I was standing by my truck fumbling for my keys when an unrecognized pickup came up from the rear of our village. The truck came to a halt beside me and an older fellow hopped out of the drivers’ side and walked over to me.
“I came by here yesterday looking for someone in charge, but couldn’t find anyone. Do you know who I might talk to?”
I said while leaning over across my drivers seat to reach in to put down my clipboard, “Well, I guess I’m as good a person as any to start with. What can I do for you?”
“I used to be a member of this church a few years ago, but something happened and I left. You don’t know Janie Upshaw do you? Boy! She was the reason I left, she's a hard woman to talk to.”
“Janie Upshaw?” I temporized. “Yes I know her, she is a member here.”
I didn’t continue that on occasion I sit next to her and her husband on Sunday, or that she has recently suffered a severe, life-threatening illness.
“Yes, I got along with Herb, her husband pretty well, but I could never seem to find peace with Janie. That’s why I left.”
He continued, “But I found a really good church now, it’s a Mennonite church.”
“You don’t say?”
“I heard they are going to close this church. When they started using the fellowship hall, I gave them a refrigerator. I don’t particularly want it back; I guess they can do what they want with it."
After a short pause he continued, ”But I sure want the bell back.”
“The bell? You mean the little one on the porch they ring Sunday morning, or the one in the steeple?”
“The one in the steeple. I gave them that bell with the understanding if the church closed I wanted it back. It belonged to my father-in-law. I can probably get one of previous members to support me on that.”
“I think the best place to start is with the pastor. His name is Scott Zachariah, do you know him?”
“No I don’t know the name.”
“If you give me your name and number I’ll give it to him, and I’m sure they will find a good resolution to the problem.”
I took his information and I’ll give it to Scott. But, what is it about churches? They are supposed to be the place where we ought to get along but we fight until we cut the baby into halves, as if we were Solomon.
* * *
We worked hard last July to get a funding proposal for Sally Pringel. Sally is about 75 and her husband just died. She lives in an old mobile home out on the northeast side of town. I went out to survey the storm damage.
I got out of my truck and walked to the front door. By the time I got to the steps already I was sweating profusely. The home sits on a nice piece of property, it looks like about 20 or so acres. There is nice house about a hundred yards from the mobile home. I learned her son lives in the other home; it is a converted barn, and a nice one at that.
I didn’t have to knock on the door; she was watching for me and came out onto the porch to invite me in as I neared it. When I entered I could see mold penetrating the ceiling around the front door. Touring the home, I found more growing out the ceiling in the bathroom. There was evidence of a leak in the roof over the dining room and the air conditioning unit was broken. A small window unit labored hard to keep the place below 80 degrees.
She lives a pretty destitute life, only having a widow’s social security to pay for everything. It looked like she would qualify for assistance but late in August just before Gustav hit us, I learned from the granting agency that she was turned down due to the age of the mobile home.
After we got back from Meridian where we evacuated during Gustav and before I could get back to her with the sad news, she began calling me.
“Mr. Paris, my home is even worse now. Have you heard anything?"
“Mrs. Pringel, I’d like to come out and talk about it all real soon.”
I didn’t want to give her the bad news over the phone because I thought if Christi, our new case manager liaison and I went out we might be able to figure out some alternative solution with her son.
A few days later she called back and Christi took the call and told her the bad news.
“Oh, no! What am I going to do? Can’t you help me, Gustav caved in my roof over the bathroom, and I can’t shower or go to the bathroom in it. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Well, Mrs. Pringel what about maybe we could find a way to add a room onto your son’s home? “
Mrs. Pringel told Christi, “I don’t think so, and I don’t think he can afford it.”
“Mrs. Pringel, can you give us permission to talk to your son about your situation, and give us his phone number?”
“Yes, you can do that, and I’ll give you his number.”
“Christi called the son.
“Mr. Pringel, are you aware of your mother’s situation? She doesn’t even have a bathroom to use to clean up?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well yes, Mr. Pringel, she is in a pretty bad predicament. Can’t you help her?”
Well how would I do that?”
“I understand you have a house you made by converting your barn. Isn’t it possible we could add a small room onto it for your mother if we can find the resources?”
“I don’t think that would work, and I couldn’t afford to pay someone to build it.”
“Mr. Pringel, all you’d have to do is acquire the materials, we can provide the construction labor.”
“I could get the materials, I’m a contractor, but I don’t think it would work, it would be too hard to add a room to the house.”
“Well, you have a pretty big piece of property; could we maybe help you build a small 1 or 2 room house on it for your mother?
To tell you the truth, I’m trying to sell the property. I think putting a house on it there would hurt the sale.”
But Mr. Pringel she is your mother, don’t you think you should help her so?”
Grudgingly he replied, “I guess I could set aside an acre or so for her.”
“Can we come out and talk to you about it?”
“Sure thing. You know I am helping her. I’m letting her stay on the property and I’m not even charging her rent “
He continued, “Just call me the day before to remind me you are coming. Do you need directions? It might be kind of hard to find, I have three pieces of property there and the mailboxes all say “Pringel.”
Three pieces of property? A nicely converted barn? A contracting business? Her mother in a partially collapsed mobile home with no indoor plumbing or bathroom? Call to remind him we are coming to find a way to help?
Yom Kippur, the tenth and final day of the days atonement, was last weekend. There is much to learn from the reason for its existence as a Jewish ritual day. It arises from Moses’ presentation of The Law in Leviticus. God gives his people ten days to repent of the wrongs they have done to others and for to forgive others of their transgressions. Leviticus Lev. 23:23-29 states:
“…It shall be a time of holy convocation and you shall afflict yourselves and present an offering by fire…whoever I not afflicted on this same day shall be cut off from his people.”
Afflict ourselves. Afflict means to cause grievous physical or mental distress. So to afflict ourselves in this ordinnace means to cause ourself to suffer great emotional distress over our wrongs.
We learn much later in God’s story of the magnitude of this great conflict, even in God’s mind, this self- affliction over wrong, the internalized battle between vengeance and atonement.
In Jonah, God determined to exact vengeance on the people of Nineveh for their wickedness. Yet when Jonah made God’s proclamation of His intent, Nineveh’s people and king not only turned from their evil ways but also abased themselves in ashes and sackcloth, beseeching God’s repentance from his anger at their evil ways. And in the prophet’s words, “when God saw that they had turned from their evil ways, God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them and he did not do it.”
And we have Job, not even a member of the chosen people but still a blameless, upright and God fearing man who turned away from all evil. In perhaps the climatic moment in God’s relationship with his creation, God in a seemingly churlish way, gambled with Satan over this goodly man Job, allowing terrible infliction of suffering on him for no apparent reason other than to argue with Satan.
At the end of Job’s story, we find both God and Job have suffered terrible emotional grief from these acts. Both have afflicted themselves, one over the inexplicable reason for his suffering, the other, perhaps, over the infliction of arbitrary suffering. Job, as some would translate the Hebrew, states “ I have seen You for what you are, and I fear for mortal clay.” (John Miles, A biography of God)
To Job’s “friends” who had counseled Job that surely he must have done something wrong or God would not have done this to him God, God says, “My wrath is kindled against you… for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”
God then in the Jewish way of repentance described by Isaiah restores Job’s fortune twofold as his remaining family come to console him for all the evil God had brought on him.” (Job 42: 7-13)
And later, much later, finally God afflicts himself in the penultimate atonement for His whole people by coming to us as fully man that we were able to exact on him the evil of our own ways, to try to prove His mortality.
Can we more gravely afflict ourselves than by this act other than to find a bit of forgiveness for others? Can we find forgiveness in a church bell for a verbal dispute that split a church, or forgive an unrepentant son?
No comments:
Post a Comment