

It’s hard for Pastor Shulz to believe that he’s been here, at Our Redeemer, for three years. Which means that it’s been close to four years since Ada died.  He was just thinking about that the other day, as he was reading today’s text, about signs in the heavens and earth, and people fainting for fear.  It didn’t seem to him that he had much of a future after her death.  Things just seemed to fall apart for him for a while after that, and the one place where he had always thought there would be help – his church – seemed not to be very sensitive to the depth of his loss.  Of course, they were at first – there were a lot of sympathy cards, folks dropped off a lot of cassaroles, and they even gave him a couple of weeks off to get himself squared away.  But then they expected him to come back and tell them about the hope of the resurrection, and how he know that Ada was in Jesus’ arms, and be a model of courage and faith.

Well, he wasn’t.  In fact, he had grown depressed, and found it hard to come to work.  Sometimes he would just sit in his office, not answering the phone, just staring off into space.  And, more than once, he broke down during the prayers.  After about six weeks of that, some of the folks in the congregation had had just about enough of it.  Jamie Parkins, who considered herself an expert at about anything, and who hadn’t cried, I guess, more than about five minutes after her own husband, Jim, died, about eight years ago, was one of the first to stop by his office.  “Pastor,” she spoke on behalf of many, “it’s time to move on.  I know that’s a hard thing to say, but after all, you ARE our pastor.  You can’t keep this up.”  Actually, that was pretty mild.  Within a couple of more weeks, it was a small committee that stood at his office door, led by Jim McKracken, whose visits were always so delightful anyway.  He always was the first to find fault with Pastor Shulz – he didn’t make enough calls, he changed something in the service, he didn’t make the confirmation kids treat him with enough respect …. The list went on and on.  But today, he had a committee of the like-minded with him:  “Pastor,” he announced, “we think you’ve got to decide whether you’re going to sit here and stew over something you can’t do anything about, or whether you’re going to be our pastor.  There’s a lot of work to be done around here, and it’s time it got done.  If you’re going to continue like this, you’d better do it somewhere else.”  It might not have been a sign in the heavens- more like the handwriting on the wall - but it was close enough.

So he did.  In fact, he announced the next Sunday.  Then he started to think about what he should do next, and he panicked to realize that he was suddenly without a job, without prospects, would soon be homeless, and had lost the one person who could see him through a crisis like this.  He felt his legs almost go out from under him when he thought about it, and became sick to his stomach.  He was tempted to go back and tell the congregation that he didn’t mean it, but then it occurred to him that, after his announcement, no one had exactly begged him to stay.  A few, of course, had come up after the service and told them that they were sorry to see him leave, and more that wished him well – but not one had asked him to reconsider.

He decided that he needed to look for a job.  Who would hire a fifties-something former pastor who would soon be homeless as well?

The answer came from Arnie Simpson, the owner of the local hardware store.  Arnie’s dad had been a member of the church, and Pastor Shulz had buried him a few months ago.  Arnie hadn’t realized it until after his dad’s death, but over the last few years, Pastor Shulz and his dad had developed a fairly strong relationship that had to do a lot with fishing.  Not that Arnie’s dad, Pete, could do much fishing any more – in his mid-nineties, he was almost blind and was mostly confined to his bed.  But his interior vision was just fine – it could picture his favorite fishing holes, and the many visits he made to each one.  He could remember what he caught, and with each telling, he managed to recapture the delight of the moment.  Pastor Shulz would egg him on, “Oh, come on Pete, it wasn’t THAT big, was it?”  “I think your bass grew a couple of inches since last time!”  They talked about their favorite fishing holes, and what bait to use each season of the year, and Pastor Shulz would continually promise to visit Pete’s favorite holes, some, of course which no longer even existed since they put in the new bypass.

What Pastor Shulz didn’t know was that the old man liked to keep a diary.  Most of what he kept in it was just notes on the weather: “October 12.  Unseasonably warm – 72 degrees.”  It was a habit he had kept from being an avid gardener for so many years.  But, over the last few years, he started putting in other entries: “Pastor was over.  Seems o.k.”  That was a couple of months after Pastor started at the church.  Later it was things like: “Told him about Jackson’s Hole.  Can’t believe I told him.  I still have the bend in Tillman’s Creek.”  A few months later it was, “Told him about the old log where the stream goes through the pine stand on the McCratey’s Farm. Still have Tillman’s Creek.” That ended on July 9, four years ago. “Damn – weaseled Tillman’s Creek out of me.  Guess I’ll have to find another hole!”  There were a few other entries, all involving conversations the two had shared.  At the end, that was about all the old man really had – the weather, and visits from Pastor Shulz.  Arnie had found the diary while he was going through his dad’s things, had sat down, read it, and cried.  Then he got to the last entry: “August 12.  I’m just an old car, and they don’t make the parts any more.  It’s been a glorious ride.  If they have fishing in heaven, I’ll find us a great hole, Pastor.”

Pastor Shulz was down at Arnie’s store, just looking around, when Arnie saw him.  It’s a small town, and word was already around by Monday morning.  “Hey!  Pastor!  How are you? I heard you’re leaving us?  Where are you going?”  Pastor Shulz looked up at the shelf in front of him, as if something had suddenly caught his interest.  He tried to cover his nervousness.  “Don’t know yet.  I may have to get a job.”  Arnie was truly taken aback.  He stepped back, and thought just a moment.  “I don’t know if you’d consider it – I mean, it wouldn’t be much, but I could use some help here for a bit.  I mean, we’ll soon be getting ready for fall, and then there’s the holidays.”  What he wanted to say was, “Pastor, you reached a man I tried to reach for years, and couldn’t.  You took care of my dad, and he loved you for it, and I’d do anything for you.”  But he couldn’t quite say that, so he offered him a job and, when Pastor Shulz took him up on it (although he knew little about hardware!), he also offered him a place to stay (“Just ‘till you get back on your feet again.”).  It was a good offer, and saw Pastor Shulz through until February, when the call to Our Redeemer came.

The job at the hardware store was exactly what Pastor Shulz needed: time to get through his grief, contact with people (he discovered he was a pretty good salesman, actually.  “Of course,” he said, “I’ve been in sales for almost thirty years!”), and something to keep his mind busy.  It was good for Arnie, too – Pastor Shulz spent a good deal of time telling Arnie stories about his dad, and sharing his dad’s fishing stories.  It wasn’t until he was getting ready to leave that Arnie shared his dad’s diary with him.  “I’d like that,” Pastor Shulz said, on seeing the last entry.  “Your dad was a good man, as are you, Arnie.  In a lot of ways you are like him.  Just don’t make the one mistake he made – he loved you deeply.  He just never figured out how to tell you that.”

The people at Our Redeemer took well to Pastor Shulz.  They knew he was “damaged merchandise,” but then, so were a lot of them.  They started him off with a short sabbatical, and were very gentle with him for a long while, until he could get his legs back under him.

Now, as he thought about it, it seemed like an amazing ride. 

Hope is a precious commodity.  When the seas get turbulent, and the earth begins to quake under our feet, and we’re feeling a bit faint, it’s natural to become afraid – even to give in to despair.  It’s those folks who surround us in love, who hold us when we can’t stand ourselves, who give us a strong dose of hope who make all the difference.  In them we experience a bit of what the kingdom will be, and in them Jesus does come to us again, and again, so that we know that the promise of the Gospel is not an empty one, but one that continues to take on human flesh.

And that’s the news from Our Redeemer Lutheran church, a little congregation not far from here that’s not really so big, or so much, except in love, and in the eyes of God.