Page 98 of Share with Me

Chapter Thirty-One

When Hiram Jacobswalked to the lectern in the Brunswick Senior Living Community caféteria looking like the retired preacher that he was, Brinley was sure he was going to rain upon them a sermon of apocalyptic proportions. Perhaps even something rivaling that of Jonathan Edwards’ fiery “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” that had caused a revival in 1741.

And then Hiram broke into an old folk song that everyone else attending the Wednesday evening service apparently knew, all except Brinley.

She sat there quietly taking in the words and the mishmash of voices by people who could carry a tune and also those who were clearly tone deaf. As for her, her voice was silent. She neither knew the song nor wished to sing it. Instead, she wished to go home, for the song tugged at her heartstrings and beckoned her to see the woes of a poor wayfaring stranger waiting to cross over Jordan to see his savior.

“How many of us don’t have problems?” Hiram said when the off-key singing ended with gusto. “When we keep having chicken for dinner every week, I can tell you we have a problem!”

“We want steak!” someone shouted.

“You can’t eat steak with dentures, Joe!” someone else lobbed back.

Hiram spread out his arms as if to part the Red Sea. “Listen, folks. We all have problems. Bills to pay. Illnesses. Kids who don’t come to see us.”

Brinley heardamensall around.

“Yet, our biggest problem isn’t any of the above. Do you know what it is?”

Someone put up her hand.

“Yes, Sue?”

“You’re taking too long, Hiram. Food’s gonna get cold.”

“Easy, Sue. Don’t tempt him.”

Brinley grinned at the banter among the seniors.

Hiram put up his arms again to calm the masses. Brinley could imagine a long stick, a la Moses, in his hand. “Glad you brought that up, Sue. Someday these bodies of ours are gonna get cold. Real cold. We’d better address the biggest problem our soul ever faces: sin. Sin separates us from God. Sin permeates every cell of our being and poisons us from the inside out.”

Brinley wanted to shut him out but somehow Hiram reminded her of the way Grandpa Brooks talked. That southern gentleman drawl. That lost language.

Hearing Hiram talk was like stepping back in time to her Grandpa talk to the grandkids. If Grandpa Brooks were still alive he would’ve been Hiram’s contemporary.

“What is sin?” Hiram asked to mumblings among his congregation. “I can name you three sins: lying, cheating, stealing. What’s lying? The other day I heard someone say she was ninety. Truth be told, she was ninety-four and a few months more.”

The mumblings lessened.

“Cheating. If you had an extra tile in the Scrabble game this afternoon but nobody noticed and you didn’t say anything, better own up.”

All quiet now.

“Anyone took a third hush puppy at the Seaside Chapel luncheon Saturday when all we were supposed to have were two? That’s stealing food!”

Why couldn’t they have all the hush puppies they wanted?Brinley wanted to just go out and buy these people food.

“So there. Our soul has a problem. The problem is sin.” Hiram looked around the room. “But God has a solution. He sent a Savior. That Savior is Jesus Christ. Let me read Matthew 1:21.”

With a deep voice that harkened to old-time revival preachers, probably like those circuit riding preachers that had visited Brooks Plantations back in the antebellum South, Hiram read with such a reverence for the Bible that it put Brinley in awe.

“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

Throughout the entire sermon, Hiram hadn’t looked at Brinley at all, for which she was grateful. She wondered if everybody else knew what sin was except her and whether Hiram was really preaching to the choir for the benefit of outsiders like Aunt Ella.

And me.

“Do you want peace with God? If you have Jesus, you have peace. He is the prince of peace, not only at Christmas, but all year long,” Hiram concluded. “Let me tell you, folks. No matter what happens in this world, no matter how ravaging my cancer is every day or how painful my grief is over my sweet Camilla whom I’ll see again soon in heaven, I have peace in my heart. Do you?”

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