“Now, because of some things I said in that sermon, Mr. Stoner and some others think I accused Incarnation folks of being high and mighty, and as a result, we are all somehow guilty of Otis killing himself.”
“So what?”
“Well, they could make things hard on me. I don’t know what that might be, but I wanted you to know what’s going on because it could affect all of us.”
Brandon got a troubled look on his face and said, “How?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” I puffed through my cheeks. “Maybe there’ll be talk about me…unpleasant talk…and I just wanted you to be forewarned in case you started hearing things. Some people might even leave the church and go elsewhere.”
“Oh.” Brandon gave me a “what was this all about, and why does it make any difference to me?” look. He sat there with his arms still crossed and glanced over at his Xbox, as if to let me know that he was ready for me to leave.
“Please have me in your prayers, Brandon. I’m going to need them if we are going to keep this ship we call Incarnation Church afloat.”
“Okay,” was his nonchalant reply as he turned to his Xbox and tuned me out.
Chapter 18
Tuesday, October 17
Tuesday morning as I perched on the side of the bed with my head in my hands, Jayne came in with a cup of coffee.
“What’s up?”
“Just thinking about yesterday.” I gave her a forced grin through my muddled brain waves. I needed to talk, and Jayne was a wonderful and sympathetic listener. I took a sip of the badly needed and perfectly blended coffee and sighed with satisfaction for that taste of stability. I patted the bed beside me, and she sat down.
“Okay, talk to me.”
I poured out my thoughts. “I’m still trying to process all that happened. I woke up with the reminder that my sermon had not only fallen flat but had antagonized the congregation, and then when I took the kids to school hoping for a breakthrough with Brandon, that bombed. I got to church and had a surprise visit from Flora that left me thinking that maybe it was going to be a good day after all. There was then a visit with Philip, followed by the horrible scene at school. Then the joy of finding out Brandon was all right but the devastating news that Flora had been killed. Next the family time with Brandon and Hannah to help us all process what had happened. Then a brief time with Clifton and his family concerning Flora, followed by the trip to the hospital to help Connie Wooten deal with what was happening in her life. Then back here with you and the kids and the chance to have a talk with Brandon that fell as flat as my sermon. I can’t believe all that happened in one day. It might well have been the worst day of my life. It’s no wonder I feel rode hard and put up wet this morning.”
Jayne rubbed my shoulder. “You do need a break but probably won’t get one. What can I do?”
“You’re doing it, just by loving me and understanding. I’ll go to the office and handle phone calls. There’ll be preliminary stuff to do to get ready for Flora’s memorial service. I’m glad she wanted to be cremated. Logistically, that makes things easier for me.”
“Why did she want to be cremated?” Jayne asked. Cremation was unusual for residents of Belvedere, where the more traditional norm was visitations, open caskets, and funeral services followed by graveside services.
“Well, it’s interesting. We had a long talk about it a couple of years ago. Flora had already told Clifton she wanted to be cremated, but he wanted her to explain it to me. It had to do with her personality and, I think, her faith.”
Jayne crossed her legs and looked me in the eyes. “Tell me.”
Her sincere smile helped me more than the sip of caffeine. “The faith part first. She knows that once a person has died, their spirit goes to be with the Lord. The body is just an empty shell. We’ll have new bodies in heaven. To put it crudely, the old one just rots in the grave if it is not cremated. I think Flora felt that leaving the body around to be looked at, carried into and out of the service, carried to the cemetery, and laid in the ground put too much focus on the body rather than the spirit.”
“Do you agree with that?”
“Actually I do. Maybe it’s something we’ll need to talk about concerning what happens to us in the end.”
The seriousness of the expression on Jayne’s face made it clear this was a new issue for her and one we would, indeed, need to discuss.
“But you said it was more than a faith matter with her.”
“I think it was. I believe it had to do with basic humility. She didn’t want her death to be made a big thing over. She didn’t want people oohing and aahing over a casket, talking about how beautiful and appropriate it was and how she looked so peaceful, etc. She just wanted people to get her death over with as quickly and easily as possible.”
With a look of frustration, Jane said, “But people need to process such a loss. She was such a major person in this community. Her death is an awful tragedy. We won’t want to forget her and all she has meant to us.”
I scratched my eyebrow. “Yeah, that’s the other side of it. But it was her choice, and it does make things easier for me. I know that’s a selfish thing to say, but considering everything else that’s going on, I’m grateful that we can have a memorial service and a reception afterward in the fellowship hall. Without coordinating with the funeral director, educating his staff on how to maneuver the casket in our church, organizing pall bearers—and then there’s the drive to the graveside….” I shrugged. “Clifton and the family will choose a later time and place for the interment of the ashes.”
“Okay, then what’s next for you?”
“Oh, not much.” I chuckled, tongue planted firmly in my cheek. “The church, the office, thinking all of this through, beginning to get ready for what lies ahead.”
Chapter 19
Betty Ferguson, our church secretary, met me at the door as I arrived at Incarnation. Betty, who might be called pleasingly plump, was normally energetic and efficient and had a cheerful disposition. This morning she seemed distracted, harassed, and in the need of direction.
“Too many phone calls already this morning?” I asked.
“You betcha!” She huffed into her bangs.
“What do you need from me?”
“Here’s a list. Mr. Stoner’s daughter Carolyn wants you to call her about arrangements for the memorial service Thursday, and there are some other calls you’ll want to answer. I’ll need your guidance on the worship bulletin. Then there are the florists! We’ve never gotten so many calls about flowers for a funeral service. I guess you’ll want me to get with the flower guild on that.”
And so it went. A busy day, but one in which I hoped to give thought to the sermon.
Memorial services are a challenge. There are standard Scripture passages to use, and I have used them many times. That’s not the problem. The problem is the tone of the service itself, the atmosphere appropriate to the situation. There is a lot of difference between a service for a young person who has suffered a tragic and unexpected death and one for an elderly member of the congregation who has been fighting illness for some time. In the one you have to allow for the shock of what has happened and the underlying disappointment with God that loved ones are often feeling. In the other, there is the opportunity to thank God for a life well lived. Of course in both situations the preacher wants to assure the family and friends that the person has gone on to a much better place.
Flora’s death fell somewhere between those two extremes. I wanted to honor her life and her heroic death but at the same time be sensitive to questions many would have about why she was taken from us so suddenly and in such a violent way.
Unfortunately, time for working through the best way to handle my sermon was cut short by a multitude of interruptions. The phone conversations and brief visits to the office by various people connected with Flora and with the service itself were pleasant.
But with all that was going on, I began to wonder if I was getting paranoid about my own role, per
haps because two calls and one visit came from the three people on the church’s leadership board whom I believed to have responded well to my incarnation challenge even if they hadn’t shown up for the session in the fellowship hall. Instead of focusing on the tragedy of the shooting and specifically on the profound shock all of us felt because of Flora Stoner’s death, these people were intent on giving me assurances about what an excellent pastor they thought I was. Why were they giving me these attaboys? Did it have anything to do with what might be going on behind my back in the church, the reason for Flora’s visit with me yesterday morning?
Whereas yesterday had been filled with so much action—most of it traumatic—that I could hardly catch my breath from one situation before another hit, today was a marked contrast. There were the interruptions (phone conversations and visits from members of the congregation), details to be tended to, and thoughts about the memorial service itself, but unlike yesterday, which was a day of doing, this developed into one of thinking. And I wasn’t happy with my thoughts because they were selfish ones. I was frankly worried about myself and my family—our future.
Mid-October in northern Georgia is unpredictable weather-wise. Although it’s fall, one day may feel like summer and the next like winter. Tuesday was an in-between day. The temperature hovered in the sixties, and it was cloudy. That pretty well matched my feelings. I felt suspended between whatever had happened and whatever was going to happen, and like the forecast, I was gloomy.
In the midst of everything else, I got a disturbing telephone call from Philip Treadway. He led into what he wanted to say by pointing out that Belvedere was no different from other towns and cities across the country. There were good-hearted people and there were mean-spirited ones. The deaths and injuries at the high school brought out the best in the best of them and the worst in the worst of them. Children from both the well-meaning families and the bitter ones had been victims.
At that point, Philip had taken a deep breath and a sigh. “Steve, all the parents are heartbroken, but some want revenge. Because they can’t wreak revenge on Tyler Wooten, his mother is their target.”
I dropped the pen I had been holding in my hand. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Another sigh. “Unfortunately not. It’s easy for me to pick up the mood. There are people like Mike Troutman, owner of a small moving company and father of a girl who was killed in the shooting. Mike is a guy with an appetite for troublemaking. One of Troutman’s workmen, who’s also a carpenter and a frequent customer, unintentionally alerted me to some of what is going on. He told me Mike’s got a real mad on, blaming that Wooten woman for what happened. And Mike is apparently talking to some of the others who agree with him. There’s going to be trouble.”
I fell back in my chair and let out a roar. “The woman’s suffered enough!”
Philip paused a moment then dropped the next bomb. “I wish that was all I had to tell you, but it’s not. I’m told that Troutman had Sam Cummings at the motel fire Connie Wooten. Cummings probably resisted, but Troutman is good at threatening and then backing it up.”
My head was spinning. I thanked Philip for bringing me up-to-date, but when I hung up, I headed for the sanctuary.
I had spent too much time that day wondering about what people thought about me, whether it was time for me to be considering a move, and any number of other self-focused matters. Other thoughts popped into my mind. With all that had occurred since Sunday, it was as if I had forgotten about Otis and the fact that he died of loneliness among a congregation of people who are to love their neighbor as themselves. How could that have happened on my watch? Now my anxiety shifted to Connie Wooten and what she faced. It was time to lift my concerns to God even though the sun didn’t cast its rainbow reflections through the stained glass in the way that always made me feel closer to the Almighty.
When I got home, instead of sharing my concerns with Jayne and the children, I tried to just be part of the family doing those things we would normally do on a Tuesday night—that is, if anything could be defined as normal in a pastor’s life.
Chapter 20
Wednesday, October 18
The following morning, the sun reappeared, and I felt I had begun to get things in perspective. I got a fairly good night’s sleep, ate a healthy breakfast, and felt ready for the day. Jayne, on the other hand, seemed perplexed.
Southern women have always amazed me. In the midst of all the turmoil going on in our lives, Jayne was concerned about what to take to the reception that would be held at Incarnation Church following the memorial service for Flora Stoner. My day would involve heading to the church office to work on final preparations for the service and specifically my sermon. In the meantime, Jayne was in a dither about the reception—more particularly, about what would be expected of her in providing a carry-in dish.
“Why don’t we just pick up some fried chicken?” I asked in my ignorance and lack of sensitivity. “That’s what people like.”
Jayne gave me that withering look that showed I, once again, just didn’t get the picture. “You know I can’t do that. I am, after all, the pastor’s wife. I’m supposed to show some leadership here. My cousin, you know, coauthored the book that is the gold standard for food at receptions following funerals.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, although it seemed to me we’d had this conversation more than once in the past. So I responded in obvious ignorance, “What’s your plan?”
“Well, Charlotte says tomato aspic is the choice item at a funeral reception. I’m not sure I’m up to the challenge. You’ve got to get the gelatin balance right or the stuff ends up being too runny or too firm. You’re to clip off the top of a bunch of celery. Well, how much is that? Some people like pecans in tomato aspic, but we don’t have any, and I’m not sure about the pecans anyway.” She finally took a breath.
With all the issues swirling around in my mind, there was something comforting about Jayne’s dilemma. The world hadn’t gone completely crazy if Jayne could be concerned about tomato aspic. “I know you will do your best.”
I quickly decided that now was the time to get out of the house, gave her a kiss on the forehead, and headed for my truck.
The plan for the day was to work with Betty in finalizing all of the arrangements for the service on the following day, and to prepare my sermon. There were fewer phone messages and other details for me to handle than I had expected—the joy of having an intelligent and efficient secretary. But I had difficulty concentrating on the sermon. The contacts from supporters yesterday kept surfacing in my brain.
Hadn’t I put all of that behind me yesterday? I had taken it to the Lord in prayer. Yet here it surfaced all over again, an unwelcome force entering my space and creating havoc within me.
Why had those three contacted me, and why were they so supportive? I had originally pushed to the back of my mind Clifton Stoner’s displeasure with my incarnation challenge. But Flora had taken it seriously enough to come and talk with me the day she died. “Clifton and some of the board members have been talking,” she had said. Then she had added, “They’re planning some sort of response to the challenge you laid out in your sermon,” or something like that. She urged me to stand firm. That was like Flora. She shared my concern that Otis had died of loneliness, and she welcomed the incarnation challenge because that was where she was, spiritually speaking.
Although her support had cheered me up, the fact that I might receive such a negative reaction to my challenge had caused me to wonder if my time at Incarnation Church needed to come to an end. I had actually discussed that with Philip Treadway. Then the shooting and Flora’s death had put everything on hold. Now it once more crept—unwanted—back into my mind.
I had been at Incarnation for fifteen years. I thought I knew these people. I knew what I had been teaching them over those years—what I thought to be solid Scripture-based sermons, lessons about Christian love and discipleship, challenging them to take what I had been telling the
m out into the world around them. I thought some of them took all of that seriously. I saw faithfulness in their faces and their actions in so many instances. I really cared for these people.
Yet I also knew that, for the most part, they were financially comfortable. They lived privileged lives. They weren’t dealing with the problems that faced the vast majority of people around the world. They had nice homes, ample food, and stylish clothes. Instead of serious evangelism, their idea of a church event to catch the attention of the community had once been a fashion show—an idea I quickly squelched, to the great displeasure of some of our leading women.
So, despite my best efforts, many of our people remained shallow in their faith. Instead of my incarnation challenge being a logical next step for them, it seemed to have been a bone of contention. In the depths of my being, I relived the heartbreak of no one showing up in the fellowship hall to discuss the matter—no one other than the Stoners, and the two of them diametrically opposed to each other!
Maybe it was time for a change. It might not be my decision. My challenge to the congregation had already sparked division. When it was known that I was going to have a funeral service for Tyler Wooten, the choice of what to do might not be my own. The board might make that decision for me. Clifton Stoner controlled the board, so most likely what he decided would be their decision.
I reflected on my options. Leaving a congregation after fifteen years—especially under a cloud—was not exactly a good advertisement for my future ministry. What if I tried to plant a church somewhere—where would it be and how could I afford to do it? Knowing the folks at Incarnation, they would be generous to my family and me on our departure, even if the board forced my resignation. But our savings account was small, and even a generous gift from the church wouldn’t last us long.
And what could I do other than pastor a church? Go back to work for Philip Treadway in his lumberyard? That didn’t sound very productive and probably wouldn’t be an option anyway. He had hired me years ago only on a part-time basis to supplement my church salary in those early days. He didn’t need even a part-time guy to help him now.
In His Place: A Modern-Day Challenge for Readers of In His Steps Page 9
