by Doug Worgul
About the same time Ferguson stopped asking LaVerne if he had any bourbon back in the office, LaVerne stopped offering to go in the back and get some. This didn’t stop them from regularly staying behind after the restaurant closed, to sit at a table in the middle of the dining room and talk about things. It was just that drinking whiskey was no longer the pretext for it.
LaVerne sensed that Ferguson was done with drinking, without him actually having said anything to that effect. And Ferguson sensed that LaVerne understood better than anyone what it meant to give up something that had defined you and also ruined you.
“So. Memphis, huh?” LaVerne said, with a slight, sly smile, sitting down across from Ferguson. “My, my, my.”
Ferguson shook his head. “Strangest thing that’s ever happened to me.”
LaVerne laughed. “I think you may be the strangest thing that ever happened to her. I don’t know of a black woman anywhere that’s sittin’ at home hoping some rich white Episcopal priest writer professor is going to show up out of the blue someday and sweep her off her feet.”
“I don’t know why not,” said Ferguson with a straight face. “That seems perfectly plausible to me. Although I’ll admit that I don’t know too many rich white Episcopal priest writer professors who are sitting at home hoping some black woman barbecue entrepreneur is going to save him from himself, his past, and the hounds of hell nipping at his heels.”
LaVerne looked across the table at his friend. He never knew whether to be impressed or embarrassed by the way Ferguson talked.
“I’m guessing this is a serious thing. You two are too old to be wasting your time flirting and goin’ on dates, and all the usual stuff.”
“It is. Serious.” Ferguson nodded. “We probably shouldn’t skip all the flirting and dating. But I think we both know that it’s one of those things that we can’t approach with caution. We can’t be rational about it, because if we were we wouldn’t even let ourselves consider it as a possibility. We have to jump right in with abandon. Head first. It’ll either succeed spectacularly or spectacularly fail.”
LaVerne nodded as if he understood, even though he had only ever done one uncareful thing in his entire life and that had turned out badly. Everything before and after that one thing had been calculated and controlled. Abandon and head first were not concepts LaVerne embraced.
He got up, went to the kitchen and came back with a loaf of French bread and a box of Morton’s kosher salt. He sat, broke the loaf in two and gave half to Ferguson. Then he poured some salt on a paper napkin, tore a piece from his half of the bread, pushed it into the salt, then ate it.
“Sometimes I get tired of the food on the menu. This right here tastes good to me. Simple.”
Ferguson pressed a piece of his bread in the salt and ate it.
“So what’s the next step?” LaVerne asked. “Goin’ to meet the family?”
“Actually, yes. Next weekend, in fact.”
“I’ll say this—she’s one fine looking woman.”
“She is indeed,” Ferguson said with conviction.
They drank coffee and ate their bread. LaVerne looked out the window.
“Don’t you tell Angela I said that.”
Ferguson poured a packet of sugar into his coffee. “Never ever.”
*
Ferguson’s visit to Memphis to spend the weekend getting to know Wren’s family got off to a bad start when his flight from Kansas City was delayed by the forced removal of a passenger whose grief over the death of his son—a college student whose body was being transported in the cargo bay of the aircraft—erupted in an alcohol- and guilt-induced rage, resulting in the injury of a flight attendant. Later newspaper accounts of the incident reported that the deceased had been drinking heavily and crossed the centerline driving back to campus from a bar where he and friends had been downing shots and shooting pool. One of the friends and a passenger in the other car involved in the accident were also killed. The young man had been a student at the University of San Diego and his father was escorting his body back to Portland, Maine, where the family lived and the boy would be buried.
Ferguson was standing in line at the gate with the other passengers waiting to board. He had come to the airport straight from the seminary, and was wearing what he always wore in his classroom—a black suit, black shirt, and clerical collar, with a silver chain and crucifix around his neck. As the bereaved and inebriated father was dragged from the plane by two airport policemen and an airline official, he grabbed Ferguson by the lapels of his coat.
“Forgive me, Father!” pleaded the man, pulling Ferguson’s startled face close to his. Ferguson smelled the sour floral smell of whiskey on the man’s breath and remembered what that tasted like. “I’m sorry. Tell him I’m sorry, Father. Forgive me! I know I’ve sinned! I sinned against him. And the others, too. It was me who killed them! Not him! It’s my fault!”
Instinctively, Ferguson reached out and placed his hand on the distraught man’s forehead. He spoke with urgency and authority.
“Almighty God have mercy on you, and forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life. Amen.”
The police pulled the man’s hands from Ferguson’s suit coat. He looked back at Ferguson in anguish and gratitude as he was hauled away. Ferguson crossed himself, as did a nearby airline employee and another passenger. He flipped open his cell phone and called Peri to tell her what had happened and that his flight would be late.
*
The main event of Ferguson’s visit was to be the traditional African-American Sunday doubleheader—church followed by family dinner at Grandma’s house; Grandma being Periwinkle Brown.
“I don’t know another Grandmother who’s as hot as you, Grandma Brown,” said Ferguson, as he and Peri drove to church.
“I am hot, Reverend,” she affirmed. “And one of these days, you’re going to get burned.”
“Is that a promise, Grandma Brown?” Ferguson laughed.
“You keep callin’ me ‘Grandma’ and you’ll find out exactly what ‘burned’ means.” Peri waggled her finger back and forth in mock warning.
Mt. Gilead Baptist is no longer a small urban congregation, meeting in a crumbling downtown church building. It has grown exponentially in the nearly forty years since Ferguson attended prayer meeting with Peri. The church has moved to a gleaming, golf course-sized, campus in the East Memphis suburbs, to better accommodate its more than 12,000 members.
The engine powering this growth is the Rev. Jerome Aaron Jenkins, who was appointed Mt. Gilead’s senior pastor in 1988, when he was 32 years old and the congregation’s membership stood at 138. At six-feet-six-inches tall and 340 pounds, Rev. Jenkins—who is called Rev. J.J. by most of his flock and “J Dawg” by many of the church’s young people—looks every bit the offensive lineman he once was at Tennessee State University.
Rev. Jenkins’ preaching is as commanding as his physical presence. When he thunders forth from his pulpit that “surely the Lord is in this place”, no one dares not believe it. And when he exhorts his congregation to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations”, they pretty much get up and go.
However, Rev. Jenkins’ powerful personality and spiritual authority are only partly responsible for Mt. Gilead’s growth. Rev. J.J.’s entrepreneurial energy and vision have had at least as much to do with it. In interviews published in Christianity Today, USA Today, The New York Times, and the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Rev. Jenkins proudly pointed out that Mt. Gilead was at the forefront of the trend toward large, ethnically diverse, suburban churches. “We put the ‘mega’ in the megachurch movement,” he said.
“It’s impressive all right,” Peri told Ferguson, as they neared the campus. “Miraculous, really. And I was swept right along in J.J.’s rushing river with everyone else. But I�
�ve been worried for awhile now that maybe it’s all gotten too big. It’s like a big business now. It’s not the Mt. Gilead I grew up in. Not by a long shot.”
She sighed. “But don’t tell Tyrell I feel that way. This church is his life. Well, Wren and the girls come first. And the restaurants. But he’s neck deep in the life of this church. He was chairman of the board of deacons for three terms. He’s been president of the men’s fellowship. He taught Sunday School. He coaches one of the basketball teams. Everything. He’s in everything there. To be honest, I think he’s the main reason I’m still there. Plus they have a great choir.”
She sighed again. “Maybe I’ll become an Episcopalian.”
Then Ferguson sighed. “Well, that’s just great. I was thinking of becoming a Baptist.”
*
Ferguson couldn’t get the bereft father at the airport out of his head. He had prayed for the man during his flight from Kansas City to Memphis, and again during compline in his room that night. But the image of the man’s contorted face and watery bloodshot eyes, and the strangled sound of his pleas would not go away.
He had thought he would pray some more at Mt. Gilead on Sunday, but, as he and Peri lowered themselves into plush theater-style seats, he understood that intimate time with God would not be one of the main features of the morning service. Intimacy was not the objective of worship at Mt. Gilead. It was praise. Loud praise, and lots of it. Also exhortation. And, at Mt. Gilead, praise and exhortation are done on one’s feet, with one’s hands either clapping or lifted toward heaven. Only a very few minutes of the nearly three-hour long service were actually spent sitting in the plush theater-style seats.
The praising commenced with the opening act, which was the gospel choir, accompanied by the rock band, leading the faithful in a hyperkinetic rendition of Psalm 68:
May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes
flee before him.
As smoke is blown away by the wind, may you blow
them away;
But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God;
May they be happy and joyful
Sing to God, sing praise to his name,
Extol him who rides on the clouds—his name is the Lord
A father to the fatherless,
God sets the lonely in families,
He leads forth the prisoners with singing.
After the choir had concluded its frenetic choruses it was time for the exhortation.
Rev. Jerome Jenkins ascended to his pulpit from which he extolled his followers to “live the expectant life.”
He took as his text the 11th chapter of Luke, verses 9 through 13:
“For everyone who asks, receives, and everyone who searches, finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
“Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?
“Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!
“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”
J Dawg paused to let the meaning of the Word soak in.
“When we pray, naturally we want God to answer our prayers. We hope God will answer our prayers. Most times we need God to answer our prayers. But we rarely expect God to answer our prayers.
He whispered, “Where is our trust?” And then thundered, “Where is our faith?”
Over the course of the next 40 or so minutes, Rev. Jenkins admonished his congregation to “ask for an egg, if an egg is what you want! But if you ask for an egg, you best expect an egg!”
“Your faith in God is revealed in what you expect when you come to him with the needs of your life and the desires of your heart. If you trust God, you won’t be expecting scorpions!”
Most of the congregation stood during most of the sermon and cheered their pastor on as he preached like they would the star of the hometown basketball team shooting three-pointers from the corner. The cheering was accompanied by much stomping and clapping. Rev. Jenkins was assisted by the organist who drove home key points with strategically placed chords and flourishes. As J.J. crescendoed to the finish, the organist’s riffs got louder and more elaborate.
To help sustain the congregation’s enthusiasm and the overall entertainment quotient, Rev. Jenkins improvised a few well-executed dance steps near the climax of his message.
“Expect God to make himself known to you!” he shouted, performing a syncopated shuffle, followed by a dainty two-step. “Expect him to bless you with a new job, if that’s what you need! God knows what you need! Expect him to bless your garage with a new car, if that’s what you need. Expect him to bless you with a garage, if that’s what you need.
“Expect him to make his face to shine upon you! Expect him to bless you in your coming and your going! Expect him to bless your children and your children’s children to all generations!
“But, you need also to expect God to expect something from you. God expects you to give him what’s rightfully his. If he gives you money, you best give some back. If he gives you a new car, you best be giving folks a ride to church on Sunday. And if he gives you a job, you best be workin’ in the Master’s vineyard.
“Live your life in expectation that our Lord is coming back someday. Because someday he’s coming back in glohhhhree! And yewwww had best be ready.”
*
Dinner was at Wren and Tyrell’s big beige suburban house, and featured ham, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, fresh green beans with bacon, and homemade strawberry-rhubarb pie. Tyrell did the cooking. Ferguson was profuse in his praise.
After dinner, Peri listened contentedly as Ferguson and Wren chattered on about the current state of popular music. Wren asked if Ferguson had heard any of the new Dylan, which he had. Ferguson then asked Wren if she’d heard any of Solomon Burke’s latest, and she had.
Tyrell had finished dinner clean-up and was getting bored, so he tried steering the conversation in another direction.
“So, Brother Glen,” he said. “How does our service at Mt. Gilead compare to your Episcopal service?”
Ferguson laughed.
“That’s easy. Compared to you, we look like we’re dead. If we could capture all the energy at that service we could end America’s dependence on foreign oil.”
Tyrell laughed, too, nodding in agreement.
“Seriously, though. I’ve never to been to an Episcopal church. What’s it like?”
“Well, there’s more majesty and mystery in the Episcopal liturgy,” said Ferguson. “But there’s more joy in your worship. More joy and better preaching. Most Episcopal priests aren’t nearly as gifted preachers as is your Rev. Jenkins.”
Tyrell liked hearing this. “J.J. can bring it, can’t he? We’re blessed to have him as our leader. We were praying for someone like him. We were about to shrivel up and die. But look at us now. It’s like the passage from today says, ‘Ask and you shall receive.’”
“That’s true,” said Ferguson, smiling only slightly. “Except for when it isn’t.”
Tyrell wasn’t sure he heard Ferguson right. “Except for when it isn’t?”
“Well,” Ferguson said. “We don’t get everything we ask God for. Sometimes we ask for eggs and, while we may not get scorpions in return, we don’t get any eggs either.”
Tyrell agreed with this, though somewhat tentatively.
“Right. But that’s just God acting in our best interests. He knows better than we do what we need and what’s best for us. We may not always ask for the things God knows we need.”
Ferguson nodded. “Exactly. That’s why I’m not sure we can call the things we enjoy
or are grateful for ‘blessings’. The logic of that is flawed. If we get what we pray for and call it a blessing, what do we call it when our neighbor who didn’t pray gets the same thing? We thank God for the blessing of the sunshine, but Jesus says God causes the sun to shine on the righteous and sinners alike. So is the sunshine a blessing? Or is it just the sunshine?”
Periwinkle and Wren were quiet and attentive, as when anticipating thunder after lightning has hit.
Tyrell scowled. “So, let me see if I understand what you’re saying. Are you saying that there are no such things as blessings, in spite of the fact that blessings are mentioned throughout scripture?”
Ferguson realized that the conversation had gone down a path he wished it had not gone down. And he realized the only way out of it was back the way it came. He let out a long low breath.
“What I mean is that answered prayers and blessings aren’t the same things. Think about the people who come to Mt. Gilead’s soup kitchen for a warm meal. Surely many, if not most, of them have prayed for jobs, for homes, for health, for healing, wholeness, love, someone to notice them and take pity on them. And yet there they are. In line at a soup kitchen. So, are their prayers not good enough? Jesus never says that God’s answers to our prayers are contingent on the quality of our prayers. He never says that our prayers have to meet some certain standard of excellence before God will answer them. In fact, the prayer he asks us to take notice of is the simple plea, ‘Have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“It’s easy to say that those folks are there in line at the soup kitchen because of bad decisions they’ve made, and it’s probably true. But I’ve made just as many—maybe more—bad decisions in my life, and I’m not standing in line with them. So why are they there? Because God chose not to bless them? Why wouldn’t he bless them? They’re his children just as much as we are.
“I guess what I’m getting at is that I don’t think we can necessarily make the connection between answered prayers and blessings. I think the only connection is that we are blessed when we pray—that the act of praying is itself a blessing. But I don’t think it’s safe to conclude that when we get what we pray for we can call it a blessing.”