Don’t Get Caught Up in the Terminology

I was driving up to Tennessee yesterday when an old gospel song you probably won’t remember came blasting over the airwaves, “Everybody’s gonna have religion in glory, Everybody’s gonna be singing that story….”

Now, if I was a normal thinking guy, rational and orderly, you would well suspect that the song would have shifted my mind around to its author, Lee Roy Abernathy. But it didn’t. I got to thinking about Karl Marx, who famously wrote, if you allow me to loosely translate his German, “Religion is the opium of the people.”

Karl Marx also famously wrote, “The Communist Manifesto.” I never read this pamphlet all the way to the end, but a lot of Russian folks did. It didn’t help them a bit. They are currently in year two of a five-year plan they started in 1919.

But it is not about governments today, I’m pondering on what religion Marx was referring to.

Pastor L. H. Hatcher was big. He had wide shoulders, a barrel chest, and, to a scrawny six-year-old, he was taller than all outdoors. He wore a double-breasted blue serge suit on most every occasion, and he could look a bit intimidating. Until he smiled.

I’m telling you, his smile was wider than he was tall.

It would take him a minute or two to get all of himself down on one knee in front of me. His big ole hand would engulf mine, “How is H. K. Colbert doing this morning?” I would shake with all my might, “Fine. And how is Brother L. H. Hatcher today?”

Every single Sunday of my young life, without fail, he made me feel like the most important person in the whole church!

He would come through the basement when we were doing crafts during Vacation Bible School. He’d study on the assorted popsicle sticks I was attempting to glue together to make an ash tray, pat me on the back, and tell me how good I was doing. I figured he needed those horn rim glasses he was wearing…. My ash tray kinda resembled a fallen over Leaning Tower of Pisa, with two or three bites taken out of it.

L. H. Hatcher didn’t have a discouraging word in his system.

When he came by the house for his Monday afternoon slice of chocolate pie, he would ask me all sorts of baseball questions. Or we’d discuss escaping the summer heat by jumping into Archie Moore’s Pond. He seemed to always know what was going on inside my mind.

Of course, like a lot of Baptist, we didn’t see eye to eye on everything. It would take him an hour and a half to tell that story about the man who got robbed on that road down to Jericho, and there weren’t but three other people passing by that day! He’d about put me to sleep chasing those Israelites across the desert trying to herd them into the Promise Land. They’d about make it, and then someone would mess up, and Bro. Hatcher had to start all over again!

Before I could doze off, he’d step out from behind that pulpit to shout out something Moses said and I could see that grass stain on the knee of his pants….

He was such a good guy, I could spare him a few more minutes.

Mr. Ed Wiley taught my Sunday School class from junior high until I graduated from high school. I don’t believe you could have a group of years more important than those when you were trying to figure out up from down, in from out, right from wrong….

He didn’t do one backflip. No sleight of hand. He certainly didn’t preach. And he made no attempt at entertaining us. Mostly he listened. And taught quietly. And if we were having a problem, he’d read to us, “thus saith the Lord….”

I was in his class for six years. In person. I have realized with the wisdom that comes with the passing of time, Mr. Wiley is still ever before me. Quietly, patiently, and humbly showing me the way.

It is the same for Miss Floy Coleman. She was our Training Union teacher on Sunday evenings. She was young, so beautiful she glowed, and actively getting her own life going, but she still turned aside for us. And you talk about unconditional love. Everybody was her favorite! She knew one song on the piano. We sang, “What A Friend we have in Jesus” every week come rain or shine, Heaven or highwater.

It is, to this day, my all-time favorite hymn.

Bro. Hatcher, Mr. Wiley, and Miss Floy earnestly and sincerely cared for my eternal soul.

I never heard any one of them ever say the word religion. Not one time! In my whole life! Boy howdy, that lets the air out of Karl Marx’s bag. And a lot of other folks, too.

They talked about faith, love, peace, joy, hope, and understanding. And they lived that talk right before my eyes. They shared Christ with all their hearts. They didn’t dwell on much else. And that, brothers and sisters, is the message.

Respectfully,
Kes