Kes: Be Careful Whose Snake You Are Picking Up

I am not a member of an organized religious organization. I am a Southern Baptist. I’m not sure exactly what that means. When I was very young, feeling my way through the pitfalls of life, I was pretty sure chicken and sweet potato casseroles were involved.

Brother L. H. Hatcher was as serious as a heart attack every time he stepped in that pulpit. Some Sunday mornings he just cleared off a spot and went to shelling down the corn. He preached with a zeal that couldn’t be faked, manipulated, spindled, or mutilated. He chased those poor, wayward Israelites from one side of that podium to the other.

And somewhere along the way he’d have me repenting for things I didn’t know I had transgressed…usually way before he finally got around to those thieves on the cross.

I tried to be the best young Christian I could be. And I wasn’t all that unclear on some of those ideas and parables Bro. Hatcher loved into us from the Gospels of Luke and John. But, let me tell you, it was like some demon was working against me when it got down to comprehending all the rules and regulations set forth in most of Leviticus and ALL of Deuteronomy. Some of it seemed more than a normal young person could survive.

I wanted to go to the picture show. I wanted to play baseball on Tuesday and Saturday nights. I didn’t mind if Jane Hill called me on occasion. I wasn’t sure if Bro. Hatcher, and God, were not teaming up to intrude on my fundamental rights to be a budding teenager.

It seems like there were a lot of “thou shalt not” sprinkled around in some of those Commandments. It could get so legalistic at times a body could come to believe that part of this Southern Baptist commitment walk entailed long stints on the other side of the distant mountains chained to an aging, balding Tibetan Monk    

I snuck up the street to the Methodist Church. Judy Creel’s father was the pastor. She had walking around sense. I wanted to see if it was handed down in the family by her dad. Dr. Creel wore a robe and had his hair cut shorter, but he sounded an awful lot like Bro. Hatcher.

I couldn’t tell one bit of difference between the two churches. Judy and a couple of her friends invited me down to the fellowship hall after the service. I’d never seen so much fried chicken and sweet potato casserole….

The Shiloh Presbyterian Church was way out of town. Maybe I lived too close to “Church Street” to get a clear picture of the situation. The sheer number of churches in that one small area may be overcoming all other forces.

I spent three nights of a two-week revival at the Shiloh gathering searching to see if there was any kind of different “guiding light” shining on me that Southern Baptist were missing. Of course, you can see the problem right off. And I don’t think any church denomination on earth had the least bit to do with it. 

I was looking for God, or the church, or a good friend to give me the inside scoop on what “I wanted the Bible” to tell me. Maybe I should have spent a moment listening to what God possibly had in store for me! It sure is easy for us mortals to get that backwards sometimes.

I figured I could stubborn along until God finally came around to seeing it my way. You need to study some Old Testament Israelite history and see how that worked out for them.

This is not about being disobedient or some kind of wild child. I was neither. I knew my parents, Bro. Hatcher, and an entire church body loved me. But I could be my own worst enemy at times, and downright selfish, and prideful, when the moment called for it….

Except for the snakes. We were at a Primitive Baptist Church in the Appalachian Mountains in East Tennessee when I was in college. I found out quickly they are no kin to Southern Baptist when they brought out the rattlesnakes. Those things were hissing, twirling, craning their necks…and what I took to be a deacon was handing them out to be passed down the rows!

I never even stuck my hand up. When the lady next to me turned and extended our snake, I said as humbly as I knew how, “Ma’am, there is not a greedy bone in my body. You just give my snake to your sister-in-law sitting behind us.”

I met Reverend Dave Fernandez not long after I moved to Port St. Joe. As is his wont, we almost immediately got around to Heavenly matters. I might have mentioned God didn’t always follow right in line with me. Bro. Dave rather quickly pointed out that if I thought the line formed around me, I was in for a miserable life…and a worse eternity.

And he wasn’t a Methodist, Presbyterian, OR Southern Baptist….

Respectfully,
Kes
kesley45@aol.com