Making Spiritual Sense
Christian Leaders as Spiritual InterpretersBy Scott CormodeAbingdon Press
Copyright © 2006 The United Methodist Publishing House
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-0-687-49223-7Chapter One
Making Sense of New Situations
Acryptic phone call from Laura Webber told Rev. Charlotte Robinson that something strange was afoot. Charlotte, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Almond Springs, California, took the message off the answering machine one afternoon after her secretary, Mavis, had left. Laura was perhaps Charlotte's closest friend in town and she did not sound at all like herself in the message. Her usually confident manner had become brittle and seething.
"I heard Old Man Rivers is coming to see you," the message began bitterly. "Don't let him do it. It's not right." There was a hint of threat in Laura's voice. The pastor asked herself, "What's going on?" She wondered who her friend could mean. "The only Rivers I know," Charlotte thought, "is a guy named Gary Rivers who's visited the church a couple of times. I need to figure out what is going on." She was reaching for the phone to call Laura when there was a tentative knock on the outer office door.
"Hello, Mr. Rivers," Charlotte said.
"Please call me Gary," the man answered in a slow, sonorous voice. Charlotte guessed he was about her own age. "And that," the forty-three-year-old pastor thought silently, "does not make him an old man." He seemed shy and ill at ease. His eyes frequently flashed toward the door as if someone else was coming.
He filled Charlotte in on his history, "I grew up in Almond Springs but then, umm ... well," another glance at the door, "I left about fifteen years ago. Now I have come back to town to care for my old man. How's that for irony?" There was shame on his face, mixed with confusion. Charlotte wondered what Old Man Rivers could have done to cause Gary such pain.
"I am not sure I should be coming to church after what the Old Man did," he said after a moment. "But I met a man once who said that the church should be the first place to forgive. And I been thinking a lot about that." He had the manner of a man resigned to his fate.
"'We are in the forgiving business;' that's what a friend of mine likes to say," Charlotte remarked brightly, wondering where Gary was going.
"Yeah, I hope so," he said, almost to himself, "because that's what I need ... forgiving."
Charlotte was confused again. "Why do you need forgiving?" she asked.
There was another knock on the inner office door before he could answer. It was Doc Davis, perhaps the wisest member of her church. "Can I schedule you for later?" Charlotte asked discreetly, wanting to get back to Gary.
"No. You don't understand, pastor," Doc said with a smile, "I am the one who called to say I was bringing this young man to see you. I'm sorry I am late. I had an unexpected patient who thought she had the measles. It was only an allergy."
Gary called to him from inside. "I thought you told her I was coming, Doc."
The old physician stepped through the door and turned to the young man, "Of course, I made the appointment earlier today."
"But, Doc," Gary said plaintively, "she just asked me why the Old Man needs forgiving."
"Why don't you just tell her exactly what you told me," Doc said, closing the door and sitting next to Gary.
"I got the nickname Old Man in high school. All the football players gave each other names like we were a motorcycle gang or fighter pilots. Like Walt Webber, he was Wild One. We thought we were so tough. Anyway, my name stuck. It used to be that everyone in town called me Old Man, even at church. Me and the guys we'd hang out together after work, even when we were all married. Some of the guys started drinking a lot, especially Walt. Laura tried to get him to stop after they married, but he was a bull. You couldn't tell him nothing. And he had a temper. He started knocking Laura around when he was drunk. We tried to stop him, me and my wife Sally. But there was not much we could do." Gary was quiet for a moment before continuing. Charlotte felt empathy for Gary's obvious brokenness and was already worried about where the story was headed. Gary looked at his feet as he went on.
"I never touched Sally. Then one night ... I got mad and smacked her. Everyone thought her daddy did it—until she divorced me and moved away. Then not long afterward, Walt and Laura had their thing. And, well, everyone blamed me for Sally and for Laura." He paused, waiting for a reaction. He still had not looked at Charlotte since he started describing his earlier life. Charlotte did not yet understand exactly what Gary was feeling but she was getting closer to the reason he had come. She wanted to ask him why everyone blamed him for what happened with Laura, but Doc jumped in before she could speak, "Tell her the rest of the story. Tell her what you told me."
"I can't blame Walt or the alcohol. It's all my fault. I could have been arrested. Yeah, I should have been arrested. A month or so after Sally left me, I just couldn't take it any more. I decided just to run away from Almond Springs. I moved to Oklahoma and worked oil for a spell. And then I did some other stuff. I was lonely and scared. I was scared to drink and scared to date. I did not have a drink for about five years after I left town. I did not go out on a date until two years ago. I figured that I did it once and I might do it again." Charlotte had never seen someone so totally ashamed of himself. A psalm flashed through her mind, "A broken and contrite heart the Lord will not despise."
"I was especially afraid to go to church," Gary said, looking up for the first time at the pastor. "But then in Oklahoma I started going to a Sunday night church. It was a Christian Missionaries Alliance church, I think they called it. They didn't know what I had done. So I started praying with them. And then every time I moved I tried to go to a church. At one of the churches, I told the minister about all I'd done and he told me that Old Man Rivers was dead and that in the Bible it says I can be a new creation. I stenciled those words on the back of my tool chest. 'New Creation.' I haven't wanted anyone to call me Old Man since then—just Gary." Charlotte's mind raced as he spoke. She had to restrain herself to keep from interrupting him. "What this poor man needs," Charlotte thought as he continued, "is to know that God has forgiven him."
"Now I had to come home to Almond Springs. My father is sick and someone has to look after him to see that he doesn't fall and that he eats right. I been here since summer but did not really come to church until Doc told me it was OK. He told me I should come talk to you because you would understand even though you're a woman and all." He paused for a moment. Charlotte nodded and looked as kind as she could. Her heart ached for him but she waited to speak because he looked like he might have something else he wanted to get out.
"The real reason I came, though, is that I want to join the church. I've never actually belonged to a church, even when my family came here a long time ago. And Doc says it's time for me to be baptized, that it's part of that new creation thing." Then he shrugged and said, "So that's why I'm here."
"Let me say it again, Gary," Charlotte began. "The church is in the forgiving business," she put her hand softly on his knee, "God does not ask you to grovel and neither do we. God promises that once you have made your confession that God will separate your sin from you." They continued talking for some time. She told Gary about King David's sin, about Nathan the Prophet, and about God's ultimate blessing on David's union with Bathsheba.
Gary kept asking the same question again and again in different ways, not fully convinced that God could forgive him when he was not sure he could forgive himself. They talked until Gary finally felt ready to leave.
Doc Davis walked Gary out to his car and then came back inside to talk with Charlotte. "You did the right thing," he said. "But there are going to be some problems."
Charlotte felt that she had done the only thing a pastor could do. "Forgiveness is not mine to dispense," she said to Doc. "I can only point Gary to what God has already done. I know there are problems, but I don't understand them. I got a phone call from Laura Webber."
"I'll bet you did," Doc interjected.
"Why'd you tell her about the meeting?" Charlotte asked.
"I didn't," Doc said, "I'd bet it was Mavis, your secretary. She seemed quite incredulous when I called to set up the appointment." Mavis's indiscretion was an ongoing problem for Charlotte. But she put aside her concerns about Mavis so that she could deal with the matter at hand.
"Why is Laura so upset?" Charlotte asked, "I hardly recognized her voice on the phone. She sounded so vindictive, almost hateful."
"I should probably tell you the whole story," Doc began. "You'll need to hear it if you are going to minister to everyone who needs your care in this situation." He paused. "Now, you know how I feel about Laura," he said looking directly at the pastor. Charlotte nodded. She knew that Doc regarded Laura almost as a daughter and that Laura revered him as a father figure. Indeed, Charlotte suspected that Doc's regard for Laura is what prompted him to tell the church it was acceptable to hire a woman as pastor.
"Laura married quite young, not long after her mother died (she never knew her father). She was still commuting to Fresno State University at the time. Walt Webber was a good old boy in a small town. He played football, drove a fast car, and married the most popular girl in Almond Springs. They had a son less than a year later."
It sounded to Charlotte like a story straight out of American Graffiti. But then, she thought after a moment, it was not all that different from her own suburban upbringing. She knew people like that. Only the scenery was different.
"But Walt drank ... a lot," Doc continued. "And, like Gary Rivers said, Walt had a violent temper. I think things would have exploded much sooner if Gary and his wife Sally had not kept Walt in check. It started with open hand slaps, and there were times that he would scold her like a child. Then Sally divorced Gary and there was no one for Laura to call when she saw it coming."
Charlotte was aghast. The portrait did not match her friend at all. "Laura's not the victim type," Charlotte caught herself thinking. And then she immediately scolded herself, wondering what it meant to think that anyone's personality type would make her or him a victim.
"One night in July, when Laura's son was about four, Walt came home drunk again. They argued and this time he punched her in the face. Knocked her out. When she came to, he was vomiting in the bathroom. She eventually pulled herself up and called the police. A young officer came out. And he reacted like Laura was his little sister." Doc shook his head in disgust.
"The cop took Walt outside and beat him senseless. Broke his arm in the process. Then he handcuffed him (broken arm and all) and took him to jail. The next day they called me to set his arm. Laura convinced the police to drop the domestic violence charges so long as Walt said nothing about how the fracture occurred. She took Walt home that afternoon and by dinnertime he was gone. He never again had anything to do with Laura, their son, or this town."
Charlotte ached for her friend. "What a burden Laura must still carry," Charlotte thought. The pastor knew from Laura's voice on the phone that her wounds had not nearly healed. But she did not completely understand. From the phone call, Charlotte knew that Laura blamed Gary. In fact, Gary seemed to think he was at fault as well. The question was why.
"Why did Gary Rivers take it so hard?" Charlotte asked.
Doc answered, "Word got around, of course, about what Walt had done. And with Walt gone, people took it out on Old Man Rivers. 'He'd been Walt's best friend,' they said around town. 'He should have stopped him. But instead the Old Man beat his wife and now look what's happened to our Laura.' It was unfair and it was cruel. One old woman stopped him on the street and scolded him up and down. She'd got the story confused and thought that he'd beat Laura. All most people knew was that Gary was a wife-beater and that Laura got beat up. It all kind of became one incident. That's just the way the story got told and repeated. And, with Walt gone, Gary was the only one left to blame. So Old Man Rivers left Almond Springs. And you know the story from there."
Charlotte felt ill, like someone watching a tape replay of a horrific car accident. There were so many old, hidden wounds opening again in her congregation.
"This is going to take some time," she thought, "and it's going to be my job to get these people ready to hear God's message of hope." But before she could do that, she knew that she had to hear the rest of Laura's story.
"How has this affected Laura?" she asked Doc, hoping to keep him talking.
"The lesson Laura took from this," he said slowly, "was that men are dangerous. Before that night, she thought of her husband and the police officer as good men. But for years afterward, she saw men (especially those near her age) as time bombs—potentially explosive and inherently dangerous. Enough time and a lot of therapy since then means that she knows that's not true, at least it's not supposed to be." Charlotte guessed that Laura's daughterly relationship with Doc had also helped to heal some of the wounds.
"All this seems to be at odds with the Laura I know," Charlotte wondered aloud.
"Oh, it's made her a different person," Doc began and then stopped himself. "Well, not a different person exactly. But she is always in complete control of her world now. She is the organizer, the leader, the one who tells everyone else what to do. Look at the way she dresses, always wearing elegant suits with silk blouses, never polyester." Charlotte understood what he meant.
"You're right," Charlotte said, "I think of her as regal. She carries herself like a queen."
"Exactly," Doc responded, "And look at the way the town has responded to her. No Almond Springs man would ever ask her on a date. They think too highly of her. They think she is out of their league. In fact, her son had trouble dating in high school because none of the girls wanted to be compared to 'the perfect mother.'" Charlotte marveled at how little she knew about her good friend.
"And that reputation buys Laura a lot in town," Doc continued. "You know that as the vice principal at Almond Springs High School, she is a great role model for the girls. They all want to be like her—to dress like her and have people treat them with such respect. She even does all the Sex Education classes for girls at the high school because the girls trust her. And she can say whatever she wants in those classes because the parents think she is above reproach. Small town reputations get exaggerated. They see her as someone who has elevated herself above her abuse—elevated herself from victim to role model."
Charlotte was beginning to see her friend in a new, more complicated, light. And she was also beginning to understand just how difficult Gary Rivers's returning was going to be for Laura. She turned to Doc: "Gary's re-appearance has got to be really unsettling for her. Walt, Gary, and even Sally disappeared long before she was able to resolve her feelings toward them. Part of her probably feels very vulnerable."
"And she is not going to want to be a victim in public ever again," Doc said. "For Gary to find forgiveness, and for the town to accept him, he's going to have to make some kind of public declaration of repentance. There are all sorts of possibilities for a baptismal service that brings healing to the whole community. But for that to happen, Laura has to become the victim again. And she's not going to want any kind of public conversation that diminishes her role. There is no way that she wants the girls at the high school to think of her as anything less than the perfect role model. Perhaps I was too hasty in offering Gary such hope."
"No, Doc, you did the right thing," Charlotte answered. "If a church cannot proclaim forgiveness, we might as well go home. And I'd love to help Laura see—and those high school kids understand too—that God embraces us in our brokenness. Victim is the wrong term. We are all broken by sin, our sin and the sin of others. But the hope of the gospel is that God meets us in our brokenness. My hope for Laura is not that she will hide her hurts, but that she will bring them before God. No, Doc, you did the right thing. The question for us is how to help the town understand that it was the right thing, and that we all need to grow because of it."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Making Spiritual Senseby Scott Cormode Copyright © 2006 by The United Methodist Publishing House. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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