The Visitation (22 page)

THE CROWD MOVED
toward the pasture, almost every one of them wearing the same awestruck expression and talking about what they’d seen because they
had
to talk about it. Dorothy, who for years had had arthritis, was skipping, and showing off. Alice who once had a bad hip was prancing and square dancing with her husband. People were passing bits of bread around, sampling it and agreeing that it was the real thing. Matt and Norman manned the paddock gate again, nodding good-bye to everyone as they passed. They were beaming.

Now that they were in the pasture and away from the house, the television reporters took their microphones in hand and took full advantage of their cameras. They spoke excitedly, even frantically into the lenses. “We have seen incredible things today! A woman with a bad hip is now dancing! The legends of ancient times have become reality!” One reporter could hardly speak, his emotions choking his voice as he reported, “Brandon Nichols touched me, just in passing, and I felt a charge like electricity, and now, please look at my hand, can we get a close-up of this? The severed tendons are like new. . . .”

It wasn’t at all difficult to grab someone for an eyewitness interview. Dorothy went on camera, and so did Alice. A man turned around so the camera could see new hair growing where his bald spot used to be.

Kyle and Bob moved with the crowd, speechless from horror and amazement, but also because any comment they could make would be dangerous to make here. Kyle kept doing visual three-sixties, trying to track down the other ministers. He caught a glimpse of Paul Daley and Al Vendetti already into the pasture, talking feverishly and visibly shaken. Armond Harrison was still back at the ranch house, apparently having a little conference with the widow. Sally Fordyce was out of sight, immediately part of Nichols’s inner circle.

A reporter nabbed Paul and Al and shoved a microphone in their faces. As Kyle and Bob passed they could hear Paul stuttering a reply to a question. “W-we are in the presence of something immeasurable, unfath—unfatha—unfathomable . . . I’m sorry, I am really quite beside myself.”

They hurried by, not wanting to be interviewed.

“We’ve got trouble right here in River City,” Bob said finally, and very quietly.

“And some very serious preaching to do,” Kyle replied.

Tomorrow, he determined, he would be ready. He would go home right now, get out his Bible, get on his knees, and arm himself for battle. His congregation and the town of Antioch wouldn’t know what hit them.

If only he’d known how armed and ready his opponents were.

I
DIDN’T ATTEND
Antioch Pentecostal Mission on Sunday morning, but Kyle told me about it later, and I can imagine how it went. Attendance was good, the same kind of attendance you see at annual business meetings when there’s a hot dispute in progress or a scandal has surfaced or the pastor is about to resign. Anticipation was in the air, to put it mildly. Kyle was so eager to preach he almost told the worship team to skip the music, but he thought better of it.

I know Bud Lundgren, the big-bellied, flannel-shirted guitar player, would have been difficult to disappoint. Once Bud had his day laid out, he was like a bulldozer without a driver, pushing relentlessly ahead and impossible to turn around. As for Bud’s wife, Julie, playing her saxophone on Sunday morning was a matter of religious conviction, and not playing could amount to a desecration of the Sabbath. Linda, Kyle’s trim little wife, saw the wisdom in going through with the worship service and encouraged Kyle to keep it in. The congregation and Kyle could use the uplift, she said.

So at five minutes to eleven, Linda sat down at the piano and got the preservice music started, a quick medley of worship choruses and hymns. She swept through the chords and fills in a Pentecostal style Kyle always admired. Bud wump-thumped a rhythm on his old electric guitar, and Julie made sure there could be no question anywhere in the building what the melody of the song was. Kyle was primed for preaching. His spirit was stirred and his adrenaline flowing. He was humming the songs as he took his chair on the platform, but when the little band came to “Victory in Jesus,” he couldn’t hold back any longer and started singing aloud. Some in the congregation joined in, some fumbled with the hymn books trying to find the words, and some just sat there not singing because that wasn’t supposed to happen yet. Kyle didn’t care. He sang anyway, his eyes closed, his heart touching heaven.

The song service went well. Katie Kelmer, a vivacious lady with blonde hair stacked high atop her head, led the singing in her flamboyant, hand-raised style. Halfway through, Brother Norheim started “Bless the Lord, O My Soul” and everyone joined in. That was a good sign. He usually did that in the evening service, but this morning he must have been feeling an evening kind of anointing.

Dee Baylor, along with the Folsoms and Davises, skipped the service. Brandon Nichols would be performing again that morning and they didn’t want to miss it. In addition, they probably suspected what Kyle was going to say and didn’t want to hear it.

But I have a good idea who was there: the Forester and White families, brand-new in the faith and growing in the Lord; three generations of Sissons; four generations of Bradleys; the Hansons, Parkses, Kelmers, Hiddles, and Lundgrens. I know they stood with him that morning. He heard their Amens.

In my mind I can see and hear how Kyle’s sermon came across. I’ve heard Kyle preach, and when he’s on a roll he’s unstoppable. At times he can have a weakness for rabbit trails, and sometimes a particular illumination on the Scriptures will remain exciting to him but vague to his listeners, but overall, he gets from point A to point B, and persuasively. On this Sunday morning, by all accounts, he was on track, full of steam, and to the point. He’d heard and seen enough and it was time to get into the Word and settle the whole matter.

He launched his message from Matthew 24, repeating and ex- pounding on warnings that came from Jesus himself: “Take heed that no one deceive you. For many will come in my name, saying ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many,” and “many false prophets will rise up and deceive many,” and “if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the desert!’ do not go out; or, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms—’ ” At this point, Kyle felt it appropriate to add, “Or ‘Look, he’s up at the Macon ranch,’” and most of the folks nodded or even chuckled.

He was shouting with righteous energy by the time he read, “Do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” He made a pretty strong point: Jesus coming to a crummy little wheat town in Eastern Washington didn’t quite measure up to lightning coming from the east and flashing to the west. “Folks,” he said, “the Messiah came once, was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth, not Missoula, Montana! I believe a false christ has come to Antioch, and I intend to use the Scriptures to make my case. Some are enthralled by signs and wonders, by a clever selling job, but I say we test this so-called christ by the Scriptures. As it says in Isaiah, ‘To the law and the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them!’”

He got Amens to that. The people were with him.

Kyle took stern issue with Brandon Nichols’s message, if there even was one. The “Jesus” up at the Macon ranch seemed happy to let people believe whatever they wanted about him or anything else. The Jesus of the Gospels claimed to be—and Kyle pounded this one in from several directions—
the
way,
the
truth,
the
life, and the only means of access to God. More than that, the Jesus of Colossians 2 was “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, the creator of all things visible and invisible, before all things, the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, in whom all the fulness of deity dwelled.” It was good stuff. Stern stuff. He pulled no punches. He got Amens and Praise the Lords and even some applause.

Then, for a big finish, he reminded everyone of the cross and the price Jesus paid for our salvation. Holding his arms out to reenact the crucifixion, he spoke of the Roman spikes that pinned Jesus to the cross and then put out a challenge. “My Jesus died for my sins and washed me clean by his blood, and all creation will know this by the nail prints in his hands! If this man is the Christ, where are the scars?” He looked in the general direction of the Macon ranch and hollered, “Show me the scars that bought my salvation! Your tricks and healings and mind reading are impressive, but I need to be saved from my sins! Can you do that? Show me the nail scars!”

Amens! Applause! Agreement!

By the time Kyle said his closing prayer, his people were steeled in their convictions and the issue was settled. Kyle felt great.

He felt so great that he put all the main points of his sermon, including Scripture references, into a letter and mailed it to Nancy Barrons to print in the Antioch
Harvester
. That’s how I first learned the content of his message. That’s how the whole town heard about it.

And that’s when the cow manure hit the combine blades.

ARE WE JEALOUS,
Reverend Sherman?

I had not known Nancy Barrons to be quite so personal and direct in her editorials, but Kyle’s letter, which she did print on the Op-Ed page, must have aroused more anger than her cool professionalism could contain.

When the word of a simple ranch hand draws more people in one weekend than your preaching has drawn for as long as you have been here, I see in this fact a message. Perhaps Jesus is more than just a white, middle-class, right-wing fundamentalist Republican. Perhaps he dwells outside the walls of our respective institutions and defies our petty descriptions of him. Perhaps he is more concerned with people than with opinion.

Everyone is free to see whatever he or she wants in this stranger at the Macon ranch. I saw a kindly doer of good who allowed everyone the dignity of their own convictions. He touched and healed but did not judge, he blessed and did not condemn. He dared to speak of the good in all of us and inspired us to do some good in this world. He was there for the people and not the other way around.

What a refreshing change: a Messiah who believes in us.

The town of Antioch could use such a message. Certain clergy of

Antioch would do well to preach it.

As soon as I read Kyle’s letter and Nancy’s editorial I sank into my couch, raked my fingers through my hair, and cried out for deliverance, and not just for me. Kyle Sherman was more than an accident waiting to happen; he was a
disaster trying
to happen. I already knew which people were going to say what.

“HE COULD BE SUED
for triple damages!” Burton Eddy squawked to Sid Maher. They’d happened upon each other in Mack’s Sooper Market and short little Burton was red in the face. “Hasn’t he considered how much money the widow’s worth? She can hire a whole team of lawyers, believe me!”

Sid picked up a copy of the
Harvester
from Jack’s news rack near the door, and Burton took it upon himself to point out the Op-Ed page. Sid read it and made a troubled face.

“Bravo for Nancy!” said Burton, tapping the page with the back of his knuckles. “Somebody needs to make it clear to the kid what the rules are around here!”

Sid made another troubled face. “Rules? Burt, Kyle has a right to his opinion.”

Burton’s voice grew a little cold. “Are you
siding
with him, Sid?”

Sid got flustered. “I didn’t say that. I just said he has a right to his opinion. This is the opinion page, isn’t it?”

Burton put a hand on his hip and shifted his weight to that leg. When his hips were crooked and his free hand was pointing, you knew he meant business. “This is a community, Sid, and we are professionals! We have a duty to this town to keep things running smoothly in a spirit of neighborliness. This kid is swimming against the current and he’s making waves!”

Sid gave a weak nod. “His biblical arguments are sound.”

Burton rolled his eyes. “Sid, people don’t want to hear what this kid thinks the Bible says. That’s the whole problem here.”

“Well . . . the letter
is
divisive, that’s clear.”

“It’s trouble, Sid, just like we had with Travis Jordan, and we don’t need another round of that!”

Suddenly Jack McKinstry joined the conversation. “It’s bad for business too. I mean, come on, what else does Antioch have going for it if people can’t come here and see the Messiah?”

“BUT HE ISN’T JESUS,”
said Bob Fisher.

“I know that, I know that,” Paul Daley replied. “But that isn’t the point.”

They’d met each other while picking up their mail at the post office. Neither wanted to get into this discussion, but each thought the other did, so they both did.

“Of course it’s the point! It’s the whole point of Kyle’s letter!” Bob insisted.

“No, the point I’m trying to make is that Kyle’s letter makes a point that brings out the point Nancy Barrons is trying to make:

This Brandon fellow has a right to be wrong.”

“She’s saying it’s right to be wrong?”

“No, no, no! She’s saying even if you’re wrong, that’s your right.”

“But what if you’re deceiving others by being wrong? You think that’s right?”

“He isn’t deceiving others. He’s letting them think whatever they want. That’s the point.”

“Well why is he even up there talking if people just think what they want anyway? What’s the point of that?”

“There doesn’t have to be a point. That’s my point. Well actually, it’s Nancy’s point.”

“So you’re not making a point.”

“No, I’m just trying to point out Nancy’s point.”

“And we’re having a pointed conversation.”

By now they were laughing.

“WELL,
Kyle Sherman can come right in here and watch me run laps around the store,” said Matt Kiley. “He’s a talker just like all the others but he never made me walk!”