BURN HIM AT THE STAKE

At the age of fourteen I was getting to preach weekly in various churches. There was a church in an area just outside Tulsa, Oklahoma that had mid-week service on Tuesday nights. They asked me to preach on numerous occasions. I was too young to drive and they were always willing to pick me up and take me.

It was a small church. An old house converted into a church. It had been enlarged by volunteer labor. The building had open windows and no air-conditioning. It was summer time. The ceiling was low and the stage area didn’t have much headspace. There were scuffmarks above the pulpit area where preachers had scraped their hands with overhead gestures. The light on the stage was also just above the preacher’s head.

By this time I had grown nearly a foot taller. God had answered my prayer to be taller and now I was a very skinny six feet tall. Like most poor boys in the mid-sixties, I slicked my hair down with Vitalis or Bril-cream hair cream. Just a dab will do you, it said. I used a lot.

The little church was filled to capacity. These people were very poor and had lots of children. They allowed the children to run loose most of the time and it was a real distraction. I had learned to deal with distractions pretty well by then and was just happy to get to preach.

I took my text from Exodus 4:10-15 where Moses stated that he was slow of speech and not eloquent. While reading the text I felt something crawling in the crown of my hair. The doors and windows were open and bugs were flying around the light bulbs, especially the light bulb above my oiled hair. With a gesture through my hair, I cast out the light bug onto my Bible and slammed the book on him. I still have that old Bible and the stain is still there.

The longer the sermon went the more the kids got restless. They began wandering around the sanctuary. Every once in a while a mother would drop a baby on its head and it would cry loudly. The church didn’t have a nursery.

There were a number of other visiting preachers and deacons in, “Amen corner.” They were yelling, “Amen, preach it boy.” I enjoyed the encouragement. I was still fighting the bugs off and almost knocked out the light bulb. Then the children started running all over after one another. I thought the parents would settle them down but they didn’t. I was trying to concentrate with all these distractions but it was getting more difficult. The children started playing cowboys and Indians. They were chasing one another even more. They started running up on the stage and down again. I gave one an authoritative look to stop. The boy huddled with the other kids and they started running around me and the pulpit. Finally, I lost it when they said, “Lets burn him at the stake.” For some reason, the church closed a few years later.

BURN HIM AT THE STAKE

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