Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Nov/93

Contributor - Gardiner Skelly

Title - Wise or Otherwise

Topic -

I have only been in jail once. Not a perfect record but then it could have been a lot worse! This was how it happened. "Reverend", said the disembodied voice on the phone, "we have a United Church minister in custody up here and he wants to talk to you; could you come up and see him?" It was the governor of the jail in the city of Banie on the line. Now one does not get that kind of call every day of the week, even amidst the clamouring and complicated crises of a busy city pastorate. Moreover, this was all of thirty years ago and was, therefore, in that dimly-remembered age of pastoral innocence when ministerial images were still relatively untarnished and when a clerical dog-collar was generally accepted as a certificate of ones integrity. I was, at the time, senior minister of the historical Collier St. Church which stands on a hillside near the heart of Barrie and looks out across the picturesque shores of Kempenfeldt Bay. The manse, next door to the church, was only a short block from the forbidding, grey stone, fortress-like prison. I put down the phone and was on my way up the hill wondering apprehensively what tragic tale of tribulation was about to be told.

It was one of those bleak November days which comes as a dreary, bone biting, soul-chilling harbinger of winter. The dank, depressing atmosphere inside the jail reflected accurately the seasonal climate outside. I was led down an echoing stone passage to a hard wooden chair which was placed at the heavy iron gateway to one of the cells. On the other side of the gate, inside the cell, sat the prisoner, a hunched picture of despondency. He looked frail, middle-aged, emaciated - even cadaverous.

Without pausing for polite preliminaries, I asked him bluntly, "Are you really a United Church minister?" His answer took my breath away. "No. Not really," he replied, "actually I'm an Anglican clergyman but I didn't want to let the Anglicans down, so I said I was United Church"!! None of my pastoral counselling text books covered this kind of case!!

Actually his crime was not particularly heinous. He had hired a taxi in Peterborough and asked the driver to take him to Lindsay. At that destination he paid the driver by cheque and immediately re-hired him to drive to Beaverton. There another cheque was issued and the taxi was hired yet once more to convey him to Orillia where yet another cheque was written. By this time the driver had not only his vehicle but also his brains in gear and he drove his passenger to the local police station. The cheques of course were pure rubber and he was charged accordingly. As a significant tail piece to this drama let me take the Anglicans off the hook by telling you that it was eventually revealed that the prisoner was not an ordained minister at all. Presumably he just suffered from delusions of grandeur!!

But our masquerading minister has messages for us. On the one hand he reminds us that there are no free rides, no free lunches. Everything comes with a price tag. One way or another we must be prepared to pay in the currency of endeavour, or discipline, or sacrifice. But wait a minute, you say, isn't the Grace of God, bestowed in Jesus Christ, entirely free; "without money and without price"? True enough, in a sense. But it was Bonhoeffer, the German martyr, who articulated the insight that while Grace is free it is never cheap. It is costly in terms of the demands it makes upon all who accept it. For the Christian there is always a price to be paid in the coinage of obedience and commitment.

Again, as we reflect upon the meaning of this curious episode we are reminded of a central and precious truth of the Gospel, namely that we do not need to pretend to be someone other than who we really are. Our Blessed Lord accepts us "just as we are". Regardless of where we have been or what we have done, despite all our stumbling and falling, when we come in true penitence He accepts us and promises by the miracle of His Grace to move us just a little closer to what He wants us to be. That is the best news in all the world.

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