from the mouths...

As the Pastor stood before his congregation and preached one of his greatest sermons, or so he believed, he could not help but hear a small but persistent voice at the back of the church.

He looked up trying to find the noise and in doing so heard an abrupt, and rather loud, ‘shhh!’.

Silence.

He continued his sermon once again.

Not long after came more sound from the back of the church, again he paused to look more closely upon the back to see where it may have come from, and yet again a sudden, and yes rather loud, ‘shhh!’ occurred.

Silence was once again restored.

As the Pastor once again pounced upon the points he was making within his sermon, the sound occurred as before. This time was different though, the Pastor could clearly see the young boy that was causing the interruption to his work, and keeping him off schedule non-the-less. In a voice that was far less friendly than intended, perhaps, the Pastor asked the young boy to come forward and speak with him for a moment.

The boy slowly moved from within the pew, stepped out into the aisle and gingerly began making his way from the back of the church. He was wearing rather well worn jeans, a dirty baseball shirt and held a cap tightly in his left hand. The boy stared down at his dusty sneakers for most of the journey, until all of a sudden he looked up passed the Pastor and focused upon a portrait of Christ that hung on the wall behind the pulpit; suddenly he seemed more resolved to his task.

As the boy stepped before the Pastor he was no longer slumped over and looking at his feet, but instead was fully erect, head held high, and looking into the eyes of the man who asked him there.

The Pastor asked the boy a few questions to find out just who this troublemaker was and before long the whole church heard what he said, although how many listened one may never know.

The boy, as it turned out, had baseball practice every Saturday morning and passed by the church on his way to the field. After practice when he would pass by he would hear the song service escaping from every open window and one day he decided to stop in and see what it was. As it turned out the boy had been standing in the hallway outside of the sanctuary for many weeks now, he even admitted to staying for most of the sermon too, but today was the first day he felt compelled to come into the sanctuary and sit down. Not simply because he was becoming more comfortable, but he now had many questions due to what he had heard so far.

The Pastor felt moved enough that he stated to the church he would stop his sermon for the moment to allow the boy a chance to ask his questions. After that he would again proceed. The Pastor then turned to the boy and asked him to please feel free to ask anything.

Looking upon the portrait of Christ once again, the boy took a deep breath and then began.

He asked if the Lord they sang about in the songs was the same that was spoken of in the pastors “speeches”. And once that was confirmed for him, the easy questions were over.

The questions that followed left the church speechless and the Pastor stumbling for the right words.

The boy continued by saying if the Lord they spoke of was the same, therefore He was the same they spoke of as being the same “before, now and always” yet each time they spoke of Him he was never the same. The Lord was praised and loved in song, but feared and vengeful in spoken word. The Lord is awesome, wonderful and loves everyone of us are put in many songs, yet if we do not do as He wishes we are tossed aside and lost we are told in speech.

The Pastor tried to interject, but the boy needed to continue his train of thought and therefore continued on.

The boy stated hearing about the religion of this church he was in and hearing all the rules it had and wondered if God only asked us to do ten things, and even then it was up to us to choose, why are there almost thirty rules that must be followed? Religion contains the idea of God, but it seemed that God had little to do with religion. Therefore he continued, if we are so carefully following religion, when do we have time to follow God? Religion demands us to do the things it wants us to, however God simply requests that we follow a Him, gives us guidelines, and the choice.

With that he stared into the eyes of the Pastor even deeper and while pointing at the picture behind him stated “a man drawing Jesus is like Michelangelo using crayons”.

The Pastor stood there and did his best to answer what he could of the boy’s inquiries, yet the boy always seemed unimpressed by the answers.

After a while, the boy simply thanked the Pastor and walked down the aisle towards the door. He put on his cap and left.

The congregation never saw him again.







-j.g. smith (10/22/07)