An Old Preacher Man

After a moment of shuffling through papers, the kindly lady sat at the piano. She began playing a few notes. Soon a few of the folks began singing. Sitting there Al didn’t recognize the music or the hymn. The guy next to him said, “It’s Amazing Grace, she always plays that one first.”

 As she played, the elderly man whom Al had met outside approached the simple music stand- pulpit. Clearing his throat he said, “Welcome everybody, I greet you all in the name of Jesus Christ. I am Reverend Daniel Williams and that tiny wisp of a lady at the piano is my wonderful wife Elizabeth. Welcome to Agape Station, a place of caring and love.”

The Reverend stood at the microphone and his deep voice bellowed out the words to the hymn they were singing. Al thought, “That giant of a man can’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow. But his wife, well she is one talented lady. She plays like a concert pianist.” They sang two more hymns led by the Reverend, and then he announced his scripture reading.

                                                                                                                     

The scripture story was about a woman at a well giving Jesus a drink. Al was listening as Reverend Williams told the gathering the woman was from the other side of the tracks, a place the Jews hated. She wondered why Jesus being a Jew would even talk to her.

 As Reverend Williams preached, his voice began to boom. With Al’s full attention Reverend William’s said, “Jesus doesn't care where you are from; he wants you to know where you are going. You can’t be any worse off than the poor woman he met at the well. You see, she couldn’t hide anything from Jesus and you can’t either. Jesus knew she had five men in her life and the guy she was with wasn’t her husband.”

            As the reverend was talking about hiding anything from Jesus, Al began to get a strange feeling in the

 pit of his stomach. His chair was getting harder, and he was getting tired. The old reverend ended with a prayer and asked anyone in the gathering that had a need of Jesus in their life to come forward to the prayer chairs. 

            When the words left the preacher’s lips, the guy in the stocking cap elbowed Al. As the Mrs. Reverend played and sang, “Just as I Am without One Plea,” a couple of folks walked to the front of the old transformed grocery store. Al was not one of them.