Passing Through the Midst

Pastor Randall Nathan [Retard] is "filling the pulpit" this morning for Pastor Patty, or Rev. Niebhur, as he calls her, since that is the title she prefers. He does not like to preach anymore, even on an occasional basis, because it loses him points in the Hermudgeon of the Year competition, since he has to shake hands with people at the door afterwards and act like he thinks they are more Christian than they were 60 minutes ago.

Him being a preacher was based on a misunderstanding, anyway.

He grew up on a hardscrabble persimmon farm in Arkansas. He was able to go to college, the first person in his family to do so, because he got an Autry "Flip 'em High" Rogers scholarship to the School of Persimmon Engineering at Cratchit State U in the town of Hope's Promise. Autry "Flip 'em High" Rogers was the famous "cooking cowboy" of the 1940s "persimmon opera" movies. They were not critically acclaimed in their day, but every year, CSU has a "persimmon movie marathon" at the Bon Twit Art Theatre.

The young Randall, already dazzled by the bright lights of Hope's Promise, and the hairy legs of the sophisticated farm girls from nearby Periwinkle County, stepped out of the Bon Twit after the afternoon's marathon showing in his freshman year, and there, in the sunset, backed by a severe cerullian streak, were the letters, "GPC," formed by clouds. He was sure it meant "Go Preach Christ." It was only after he was [Retard] and went through the new persimmon museum in Memphjus that he realized that the GPC meant "grow persimmons crunchy," because Autry Rogers IV had done exactly that, at least, he had created "Persimmon Crunch," the new taste sensation, and as he said on the wall of the museum, "Only God can grow a persimmon, but I sure make a lot of money off 'em."

So Randall Nathan had lived his life based on a mistake, serving a God who couldn't even get clouds to form full words.

He can't tell this to Rev. Niebuhr, though, so when she called him up Sat. night and said her husband and children were all sick, so she had to stay home, and since he never prepared sermons anyway, but just told stories, why didn't he just go in the next morning and do his thing, he had to say yes.

So there he was in the pulpit, stuck with the bulletin she had prepared, which said the Gospel reading was the story of Jesus in his home town, and how the people rejected him and were actually going to toss him off the cliff at the edge of town into the persimmon swamp below [he added that piece of geography himself to make it more relevant] but "he passed through the midst of them." Rev. Nathan had always made the point when he preached on that pericope before that Jesus made his escape because "his time had not yet come." He has always regretted reading clouds before his eyes had seen enough to read cloud letters correctly.

Today, though, he said the story was about how Jesus passes through the midst of us all the time and we don't see him, because our eyes are so blinded by hate and antagonism and the sheer tea party desire to throw somebody, especially somebody who's actually trying to do us some good, into a persimmon swamp.

Then he demonstrated. While everybody had their eyes fixed on the screen, trying to figure out the tune to the laundry list of Jesus words they were singing in place of the closing hymn, he just passed through their midst and out the door, thus escaping without anyone noticing. He figured that was why Jesus really passed through their midst without notice, to avoid shaking hands with the people after his sermon.

Well, one person did notice. Two-year-old Clara Wembley gave him a big grin and stuck out her little fist for a bump as he went by. Children notice when someone who reads clouds passes through their midst.