ECSTATIC JOY ON A COLD DECEMBER MORNING

“And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62 King James Version)

“Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’ ” (Luke 9:62 New International Version ©1984)

One of most pastors’ worst nightmares is a weather forecast calling for snow for a Saturday night or a Sunday morning! Such was the case this past week. I think I first heard talk of snow for the weekend as far back as Monday. Then forecasters were confident that the expected precipitation for the Saturday would be all rain; then; rain changing to light snow; THEN some calling for 4 inches of snow! I was cautiously optimistic when I went to bed early on Saturday evening. At around 11:20 p.m. I awakened from a pleasant dream to hear an unpleasant sound outdoors...an electronic “BEEP - BEEP -BEEP”. I knew what that was....the sound of a PLOW backing up on our dead end street! It had snowed! I sadly went back to sleep, dreading what I’d face in the morning.

Looking outside on Sunday, I saw a white winter wonderland. I heard many people comment on how “beautiful” everything looked on Sunday morning. I’ve got to agree with my son Jon, however. To people who don’t like snow (like us) it looked absolutely awful! The good news was that while it looked like we had 2-3 inches of snow on the GRASS, our driveway was clear! Snowstorms CAN come in interesting accumulation patterns. All the driveways on our side of the street were CLEAR, and all the driveways on the other side of the street were covered with about an inch or two of snow.

After shaving and showering, and a lot of work clearing the snow off my 21-year-old Volkswagen Golf, it was off to the church parking lot and something I was DREADING. This is difficult to write about, but our church’s snowplowing bill for LAST winter is just over $1800. We have yet to pay one penny of it! In years past we’ve usually had the winter snowplowing bill all paid off by July 4, and on occasions of particularly snowy winters it’s sometimes been as late as Labor Day before the snowplowing bill has a zero balance. Here it is, December and we’ve made zero payments! This has probably been our church’s worst financial year and our worst attendance year in 23 years! It would take many paragraphs to explain why that’s so. I’ve forfeited paychecks at least 10 weeks out of 2009 and absolutely nothing has been paid into my retirement account this year. The church has had its hands full just paying the mortgage, utilities, and insurance. One of the things you want to do as a church is to practice good stewardship and pay your bills on time. I can’t begin to tell you how embarrassing it is to be in our situation. We’ve particularly felt bad about our snowplowing contractor. They send bills regularly showing the large past due balance. There has never been a threatening phone call, or anything of the sort from them.

Even so, the church leaders, including me, had pretty well concluded that if and when it snows we just can’t expect the lot to be plowed. What snowplowing contractor would plow the lot with not one red cent having been paid for the previous winter? I don’t think I would.

Upon arrival at the church parking lot around 6:15 Sunday morning, it was evident the church lot was like the driveways on the other side of my residential street...it had picked up about an inch and a half of snow. Well, it was evident by all the neat mounds of snow that bordered the PLOWED parking lot! There were obvious tire marks in row upon row where the plowing had taken place. Our church got quite a Christmas present on Sunday morning- one we did not expect and did not deserve. This unpaid plowing contractor “put his hand to the plow” and plowed our lot!

“Bill” who is no longer on our Church Board but who served around 15 years on the Board in the past said, “I came down this morning figuring it was only an inch or so and we could probably make do with an unplowed lot. I just couldn’t believe it was plowed!”

81-year-old Claire, also a former Board Member said, “This proves there are still some nice people in this world!”

We have a number of older folks in our church congregation who don’t like to come out when it snows, so our small church was frankly TINY today. Even so, I think just about every one of the few people at church this morning commented on how surprised and how pleased they were to find the parking lot plowed.

I can say, “It made my day!” In fact, it was SUCH a blessing, I’m hard pressed to think ANY Christmas present will top the ecstatic joy I felt on a cold December Sunday morning!

There’s SUCH a lesson and application here!
The kind of thing that snowplowing contractor did is the kind of thing we all should be doing, ESPECIALLY during the Christmas season. Yes, many business people would consider it foolish. But he “went the second mile” as it were (see Matthew 5:38-42). I share this story in the hope and prayer that it will challenge all of us to be so “foolish” and so bold and so loving. It reminds me of that bumper sticker that says, “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” Let’s all follow that example and be so “foolishly” kind and generous this month (and henceforth!)