Surprises in the cemetery, part 2

Dr. Bob Rogers

Updated: May 10, 2013, 12:35 AM

Published: May 10, 2013, 12:37 AM

Last week I began telling about the time I conducted a burial service in Reidsville for “Lloyd,” a man in his 90s, and how I met his mentally-challenged 45-year-old girlfriend from the nursing home, “Ruby.”

We arrived at the cemetery, and I began to tell some stories about Lloyd’s life. Ruby interrupted me, saying, “Mr. Bob, I’d like to sing a song.” I looked over at Lloyd’s family for help. One of the nieces nodded at me as if to say, “Go ahead and let her do it; if you don’t, she won’t quit talking.” So I said, “Ruby, if you still want to sing when I finish my message, you can sing then.” That satisfied her, and I continued.

I came to the point in the message when I mentioned Ruby. The family had asked me to say that Ruby and Lloyd loved each other, so I did, and then I braced myself for what Ruby would say. Sure enough, she spoke up again. “Yeah, we loved each other. No man was good to me like he was.” I was afraid she was going to go into explicit detail, so I was relieved that was all that she said.

I finished my message, and asked her, “Ruby, do you still want to sing?” She said, “Yes, I do,” and she stood up.

What happened next caught me by complete surprise. Ruby held her arms to her side, with hands out like wings, and began to sing the hit pop song from the Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan movie, Space Jam:

“I believe I can fly/ I believe I can touch the sky/ I think about it every night and day/ Spread my wings and fly away/ I believe I can soar/ I see me running through that open door/ I believe I can fly/ I believe I can fly/ I believe I can fly...”

She sang the entire song, and sang it fairly well. But it said nothing about the Christian faith or the death of a loved one. She said she wanted to sing a song, and apparently that’s exactly what she meant. She just wanted to sing a song! When she finished and sat down, I paused a moment, as everybody looked at me. Then I said, “That reminds me of a great gospel song, ‘I’ll Fly Away,’ and because Lloyd believed in Jesus, he’ll fly into the presence of the Lord.”

After the service, the funeral director said, “Preacher, you recovered from that pretty good.”

You know, Ruby’s song wasn’t really that far off, after all. The Bible says that the Lord himself will descend from heaven as the angel blows the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise to be with the Lord forever in heaven (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). Based on that verse, I guess I would agree with Ruby. I do believe I can fly.

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Is there a church for a big woman with an itch?

Dr. Bob Rogers

Updated: Jan 23, 2014, 10:34 PM

Published: Jan 23, 2014, 10:36 PM

A pastor was called to be guest preacher at a church. He knew this church was different when the congregation ended every line of the hymn with the shout of “yeehah!”

As he stood to preach, he noticed that people were spread out on the pews. He would see a person, then a space, then another person, and another space. He wondered why nobody sat next to another person, when he noticed on the pew beside each person was a cowboy hat.

Another time this same preacher was invited to a new church in the city. He was surprised to see that everybody there looked like they had fallen face first into a tackle box, because they had piercings and earrings on every part of the body imaginable. A rock band was playing alternative music on the stage.

As different as these two churches were, they were both growing and reaching people for Christ.

Years ago I was pastor of a small country church in the backwoods of Mississippi. There was another Baptist church just five miles away in the town (population 600). The pastor’s wife at the town church asked me, “Why don’t our two churches merge?” I said, “There are people in my church who would not feel comfortable or fit in at your town church.” She said, “Oh, come on. We’re a small town church. What could be so different?”

I said, “Well, I got one really big woman in my church who, when she gets to feeling an itch, she pulls her dress halfway up and she scratches herself.”

The eyes of this pastor’s wife got really big and she said, “I see what you mean.”

I forgot to tell her about another woman in my church who saw a roach running across the wood floor, so she stomped on it with her bare foot, laughed and shouted, “Aha! I got him!”

Yep, the culture was definitely different where I was pastor.

Jesus upset the religious establishment because He crossed cultural barriers. He loved to eat with tax collectors and Gentiles and other strange people. Jesus walked into the land of Samaria, full of half-breed Jews who worshiped in weird ways and talked different and smelled different.

Jesus walked right up to a Samaritan woman at a well and started talking her language. He accepted her culture, but he let her know her sinful lifestyle had to change. Soon she had the whole town following Jesus (see John 4).

So what cultural barrier is keeping somebody in your community from hearing the gospel? If you tear down the cultural barriers to share Christ in your neighborhood, you may hear the angels shouting, “Yeehah!”

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