Northern Farmer

A little over a month ago I wrote a post titled “Beyond the Walls”. It was about a farmer bachelor that had died, a person that belonged to our little church. I wrote that post before the funeral. Ever since the funeral life hasn’t quite been the same. It’s not the fact that our friend Jim is gone. I knew him most of my life but we weren’t the very best of friends. He had his people and we have ours. We just always knew each other and would pass the time when we did get together. It’s what I learned at his wake and funeral, it’s things I’ve never seen before come to life right before my eyes. No, life will never be the same because I learned something big. I learned what kind of impact one quiet farmer could have on hundreds of country folk.

The funeral wasn’t held at our church because our church is a small one. The old traditional country church building. The funeral was held in a neighboring town in a fairly new building. Big enough to hold the crowd there that day, barely. I hurried up with chores that morning, in fact it was on Labor Day. I drove the farm truck to the funeral because I knew when it was all said and done I couldn’t hang around because I had to cut some hay, in fact it took me eight hours of cutting after the funeral to finish up. Our pastor whom I’ll call Pastor A, was to do the funeral service. We knew it would be a big one but never knew how big. We’d discussed the day before the possibility of giving a salvation message at the funeral because where we were going it was needed. Around here, in this area that’s not the normal way of doing things in almost all the church’s.

But Jim’s funeral was far from normal and I know in our little church the preaching of the gospel is always the way we go. But we were in territory that doesn’t do that. I came in and sat down a little over half way back. In fact I sat with the pastor’s children, plus our own. And that crowd soon was filling the place up. But the kind of crowd, the kind of folks, well I’ve never seen the likes of it before. There was all the regular churchy people, all spiffed up and trying to look important. You know, the kind you’d never loan any money to because you more than likely won’t see it back in this world, in other words the self righteous. There was the regular folks, the kind that I see all the time and if I had a dollar for everyone that asked about our little church, well the readership of this blog could all probably go out for a steak dinner. Did I forget to mention that this was the church that I attended for 15 years we were having the funeral in?

The most amazing thing that happened though was the fact that there was such a huge number of folks that would never step foot in a church that had come that morning. Where I was sitting I had excellent observation of the people. And one could just see the religious folks cringe. And I mean it! I leaned over and asked the kids, “do you see what I’m seeing?” There was junkyard folks, old fashioned farming folks, some were barely cleaned up, a few even wore their hats during the service. I started getting all excited inside, like never before! The kids answered my question with, “it’s just like the Bible”. And that it was, just like the gospels. The regular folks, not the hypocrites, but the sinners, the despised, the ones that don’t fit in to this thing called a church in modern day America. The kind of folks that made the religious folks full of hate during Jesus’s ministry on earth.

These were the folks that Jim was reaching out to during his life. He was friends to them all. He’d always tell them about Jesus, because more than likely they’d never be welcome in a modern day church. Now remember, our little bible believing church were the guests in this bigger church. The town’s preachers were gathered together right along side of me and I over heard them say, “now where did Pastor A run off to”. Well, I knew where Pastor A was, praying somewhere. Because religious tradition would be broken in that building that morning. The funeral finally got started and there was the usual family members and friends speaking a piece here and there, a song or two. Then it was Pastor A’s time. I listened and it started off what could be considered normal and proper for where we were. But in a few minutes I detected the flow going in the direction that I had prayed that it would, and it sure did! A powerful salvation message. a message about God’s love, our sinfulness, the Cross, the Blood, and what to do to be made right with God. I know that this was the first time hearing this for many of the folks and listen they did, Praise the Lord!

Jim always said that he witnessed to allot of folks but nobody ever wanted to come to church. Past experiences and the like would keep people away. But now they were there and they had the gospel preached to them! That’s all God asks, to preach the gospel. Preach it to the poor, the cast aways, the shunned, the looked down upon folks. Just like what Jesus did. He didn’t go around all spiffed up like the religious big shots of his day. As the casket was taken outside the rows were emptied starting at the front, working their way back. As we came outside I was thrown for a loop, a really good loop! They had put the casket in the bed of Jim’s old farm truck. The pall bearers were sitting on the sides of the pickup box and away the procession went to the graveyard a mile out of town. From the church to the graveyard, a mile distant, the stream of cars and trucks was continuous. I’d never seen a procession that long in my life.

It’s amazing what one man can do when he walks the walk. Reaching out to those that are shunned by established religion. Just like in the Gospel times, no different. That day changed me, big time. These are the folks God wants us to reach out to. It’s durn near impossible to reach the modern day carnal Christian person, they’re to wrapped up in materialism and me, me stuff. And the looked down on people can never feel welcome in that self serving environment. But God wants them folks!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 7:29 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.