EMBARASSMENT-THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING [F, 11-20-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

EMBARASSMENT-THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING [F, 11-20-20]

 

I mentioned in the CIW for M, 11-9-20, about laughter, that sometimes things in church went well because people got to laugh together at me. So it was the time I called the new wife, as she was up in front of everybody to join the church, by the name of her husband’s first wife. [I don’t use real names for any of the people in this story. Well, the names are real; they just don’t go with those people.]

For some reason, a lot of people in that church got divorced, and then married somebody else in that church. It created problems. Like Gary and Terri. They both told me separately that they could not come to church anymore because they didn’t want to run into their ex. I said, “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. We’ve got two main doors, at opposite ends of the building, and we have two worship services, with an hour in between. I’ll assign each of you to a different door and a different service. No chance of you running into each other.”

I knew that I needed to take a more pastoral approach to them. Their avoidance of each other was not just a management problem, which door or service to use. I’d been in the ministry for 25 years. I knew that an excuse like running into an ex was only that, an excuse. They just didn’t want to come to church, but they didn’t want to tell the preacher that. Especially since they might want him to do a wedding for them when they got married again. [They did.]

But I was tired. Tired in general, and tired of that sort of church member game. At the time, I was the only pastor of a church that needed at least three. I always say that congregation had a thousand members, but it was only about 900 then, I think, but growing. Also, it was on a university campus, and although students no longer came to worship in droves the way they did in my university days, there were still enough who came to swell the average Sunday morning attendance to 400, and to give me a lot of extra pastoral counseling.

And, as I said, the congregation was growing, including Jack and Jill. [1]

Jack was one of those guys divorced from a woman—a very well-known woman—in the congregation. He got married again. He was one of those constituents-part of the church “community,” but not actually a member. Jill decided that they should join. So there they were, in front of the congregation, with me saying, “Today, we are receiving Jack & Betty into membership…”

Of course, Betty was his first wife’s name. There was a total gasp from the congregation. All I could do was turn to Jill and say, “Do you have any suggestions for how I can get out of this?” She smiled and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “We could just ignore it.” That was when everybody had a good laugh. Except for me. I was so gratified at Jill, but I haven’t yet gotten over the embarrassment of giving that poor gracious woman the name of the former wife.

When I feel despondent, I try to conjure up good memories. For some reason, it’s always the embarrassing memories that make it out of the bottle.

John Robert McFarland

1] There was a real Jack and Jill couple in a church we attended in retirement. They had been married a long time and so genially assured people upon first meeting that they there was no need to make any jokes about going up hills or breaking crowns, since they had heard them all. Just about killed me.