The Prodigal: A Ragamuffin Story (14 page)

“Are you afraid to preach, boyo?” Father Frank asked him at Buddy’s as they looked at the readings together—Frank sipping his ginger ale, Jack drinking an icy mug of Shiner Bock. “Is that what it comes down to?”

Jack nodded, first slowly, then vigorously. “I am terrified down to my very boots.”

Frank looked longingly at Jack’s beer, shook his head. “Then why, pray tell, are you getting up there?”

That was the question. Jack started ticking things off on his fingers. “My father loves that church. My mother loved it, although I could not tell you why. The songs, I think. The old hymns.” He finished his beer.

“You want another, Jack?” Shayla asked. She was polishing a lot of glasses these days. Five members of the press sat at the bar, three in the booths, all of them shooting daggers at Jack for refusing to talk to them during the day—and coming into their only safe place at night.

“No thanks, Shayla,” he said. “I’m making an early night of it.”

Frank pressed on. “Your parents are not a sufficient reason to take this on,” Frank said. “Why are you really preaching Sunday?”

“Hey,” a cameraman said. He was about three sheets to the wind, but still capable of overhearing much. “Are you preaching Sunday, Jack Chisholm?” He weaved a little on his stool. “In a church?”

“Jack is preaching at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church this coming Sunday,” Father Frank said. “Tell your friends.”

The cameraman leaned over and told his reporter. His reporter slid off her stool and went over to the booths filled with newsies. All of them took out their phones and started making calls.

Jack watched this with growing horror.

“Hey,” Jack said, turning on Father Frank. “You—you are a big fat blabbermouth man of God.” He raised a hand in the air, resisted the urge to slap Frank with it. “Why would you do that?”

Father Frank set down his glass. “Do you imagine you can do this thing casually, Jack? Just say a few words. No one will know or care?” He shook his head. “There is nothing casual about preaching.” He smiled ruefully. “Unless you rely on a catchphrase.”

“I didn’t want CNN to know about it,” Jack said. “I’m just trying to make amends. To—”

“It is an awesome responsibility to speak on behalf of God,” Father Frank said. “To bring the good news to a world full of pain. I want to know that you remember what you’re signing up for.”

“Frank, I have preached to more people—”

“You haven’t preached to these people,” Frank said. “Most of them are older, most of them are barely getting by, most of them are scared of the future. Not hopeful. Scared.” It sounded like he was getting into a preaching mood himself.

“I know,” Jack said. “Things around here haven’t changed that much—”

Frank laid a hand on Jack’s arm to silence him. He fixed Jack with a gaze that burned. “I’m begging you, Jack. Make them feel better. Not worse.” He took his hand away, patted the bar in front of him, and Shayla began pouring him another ginger ale. “Preach the good news, Jack. Not that we are unloved and unlovable. Jesus sat down to dinner with everyone who wanted to be there. It is amazing grace, not universal disgrace.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to preach,” Jack said hotly. “Especially now that CNN is coming.” He tried to glare at Frank, but couldn’t seem to make it stick.

They had talked about the gospel reading, about Herod and the wise men, about the moment Jesus was revealed to those who sought him through a torturous journey.

Jack had preached from this passage before—to talk about Herod, about sin, about power misplaced. He was sure he had that sermon somewhere on his iPad.

But Frank was saying that he needed to preach something new, something fresh, something that would be true in this place.

“I don’t know what I’m going to preach,” he repeated. “But I am going to preach.”

“All right, then,” Father Frank said. “I don’t suppose you’d mind if I came and listened?”

“Right,” Jack said. “Because my stress level won’t already be sky-high? Maybe Brother Raymond can bring his folks over.” He dropped his head to the bar. A little too hard. It hurt. “What am I going to do?” he muttered.

“Find the good news,” Frank said. “And tell the truth.”

“Can those things even sit in the same room?” Jack asked. He raised his head. Rubbed it. “Listen—Frank. I’m grateful for your time.” He looked around the room, made sure nobody was listening. “And we’ve got a construction party Sunday after church. I’m going to miss the Seattle game.”

“This will be more fun,” Frank said. “Better for your soul.”

Jack shrugged. The last one had turned out pretty well.

Jack worked at the store Thursday and Friday mornings. In the afternoons, he got in the truck and drove down to the old swimming hole, where Live Oak Creek was five or six feet deep in spots. The water was clear and green and surrounded by tall trees. This time of year, the branches were bare except for the
gray pompoms growing on the branches, feeding on the tree. Club moss, Jack thought they were.

Friday was sunny and windy, with the temperature climbing up into the seventies. It was just about as perfect a January day as one could ask for in Texas. The water rippled as the wind blew, and the sun pierced down to the bottom of the pool. Jack opened his journal, took off his boots and white socks, sat on the bank. When he began to sweat, he dropped his feet experimentally into the water.

“Arrggh,” Jack shouted. Ice-cold needles seemed to pierce his feet. He yanked them from the water, began drying them off, although it didn’t help.

“It did get down to thirty-three last night,” a female voice said from behind him.

Maybe if he didn’t turn around, she would go away. “Are you always going to just appear out of thin air, Kathy?” he asked.

“I’m like Batman that way,” she said. “It’s a useful trait for a reporter.”

“Batman disappears,” Jack said. “See how that works for you.”

“Hey,” she said. “This isn’t just your spot. I spent my teenage years hiding here while the good-looking girls were floating the river in teensy bikinis or whatever it was they did for fun.”

He turned and looked at her with a suspicious eye. Anything to take his attention off his tingling feet. “You didn’t follow me down here?”

“Dude,” she said. “I’m really kind of upset that
you’re
here.” She settled herself onto the limestone shelf that people jumped off into the water, a respectful distance away. Two blue herons flapped their long wings, gliding low over the water and landing
on the opposite side of the river, about twenty yards away. They could hear traffic on the river road, the whir of tires, and the rush of the wind in the cedar trees.

It was perfect. Had been perfect.

“Forget this,” Jack said, getting to his feet and gathering his journal and pen.

“What?” Kathy asked.

“Enjoy,” he said, bending into an expansive mockery of a bow. He turned to make for the truck, but she called his name.

“I’ll go,” she said. “You were here first. And I can see you’re still mad at me.” She shook her head. “At the very least, I owe you a little peace and quiet.” She got to her feet, walked purposefully toward her car, a tiny red Honda.

Against his will, he called out her name. She turned. “They let you get away with driving one of them there Jap cars in the heart of Texas?”

“I think it was built in Tennessee,” she said. She opened the door. “I’ll see you around, Jack.”

“Hey,” he called before she could get in the car. He took a step in her direction. “I am still mad at you.” He looked around, looked up at the big blue cloudless sky. “But there’s enough sky for both of us. I’m not even getting anything done. I just thought maybe some good thought would come to me here.”

“Really?” she said. She paused, her hand still on the car door. “You sure?”

“Come on,” he said. “Before I change my mind.”

She shut the door, began walking slowly back. “When I first got here,” she said, “I thought you were praying. Then, when you dipped your feet in, I thought you were cussing.”

“A man can pray and cuss at the same time,” he said.

She walked back over, considered how far away she needed to sit. He thought he’d make it easier. “Can I ask you something?”

She settled within conversation distance on the bank. “I guess,” she said, crossing her legs.

“Are you staying or leaving?”

She looked up through the branches of the tree above them. “What are those things?” she said. “They look like tribbles.”

He didn’t say anything.

“From the old
Star Trek
show,” she explained.

“I know what tribbles are.” He looked up at the branches with her. “I think those are club moss. They’re parasites.”

“Parasites,” she repeated. “Ugh.” The tree was covered with them.

They sat for a moment, the sun warm on his shoulders, the water lapping against the bank. Jack closed his eyes.

“It feels like I should be getting on with my life,” Kathy said. “Keeping this paper going—what is that about? Nobody buys papers anymore. It’s like releasing an album on eight-track tapes. It’s not even cool and retro. It’s just stupid.” She looked back up through the branches.

“Are you doing it for your father?”

She looked across the river at the herons, who were spreading their long wings in preparation for flight. “How would I know?” she said. She shrugged. “Maybe.”

The herons flapped a few times, separately, then in unison. Then they took flight, following the river. One arced away in a slow, lazy loop, then followed the other down and around the bend, out of sight.

“I think maybe it’s the people,” she said. “In some weird way
it feels like I’m needed here.” She dipped a hand into the creek, shivered, pulled it back out, and shook it dry. “Even if what I’m doing is ridiculous, a hundred times less important than what I was doing.”

“I thought what I was doing was important,” Jack said.

“Jack,” she said. “You had an audience of millions.” She made it sound as though he had owned a horse-drawn carriage made of pure gold and equipped with a chocolate fountain. “And now—”

She broke off, took a quick glance to see his reaction.

“And now?” he said. He was interested.

She let it fly. “And now you’re going to preach to fifty people, half of whom won’t be able to turn up their hearing aids loud enough to hear you.”

“I’ll e-nun-ci-ate,” Jack said. He looked sideways at her. “So you heard.”

“Everybody heard,” she said.

“Everybody? Oh, I don’t like the sound of that.”

She sighed. “I am sorry, Jack. I thought—well, let’s just say it would be a good thing if you didn’t google yourself just now.”

“I got out of that habit three days into this adventure,” Jack said. He laughed. “I used to preach about how we didn’t feel bad enough about ourselves. I felt bad enough about myself in about thirty-five seconds on the Interwebs.”

“Saint Paul’s may have more than fifty people attending on Sunday.”

“No cameras,” he growled, looking at her.

“They’ll have to stay outside,” she said. “But I’d guess some press will be there. This is an angle. A story. The resurrection of the people’s pastor.”

“Oh, for—” He got to his feet, turned in a circle, glared down at her. “Don’t call me that. I’m not that. If I ever was. A pastor—”

It was like Father Frank was in his head.

“A pastor watches over his sheep,” he said quietly. “I was—” He shook his head, dropped gracelessly back to the ground. “I don’t know what I was.”

“I hear they’re having a little social after. To welcome you.”

“Well, they’re going to have to relocate it,” Jack said. “We’re doing another building thing. Sam Rodriguez tells me we’re putting up a ramp.”

“For Alice,” Kathy said.

“That’s it,” he said. “I can’t lollygag around church. We have work to do.”

She smiled, looked around, leaned back on her hands. “I think maybe this is why I’m still here.”

“The creek?” Jack said.

She spread her hands. “It’s a small world,” she said. “After all.”

She got to her feet. He got to his.

She held out her hand, tentatively.

He looked at it.

Then he took it.

“What are you preaching Sunday?” she asked.

“Come and see,” he said.

She nodded, smiled. “Maybe I will.”

O
n Sunday, a number of people came to see. The parking lot was full, cars were parked along the street, and Jack suspected that First Baptist had caught some of their overflow. Someone at Saint Paul’s would hear about that from Brother Raymond on Monday. Media were out on the lawn filing reports, and when Jack arrived, they descended on him in a rush.

“What are you doing—”

“Is this a new start—”

“Was that construction project—”

“Have you been asked to return to—”

He raised a hand, cut off their questions. “I’ve got to go preach,” he said. “Thanks for your interest.”

“What is your sermon about?” they asked. “What is—”

He raised a hand again. “Come and see.”

He pulled the heavy wooden door open and stepped into the narthex, the church’s foyer.

Bill Hall was waiting inside in a gray suit and a yellow tie. He looked as if he had been waiting for a while. He did not extend a hand when Jack approached.

“For a second,” he said, “I thought you weren’t coming.” He looked grimly at Jack. “Since that’s what you usually do.”

Jack bit down a reply. “I’m here,” he said.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” He looked Jack up and down. “Pastor John used to wear one of those robes.”

“I’m not your pastor,” Jack said. He was wearing Wranglers, boots, and a button-down blue oxford open at the neck. Frankly, he felt dressed up. “I’m just a guy come from the hardware store to say a few words.”

He held the front door open for a family that goggled at him when they recognized him. They passed on into the church, found a spot near the back. Someone—Bill and the deacons, he guessed—had put out extra chairs, and all the same the church was full.

Jack walked down the bedraggled red carpet toward the carpeted dais, where on the left Nora Calhoun was playing one of the old hymns on the organ. A lot of vibrato. On the right, one of the Bates sisters was playing piano; he wasn’t sure which one. They all looked alike—had their whole lives.

“Softly and Tenderly.” He hadn’t heard that song in years.

“Ye who are weary, come home.”

He noted unexpected but familiar faces. Father Frank sat with Tom on the aisle, third row back, and Jack nodded at them, took his father’s hand.

Jack himself took a seat on the front pew. A big wooden seat was on the dais in front of the choir, but Jack did not want to sit in the preacher’s chair, to feel all those eyes on him throughout the service. It was going to take a measure of bravery just to stand up. It didn’t need to be any harder.

He looked back over the order of service. It was simple. Bill would welcome the congregation and lead the singing. Someone would read the Bible lessons. Jack would preach, and afterward, the deacons would distribute bread and wine at the front of the church. They had not asked Jack to preside over the blessing of communion at the altar. This wasn’t communion, per se. It was just fresh-baked bread and good Hill Country wine laced with good intentions, holy in its own way.

They finished the song and took up “Blessed Assurance,” a hymn by Fanny Crosby. Mrs. Calhoun loved Fanny Crosby; she had told Jack when he was a boy that Fanny Crosby was a blind woman who wrote eight thousand hymns.

“Blessed Assurance” was one of his mom’s favorites. He could still remember her singing, “This is my story. This is my song.” They used to slow the words of the chorus almost to a halt, a caesura over each note, “This … is … my …,” before launching like a drunk careening downhill on a bicycle into “story, this is my song.”

Bill mounted to the pulpit. He spoke over the chords, expressed no surprise at the full house, simply invited all those present to turn in their hymnbooks to number 331. Everyone stood and began to sing.

Jack opened his book, although he scarcely needed it. He had sung through this hymnbook as a kid, still could sing most of these songs by heart. His mother had sung in the choir. Jack looked up at the choir now—four old women, one old man, a teenage boy. They were singing with big smiles on their faces—the expression he remembered on his mother’s face as she sang.

After “Blessed Assurance” they sang, “Oh, How I Love
Jesus.” Jack checked that his notes were in his pocket. He had decided against preaching from his iPad—it seemed inappropriate, somehow—and anyway, he didn’t have anything close to a finished sermon.

This was not a place for PowerPoint.

What he had were some words, scribbled down during the week. Some had arrows linking them.

He felt sure he had never been less prepared to give a sermon.

A teenage girl read the Old Testament lesson and the Psalm. Tom himself climbed the steps to read the New Testament lesson. Then he said, “Would you stand, please, for the gospel reading.” Everyone lumbered to their feet. It was like thunder after the relative silence. Tom read the story from Matthew of how the wise men had sought Jesus, how they had asked King Herod where the newborn king was to be found, how they had arrived and found the baby Jesus and worshiped him and given him their precious gifts.

Then everyone sat.

Tom ambled back down the steps.

And Jack passed him, ascending one step at a time. They nodded at each other.

Then Jack stood at the pulpit, looking out over the roomful of people. He saw people who had been at the block party at Mrs. Calhoun’s. He saw some of the newsfolk in the very back and up in the balcony. He saw men and women who had grown up in this church, who would be buried in it.

He saw his onetime best friend, seated in the second row, his father in the third row, Mary behind him, Kathy three rows behind her.

He looked out at them all, and it grew silent, and he thought about how he used to proceed.

Begin with a prayer
, he thought.
Let’s at least do that.

But he hadn’t written a prayer, hadn’t stage-managed the connection to his sermon.

Nor had he engineered connections between the hymns and the reading and his sermon, all of which he used to obsess about in Seattle. The hymns Mrs. Calhoun had picked probably didn’t fit with the readings at all, except that they were songs about Jesus.

And this prayer—it wouldn’t be fluid, wouldn’t be eloquent. His prayers these days were less like conversation and more like a drowning man yelling for help.

It would have to do.

“Let us pray,” he said, and he closed his eyes, squeezed them shut.

“God,” he said, and he took a deep breath. He knew what his prayer had to be: “Give me words to say that will be worth hearing.”

He opened his eyes. Their heads were still bowed. They clearly expected more.

“Amen,” he added.

Slowly they looked up.

He looked down at his notes.

He took a deep breath.

“Today,” he said, “is the day we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. You heard in our gospel lesson about the wise men who came from the East, how they sought the new king who would be born, how they found him.”

He looked down at his notes again, found that he couldn’t
look up from them. He needed to at least make some eye contact for a sermon about seeing. “Epiphany is about seeing things as they are, seeing things we have been longing to see, seeing things for real.

“Epiphany,” he said, forcing himself to look up from his page, “is about the truth.”

They looked on, parishioners and curiosity-seekers and members of the media, all of them wanting to hear something true.

Okay, he told himself. Okay.

“I haven’t told the truth for a long time,” he said quietly. “I haven’t even preached the truth for a long time. Not the whole truth. Not really.

“Some of you have known me my whole life. Some of you are here this morning just because it’s me standing here this Sunday. You’re all wondering what I’m here to say.

“Well, I’m here to tell the truth.” He looked down at his notes. He was a long way off of them now. He folded them up, stuck them in the pocket of his jeans, put both hands on the pulpit for support.

“I’m here to talk about how seeing what is right in front of us might be a good thing, even if it’s hard, even if we don’t understand where it might lead us.”

They were all watching, listening. Even some of the news-people had put down their pads.

Kathy Branstetter was nodding at him.
Go on
, her eyes were saying.
I want to hear this.

“I came back to town a week ago,” he said. “And I’d been gone a good long time. A lot has changed.” He looked out at them, tried to make eye contact with those he knew from town.
“Places where friends used to live are boarded up. The yards are grown up with weeds. Buildings I used to know downtown are closed, empty shells with no reason to still be standing.”

He took a deep breath. “The truth is, that’s how I feel here in front of you this morning. Like there’s no reason for me to still be standing. I messed up in a big way. I hurt the people who trusted me, the people who depended on me.”

He shook his head. “Right now, I feel like one of those vacant buildings, standing up but hollow inside. No reason to still be here.”

He looked out at them; some were watching intently, others were looking away but still listening. “I’m not telling you this because I want you to feel sorry for me,” he said. “I don’t want that. I’m telling you this because I hope that maybe my story can be of use to you in some way.” He shrugged. “I’ve lost everything in the last two months. My family, my job, my money, my reputation, my self-respect.” He looked around the congregation. “Maybe some of you know what it feels like to lose something and not know how you’re going to go on. I’m guessing most of you do.”

Some nodded—mainly older members of the church. And a few others.

Tom.

Mary.

Kathy.

“I thought that was how I would feel from now on,” he said. “Lost. Abandoned. Empty. But last week, I remember looking at something brand new, something filled with hope, something that was built with love.” He turned and looked at the organ, where Nora Calhoun was sitting, leaned forward, listening. “Some of
you were at Mrs. Calhoun’s house where we pushed back together against the wreck and the loss and the ruin. Together, we did what one person could not have done alone. Together, we made someone’s life a little bit better, showed her that she was loved and appreciated, reminded ourselves that we were capable of so much more than the tiny selfish lives we’ve been living.”

Jack blinked back tears; he was not the only one. Mrs. Calhoun was sniffling and someone in the back of the church was sobbing openly.

He raised his hands. He had not come to make people weep, but to tell them the good news.

Somewhere in all of this was good news.

“A friend of mine told me this week that it is an awesome responsibility to stand in front of a church and try to speak for God.” He nodded at Frank, who sat looking steadfastly up at him. “He challenged me to remind you that in the midst of all our bad news, in the midst of the vacant lots and the boarded-up buildings, the ruined roofs and the ruined lives, there is good news.”

He nodded. “There is good news.”

“Look around you,” he said. “Look and see.” He held up his hands and some of them turned their necks like owls to take in the people on all sides of them, those above them in the balcony.

Jack nodded. “Good people are here. Love is here. And hope should be here.

“Look around,” he repeated. “See what is right in front of you. Don’t just see the boarded-up buildings, the boarded-up lives. See the possibilities.”

He was rounding third. Headed for home. He suddenly saw it all fall together—the Bible story, the lives of his listeners.

His life.

“Today is the Feast of the Epiphany,” he said, speaking softly but with growing strength. “It’s the day we remember how the story of Jesus intersects with those who came looking for him.” He paused, looked around the room. Every person was following with rapt attention. He moved to his conclusion.

“The story of Jesus, the Jesus who was revealed in the flesh to those wise men, the Jesus who is revealed to us, does not say that life is easy.” He shook his head. “In fact, it says the opposite. That hope can be broken. It can be battered. It can even be nailed to a cross and left for dead.”

He shook his head again. “But don’t believe it. Don’t you believe it for a second. The love of God, the irresistible grace of God, washes through this world like a river. It cannot be stopped. It cannot be contained.

“And hope can be battered, but it is never dead.

“That’s what I am telling myself this morning. It’s what I think I was supposed to tell you. And that,” he said, “is the truth.”

Silence.

Just silence.

But it was a silence full of something, something he had invited to be present, but something far bigger than himself or his words.

He looked out at Father Frank, remembered the blessing of the roof, and he raised his hands to the congregation.

“In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he said.

“Amen,” they said.

He made his way slowly down to the front pew. Bill Hall and
the other deacons made their way up in the silence to take the bread and wine, the chalices from the altar.

“We invite you,” Bill said, then stopped to clear his throat, “to take communion with us.” He looked out at the church, packed to overflowing, looked up to the balcony. “All of you are welcome at the table of Christ.”

Two lines formed in each aisle, on either side of Jack, who sat leaning forward, his eyes on the floor. He had no idea if his sermon had been an abject failure or a success, had no idea what either of those things even looked like anymore. It used to be he knew—the congregations would stand, they’d applaud, social media would explode after the service.

He knew it was the shortest sermon he’d ever preached, maybe the least eloquent, and he couldn’t care less.

He felt that something had happened at the end. Something real.

He hoped so.

In front of him, Bill Hall stood with the bread, tearing a tiny piece and placing it in the hands of each person in line. “This is the body of Christ,” he said to each of them. “Broken for you.”