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…
