Full-Throated Joy?
Stories
Contents
“Full-Throated Joy?” by David O. Bales
“With Weeping And Joy” by David O. Bales
“Second Chances” by Peter Andrew Smith
Full-Throated Joy?
by David O. Bales
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Pelatiah felt more than heard the shouting. He was so tired he couldn’t rouse his body, let alone his mind. He’d been up half the night with Zerah, convincing him, he thought, to stay with the caravan so that today all exiles could arrive to Jerusalem together. Besides, he needed Zerah on guard duty. Until then Zerah had been faithful, hopeful, even edifying for the returning exiles strung half a day behind on the trail. Then a local had informed them they were a day’s walk from Jerusalem. Word traveled from the front of the caravan to the end faster than a horse’s gallop. That’s when Zerah had gone half crazy, leaping and shouting. Pelatiah had grabbed and held him until he quieted. Finally, in the late evening, Zerah agreed to complete his guard duty, protecting the blind, the lame, the toddlers and women about to give birth. But soon Hashum had shaken Pelatiah awake, “Zerah’s gone. The guard to relieve him just reported.” They had dashed around searching for him until the pink of dawn when Pelatiah finally struggled to this spot on the dewy ground to sleep a wink before daybreak.
The yelling now broke through Pelatiah’s most resilient dream. Shouting this early in the morning? Joyful shouting, not an alarm. Hashum stood over him, shaking him. But Hashum wasn’t raising his voice. His lips pressed in a scowl. Hashum spoke slowly, “It’s Japheth. He’s gone daft also.” Last day before, Jerusalem and Japheth danced in his own circle of celebration, shouting, “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, Save, Yahweh, your people, the remnant of Israel. Sing aloud. Raise shouts!”
Pelatiah rolled onto his side and got his unsure feet under him, rising with a mumble, “Not another one.” For the last week as they neared Jerusalem, he and Hashum successfully handled what Hashum designated “Jerusalem Fever.” Last night, however, roused by Zerah who kept jabbering about arriving to the temple where his father as a child had seen its gigantic doors, the returning exiles almost became a mob, like a dislodged boulder crashing down a precipice causing an avalanche tumbling through the camp. Pelatiah and Hashum exercised their will and wiles to convince the exiles for safety to remain together one more day.
Pelatiah rubbed his eyes and looked around to spot the commotion across the campsite. Japheth wrenched himself from the two men holding him and leaped again, shouting, “See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth. See! See! We’ve arrived to Jerusalem from the north.”
Pelatiah nodded to Hashum, “Bring him to me.” Pelatiah had discussed this before with Japheth. Nightly on the journey to their ancestral homeland the exiles gathered in their clans to chant psalms and to repeat the prophets’ oracles. Pelatiah made his rounds then encouraging yet warning the expectant exiles that life would be more difficult here in the ruins of Persia’s new province of Yehud than in Babylon. The exiles had left their dandy gardens beside Babylon’s canals to start here from nothing. He tried to dampen the enthusiasm that could turn to despair if the exiles kept raising their expectations. His discussions hadn’t stopped Zerah who’d abandoned his post and, everyone assumed, lit out for Jerusalem alone. Another strong, healthy man lost from the community, a ragged group that had trudged months only as fast as the weakest could walk or be carried.
Their entire journey was a struggle to keep people concerned for the needs of others, not just for their family and clan. In Babylon some exiles had started to believe that supporting the community was optional. They should’ve learned within a week on the trail that even simplest cooperation was necessary. Brigands preyed on the slowest. For weeks the exiles spotted the campfires of their foes nightly. The exiles’ attempt for a preemptive strike failed for scarcity of weapons. Pelatiah instructed his guards afterwards, “See, the brigands know how to post guards and stay alert.”
Pelatiah brushed the dust from his robe and swallowed twice to wake himself thoroughly. Hashum dragged along Japheth between his jumps. Japheth kept throwing his arms around and shouting, “Sing aloud and shout for gladness to Yahweh remnant of Israel.”
He pulled free of Hashum and ran to Pelatiah. “We’re almost there, Pelatiah. Sing aloud and shout with gladness to Yahweh.”
Pelatiah remained stony-faced. Japheth tossed his head side to side like a child’s toy, “If only Jeremiah could see us and know that Yahweh’s promise is fulfilled right here.” He finally realized that Pelatiah’s frown was a reprimand; although, caught up in his joy, he didn’t understand why.
Pelatiah spoke slowly, “You recall some of Jeremiah’s words.” His statement felt like a test, an interrogation.
“Yes.”
“I applaud your memory and your enthusiasm for our project to repopulate our ancestral homeland, Yahweh’s promise to our forebears.” He’d prepared what he would say in such a circumstance, especially concerning Jeremiah’s prophecies. “Along with you I believe this undertaking is Yahweh’s doing. Thus, remember the weeping. Yes, we return, but with weeping. Jeremiah? He wept. All this deserves our weeping, not just in joy, but also in sadness for what brought about Jerusalem’s destruction and our families’ exile. Weep, aware of our people’s unfaithfulness. Weep for Yahweh’s gracious forgiveness. When we reach Jerusalem, I too will shout. However,” he lowered his voice, “having seen the problems of community idolatry, I will recall at Jerusalem what our grandparents did in this land that led to Yahweh’s ejecting them. I will shout. It won’t be full-throated shouting but shouting after repentance and weeping. I will remember Jeremiah suffering in Jerusalem because of our people’s sin. I will recall his suffering so he could grant hope to this remnant.”
Pelatiah and Hashum stood silently before Japheth. Finally, Japheth understood that he was supposed to respond. He shook his head. “Alright,” he said.
“Please pass this on to the others as we make our last day’s journey to our new home.”
With a bewildered look Japheth stumbled away to the morning’s breakfast fires. Hashum stepped next to Pelatiah and watched Japheth leave. “You think he understood?”
Pelatiah looked south toward the road to Jerusalem, “Probably about as well as our Judean ancestors understood Jeremiah.”
Preaching point: When the proper response to God’s grace is solemn joy.
* * *
With Weeping And Joy
by David O. Bales
Psalm 126
Snow clogged the windshield wipers again. The car’s defrost was losing the battle. However, this time Brenda dare not stop to get out to clean them. Snow was plowed in deep berms on both sides of the road — like driving through a white tunnel — and, although traffic had been spotty early this Sunday morning, some foolish or desperate people like herself were traveling in tandem up the pass. She’d used her last chance before ascending the pass to stop at a Texaco gas station to clean the wipers and to phone the Purdy Mountain Church that she was on the highway and about to drive out of cell coverage. Her promise to arrive this morning to preach was day one of her larger promise. She’d agreed to take a year out of seminary to pastor the small congregation.
The congregation hadn’t always been small. They’d seemed a strong and healthy congregation until Pastor Leiser, for reasons of pure doctrine (and equally pure motives, of course), led half the congregation away to start a competing congregation in a storefront downtown, leaving the Purdy Mountain congregation demoralized and maintaining a half empty building.
At the 4,000-foot elevation sign, traffic slowed and cars’ stop lights lit up for a quarter mile’s crawl up a long hill. Cars filled in behind her. Brenda realized she clutched the steering wheel desperately. Her shoulders and back muscles ached with anxiety. Her unease wasn’t just because of the traffic and snowstorm, but what she might be getting into for a year. She had no experience as a pastor, just a year of seminary after college, having been in the church all her life and deeply serious about God — her paraphrase for loving God.
And thank God, the cars continued moving, if only thirty miles an hour. The forecast had warned of heavy snow over the pass. Yet, a month ago, when she’d met with the elders and members, she’d felt compelled to come serve the Purdy Mountain congregation. They’d been so dispirited. “We know that some of us, maybe most of us, aren’t as religious as we should be,” one older man said with his hand on Brenda’s arm. “But we’re struggling mightily not to be hateful or self-righteous. Louise is about the only reason we’ve held together. She’s as much a pastor as a church secretary. But she’s unravelling too. Very difficult for half the congregation to leave, defining the rest of us as defective Christians, if Christians at all.”
The church council, what was left of it, as much as begged her to come minister to them. Their discussion and prayers seemed sincere. As Brenda was about to drive away from that day’s interview, Louise had tagged along to the parking lot. “I’ve been in this congregation through its ups and downs for 32 years.” She leaned on Brenda’s car and started to cry. “This is its last gasp. You might as well know: No one else has agreed to come as pastor. We’d do about anything to hire you — if only for a year. I don’t mean just to keep the doors open. I mean spiritually. So much needs to be renewed if not merely salvaged.”
Louise had answered the phone in the church kitchen when Brenda called from the gas station to say she was 19 miles away and heading over the pass. Louise said, “We’ll be praying for you.”
Now the cars were advancing and halting,twenty miles an hour at most. At least that allowed Brenda once to charge out into the drifting snow to snap some of the ice off the wipers. Traffic advanced three more times at fifteen miles an hour then all motion stopped. Twenty minutes passed. No traffic now in the opposite direction. Brenda looked at her watch. She’d started early but it was 9:37 and worship was at 11. Flashing lights and a siren signaled the approach of an ambulance from behind on the empty opposing lane. Another 25 minutes passed. Snow and wind stopped and started. Up the hill, the exhaust from the cars wafted around the stop lights like a string of fuzzy Christmas lights. Ten more minutes and the ambulance returned, slowly, lights only, no siren. Snow descended with it and a snowmobile behind it. As the snowmobile came down the hill, it stopped beside each vehicle. A state trooper rode it and halted to speak with the driver in each car. He stopped at Brenda’s car, goggles up on his uniform hat covered with plastic like a shower cap.
She lowered her window. He leaned toward her and shouted over the wind, “You Reverend Fleet?”
She almost didn’t answer, she was confused. A swirl of snow blasted into her face and down her neck. Her last name was Fleet, but she wasn’t ordained. He made a movement to continue, and she yelled after him, “Yes!”
He slid to a halt, got off and rushed back.
Snow encrusted his overcoat and icicles dripped even from his goggles. He spoke against the wind with a policeman’s authority, “You preaching today in Purdy Mountain?”
“I’m supposed to.”
“Louise says you’re to come with me,” he spoke against the wind. “We’ll drive your car downhill to a wide spot. About a quarter mile. Then bundle up as much as possible. We’ll leave your car, and you’ll ride with me.”
Brenda sat slack mouthed for at least a second. All her possessions were stuffed in the car. He said, “Now!” He stepped back and waved the car behind to back up and she managed to turn around and follow his snowmobile downhill to the spot he pointed to. She drove as far off the road as possible and braced herself against the wind as she got out to slip on her boots, put on a second sweater under her big coat, and grab her sermon folder. She felt as though she were in her youth group relay of putting on silly clothes as fast as possible. She was already freezing. She locked the door and looked into her car one last time. The trooper shouted, “Don’t worry about your car. It’ll be covered with a foot of snow next time the plow comes by.”
She was glad she’d worn slacks instead of a skirt. The trooper got on the snowmobile. A gust of snow made him frantically grab his hat. He patted the seat behind him. “Grab me and hang on.” She’d never been on a snowmobile, let alone the back of one; but without a third or fourth thought she mounted and clasped her arms around him. They inched up the left lane, interesting or amusing every car they passed. They snaked around the wreck that had halted the traffic. Two troopers waved them through. Now with a clear lane ahead the trooper sped up, each bounce radiating pain up her back. Brenda squeezed him for dear life, her chin pressed into his icy overcoat. He must have realized and slowed. He yelled over his shoulder, “Twenty miles an hour.”
On the downside of the pass, they continued through howling snow squalls three or four miles to where the snow was becoming rain. The trooper yelled into the wet snow and pointed, “Over there!” A state truck was parked with a flatbed trailer, ramp down. Facing it was a silver Dodge Ram 4x4 pickup idled with a diesel rumble, Louise at the wheel. The trooper stopped without a word and motioned Brenda off. He saluted to Louise and roared away. Louise tumbled out from the pickup, tears on her cheeks. She grabbed Brenda, “We were so worried!” Brenda tried to speak, but she was too cold. She just nodded quickly and smiled through her chattering teeth. Louise hustled her around and helped her up into the warm, damp heat. She was slapping feeling back into her thighs as Louise climbed behind the wheel and slammed her door with a look of triumph.
“The trooper,” Brenda managed to say. “Good idea.”
Louise put the pickup in drive, looked over her left shoulder and drove slowly onto the slush. “My nephew Kenneth,” she said. “He’s pretty shy. Hides behind his badge so he doesn’t have to say much.” She looked directly ahead to the road. “Not married.”
Brenda gave a groan with a frown into a smile.
Wiping away her tears, Louise said, “I told you we’d do anything to get you here.”
Brenda shifted the conversation to details of the worship service. “I want to make sure I don’t keep standing when everyone else sits.” Louise talked her through the order of service. They arrived to the church to a swirl of rushing. Worship began at 11:16. Considering her exhaustion and the pain in her back, Brenda felt that she’d served adequately, concentrating on doing nothing to distract people from their attention to God’s Word in the scriptures. Most difficult for her was that her message from Psalm 126 seemed especially to strike Louise who sat in the second row, quietly weeping through the sermon.
Preaching point: Tears of need, relief, and of gratitude to God.
* * *
Second Chances
by Peter Andrew Smith
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Steve frowned at the man standing across from him at the park. “What did you do to yourself?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Tim spread his hands. “I just said thanks for meeting me here I don’t have too long because I have to get home to Jolese and the kids soon.”
“I know.” Steve shook his head. “The Tim I used to run with wouldn’t let anyone tell him what to do. Heaven knows I tried all the time.”
“I grew up,” Tim said. “What’s that look for?”
“You’re happy. You talk about her, and the babies and you just start smiling. You’re upbeat and at peace with yourself.” Steve narrowed his eyes. “What changed you? Last I heard you were angrier than ever and running with a bad crowd.”
Tim sighed and sat down on the park bench. “I was heading toward disaster, and no one could tell me anything. That’s when it happened.”
“What happened?”
“I nearly died.”
“What? Did you get shot?”
“No, I was in a car accident.” Tim rubbed his face. “Totaled the car late one night driving down the highway.”
“I’m so sorry. I never heard.” Steve sat beside him. “Were you hurt?”
Tim shook his head. “I walked away with some bumps and bruises but otherwise not a scratch on me.”
Steve frowned. “How would that change you?”
“As I sat in the wreck waiting for the fire department to cut me out, I started wondering who would come to my funeral and who would remember me.” Tim held up his hand. “I know some of the old crowd would show up out of respect for my mom but honestly would you have come last year?”
Steve opened his mouth and closed it. He shrugged. “Honestly Tim, I don’t know. The way we left things...”
“Yeah. I pretty much alienated all my friends, and my life was a mess. I realized that something had to change.” Tim fingered the cross around his neck. “First thing I did was go to church that Sunday with my mom. Then God and I had a long talk.”
“Huh. I never took you for the church going type,” Steve said. “Anytime I mentioned Jesus or church you had no time and no interest in listening.”
Tim shrugged. “I guess I listened more than either of us thought. After I looked at my life, I realized how much I had lost because of the way I was living. That was when I came to Jesus and asked for forgiveness. And you know what?”
“What?”
“I was forgiven,” Tim said. “Then I went back to Jolese and started to make things right.”
“I have no problem accepting that Jesus forgave you but Jolese...” Steve whistled. “How did that go?”
“She slammed the door on my face at first. I had a lot of trust to build back with her. There have been some rocky patches but we’re making it work and like you said I’ve never been happier.” Tim smiled. “I’ve got her and the babies back in my life, I’m holding down a job, and I feel like I’m doing things right now.”
“I’m happy for you, man.” Steve looked at his childhood friend. “I really don’t understand why you called me out of the blue, though. I mean we haven’t spoken for a long time.”
“Well, I probably was an idiot to you a lot of the time we were friends and I know I was the last time we spoke and got into that fight.” Tim took a deep breath. “I want to apologize.”
Steve shrugged. “It’s all good.”
“No, it isn’t. I was full of myself, and you were only trying to be a friend. You saw my life was falling apart but I didn’t want to hear it or see it. I should have realized you were only looking out for me and what I said was out of line.” Tim reached out his hand. “I’m sorry.”
Steve rubbed his chin. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Tim nodded. “I am. I’m not saying things can go back the way they used to be, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry for what I said and what I did. You’re a good man and were a good friend to me.”
Steve narrowed his eyes. “Why did you say ‘were’?”
Tim frowned. “Now you’ve lost me.”
“If Jolese can give you another chance, I figure I can to.” Steve grabbed his hand tightly.
Tim pulled him into a quick hug. “Man, I don’t deserve a friend like you.”
“No, you don’t.” Steve laughed. “Isn’t God’s forgiveness and grace great?”
“Amen.” Tim smiled at his friend. “Amen.”
*****************************************
StoryShare, October 24, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Full-Throated Joy?” by David O. Bales
“With Weeping And Joy” by David O. Bales
“Second Chances” by Peter Andrew Smith
Full-Throated Joy?
by David O. Bales
Jeremiah 31:7-9
Pelatiah felt more than heard the shouting. He was so tired he couldn’t rouse his body, let alone his mind. He’d been up half the night with Zerah, convincing him, he thought, to stay with the caravan so that today all exiles could arrive to Jerusalem together. Besides, he needed Zerah on guard duty. Until then Zerah had been faithful, hopeful, even edifying for the returning exiles strung half a day behind on the trail. Then a local had informed them they were a day’s walk from Jerusalem. Word traveled from the front of the caravan to the end faster than a horse’s gallop. That’s when Zerah had gone half crazy, leaping and shouting. Pelatiah had grabbed and held him until he quieted. Finally, in the late evening, Zerah agreed to complete his guard duty, protecting the blind, the lame, the toddlers and women about to give birth. But soon Hashum had shaken Pelatiah awake, “Zerah’s gone. The guard to relieve him just reported.” They had dashed around searching for him until the pink of dawn when Pelatiah finally struggled to this spot on the dewy ground to sleep a wink before daybreak.
The yelling now broke through Pelatiah’s most resilient dream. Shouting this early in the morning? Joyful shouting, not an alarm. Hashum stood over him, shaking him. But Hashum wasn’t raising his voice. His lips pressed in a scowl. Hashum spoke slowly, “It’s Japheth. He’s gone daft also.” Last day before, Jerusalem and Japheth danced in his own circle of celebration, shouting, “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, Save, Yahweh, your people, the remnant of Israel. Sing aloud. Raise shouts!”
Pelatiah rolled onto his side and got his unsure feet under him, rising with a mumble, “Not another one.” For the last week as they neared Jerusalem, he and Hashum successfully handled what Hashum designated “Jerusalem Fever.” Last night, however, roused by Zerah who kept jabbering about arriving to the temple where his father as a child had seen its gigantic doors, the returning exiles almost became a mob, like a dislodged boulder crashing down a precipice causing an avalanche tumbling through the camp. Pelatiah and Hashum exercised their will and wiles to convince the exiles for safety to remain together one more day.
Pelatiah rubbed his eyes and looked around to spot the commotion across the campsite. Japheth wrenched himself from the two men holding him and leaped again, shouting, “See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth. See! See! We’ve arrived to Jerusalem from the north.”
Pelatiah nodded to Hashum, “Bring him to me.” Pelatiah had discussed this before with Japheth. Nightly on the journey to their ancestral homeland the exiles gathered in their clans to chant psalms and to repeat the prophets’ oracles. Pelatiah made his rounds then encouraging yet warning the expectant exiles that life would be more difficult here in the ruins of Persia’s new province of Yehud than in Babylon. The exiles had left their dandy gardens beside Babylon’s canals to start here from nothing. He tried to dampen the enthusiasm that could turn to despair if the exiles kept raising their expectations. His discussions hadn’t stopped Zerah who’d abandoned his post and, everyone assumed, lit out for Jerusalem alone. Another strong, healthy man lost from the community, a ragged group that had trudged months only as fast as the weakest could walk or be carried.
Their entire journey was a struggle to keep people concerned for the needs of others, not just for their family and clan. In Babylon some exiles had started to believe that supporting the community was optional. They should’ve learned within a week on the trail that even simplest cooperation was necessary. Brigands preyed on the slowest. For weeks the exiles spotted the campfires of their foes nightly. The exiles’ attempt for a preemptive strike failed for scarcity of weapons. Pelatiah instructed his guards afterwards, “See, the brigands know how to post guards and stay alert.”
Pelatiah brushed the dust from his robe and swallowed twice to wake himself thoroughly. Hashum dragged along Japheth between his jumps. Japheth kept throwing his arms around and shouting, “Sing aloud and shout for gladness to Yahweh remnant of Israel.”
He pulled free of Hashum and ran to Pelatiah. “We’re almost there, Pelatiah. Sing aloud and shout with gladness to Yahweh.”
Pelatiah remained stony-faced. Japheth tossed his head side to side like a child’s toy, “If only Jeremiah could see us and know that Yahweh’s promise is fulfilled right here.” He finally realized that Pelatiah’s frown was a reprimand; although, caught up in his joy, he didn’t understand why.
Pelatiah spoke slowly, “You recall some of Jeremiah’s words.” His statement felt like a test, an interrogation.
“Yes.”
“I applaud your memory and your enthusiasm for our project to repopulate our ancestral homeland, Yahweh’s promise to our forebears.” He’d prepared what he would say in such a circumstance, especially concerning Jeremiah’s prophecies. “Along with you I believe this undertaking is Yahweh’s doing. Thus, remember the weeping. Yes, we return, but with weeping. Jeremiah? He wept. All this deserves our weeping, not just in joy, but also in sadness for what brought about Jerusalem’s destruction and our families’ exile. Weep, aware of our people’s unfaithfulness. Weep for Yahweh’s gracious forgiveness. When we reach Jerusalem, I too will shout. However,” he lowered his voice, “having seen the problems of community idolatry, I will recall at Jerusalem what our grandparents did in this land that led to Yahweh’s ejecting them. I will shout. It won’t be full-throated shouting but shouting after repentance and weeping. I will remember Jeremiah suffering in Jerusalem because of our people’s sin. I will recall his suffering so he could grant hope to this remnant.”
Pelatiah and Hashum stood silently before Japheth. Finally, Japheth understood that he was supposed to respond. He shook his head. “Alright,” he said.
“Please pass this on to the others as we make our last day’s journey to our new home.”
With a bewildered look Japheth stumbled away to the morning’s breakfast fires. Hashum stepped next to Pelatiah and watched Japheth leave. “You think he understood?”
Pelatiah looked south toward the road to Jerusalem, “Probably about as well as our Judean ancestors understood Jeremiah.”
Preaching point: When the proper response to God’s grace is solemn joy.
* * *
With Weeping And Joy
by David O. Bales
Psalm 126
Snow clogged the windshield wipers again. The car’s defrost was losing the battle. However, this time Brenda dare not stop to get out to clean them. Snow was plowed in deep berms on both sides of the road — like driving through a white tunnel — and, although traffic had been spotty early this Sunday morning, some foolish or desperate people like herself were traveling in tandem up the pass. She’d used her last chance before ascending the pass to stop at a Texaco gas station to clean the wipers and to phone the Purdy Mountain Church that she was on the highway and about to drive out of cell coverage. Her promise to arrive this morning to preach was day one of her larger promise. She’d agreed to take a year out of seminary to pastor the small congregation.
The congregation hadn’t always been small. They’d seemed a strong and healthy congregation until Pastor Leiser, for reasons of pure doctrine (and equally pure motives, of course), led half the congregation away to start a competing congregation in a storefront downtown, leaving the Purdy Mountain congregation demoralized and maintaining a half empty building.
At the 4,000-foot elevation sign, traffic slowed and cars’ stop lights lit up for a quarter mile’s crawl up a long hill. Cars filled in behind her. Brenda realized she clutched the steering wheel desperately. Her shoulders and back muscles ached with anxiety. Her unease wasn’t just because of the traffic and snowstorm, but what she might be getting into for a year. She had no experience as a pastor, just a year of seminary after college, having been in the church all her life and deeply serious about God — her paraphrase for loving God.
And thank God, the cars continued moving, if only thirty miles an hour. The forecast had warned of heavy snow over the pass. Yet, a month ago, when she’d met with the elders and members, she’d felt compelled to come serve the Purdy Mountain congregation. They’d been so dispirited. “We know that some of us, maybe most of us, aren’t as religious as we should be,” one older man said with his hand on Brenda’s arm. “But we’re struggling mightily not to be hateful or self-righteous. Louise is about the only reason we’ve held together. She’s as much a pastor as a church secretary. But she’s unravelling too. Very difficult for half the congregation to leave, defining the rest of us as defective Christians, if Christians at all.”
The church council, what was left of it, as much as begged her to come minister to them. Their discussion and prayers seemed sincere. As Brenda was about to drive away from that day’s interview, Louise had tagged along to the parking lot. “I’ve been in this congregation through its ups and downs for 32 years.” She leaned on Brenda’s car and started to cry. “This is its last gasp. You might as well know: No one else has agreed to come as pastor. We’d do about anything to hire you — if only for a year. I don’t mean just to keep the doors open. I mean spiritually. So much needs to be renewed if not merely salvaged.”
Louise had answered the phone in the church kitchen when Brenda called from the gas station to say she was 19 miles away and heading over the pass. Louise said, “We’ll be praying for you.”
Now the cars were advancing and halting,twenty miles an hour at most. At least that allowed Brenda once to charge out into the drifting snow to snap some of the ice off the wipers. Traffic advanced three more times at fifteen miles an hour then all motion stopped. Twenty minutes passed. No traffic now in the opposite direction. Brenda looked at her watch. She’d started early but it was 9:37 and worship was at 11. Flashing lights and a siren signaled the approach of an ambulance from behind on the empty opposing lane. Another 25 minutes passed. Snow and wind stopped and started. Up the hill, the exhaust from the cars wafted around the stop lights like a string of fuzzy Christmas lights. Ten more minutes and the ambulance returned, slowly, lights only, no siren. Snow descended with it and a snowmobile behind it. As the snowmobile came down the hill, it stopped beside each vehicle. A state trooper rode it and halted to speak with the driver in each car. He stopped at Brenda’s car, goggles up on his uniform hat covered with plastic like a shower cap.
She lowered her window. He leaned toward her and shouted over the wind, “You Reverend Fleet?”
She almost didn’t answer, she was confused. A swirl of snow blasted into her face and down her neck. Her last name was Fleet, but she wasn’t ordained. He made a movement to continue, and she yelled after him, “Yes!”
He slid to a halt, got off and rushed back.
Snow encrusted his overcoat and icicles dripped even from his goggles. He spoke against the wind with a policeman’s authority, “You preaching today in Purdy Mountain?”
“I’m supposed to.”
“Louise says you’re to come with me,” he spoke against the wind. “We’ll drive your car downhill to a wide spot. About a quarter mile. Then bundle up as much as possible. We’ll leave your car, and you’ll ride with me.”
Brenda sat slack mouthed for at least a second. All her possessions were stuffed in the car. He said, “Now!” He stepped back and waved the car behind to back up and she managed to turn around and follow his snowmobile downhill to the spot he pointed to. She drove as far off the road as possible and braced herself against the wind as she got out to slip on her boots, put on a second sweater under her big coat, and grab her sermon folder. She felt as though she were in her youth group relay of putting on silly clothes as fast as possible. She was already freezing. She locked the door and looked into her car one last time. The trooper shouted, “Don’t worry about your car. It’ll be covered with a foot of snow next time the plow comes by.”
She was glad she’d worn slacks instead of a skirt. The trooper got on the snowmobile. A gust of snow made him frantically grab his hat. He patted the seat behind him. “Grab me and hang on.” She’d never been on a snowmobile, let alone the back of one; but without a third or fourth thought she mounted and clasped her arms around him. They inched up the left lane, interesting or amusing every car they passed. They snaked around the wreck that had halted the traffic. Two troopers waved them through. Now with a clear lane ahead the trooper sped up, each bounce radiating pain up her back. Brenda squeezed him for dear life, her chin pressed into his icy overcoat. He must have realized and slowed. He yelled over his shoulder, “Twenty miles an hour.”
On the downside of the pass, they continued through howling snow squalls three or four miles to where the snow was becoming rain. The trooper yelled into the wet snow and pointed, “Over there!” A state truck was parked with a flatbed trailer, ramp down. Facing it was a silver Dodge Ram 4x4 pickup idled with a diesel rumble, Louise at the wheel. The trooper stopped without a word and motioned Brenda off. He saluted to Louise and roared away. Louise tumbled out from the pickup, tears on her cheeks. She grabbed Brenda, “We were so worried!” Brenda tried to speak, but she was too cold. She just nodded quickly and smiled through her chattering teeth. Louise hustled her around and helped her up into the warm, damp heat. She was slapping feeling back into her thighs as Louise climbed behind the wheel and slammed her door with a look of triumph.
“The trooper,” Brenda managed to say. “Good idea.”
Louise put the pickup in drive, looked over her left shoulder and drove slowly onto the slush. “My nephew Kenneth,” she said. “He’s pretty shy. Hides behind his badge so he doesn’t have to say much.” She looked directly ahead to the road. “Not married.”
Brenda gave a groan with a frown into a smile.
Wiping away her tears, Louise said, “I told you we’d do anything to get you here.”
Brenda shifted the conversation to details of the worship service. “I want to make sure I don’t keep standing when everyone else sits.” Louise talked her through the order of service. They arrived to the church to a swirl of rushing. Worship began at 11:16. Considering her exhaustion and the pain in her back, Brenda felt that she’d served adequately, concentrating on doing nothing to distract people from their attention to God’s Word in the scriptures. Most difficult for her was that her message from Psalm 126 seemed especially to strike Louise who sat in the second row, quietly weeping through the sermon.
Preaching point: Tears of need, relief, and of gratitude to God.
* * *
Second Chances
by Peter Andrew Smith
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Steve frowned at the man standing across from him at the park. “What did you do to yourself?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Tim spread his hands. “I just said thanks for meeting me here I don’t have too long because I have to get home to Jolese and the kids soon.”
“I know.” Steve shook his head. “The Tim I used to run with wouldn’t let anyone tell him what to do. Heaven knows I tried all the time.”
“I grew up,” Tim said. “What’s that look for?”
“You’re happy. You talk about her, and the babies and you just start smiling. You’re upbeat and at peace with yourself.” Steve narrowed his eyes. “What changed you? Last I heard you were angrier than ever and running with a bad crowd.”
Tim sighed and sat down on the park bench. “I was heading toward disaster, and no one could tell me anything. That’s when it happened.”
“What happened?”
“I nearly died.”
“What? Did you get shot?”
“No, I was in a car accident.” Tim rubbed his face. “Totaled the car late one night driving down the highway.”
“I’m so sorry. I never heard.” Steve sat beside him. “Were you hurt?”
Tim shook his head. “I walked away with some bumps and bruises but otherwise not a scratch on me.”
Steve frowned. “How would that change you?”
“As I sat in the wreck waiting for the fire department to cut me out, I started wondering who would come to my funeral and who would remember me.” Tim held up his hand. “I know some of the old crowd would show up out of respect for my mom but honestly would you have come last year?”
Steve opened his mouth and closed it. He shrugged. “Honestly Tim, I don’t know. The way we left things...”
“Yeah. I pretty much alienated all my friends, and my life was a mess. I realized that something had to change.” Tim fingered the cross around his neck. “First thing I did was go to church that Sunday with my mom. Then God and I had a long talk.”
“Huh. I never took you for the church going type,” Steve said. “Anytime I mentioned Jesus or church you had no time and no interest in listening.”
Tim shrugged. “I guess I listened more than either of us thought. After I looked at my life, I realized how much I had lost because of the way I was living. That was when I came to Jesus and asked for forgiveness. And you know what?”
“What?”
“I was forgiven,” Tim said. “Then I went back to Jolese and started to make things right.”
“I have no problem accepting that Jesus forgave you but Jolese...” Steve whistled. “How did that go?”
“She slammed the door on my face at first. I had a lot of trust to build back with her. There have been some rocky patches but we’re making it work and like you said I’ve never been happier.” Tim smiled. “I’ve got her and the babies back in my life, I’m holding down a job, and I feel like I’m doing things right now.”
“I’m happy for you, man.” Steve looked at his childhood friend. “I really don’t understand why you called me out of the blue, though. I mean we haven’t spoken for a long time.”
“Well, I probably was an idiot to you a lot of the time we were friends and I know I was the last time we spoke and got into that fight.” Tim took a deep breath. “I want to apologize.”
Steve shrugged. “It’s all good.”
“No, it isn’t. I was full of myself, and you were only trying to be a friend. You saw my life was falling apart but I didn’t want to hear it or see it. I should have realized you were only looking out for me and what I said was out of line.” Tim reached out his hand. “I’m sorry.”
Steve rubbed his chin. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Tim nodded. “I am. I’m not saying things can go back the way they used to be, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry for what I said and what I did. You’re a good man and were a good friend to me.”
Steve narrowed his eyes. “Why did you say ‘were’?”
Tim frowned. “Now you’ve lost me.”
“If Jolese can give you another chance, I figure I can to.” Steve grabbed his hand tightly.
Tim pulled him into a quick hug. “Man, I don’t deserve a friend like you.”
“No, you don’t.” Steve laughed. “Isn’t God’s forgiveness and grace great?”
“Amen.” Tim smiled at his friend. “Amen.”
*****************************************
StoryShare, October 24, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
