WHAT PASTOR SOULDARE SAID

by Vic Jameson

That little Bible verse is what caused all the to-do. Well, no, I don’t mean it exactly that way; it wasn’t the Bible verse, maybe it was something Pastor Souldare said or the way he said it. Not that he misunderstood it, you understand. Maybe I ought to just tell you about it and let you decide.

It was Graduation Week, and I think you’ll agree that the students and their parents especially, and all the rest of the members of the Very First Presbyterian Church and most of the other churches in town, had listened to a gracious plenty of sermons and addresses and other speechifying. The high school principal, Ms. Rose, had lectured the graduates and all on the temptations of success, and Coach Lozone had talked to them about the temptations of failure (and having just recently endured a basketball season of six wins and fourteen losses, you would expect him to know his subject well), and Professor Playgnome on the importance of knowing the difference. As was the custom (although nobody seemed to know why) Uncle Harry spoke to the students— some of them for the third or fourth year—on things that— well, things that their parents wanted them to know about but didn’t want to be the ones who told them.

I had expected that the pastor and all the rest of the Very First folk would be weary of graduation things and would be glad to hear about something else. There was always the fear of war somewhere to preach about. And how crops and crop prices hit our little community hard. And the government was no help. And so forth.

So it was understandable that Pastor Souldare didn’t preach yet another long sermon when all the other speaking was over and Graduation Sunday came around. But we all were surprised at what he did and how he did it.

“Today’s sermon,” he said, “is the same as the Scripture lesson. You can get out your Bibles and read along if you wish, but you had better hurry, and you had better pay attention because I’m only going to say it once.”

Now that wasn’t like Pastor Souldare at all. He had gone to that Seminary where, I guess, they teach the pastors-to-be to “tell them what you are going to tell them, and then tell them, and then tell them what you told them.” And for him to be so bossy as to say “you had better pay attention” was a shock, coming from such a mild-mannered man as Pastor Souldare.

But that’s what he did, and after that introduction, I’m as sure as I can be that every man, woman, and child was listening. Then he said, “Here is the Scripture lesson and the sermon:

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

And I do believe that he was looking straight at every person in the sanctuary when he said those words. I know I asked Junie Shamrock about it, and she said that yes, he seemed to be looking at every one of us, and she felt spooky every time she thought about it, for days and days. I don’t believe I could remember a thing, later, that he prayed about. Junie said it was the same with her, and though I didn’t ask anyone else, I remember that almost everyone, as they came out of church a little later, seemed to have very thoughtful looks on their faces, so that you didn’t feel right saying anything to them for fear of interrupting something almost sacred, sort of. And after a few minutes he said, “Go into the world in peace and do something. Amen.” And that was that. For some reason there wasn’t any of the usual chit-chat after the service. People just got in their cars and went home.

It was the next day that some strange things began happening.

Elna Ellington was the first to notice. She said she was walking down Stretch Street across from the church when she noticed a box something like an orange crate on the church porch. And sure enough, it was full of oranges. Nobody was at the church, so she just went on with her errands. When she got home she called Emily Carlten about it, and Emily said she had seen three more boxes and two sacks of something, right there on the porch. Joe Evanmore saw even more, none with names on them, but some with the letters DTO or L631; but they all reckoned it was a code of some sort or thought nothing about it at all. Joe called the church: the telephone answering machine said Pastor Souldare was out of town and would return calls when he came back. The same sort of answer was on the Souldare’s home phone. Nobody was sure but Angela Quintan thought he had mentioned going to some sort of church meeting that would last three or four days.

Well, what to do? By Tuesday the boxes had spread into the yard and onto the sidewalk. Emily and Angela had taken perishables and put them in their own fridges until-until what? Boxes and bags of food, and now clothes hangers of beautiful clothing, were out there in the elements. Joe Evanmore worried about things getting stolen, but as far as anyone could tell nothing disappeared. Joe said someone ought to call the deacons, since they are in charge of donations and such. None of the deacons knew any more about it all than anybody else but they were willing, and they helped Emily and Angela find places to put the eggs and milk and meat and veggies and such. The deacons got volunteer help to move the boxes and bags out of the sun and rain for the time being. The Salvation Army agreed to take in some of it, too.

Some of the deacons asked for a meeting of the congregation to decide what should be done next, so a special meeting was set for Wednesday night, that also being choir practice night and the regular meeting time of the Bible study and Missionary Support Class.

A lot of people came; so many that chairs were set up at the ends of the pews, and some people were standing in the back. Several people who were not even members of Very First were there — the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen in church, although Yolinda McYoung insists there were more when they had the meeting to decide whether we would get to keep the name Very First instead of being the second First Church — but anyway all that was a long time ago.  

People were in a talkative mood at the meeting, wanting to find out anything they could about the donations and all. Marie Marro was president of the deacons and was just calling the meeting to order when I heard a familiar voice behind me. It was Pastor Souldare, and he was standing there with five or six other men. He seemed to be trying to not be noticed, but Marie spotted him right away, and just after the opening prayer she asked him to come up and take over the meeting, but he shook his head so vigorously that she got the message.

“But won’t you just say a few words?” she pleaded. And so without leaving the place where he was standing, he began to talk.

“It looks to me as if you folks are doing just fine,” he said. “I heard about what’s been happening, and all I want to say is how proud I am of every one of you and you just go on with your good work.”

But three or four of us standing there next to him heard him say, very softly and almost to himself, “But I guess a fellow has to be pretty careful what he preaches about these days.”