THE COMATOSE WARD

 

Another of my Christmas eve sermons. The Christian Century editors entered it in one of those “best of the year” contests by Associated Church Press, and it won, but, being churchly, there was no money or fame connected to the prize. Length warning: 2800 words]

 

THE COMATOSE WARD

John Robert McFarland

 

            He had never seen Jesus like this before. There he was, standing beside the bed, looking very unlike the pictures in the Sunday School papers.

            The Rev. Dr. Jackson Peter Taylor lay flat on his back in what he thought of as “the comatose ward.” It did not surprise him that Jesus had appeared there. Ever since he came across the theory of “the messianic secret” in the Gospel of Mark, during theological school, he realized that Jesus had a fondness for showing up in unexpected places. Jesus especially liked to reveal himself to people who would keep their mouths shut about it. The comatose ward was perfect. Of course, Christmas eve was the perfect time to pull something like this; hardly anyone was around.

            The Rev. Taylor liked being in the ward. When the stroke first hit, they put him in a private room. That was a joke. The last person who needed privacy was a paralyzed comatose stroke victim. He assumed it was really to give his family privacy to mourn his approaching demise. But J. P. Taylor knew he was not going to die yet. He still owed God, and he was sure God would make him drop his coins in the turnstile before allowing him into the big-top. That was something most Christians, with their “cheap grace” ideas, would never understand.

Even though it was usually credited to Spider Man, it was this Jesus, who was standing beside his bed now, who had first said it: “Of the one to whom much is given, is much expected.” Jack Taylor wished to high heaven that it really had been Spider Man instead of Jesus. He didn’t owe Spider Man anything. He preferred to go ahead and die and get this over with, but he knew that he had been given far more than he had yet paid the expectations on.

            Once the people in the white coats had realized he was not going to “check out” right away, and the people in the suits had found out that the insurance policy his church had provided him was not as comprehensive as the salesman—a member of the congregation—had claimed, he was moved to the ward. There were six beds, each with a breathing lump of flesh like himself. J.P. thought it was a great arrangement. It was shared privacy, which was better than lonely privacy or forced fellowship. He hoped his ward-mates were getting a good look at Jesus standing beside his bed. It would be a great event for them not to talk about with one another.

            The Rev. Dr. Taylor was sure that it was wonderful irony that the congregation that had “stroked” him so little in all the years he served it had finally given him “a stroke to last a lifetime,” just three months before retirement. The Christmas eve services were to be his last, and this it was four months off around the world with just Molly. The trip was a present from their sons and daughters-in-law. Well, now he would make a trip around the universe, assuming God would ever let him get at it, and Molly would make the trip around the world with her sister.

            In one of those unknowingly prescient moments that seem to come more frequently with age, he had told her that if anything happened to him, he wanted her to take her sister and go ahead and make the trip. “OK,” she had replied, with a shrug. He remembered that shrug now with such pride that his shrinking chest expanded until his sheets quivered. That was their type of love—made of steel. It could take whatever came and go right on without missing a beat. He knew it was the gift of that love that put him in debt to God, even now.

            Good grief! Maybe Jesus had come to collect. It had never before occurred to The Rev. Taylor that Jesus might be God’s bag man. What else would he be doing here? But how could Jesus insist that the beleaguered minister continue to answer “the call” here in the comatose ward?

            “Oh, no,” groaned the parson, silently, of course. “Don’t tell me I have to be a good example! That’s too much to ask of anybody.”

            The Rev. Taylor was always good at doing, but the thought of doing by being is enough to strike terror even in those in whose brain waves “the rough places are made smooth.”

            Seeing Jesus in the flesh, as it were, was a very different experience for the preacher. He had often spoken to others, in pulpit and out, of how God had become in-car-nate, “in the flesh,” in the person of Jesus. He had never really thought, however, that it was supposed to happen more than once. Yet, no doubt about it, here was Jesus, beside his bed. What a fantastic illustration for his Christmas eve sermon… and then he realized… he was not going to get to preach about this at all. He was in the comatose ward.

            “Damn,” he thought. “Every time you get a good illustration, there’s some reason you can’t use it.”

            It was like the other day when his associate pastor had come to serve him communion. That had always been The Rev. Dr. Jackson P. Taylor’s job in the past—to take Advent communion to all the patients and shut-ins. He loved doing it, even more than he loved preaching, and he loved preaching almost as much as chocolate-covered graham crackers. He would sit and chat, letting the other person steer the conversation, listening to their fears, coaxing forth their joys, just being there as the representative of the Body of Christ. In the course of their time together, he pulled the packet of wafers and flask of wine and the little glasses from his pockets. He worked the words of the communion ritual into their conversation naturally as they went along, talking of old times and the problems with children and hopes for the church. Then he broke the wafers and poured the wine. They shared as three friends having lunch together—the person, the parson, and the Christ.

            Now here was this nincompoop Charles Compworth, who had apparently learned absolutely nothing in nine years as his associate. He bustled into the room, The Rev. Mr. Efficiency, himself. He did not even remove his overcoat, a black cape with a fuzzy yellow cross on each lapel. He carried a fitted valise, which he plopped onto the end of the bed, snapped it open, and then proceeded to pull out the most godawful assortment of religious bric-a-brac that Jack Taylor had seen in forty years in ministry.

            There was a plastic cross. Charles snapped it together and set it on the rolling tray table. There was a purple stole with gold scroll work, which he draped around his neck. There was a tray for the wafers and a flagon for the wine and a three-footed stand on which to put them. There were two candles with electric switches on their bases. Jack Taylor was sure Charles Compworth probably even had spare batteries for them. There was a purple banner, with a misspelling of “Hallelujah” worked into it in gold, which The Rev. Compworth hung on the IV pole. There was a bell, which The Rev. Mr. Ridiculous—as Jack Taylor was now calling him in a rage under his totally bland exterior—actually rang before he broke the wafers.

            Charley Compworth grabbed his leather-bound, India-paper ritual book from an inside pocket of his cloak, raced through the communion service, broke a wafer, ate it, and drank the wine.

            “Hey, where’s mine?” yelled Jack Taylor, but of course the offensive right pastor did not hear a thing, did not even realize that J.P. Taylor, who had talked to him every day for nine years, was trying to say a thing to him now.

            “Come on, Charley, you idiot, give me the bread and wine. You can’t do communion by yourself. We wouldn’t call it communion if you could. We’d call it ecclesiastical solitaire. You’re doing it all wrong. Pour some of the blood of Christ down me so I can choke and get the hell out of here.”

            The Rev. Mr. Compworth, of course, simply left. Watching him, J.P. Taylor remembered why he had always insisted on doing communion for the sick himself. He did feel a pang of sympathy for his long-time associate, though. Charley was trying to do the work of both pastors in a church that should have had four anyway. Naturally he was in a hurry. He knew he was next in line for the bed that his old mentor held down now. In Charley’s case it would be a heart attack, of that his senior pastor was sure. No wonder Charley did not even want to look at him. It was too much like peering into the mirror of the future.

            Well, that was Charley’s problem. Now Jackson Peter Taylor had to deal with his own problem, which happened to be standing beside his bed. He wondered briefly if Jesus had simply come to get him, swinging low to swoop up a favorite son and him on home. That would be nice. If was so nice that it was highly unlikely. That only happened to lay people. Ministers were subject to law, not grace. When they answered “the call,” they forfeited all claims to grace, even to salvation, of that J.P. Taylor had been sure for years. Lay people rode to heaven on the backs of ministers who themselves were not allowed through the pearly gates; they were just sent back for another load.

            “And good Lord—pardon the expression, Jesus—they have been coming in here looking for a ride even when my back has been sticking out of this heathen hospital gown. If I can’t go to heaven, can’t you at least send me to hell and get me out of the comatose ward? It’s almost Christmas. Can’t I have just this one little present? I can’t go around the world with Molly, I know, but can’t I at least get out of here? People come in here, and they think I can’t hear a thing, just because I can’t say a thing, and they babble on.

            “So, what do they say?”

            J.P. Taylor was answering before he realized that there was something a bit unusual about having Jesus standing beside his bed and asking questions like that.

            “Well, like the time Charley Compworth was trying to comfort Molly. He said, I don’t know what to say. Molly knows Charley well enough that she doesn’t have to be reminded of how stupid he is. And the other day this cleaning lady was in. she looked at me and said, I understands you used to be a preacher. I wanted to be a preacher once, but they said girls couldn’t do that. Then big tears began to run down her cheeks, and she wiped them on my sheet. Sam Mason, the chairman of the trustees at church, was in. He ought to be chairman of the trusties at the jail. You know what he did? He stood right there, where you are now, and he whispered, Jack, you’re the only person I can tell this to. I’ve been embezzling at the bank. I had to do it to pay the bills for my mistress. She’s twenty-three years younger than I am, and nobody knows about her. Isn’t that a fine howdy-doo?”

            “What did you tell him?”

            “Well, nothing! You know I can’t say anything. I’ve had a stroke, for Pete’s sake, no offense intended to St. Peter, of course. I’ve been to his church in Rome and all, you know…”

            J.P. Taylor knew he was getting in deeper all the time, but Jesus did not really seem all that interested in his peccadilloes, not nearly like the people in the church who claimed they were following Jesus all the time. That stuck the Rev. Mr. Taylor as being not a little strange.

            “What did Sam Mason do then?” asked Jesus.

            “Well, he got down beside the bed on his knees. Began to cry and beg my forgiveness. Darndest thing I’ve ever seen. Then he stood up, and he dried his eyes on my sheet, and he took my hand and said that he knew he had done wrong, and he was going to repent and fly right. Walked out like a new man. I wish Charley Compworth was an embezzler; might get a new start for him, too. Well, not meaning that I really would want Charley to sin, you know…”

            This talking to Jesus was tricky business, thought Jack Taylor, but he seems to sort out the wheat from the chaff pretty well… But Jesus was continuing…

            “You still owe, you know,” said Jesus.

            “Well, yes, I was thinking about that when I first saw you standing there. It’s because of Molly, isn’t it?”

            “Yes. No man deserves love like hers, or love like mine, either. Besides, you’re a minister. You have to pay thrice for all your sins.”

            The Rev. Dr. Taylor was almost sure Jesus was hiding a smirk in his beard, but what if he was not? What if he was serious? This pay-back for both blessings and sins was double jeopardy.

            “So you’ve come to collect, huh?”

            “You’ve got it. However, the collection is that I’m not collecting. You have to stay a while longer.”

            “Oh, no,” groaned the weary pastor. “Can’t we work out a deal or something? You know, like when I was little, and I told you I would never do it again, whatever it was.”

            “By your definition of little, you were little up to the age of sixty-three, since that was the last time you made that promise.”

            The Rev. Mr. Taylor knew he’d been had.

            “Okay, give it to me straight. I’m not going to die, right?”

            “Right, but it’s only for a little while. You can die soon, but not quite yet. There are too many people who need you yet.”

            “Need me? Unless you intend to work a miracle, and I’m not saying you can’t, of course, I’m not going to be any good to anyone. I’m stuck here in so much white I feel like I’m in one of those little glass Christmas houses that you shake up and there’s snow all over the place.”

            “Don’t you see, Jack? That’s the point! Would Sam Mason have confessed to you if you could have talked back? He’s been embezzling and womanizing for years while you were his pastor, and he never said anything to you before. Would that cleaning lady have shared her broken dream with you if you’d been bustling down the hall like the elder version of that ass, my servant, Charles Compworth?

            Ouch! That hurt, thought the increasingly less reverend Jackson Peter Taylor.

            “And what about Charley himself? He doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t know what to say. But he’ll eventually figure out what he should say, because for the first time in nine years you won’t be giving him better lines than he can think up on his own. With you silent, maybe he’ll be able to think up what he needs to say, in his own words.”

            “But I was called to preach, not to lie here in the comatose ward!”

            “I was called to preach, not to die on a cross. When I was born in that stable, Jack, was that for crucifixion? I didn’t want the cross any more than you want this bed, but it came with the territory. Do you think you can follow me, Jack, and only have the shepherds and the wise men and gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and not take the cross, too? Sometimes the best preaching is done by listening, Jack. Sometimes the best giving is done just by being quiet and taking.”

            The words were gentle, but they reached deep.

            “Okay, boss,” breathed J.P. Taylor. “You’ve got me as long as you want me. Whenever you want to change the deal, you know where to find me.”

            “Right,” said Jesus. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Merry Christmas, Rev. Dr. Taylor, and get back to work.”

            Jesus was already gone when the nurse flung the door open and marched in to do bed check on the six occupants of the comatose ward. She came to Jack Taylor’s bed last.

            “What in the world? Who’s been in here, anyway? Some ninny nurse took your poor arms and stretched them straight out and forgot to put them back. Well, Christmas eve, and you can’t get decent help, I can tell you that.”

            Go ahead, tell me, sighed Pastor Taylor, as the nurse pulled up a chair…