The Kingdom

A Last Stand Of Wheat

When Burger Chef rolled into town, I, to my great surprise, got a job flipping hamburgers. I worked after school three days a week and every other Saturday. It was here the senior pastor of my church, Jacob Willis, agreed to meet me and the Burger Chef super deluxe dinner special. The afternoon crowd was small and with the promise from my manager of an extended break and a chocolate shake in hand I went to sit across from Reverend Willis near the front windows.

“I see Burger Chef is treating you well,” Pastor Willis began after sampling a few french fries and a hearty bite of his burger.

“Work here definitely has its perks.”

“And how's everything with school?”

“Just about average I guess.”

“Pastor Harold tells me you've been doing a stupendous job leading youth group but that you had to step down now. Was it your job, or school?”

I felt cornered with the question. I didn't want to get into my strained relationship with my family and I didn't want to lie either.

“I think my family was a bit concerned,” I finally said.

“Well I understand the need to make some spending money and of course you need to focus as much time on your studies as you can, but I'd like to talk to your parents about you coming back to the youth group.”

I smiled at the spiritual leader of our little flock. I would have loved to have heard that conversation.

“Would you mind waiting until after I graduate? I might be able to convince them to let me come back once I'm complete with school.”

“Well, that would be fine except I would like to tie it into another conversation I want to have with your parents. I've talked a lot to Harold and some of the other youth leaders who have visited our church as you led the youth group and there seems to be some consensus that you would do well in the ministry. Perhaps as a missionary, or music pastor or even a youth pastor. What do you think? Have you ever considered that you might be called to be a leader in the church?”

The base of my neck at the top of my spine experienced a slight spasm.

“Sure,” I said. “Well no. Maybe. It was a long time ago.”

“You should think about it. I think God is calling you to be a pastor. You know it's a calling right?”

“Sure. Well? Maybe...are you sure?”

“Let me give you the pitch okay?” Reverend Willis had some mechanism in his head that rolled out words like a frenetic "Bingo Announcer" conveying the truth in the caged letters plopping mysteriously into his opened palm: “B7. O63. N39”

“I think you'd be great. Our denomination's college is in Eugene, Oregon right? Well I have family there. I've already talked to a third cousin of mine up there and he would be glad to give you room and board for almost free.”

“Really?” The spasm in my neck migrated to a spot in my right shoulder.

“I checked with the Burger Chef people and they expect to have several openings in their Eugene store in the fall. They made it clear that you could almost transfer from this location to that one with no problem.”

He paused and seemed to evaluate my unspoken language. I'm sure I hadn't blinked since he said the word “missionary.”

“The school tuition would be paid for by our church's denomination. You could complete the whole course work in under three years. Then who knows? By then we may even be able to bring you on here full time as an associate pastor. How about that?”

“Sure,” I said, “well...okay, maybe.”

My list of objections to his plan was a long and fully detailed one, but it didn't need to be. Number one on the list was the most obvious and would have been enough to keep me from considering his proposal. I wasn't perfect. In our church's denomination a Reverend was perfect. A Bible scholar and sin free. I was a sinner, a pretender, and a joker. A fake. I was also advancing towards a hedonistic life style that would only need three years of military training to perfect.

His pitch done, a serene look of complete contentment arose from somewhere in Pastor Willis' heart. The look he gave me never wavered. It was filled with so such compassion I felt the love of God in a way I had never experienced before. The stress in my shoulder and neck vanished. “Maybe I don't need to be perfect,” I thought. “This man knows God. I'm sure all of the vile stuff in me could be changed. We're talking about God after all. If he wants a flawed teen-aged boy to be a preacher man can't He change them?” Unbelievably I was beginning to wonder about Reverend Willis' proposition.

Another consideration arose in that moment. A far less altruistic consideration. It was 1966 in America. American youth were being drafted by the truck load. There was one honorable way to obtain a deferment. Stay in school. Reverend Willis' suggestion was more than a response to what may or may not have been the call of God. It was a life boat to ferry me to safe ground far away from service in the infantry.

Reverend Willis never got to share his proposition with my parents.

His message that next Sunday, either ironically or with incredible foresight was based on one of Jesus' most searing parables which I have come to call: “The Weeds In The Wheat.” It was a short message.

First he read Matthew 13:24

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

“We know who the tares are in our life don't we?" Reverend Willis attacked in a stern voice. "They are scoffers concerning the things of God and His Holy Spirit, as if Jesus wasn't truly God and Man! and as if the Holy Spirit does not live in the heart of every Christian man and woman. Hah! They mock the things of God, not just with their foolish empty-headed notions, but with their venomous speech and murderous actions.”

Reverend Willis summed up a few thoughts about the “tares” and then closed with Jesus' own words with no prayer to explain the final fate of those among us who insist on being evil:

(41) The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; (42) And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. (43) Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. (Matthew 13:41 – 43 KJV)

After Reverend Willis left the pulpit, there was no closing hymn or announcements, and the entire congregation remained seated. Among the youth, who were perpetually in the dark about adult matters, there were some who repeated bits of the gossip they had overheard. “There is going to be a vote.”

I had not been let in on all the details of what dreadful thing Reverend Willis had done to unhinge the minds of over half of the church board, but never before or ever since had I experienced such a turbulent church meeting.

After the opening accusations, like the ferocious “Caaawww! Caaawww's!” of an enraged crow embodied in an ancient elder, were blasted at the Senior Pastor Jacob Willis, an even older and nastier crow-elder rose up to take a stand. With even louder “Caaawww! Caaaawww's.” he exhorted the forum with more venomous accusations. By the time a third crow-elder arose to testify, my mother was sobbing. As I looked around the sanctuary, a place of worship, comfort and peace, I noticed that many men and women in the church were hunched forward in the their pews crying with no restraint.

The children who were in the congregation picked up on the emotions of their parents and many of them were crying as well. As for those who agreed with the elders, their faces looked straight ahead at the tribunal and never blinked. They had barely been patient enough, but they could easily wait a few more minutes before hanging their shepherd, their buddy, their chum.

The chairman of the elder board announced the time to vote, counted the votes and announced the results. Reverend Willis was dismissed. When the convicted felonious ex-Senior Pastor of our renowned Christian fellowship offered gently and serenely to offer a few words of consolation and comfort to the congregants, he was politely told to “shut up and shove off,” which he did with an amazing amount of grace and even, what seemed to me to be, a bit of joy.

The congregation split after that. My parents never again darkened the door of that church. And I never was enlightened as to what had caused the dismissal of a beloved servant of God.

It wasn't long after the departure of the Willis family that I sensed there was a similar bullet waiting for me if I answered the “call.” I wasn't a praying man, but I had been in communication with God since my first encounter with the meanness of this world. Those communications were in the form of vows. If I was hurt by someone I would make a vow to not be like them. When I realized the amount of pain children caused their parents I vowed to never have children. When I saw what poverty was doing to decent men and women I vowed to be rich. When the sheep of a small congregation in my home town skewered their shepherd, their spiritual leader and friend, I vowed to never be a pastor.

I prepared to join the United States Army.







♫~ Kenword~♫