Jack, a lay pastor, woke up with a headache directly in the center of his forehead. He had gotten up at 3:00 a.m. and skulled a liter of water. Then munched two Ambiens and one Estazolam in hopes of staving off the hangover. It was a bottle of 2016 Cotes du Rhone. It was cheap for Taiwan, about eight dollars. And it was great. It was the first time in months that red wine tasted the way good red wine should. It was light of course, being French, thus the headache and not the full bodied hangover. He had chosen a light wine for that reason, easier to recover from. It was 14% alcohol though. So Jack knew he was in for some pain when he chose it. But an ice cold shower and he's doing OK.
The problem is, he has to preach a sermon. And within his particularly denomination, imbibing is absolutely forbidden. But he falls occasionally. He's an ex-junkie for crying out loud! So what's the big deal about having a bottle of Cotes du Rhone every once in a while?
The parishioners always are awkward with him. He can't figure out if they can smell booze oozing from his skin (if he's been drinking at all during the week, he normally takes a day off from the hooch before going to church so there won't be morning after master blaster booze breath, torch-like in it's trajectory), or if it's his lazy eye, or his bad hair day, or if it's the fact that they are all fourth or fifth generation members of the denomination and he's been in and out of the church of several times. His religion is a place he frequents for spiritual refills after years of blazing down the path of perdition drinking in all of its lustful pleasures including those that are fleshly in nature, but also chemical. And the voice of God is always calling him even while he's in the throes of debauchery. So he stops running from God sometimes and lets the Creator catch him and hold him, giving peace.
So anyway this church is starved for participants in its church-service and he has been asked to preach. He was a theology student at one of the denomination's big universities there in the Inland Empire in southern California for a couple years, so it was only a matter of time until he would be asked to deliver a homily. Only a few weeks ago the church asked the principal of its affiliated private Christian academy to preach and the guy stuttered through about eight minutes of his sermon and then he stopped. It appeared the principal had prepared a ten minute sermon, but it was coming apart so badly that he decided to cut if off at eight minutes.
So the lay pastor has to go and preach somewhat of a fire and brimstone sermon this morning, while at the same time keeping Jesus' unlimited love central to the theme. The church is in a bad way and the ship needs to be righted. Not that they are going to listen to this ex-wastoid anyway, but he's convicted by the Spirit and must deliver God's message.
The lay pastor has almost completely recovered from his hangover and is slowly getting dressed while grappling with exactly how to lambaste these parishioners. They certainly are in need of a lambasting as he sees so many people in need of fellowship whom are not getting it. There's the Russian guy who attends church, in part, to improve his English. He speaks English in one word sentences and is having a hard time making friends. There is the homeless guy from Okinawa. He doesn't speak Mandarin, but he speaks English with a pretty strong stutter. He needs a hug, but he has been living in Da An Forest Park and the lay pastor is a germaphobe, so someone very Christ-like will need to administer that hug. The lay pastor's very favorite preacher, Bill Liversidge, hugged lepers in New Guinea as his first missionary gig (yeah hugging, not preaching or teaching, just hugging, all day, five or six days a week) and Jack knows that Jesus touched lepers regularly. He's got to work on that germophobe thing.
One reason the church needs a lambasting is that most of its parishioners live on the grounds of the affiliated academy up in the hills to the north of Taipei, an affluent part of town, and are for the most part, cut off from the rest of the Taiwanese. It's seems that they think teaching rich non-Christian kids suffices as true missionary work. The lay pastor would beg to differ.
The lay pastor brushes the hell out of his mouth, but he knows booze breath comes from the lungs. He picks up his bible and notes, takes a last look in the mirror. "Is my face red?!" he whispers to himself. Then, "Forget it, let's do this." And Jack steps out the door and heads for church.
Photo by Mark Scaturro