Monday, November 9, 2020             (today’s lectionary)
Flying in the air toward Jesus
Water flowed from the entrance of the temple. And Yahweh said to Ezekiel, “Wherever this river flows every sort of living creature shall live and multiply, and there shall be abundant fish, fruit trees of every kind will grow. And their leaves will not fade, not their fruit fail, for they shall be watered by the flow from my sanctuary.”
In 1987 we built, most of it from the ground up, a new church in Waynesville, Illinois. Once a schoolhouse, now we could squeeze 300 plus people in there every Sunday. They came from 40 miles around. We sang and had Sunday School, VBS and frequent potlucks, Gary Johnson preached his fired-up, inspiring sermons that he wrote on Tuesday, memorized all week and shared with us on Sunday, and we were happy. Thirty years later the church keeps growing. It stands across from the village park and water tower, which Marc tried to climb one day when he was five.
When we left Waynesville for Champaign-Urbana in 1989, my friend Earl Fields made a plaque for me. He burned the picture of a balloon into the wood, and inscribed the words, “1 Thess 4:17.” His initials, ELF, are in the corner and the “S” monogram decorates the balloon. Earl knew I had been a hot air balloonist years before, and in Waynesville we did much together – we were shepherds in a live nativity, sang in the church choir, made fried chicken and ate it, counted the folks who came on Sunday, and participated in a couple of small groups. We learned how to pray. Together.
And we who are alive will be caught up together with the dead in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And thus, we shall always be with the Lord.
Earl died a few years ago, and met the Lord in the air. He had Parkinson’s Disease. His shaking hands grew worse over the years after we left, but even in 1989 when he burnt that picture and those words into the wood, he must have had a tough time. His wife Marlene drove the yellow bus, now that the kids no longer had their own town schoolhouse. Marlene and Earl were the village hosts, and for us they laid out the red carpet. We were welcomed with open arms.
There is a stream which gladdens the city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High. God is in its midst, now and at the break of dawn.
Those of us who were newcomers, there initially because of the Waynesville Christian Church, liked to call our adopted town Mayberry. We had our own Aunt Bees (Grandma Riddle and Grandma Helen), and our pastor played Andy pretty well. We even had our Barney Fife, his role moving around between Jerry Barr, Dick Furman (author of Ride the Wild Horse) and a few other fellas.
Do you not know that YOU are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you? The temple of God (which you are) is holy. May his name be on you forever.
We won’t ever be forgetting our three years in Waynesville. I baptized a friend’s son in Kickapoo Creek. All our kids were baptized there or at nearby Little Galilee. Margaret and I led worship during a couple of revivals, and I preached a few sermons. Our family intentionally practiced Sabbath every Saturday night until Sunday night, and in the middle of our Sabbath, at 8:30 on Sunday morning, we walked the three blocks past the library, through downtown, to the church. On our last Sunday Gary presented me with a Certificate of Ordination, signed by the elders and beautifully framed. Then we took off for an early July picnic and potluck, where our friends and family showered us with cards and gifts. O my gosh, it was hard to leave!
Jesus found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers. He made a whip, overturned their tables and drove them all out of the temple. “Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace!”
It’s true, Gary was a spiritual entrepreneur. He left a great banking job in Michigan to go to Lincoln Christian Seminary. Everywhere he went people and places began to look up. In a hearse one morning while riding the two blocks from our church to the cemetery, he got a commitment from the funeral director to pay for our new church’s steeple.
But the church itself never felt like a marketplace. It always felt like a temple, where clear sweet living water covered our feet, and then our ankles, until finally we were swimming in new life. I look forward to meeting Earl one day, with our feet still wet, way up in the air. I’ll just bet he’s waiting for me.
(Ezekiel 47, Psalm 46, 1 Corinthians 3, 2 Chronicles, John 2)
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(Ezekiel 47, Psalm 46, 1 Corinthians 3, 2 Chronicles, John 2)
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