The Pastor

By Asche

Copyright 2015

Chapter 6 -- Third Advent Sunday

The next Sunday, as the pastor was checking over his notes for the sermon and getting himself in the right frame of mind for the service, the choir director, Randall Collins, knocked. Mr. Collins was a nervous and awkward man who lived for music. The pastor sometimes got the idea that he had a hard time distinguishing between the Lord and His music. But the music he was able to coax out of the untrained children and adults in the choir was truly angelic, and if Mr. Collins felt that in their song he got a glimpse of Heaven, well, maybe he wasn't entirely wrong.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, reverend, but I've been preparing the children's choir for the Christmas Eve service and, well, we're having a problem."

Mr. Collins shifted from one foot to the other and back. The pastor nodded to encourage him to continue.

"It's Jesse. You know what an angelic voice he has. We had him down for a few solos, including 'What Child is This.' He was singing so beautifully until -- until three weeks ago when he started having trouble singing. Sometimes he would stop singing and say he couldn't go on. And when he did sing, it didn't have any joy. I asked him what was the matter, and he said he just didn't have the heart to sing, but he wouldn't tell me why. He just said that Christmas made him sad. His mother couldn't figure it out, either. I'm afraid by Christmas, he won't be able to sing at all, and then where will we be?"

The pastor tried to console Mr. Collins. "I'll talk to Jesse and his mother and see if we can find out what's bothering him and help him find Christmas joy." Mr. Collins looked visibly relieved as he left, but the pastor had the uncomfortable feeling that every word he'd said was a lie.

In the service, the children's choir sang "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus." Jesse didn't have a solo part, but the pastor could see that Jesse's heart wasn't in his singing, and right after they were done, rather than staying in the sanctuary with the rest of the choir, he snuck down to join his mother in the pew. He spent the rest of the time with his face buried in his mother's chest.

After the service was over and everyone had gone home, the pastor sat in his office and tried to pray. He quickly realized that he couldn't really pray surrounded with all the evidence of of his knowledge and accomplishments, at least not the way he needed to, so he went back into the church to kneel before the altar. But even that seemed too prideful, and he ended up in a pew. It wasn't until his knees were on the cushion that he realized that this was the same one Jesse and his mother usually sat in.

He prayed for guidance, over and over again. Finally, Bible verses where Jesus forgave sinners started coming to mind, and he imagined how he might paraphrase them to fit Jesse's situation. He felt relieved, feeling that he knew what to do, but after he'd locked up, gotten in the car and gotten onto the road, he suddenly felt like he was just like the prideful pharisees in the Bible. In forgiving Jesse's "sins", was he not setting himself up as the one without sin?

Mondays were his day off, when he usually did chores and relaxed, but he found time to sneak off into the back yard, behind some bushes, to pray some more. It didn't help.

On Wednesday, he went to the monthly ministers' meeting. About two dozen ministers from churches in the area gathered at one of the churches, this time one in Tennesee, to hear talks about ministry and to mingle and chat. The pastor used the opportunity to ask if anyone had had in his church a boy who thought he was a girl.

"No, but Chuck Rogers, from over Coleburg way, had a girl who thought she was a boy," someone said. The pastor looked around until he found him.

"I've got a boy in my church who feels he is a girl inside. He's convinced he's going to Hell for it, and I'm trying to help him with it."

Reverend Rogers answered, "well, as you may have heard, I had a girl who believed she was really a boy. Let me tell you, it was pretty strange. I'd never heard such a thing."

"What did you do?"

"We had several long talks, and I talked with her Momma and Daddy. I explained what Scripture says, and said that every time she had those thoughts, she should pray. I told her I was sure the Lord would forgive her, but she should try to sin no more."

"How did that turn out?"

"She seemed to be better for a while. She did a lot of praying and smiled more. But then one day, she went and lay down on the railroad tracks when a train was coming, and that was that."

"That sounds terrible!" The pastor had horrible visions of Jesse lying dismembered on a railroad track and having to tell his mother.

"Believe you me, we were all pretty shook up. Such a pretty girl, and such an ugly end! But then I got to thinking, maybe it was best this way. She was saying she was always feeling like she was being pulled apart and couldn't be happy. As it is, she went back to the Lord, who I hope forgave her, and I truly believe she's happier this way."

The pastor was still seeing visions of Jesse and the girl lying on the tracks, so it took a few minutes for Reverend Rogers' words to register. When they did, all he could manage to say was, "so it was all for the best? That's what you're saying?"

"That's putting it a little too harshly. I'd have said, she is in a better place. That's pretty much what I preached at her funeral."

The pastor was still in a state of shock when he got in the car. On the way home, he realized two things: first, what Reverend Rogers said was basically in agreement with what the Bible said, at least as the church saw it. And second, he could not go along with it. Even if it meant giving up the ministry or even the church, he could not accept what Reverend Rogers had said. If that meant that Jesse was going to Hell for being who and what he was, well, then the pastor would go to Hell along with him. Or her.

For some reason, the pastor found himself driving to his office rather than home. Once he was sitting at his desk, the thoughts he'd had on the way there suddenly seemed crazy. How could he turn his back on a lifetime of belief? He looked at the books on their shelves. Was he supposed to somehow believe that the feelings of one seven-year-old disproved the conclusions of hundreds or even thousands of people who'd spent their lives trying to understand the Lord and His Word?

Suddenly his office, with its tightly closed windows, seemed stifling. He unlocked the church and knelt down in a pew: once again, the one that Jesse and his mother sat in. It no longer seemed like a coincidence. He tried to pray, but words wouldn't come. He just knelt there with his face on the back of the pew in front of him.

He heard his wife's voice calling. He looked up and saw that it was already dark. "What's going on Warren? You didn't come home."

"I -- I was praying. I have something I'm trying to work out. Something with my -- my pastoral responsibilities. I guess I may as well come home, though, I'm not going to work it out tonight."

Mary reached out her arms to him and when he came to her, she hugged him. They walked hand in hand out to their cars. On the way home, the pastor thought about what would happen to Mary and the children if he openly sided with Jesse and preached that what he -- or was it she? -- was doing was no sin. Would he lose his job? Would the congregation and the town ostracize them? He'd spent his life getting along with everyone, would he make enemies, even assuming he kept his job? He thought of all the forces that would be arrayed against him. And not just him. They might take it out on his family, too. And then he thought: this is what Jesse is facing. Jesse and his momma. The town, the church, maybe even the entire Baptist Convention, maybe the demagogues in Montgomery, all lined up against one seven-year-old.