Happy New Year, Lake Woebegone
It’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone. Pastor Inkfest down at the Lutheran Church is putting the final touches on his sermon for Sunday. The first Sunday of Advent is always difficult for several reasons: because it is the beginning of the liturgical year and it comes a month before the change in the calendar year. People in Lake Woebegone don’t like things out of sync; they especially don’t like doing anything before the rest of society. They would much rather that the new liturgical year came a month after the new calendar year, say, February. After all these years of getting used to the church doing things after everyone else the idea of the church taking the lead is too threatening. It was only a couple of years ago when the church gave up the mimeo-graph machine in favor of a dot-matrix printer, and that was only because someone found the printer on the curb in front of Howard Hammond’s house with a sign that said, “Free.” Maybell Sprocket, the church secretary, still complains that she misses the smell of the old mimeo-graph. It was a comforting smell like muffins baking at the General Custer bakery and Knitting Supply Store. Beside, typing on a mimeo-graph page took skill, just the right touch on the keys. This new machine didn’t require any skill at all, but that’s the way the country seems to be going – speed over expertise – no pride of accomplishment. The other reason why the first Sunday of Advent was so difficult for people was the lectionary text. Every year it was the same sort of thing – dark prophesies about the end of the world, the second coming of Christ and something called “the rapture.” Pastor Inkfest never heard about that in seminary, but everybody in the church seems to know about it. He considered preaching from some other text this Sunday, but some of his people have lunch with the Episcopalians and they would certainly find out that their pastor had strayed from the lectionary – the first sign of straying from orthodoxy. Next thing you know he will be preaching from some obscure text not even listed in the three year lectionary and from there it could go no where but down. Already the Norwegian bachelor farmers were growing nervous about Pastor Inkfest’s strange obsession with gold fish. He put a fish tank in his office. Didn’t even ask the trustees or the decor committee, chaired by Doris Purdy, just one day, there it was – with pastor Inkfest staring into it as if in a trance. It was only a few weeks after that when the lectionary text was from the first chapter of Genesis – “And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters which are under the firmament from the waters that are above the firmament.” Just as Pastor Inkfest began to explain what a firmament was, his eyes got that glazed over look, like when he stared in at the goldfish in his study. And he wondered out loud if the fish in the bowl can see through the glass to what is on the other side. Or do they see an endless expanse of nothingness like when we look out at the universe? Could it be that we, even with our gigantic telescopes, are only seeing as far as the firmament and God was nose to nose with us staring back? It was a new thought for the folks at Lake Woebegone, but folks around here, Lutherans in particular, are not fond of new thoughts. That was when Earl Skully called an emergency meeting of the deacons. He wondered if Pastor Inkfest had perhaps passed his prime and we ought to look for a new one. He was quickly over-ridden. Marge Chipman pointed out that to do so would initiate dramatic change and people hate change as much as they do new thoughts. Besides, Rita Jones added, with what is being taught in seminary these days, we are likely to be sent someone who thinks God is female and expects us to love everybody including the Muslims. That sealed the deal and they wrote Pastor Inkfest a letter instead, requesting that he stick to the gospel and avoid those unnecessary tangents into metaphysical philosophy and politics. Of course, Pastor Inkfest had never mentioned politics in his sermons but they threw that in just to be on the safe side. So, Pastor Inkfest decided to emphasize the word “watch” in his sermon. People in Lake Woebegone know about watching and are comfortable with that. They watch the leaves turn and fall – the paint peel and the eave pipes rust. They watch the geese fly south in the winter (sound #6) They watch each other grow old and thank God that their youthful appearance seems to be holding up better than some of the other saints. He would certainly be careful not to mention anything about a rapture, what ever that was. Especially since that story hit the Lake Woebegone Tattler about that woman up in Northfield who jumped through the sun roof of her car and landed in the middle of the highway right in front of a semi-truck. The news report listed her name as Hazel Nutt. The truck driver, a man identified as Wilber Sweeney from Milwaukee, was quoted as having said, “I should have been ready. I saw the bumper sticker that said, ‘In case of rapture, this car will be driverless.’ I just never expected it to happen right in front of me.” Fortunately the truck driver was able to swerve and when Mrs. Nutt woke up in the hospital surrounded by people dressed in white, she thought she was in heaven. It was only when her husband came in that she knew it wasn’t true. When asked why she did such a crazy thing, she explained that she was following a pickup truck with a load of inflatable human-sized dolls. They look amazing life-like. The pick-up driver said he was headed for a frat party at Saint Olaf’s College and would say no more. Well, it seems that the bungee cord holding the load down came lose and all those dolls started floating up to heaven. The woman got so excited about the rapture having arrived that she leaped through the open top of her car sure that she too would be carried up to meet Jesus in the air. The incident caused a certain amount of conversation, even faith questioning among the citizens of Lake Woebegone. Betty Beatty’s Beauty Parlor was abuzz. “Do I have the faith and assurance that, if the rapture comes, I will be included in those taken up, enough to jump out of a speeding car in front of a semi-truck?” But, as always, the folks soon settled back to the normal conversation about hog futures and the early frost and would it portend an early spring, and what Widow Smithers was up to and with whose husband this time. The last thing Pastor Inkfest wanted to do was reopen any of those controversial issues. Besides, a year ago on the first Sunday of Advent he spoke about the coming Kingdom and how we are supposed to be getting ready – nobody did and it turned out to be a good thing because nothing happened – the year before either. “I’ll just keep it short and sing a couple of extra hymns to fill the time,” He thought. “Next Sunday we’ll talk about John the Baptist.” He smiled that satisfied smile that every servant of the Lord knows well when he has followed the leading of the Lord to a satisfying conclusion, then went to feed his gold fish and wondered if the fish knew he was looking at it, almost nose to nose. Then he looked out the window of his study, at the steeple of his church, his little church – a little paint peeling on the south side. Then he looked past the steeple toward the heavens, the firmament, where God was – and he wondered. That’s the news from Lake Woebegone, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average. |