Chapter Fourteen
Workers of the Harvest
The sun was warm and the rows of corn seemingly endless. I glanced to the side at Zora, who was smiling as she watched the butterflies flitting around the weed flowers growing along the roadside ditches to either side of us.
She was happy. I glanced down at our joined hands. I was very happy!
She turned her head to me and I gave her a suggestive look, “Ever have the urge to do it in a cornfield?”
She gave me a look that said ‘keep dreaming buddy!’ I laughed and continued walking.
I hadn’t really been serious, but then on the other hand I wouldn’t really turn it down either.
Zora just shook her head with a smile as she read my thoughts and for a moment she feigned like she was bearing the weight of the world to put up with me. “Have you ever seen a corn spider? They are huge and evil looking!” Zora explained, as if to prove her point, as I quietly begged her with my eyes.
I sighed, “Okay corn fields are out, but what about hay fields? I think I see one coming up.”
“Snakes not to mention bugs.” Zora stated with categorical import.
“Oh come on! Why are you being such a spoilsport? Where’s your love for the great outdoors?” I asked cajolingly.
“I appreciate the great outdoors as much as the next person, but the creation of a mattress was an endpoint to the occurrence of having to romp in the hay and be fed upon by both vermin and insect alike.”
I shook my head at her in mock reproof. It was so fun to tease her.
“How do you feel about wheat fields? Your hair could never look better than it would with little bits of straw sticking in it.” I said charmingly with my best smile in place, only to be shot down once again.
“You’re absolutely incorrigible! Couldn’t you please just store up all your lovemaking energies for tonight to wear me out on a mattress instead of insisting that we both go cavort with nature like Adam and Eve?” She said heatedly.
I clutched at my heart melodramatically, “We’re only a little over a month into our marriage and you’ve already begun to deny my advances!”
“I don’t deny you anything and you know it!” She responded back hotly.
There was hurt in her tone and I quickly realized that my teasing had gone too far. I stopped and so did she. “I’m sorry Zora. I know you don’t hold anything back from me. I promise that I will refrain from teasing you about your germaphobia, bug-phobia, spider-phobia, snake-phobia, and apparently also your touching nature phobia.”
A small smile crept out at the corners of her mouth and I relaxed at the knowledge that my caused hurt had been mended. She took my hand again and we started on.
“Are you going to tell me yet why we’re walking along this endless corridor of agriculture with no apparent end in sight? Where are we anyway?” Zora asked in exasperation with the endless fields that lay around us that offered no hint as to a probable destination.
“I told you. I have no control over this transport from one place to the next. We were in Greece and now it would seem that we’re somewhere in either Nebraska, Kansas or maybe even Iowa. Your guess is as good as mine.” I said at a lack for knowing anything past what she did.
“Maybe he can help us.” Zora commented.
“Who?” I asked.
She pointed ahead, “Him.”
I looked ahead and in the distance over the flat plain I saw a crossroads and parked in the middle of the intersection was a car with a man standing in front of it leaning back against the hood in an apparent mood of despondency. The man’s head was tilted forward as if in deep thought.
The situation seemed promising enough. We had one more field’s width to pass before we got to the man at the crossroads.
I sighed. Straw really would’ve looked great in Zora’s hair.
I felt a tug on my hand and I turned my head to Zora and her laughing eyes, “If it’s that big of a fantasy Elon I’ll risk the bugs and snakes some day to indulge you, but not today.”
I grinned and said, “I could always just buy a bale of straw and spread it out over top of a mattress.”
She rolled her eyes at me and I said, “Hey I’m only trying to make it work for you honey.”
“It might not work so well having to clean it up Elon.”
“Perhaps not, but I bet it would be fun.”
As we drew closer to the man I had a pretty good idea as to what the man’s profession was. He was a pastor, if his Sunday finery was anything to go by. He appeared to be a rather depressed pastor.
“Can I help you Sir?” I asked cordially as Zora and I came to a stop before the man, who gave a start and looked up at us blinking his eyes in surprise. It was apparent that he had been lost in thought and perhaps prayer.
The man didn’t know what to make of our sudden appearance in the middle of nowhere at that, but he knew something was Divinely inspired in the situation. He looked like he wanted to talk, but didn’t know where to start.
He was an older man in his mid to late 50’s and it was a humbling thing to see when he began to cry brokenly.
“You’re a pastor?” I asked softly prompting the man.
He nodded and wiped at his tears before responding, “Of the biggest church in town.”
Words seemed to come to him then more easily once the ice had been broken by me.
“Like I said it’s the biggest church in town. We have close to 600 in attendance every Sunday morning, even through the vacation prone summer months. Thirty percent of the congregation actually pays tithes, which is ten percent higher than most congregations can boast. I have more money to dispose to church-based charities and activities then I have demands for. I have three full-time pastors on staff besides myself. The church sponsors over 200 missionaries and we have five work-based church missionary groups that go to third world nations to help every year. Our vacation Bible school is the most attended in the entire county and for three counties around. We are, in short, the church to be.”
The man stopped talking and the tears began in earnest again.
“It would seem that your church has been extremely blessed, but what does it lack that causes you to mourn so?” I asked.
The man’s teary eyes rose to mine and bitterly he said, “My church members have lost the love of Christ from their hearts! Everything has become ritual and habit! There is no depth of meaning to their worship, if they truly worship God at all! I can’t tell you how many months it’s been in a church of 600 regular attendees that I’ve had a person come forward to experience the saving knowledge and redemptive power of Jesus Christ over their lives. I fear that it’s already been over a year since the last! We have become useless to the Kingdom of God! Fit for nothing better than to be spit out on the ground and be done with, because we have failed in the commission that was given to us by not keeping the love of God within our own hearts!”
The man jabbed his own chest hard, “And I! I am the worst of all! I have steered this ship to the destination that it has become mired in! How many years have I been asleep at the helm only to finally now wake up? What can be done? I ask you, what can be done with people who have a form of holiness, but have no need for God in their hearts nor any desire to sacrifice of themselves to Him?”
The man’s hopeless desperation made my heart cringe for I felt the anger and guilt this man had levied against himself as the primary one of blame for the situation that had befallen his church.
I grasped his shoulders and said, “There are miracles waiting for the asking. There is favor from heaven ready to be given if only it is desired. There is nothing impossible for God to accomplish. Not even this hard thing that you lack the strength to accomplish on your own is too hard for God. The Holy Spirit is willing, able, and eager to intercede!”
The man gazed into my eyes straight up as if looking for clues, “Are you an Angel?”
“No, just a man who seeks the will of God over his life even as you now do.”
The man swallowed before asking, “What do I do?”
“Will you relinquish the authority over your flock as their shepherd and allow me to borrow your pulpit for a sermon?”
The main studied me intensely, but then simply said, “The Spirit of God says yes, who am I to say otherwise.”
I nodded in acceptance, “When does your service begin?”
“At 10:30. I’m probably not going to be on time myself as service starts in…”
“You’re not going to be there.” I said cutting in.
He swallowed, “What do I tell them, when they ask why I’m not there?”
A shotgun blast punctuated the air suddenly with its heavy percussion and the car behind the pastor sank down to one side.
“It would appear that you’ve acquired a flat tire. Call ahead and let them know you’ve arranged for a fill in to replace your absence at the sermon today.”
I stepped away from the man and held out my hand to Zora, who slipped her hand into mine. We started down the road and just like that we were gone from view.
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The pastor stared at the empty space where the couple had just been and felt himself falling to his knees. God had answered his prayers and sent help!
The pastor cried out in prayer and praise all in the same breath. Deliverance was nigh at hand, which would spark rebirth, if only the people would listen and obey the calling of the Spirit of God.
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We reappeared at the edge of the town and instinctively I knew which church it was. I had thirty minutes before the start of Sunday morning services.
“Zora I want you to go on ahead of me to the church and sit in the back. Sometimes these church transformations don’t go well.”
“Elon?” Zora asked in concern to my statement.
“I was tarred and feathered once. It was not a nice experience let me tell you and it’s definitely one that I never want to repeat again!”
Zora’s eyes widened a little bigger at the release of that knowledge and she turned away towards the church but then stopped after a few steps. I knew what her problem was.
I came up behind her and grasped her shoulders lightly, “I know it’s embarrassing for you to go into a church dressed as you are. If I had time I’d get you nicer and more appropriate clothes, but I don’t.”
Softly she said, “I look like a biker chick for Jesus!”
I busted out laughing, “There you go honey! You’ll scare the hell out of them!”
She gave me a dirty look over her shoulder and I smacked one side of her bottom resoundingly as I sent her forward on her way. She rubbed where I’d smacked, but continued on toward the church. I’d found her birthmark all right.
She looked accusingly back at me still rubbing and I kissed the air. Her face warmed up in a blush and she hurried on. Tonight seemed like such a long way off, but it would come eventually.
I pulled my eyes away from my wife’s shifting hips and got busy with what I needed to get done before the service began.
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Zora made her way into the church past the doormen standing at attention in their immaculate usher coats. To their credit they gave her a hearty welcome. She mumbled something in reply and continued on past them.
She felt their gazes linger on her in a familiar way as she moved deeper into the foyer. That wasn’t supposed to happen at church was it?
Women in pretty dresses and pantsuits gave her eye arching looks of disapproval, as they tried to pull their interested husband’s gazes away from her, even as they tried to shield their daughters dressed up in frilly princess outfits of lace from what they considered an objectionable sight.
The boys just stared, until they were smacked into movement by their mothers. Yeah she wouldn’t have any friends in this place.
Conversation hushed for a moment as she passed by in the hall, but then resumed as people went on reconnecting with each other. Church was a good place to reconnect with others, but seemingly it appeared that the connection with God had been divorced from the conversation that was going on all around her.
The service didn’t start for another fifteen minutes so it wasn’t time yet to connect with God came to be her consensus of the actions of those around her. There was something terribly wrong with that mindset Zora couldn’t help but think to herself.
Wasn’t this the house of God?
When had it come to be a social networking platform?
Zora slipped into the ladies room and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that she was alone. She’d only been in the building a few minutes, but she felt like she was suffocating from the weight of the condescending looks that had been directed at her.
She went over to the mirror to check the damage and winced. Yes, her vampire slayer outfit did not fit in well with present company, but it wasn’t like she’d had a choice in the matter. And yet what really was the problem with the way she was dressed?
She wasn’t indecent. While her form was clearly outlined and the leather pants snug on her hips and rear she was still more decent than many of the women that she’d seen trolling about moments before.
This was Zora’s first time inside of a Western Pentecostal church and it was not going well. It was so very different from the church that she had grown up in as a child.
She had the distinct feeling that the service was going to disappoint her too.
Memories of her childhood flooded her all of a sudden. Her brothers and sister and her papa all sketched across the corners of her consciousness in vivid relief. Her mama had died when she was just a baby and it had fallen to papa to raise her and her siblings alone. He had been everything to her.
He’d been a pastor and a farmer. A pastor because the village had needed one. A farmer so his family wouldn’t starve.
Zora pressed her hands to her eyes to keep from crying, as a sudden up swell of emotion threatened to overwhelm her. She was on assignment. She had no time for emotion.
Zora quickly left the restroom and headed back out into the chattering throng leaving her memories of the past behind if for only a moment. She had to fight against the urge to just leave the church. Second in appeal to that option was to slink into the sanctuary and take up residence in a darkened corner away from the condemning or lustful eyes as the case may be of all those around her.
What kept her from doing either was that she didn’t know if Elon would have need of her or not so she forced herself to go back out to the foyer and the people still gathered there locked in conversation.
Her training to spot somewhat off occurrences seized onto the scene of the two doormen, who had let her in not opening the door for someone else. In fact they looked on the verge of holding the door shut!
Glancing beyond them through the glass door Zora saw why. A man was dragging his way up the sidewalk and he was the picture of homelessness.
She guessed him to be in his mid-fifties, but he looked older, because of the characteristic hopelessness mirrored across his face and features. Admittedly he looked rough, his clothes were stained and tattered and his messy beard and greasy hair looked like they were the breeding ground for more than one objectionable entity of vermin, but that was no reason to turn him away.
The man had to push his own way in past the doors as the two doormen hovered to either side in extreme objection of attitude. One of the doormen quickly walked off, probably to get someone in authority to intercede.
The man’s progress across the floor was painful to watch, as he dragged one leg behind him, even as he muttered unintelligibly to himself as his head jerked around as if it had a mind of its own. He was a clear picture of mental unstableness on one good leg.
He stank. It was bad and despite herself Zora felt herself start taking a step back along with the rest of the people in the foyer.
She hated bad smells like his, because they reminded her of too much of her past. The man was halfway across the foyer vestibule, when he started to hack on phlegm that seemed caught in his throat. He sounded as if he was choking to death!
Zora rushed to a water dispenser along one wall and poured a cup of it fast and hurried out to the man who was now down on one knee straining for his next breath.
“Here take this!” Zora said holding the water to his mouth, even as she tried to not breathe through her nose.
His eyes rose to hers and shock went through her as she thought projected, “Elon?”
“Pretty good disguise for thirty minutes of prep time don’t you think?” He responded with by way of her thoughts.
“What’s that smell?” Zora asked.
“Don’t ask.” Came Elon’s reply.
He took the water from her and miraculously his throat cleared. He then pulled himself up with a grip on her hand looking to the world as an arthritic old man. He then started hobbling onward toward the sanctuary mumbling as he went. The cup fell from his hand and water sloshed onto the pristine marble floor, which he ignored as he left muddy imprints through the spilled water.
All of those gathered in the foyer pressed back as he made his way through them toward the sanctuary in a general attitude of disgust.
“You might want to wash your hands.” Came the thought into Zora’s mind and she quickly headed for the restroom as she held her hand away from her even as she saw several important looking nobody’s try to stop Elon’s progress into the sanctuary. But short of laying hands on him, which everyone looked loathe to do there was no stopping Elon’s progress forward.
It was hard to fight back from grinning and when Zora had reentered the ladies room her face broke out into a full smile. Being with Elon was a blast, whether it doing crazy stunts like fighting demons or turning churches upside down by day. There was never a dull moment to be sure.
She looked into the mirror and with her voice choked with emotion she said, “You gave me away as a gift and yet I feel that I’m the one who’s been given something priceless! Thank you God!”
Her spirit warmed within her and she left the bathroom quickly not wanting to miss one moment of her husband’s performance. She slipped into the back of the sanctuary as worship time commenced.
Dutifully the still chattering throng broke off their conversations to mutely turn forward as if in rote response to the excited yelling of the worship leader echoing out of the sanctuary on the too loudly set speaker system. Exuberantly she told everyone how excited she was to praise Jesus today and then asked the crowd if they were to, but she didn’t give them any time to respond before launching into her song.
Good thing too, because she probably wouldn’t have gotten much of a response. In fact the noise of some six hundred people in attendance was less in volume than the praise team who consisted of about seven individuals. And yet what was weird was that the people who were being drowned out by the loud sound volume from the stage had just moments before been filled with sound as they reconnected outside the doors of the sanctuary.
Perhaps one reason for the lower volume from the crowd was because as near as Zora could see maybe only one in three people at best was actually singing along with the praise team!
The rest of the audience stood staring dazedly forward as if in some zombie state of mind or they were still chatting among each other about what they had been outside the sanctuary moments before as they relied on the volume of the praise team to hide the distraction their words were causing to people near them.
In a crowd of over six hundred people it looked like there were only ten to twenty people who actually looked as if they were worshiping. Even that could be deceiving as it was just a look that could be manifested. It was no guarantee that what was being seen was genuine or not.
And there could be no excuse for such a low output of volume from the crowd because they didn’t know the words of the song, as the words of the song were emblazoned in vivid relief by projectors against the back open wall of the stage for all to see and follow along with.
The lack of participation from the crowd was in sharp dissension from the praise team gathered on stage who were blaring music out and shaking all around as if they had ants in their pants. Forget pants, when it came to that.
The lead worship singer could’ve benefited from a pair of pants, as her dresses hemline was so short that she unconsciously from time to time reached down to try to tug the dress lower to no avail. Short was short.
What a disgrace this was!
Truly it could be said that Christians could be the phoniest of people. If she was an unsaved person nothing about this congregational atmosphere of lackluster belief would convince her to step forward in conviction of faith. She now full well understood the pastor’s anguish over the condition of his wayward flock.
There was no life in this place or if there was it was buried under ceremony and false pretenses of sanctimonious worship.
Zora’s eyes moved about in search of her husband to see how his mad charade of a homeless man was going. She found him on the front bench of the center aisle in the middle of the amphitheater styled sanctuary. His arms were moving, his feet were dancing, and in short he was totally worshiping God with everything he had.
He was also ticking off all those seated towards the front of the church by both his presence in the church and his overt acts of worship.
His praise reminded Zora of her own duty as a believer to give God praise, but she had no sooner than begun, then worship time was abruptly over. Four songs and done. That was it.
Everyone sat, as if relieved from a great burden, after standing for maybe less than twenty minutes.
The offering plates were passed out.
The band had continued to play mood music, while the offering was being taken, but they now stopped as a casually dressed man stepped onto the stage that had public relations guy written all over him. He began to talk into a headset mic, as he gave a few perfunctory and completely disingenuous claps with his hands, “All right! Wow! Wasn’t that an awesome time of praise and worship! Let’s give Katie a hand!”
There was an equally perfunctory clap of applause from a smattering of those in the crowd as Katie smiling big bowed over as if she’d gotten a standing ovation, even as she most likely had just given the drummer and electric guitarist situated behind her and eye full.
The commenter was back, “All right I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves, we won’t keep you much longer.”
We just got here was all Zora could think!
He went on, “Here’s some exciting news taking place around the church and just to let you know we’ll be having a guest speaker today, but don’t worry I’m sure you’ll still get out early enough to beat the Baptist’s to the restaurants first!”
People laughed.
They actually laughed!
Was this what church had become on Sunday morning in America?
If this church was to judge by then apparently so.
The church news bulletins flashed by as they were projected onto the wall above the stage area.
Zora actually heard one man comment to his buddy that he’d like to just stay at church and watch the game projected onto the big screen instead of watching the football game at home on his smaller screen.
The news bulletins were over and there was a lull that stretched out a little longer than was usual and people started looking at each other half smiling and half alarmed. They weren’t use to such an un-choreographed program when they came to church. Usually one segment flowed right into the next until it was over and it was time to go to lunch.
The silence got even more awkward as a few nervous laughs sounded out here and there and then Elon stood up. The silence became a suspenseful hush that brought everyone to attention.
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I walked up the steps to the stage sourly noting that this church didn’t even have an altar for people to come to pray at or seek healing. Several men I took to be Security stood up here and there in the crowd, but looked unsure of what to do.
I faced the crowd of affronted people, as I stood to the side of the pulpit. I reached up and pulled my wig off to let it fall to the stage floor. Then I let the tattered coat slip off to join the heap along with the torn pants I wore, until gradually I revealed the suit that I wore beneath the get up I had been disguised in.
Pulling a rag from my pocket I started to wipe off the facial makeup I wore even as I cleaned my hands up some before I dropped the now dirty rag on top of the pile beside me on the stage. The place was quiet and already emotional.
My voice carried well throughout the room without the use of a microphone as I pointed at the pile beside me, “What does this pile consist of?”
It was a rhetorical question that no one answered.
“It’s a pile of dirty rags. Everyone of you who stepped past those doors this morning is no better than this soiled and disgusting pile of rags. This is the house of praise people! Tell me which one of you woke up this morning and meditated on the majesty of God? Which one of you came into this holy sanctuary bearing on your person the garment of praise? Is God not worthy of praise? Is not your purpose, your created purpose, that transcends everything else, to bring praise, honor and glory to the Creator of us all? Where are your hearts? Have you remembered what Jesus did for you on the cross or have you come here seeking a show, a production of meaningless ritual? That’s right. Meaningless ritual! You have become altogether worthless and heed my words for you are in danger of being spewed out as lukewarm water. Rather that you were cold than the quasi-religiosity of tepid poison that you have become in how you have restrained the Kingdom of God! Do you think it is enough to have this building? To have a fully funded youth program and to fund missionaries to go do your work for you in Africa? How can you show the world the love of Christ, when you don’t even manifest it yourselves? Which of you shook my hand this morning? Which of you was not offended by my presence in this empty sepulcher? Which of you cared for my needs? My wife was the only one among you with a tender enough heart to intercede. The same woman that you have not ceased to dismissively regard ever since she came in based entirely on her matter of wardrobe. She’s not the one you should be looking at! Look at yourselves and you will find filth enough to spare. There will be no church in this place today! In your day you have become no better than the Jews of Jesus’s day, whom He drove out from the Temple with a whip for they had made God’s holy temple a place of buying and selling. A place of talk and not prayer. Where the cry of a merchant hawking his wares was to be heard over any cry of praise. Shame on you all for you have turned the Divine commission that was entrusted to you into a thing of vanity! Into the sound of false praise!”
I stepped backward and lifting an electric guitar out of its rack I stepped forward and flung it to fall on the floor before the stage, “To those of you who still bring your Bibles and take the time to read them I bring a verse to mind, ‘I desire not a song, a pleasantry of the lips, but a sincere and broken heart.’ Now get out all of you!”
The people didn’t get up to leave. They were wailing and blubbering all over themselves as they found their ways down to their knees or stretched out on the floor. Not one of them had the pride to stand, as the Spirit of God’s conviction was heavy on the place.
Without the heat of my earlier words I asked, “Do you want to change? Do you want to rediscover your first love?”
A wailing tumult arose in response to my words and I nodded in acceptance of it.
“Then this is my advice to you. Go home and fast and each of you by yourselves make supplication to God through your tears and prayers. Pray that He will renew your spirit and show you how to give Him perfect praise. The doors of this church will be open starting at sunrise tomorrow. I encourage…… no…… I beg of all of you to come. Do not waste this opportunity that God is giving you to learn, be strengthened, and renewed like never before. Now I have something to say to those of you, who have already purposed it within your hearts to be here tomorrow with the spirit of praise as you should’ve come with this morning. If you want to bring those who are lost and without the love and forgiveness of Christ that i