Steve Waldrip is a Christian country singer. He gets to sing at all kinds of churches. But one of the most unusual was in Possum Neck, Miss., which is just east of West, Miss. (I’m not making up these towns — check the map of Attala County.).
He knew he was in a country church when they booked a country singer like him for the 11 a.m. service. He noticed that the dress was casual, including some men who sported farmer’s tans wearing their “Sunday go to meeting wife beater shirts” (I’m just quoting Steve). But the most obvious sign that he was in a redneck church was the guys with spit cans at their feet.
After the service was over, Steve was talking to the pastor. He noticed a man walking toward them, and as he approached, he stuffed a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his mouth, big enough to choke a horse. The tobacco chewer stuck out his hand (the same hand that had just used to stuff tobacco in his mouth) to shake hands and said, “That was the best dang singin’ I ever heard.” Then the man got excited and started doing a little happy dance, and Steve noticed that the chewing tobacco juice was starting to run out of the sides of his mouth. Steve wondered, “How long can this guy go without spitting?”
But the man didn’t spit, he spewed! He released a four-foot wide cascade of juice, and Steve felt it hit his left leg. The man just smiled and kept talking, then said, “Mama’s got dinner waiting,” and left. As the tobacco chewer walked off, Steve looked down at his $400 snakeskin boots and saw that they were brown. He looked up at the pastor who said, “It happens.”
Jesus got spit on, too. Mark 15:19-20 describes how the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus: “They kept hitting Him on the head with a reed and spitting on Him. Getting down on their knees, they were paying Him homage. When they had mocked him, they stripped Him of his purple robe, put His clothes on Him, and led Him out to crucify Him.”
Nobody likes to get spit on. But before you feel too sorry for yourself because somebody mistreated you, remember that Jesus took the spit, and worse than that, he took the nails, for your sins and mine. He died and arose again, so that anybody who trusted in Him could be forgiven. Even tobacco chewers from Possum Neck, Miss.
Copyright 2009 by Bob Rogers. E-mail brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read this column each Friday for a mix of religion and humor. For more “Holy Humor,” go to the Web site www.fbcrincon.com.
