Sam Spade Goes To Church

(Author’s note: this article is entirely fictional.  Any resemblance to real people in real churches is unfortunate.  To be read with a Humphrey Bogart accent.)

It was a Sunday much like any other Sunday.  I didn’t expect anything unusual to happen, but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that when you think nothing will happen, that’s when it probably will.  Still I was lulled by the normalness of my Sunday routine so much I didn’t notice the visitors.  Not right away, that is.

I stepped up to the platform just the way I do every Sunday morning, and started arranging my notes on the podium.  “Good morning,” I said to the congregation, smiling as if I meant it.  “Good morning,” they all responded as if they meant it too.  For some, it was just the normal routine; others may have actually thought there was something good about the morning.  It didn’t make any difference to me; I had stalled them long enough to get my notes in order and was ready to go.

“Turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark,” I told them, then watched as they did as they were told.  That’s when I saw the visitors.  Our church isn’t the big kind where visitors might pass unnoticed, but it didn’t matter, these people would have been noticed anywhere. They stuck out like a sore thumb that had suffered a brief but close encounter with a large and fast-moving hammer. 

A lot of people don’t wear their Sunday Best to church any more, but these people must have looked for their Sunday Worst.  Not only were the clothes not nice, but they weren’t fresh, either.  They were wrinkled and dirty, as if they’d been wearing nothing else for a week.  Judging from the distance others kept from them, they must have smelled that way, too.

The kids looked dirty and scared, and didn’t know how to sit in church.  We offer services for kids in another part of the church, but these adults kept them where they were, sitting close as if they were afraid to let them out of their sight.

I make it a practice to stick to my notes, so I didn’t say what was on my mind.  I faithfully read what was on the paper in front of me, and even tried to put some inflection into it, the way I would if I meant what I was saying.  But even as I prattled on about Jesus Christ and the love of God, I was deciding in my mind how I was going to handle the problem these people were to me.

Like I said, I’ve been in this business a long time, and I knew what was coming.  “Pastor, we’ve got a problem and we need some money.”  They’d need gas, food, maybe a place to stay.  I’d seen it all before and was tired of being used.  I rambled on about the love of God, but inside I was hellfire and brimstone.  All I needed was some small thing to set me off.  I was a bomb with a short fuse, and I knew they were the match.  None of this showed as I smiled and talked on and pretended to mean what I said.

After the final “Amen” I worked my way to the front door where I always stand and shake hands and everyone tells me what a fine sermon I gave and we all smile as if we mean it.  Our visitors waited until there was a lull, the way these people always do.  I was ready for them, and they weren’t getting any money out of me.  Not today.

The woman was holding one child, the other two hid behind her and the man, close, as if afraid that if they let go someone bad would get them.  She had tears in her eyes, but that didn’t fool me.  I’d seen tears before.  What I hadn’t seen was the twenty-dollar bill in the man’s hand.  He slipped it into mine as he shook my hand and said, “Thanks.  We just needed a place where we knew we’d be welcome,” then hurried out the door.  I looked out in time to see out of state plates on their car as they drove off.

I thought I’d been in this business long enough to know what it was all about, suddenly I felt like the King’s own fool.  Then I remembered that He doesn’t call many wise, noble, or honorable, but uses the foolish things to shame the wise.  I looked for someone to give that twenty to.  It was time to do something foolish.