Stepping Down (4 page)

The
knot in the pit of her stomach twisted as she heard Mark’s car docking in the
garage. These meetings with the ministers and auxiliary boards and volunteers
and whoever else needed her husband’s ear were ridiculous. Sure, Sharla had her
share of appointments with the ministers’ wives and the Mother’s Board, but
they hadn’t taken over her life. Somehow, women knew to back down when another
woman said, “My child has a fever.”

Maybe
it was because of slavery or World War II that women had figured out how to
step in for one another. No matter, Mark needed to get with the twenty-first
century and learn how to leave things undone at church instead of at home.

She
whispered to the Lord, “Please help me not to go off on my husband tonight.” It
was Sunday, after all.

Well,
if she couldn’t put on a happy face for Mark, she could at least put on one for
Amani. At the sound of shoes on the kitchen tile, Sharla twisted her body
toward the entry. “Hey.”

“Hey,”
Mark barely responded.

She
could tell the meeting had not been completely pleasant by the wrinkles in his
forehead. Then Sharla felt the wrinkles on her own face. “Where’s Amani?”

“I
don’t know,” Mark scowled. “You tell me.”

“I
thought he was with you,” she enunciated harshly.

Mark’s
mouth crimped in annoyance. “When was the last time ‘Mani stayed with me after
service for a meeting?”

Sharla
jumped off the couch, yelling, “You’re right. I should have known better than
to think my husband might actually be with my son,” as she stomped toward their
bedroom.

She
called Amani’s cell and breathed a sigh of relief when he answered the phone.
“Where are you?”

“I’m
coming in the front door right now.”

She
ended the call and dashed back to the front door as Amani waltzed through with
a McDonald’s bag in one hand and a drink in the other. 

“Where
have you been?”

“I
went to Derek and Desmond’s after service,” he chirped.

Sharla
looked upside his head. “Did you not think to tell either me or your father
where you were going?”

Mark
joined her in the makeshift interrogation space in the main foyer. “Son, we
didn’t know where you were.”

“I
texted you and told you where I was going,” Amani said to his father.

“First
of all, you don’t
tell
me where you’re going. You
ask
,” Mark took
the wheel.

Sharla’s
breath steadied. She was glad to know that she and her husband were on the same
page, for once.

 “Second,
after you
ask
, you don’t follow through with your proposal until I
actually
acknowledge
you and give you
permission
to proceed. You
got that, Jack?” Mark threatened.

 Sharla
added her two cents, “And I’ve told you about hanging at the twins’ house. I
know they’re your friends, but that little sister of theirs isn’t so little
anymore. I’m not comfortable with you being over there unless I know their
parents are home.”

Amani
took the last, loud slurp of his drink. “Sorry about that, folks.” He walked
toward the kitchen as though all was well.

Mark
stood frozen, his face twitching. He hissed at Sharla, “Is he serious?”

Sharla
smacked her lips once and tipped her head toward the kitchen area. “
That’s
what I’ve been trying to tell you.” She couldn’t have planned a better setup to
let Mark witness first-hand how disrespectful their son had become in recent
months.

She
watched proudly as her husband dropped both his preacher hat and his father hat
and slipped straight into you-don’t-know-who-you-messin’-with mode. Some might
have called it thug-mode or even street-mode, thanks to Mark’s background.
Whatever, Sharla didn’t care. If it put the fear of God—or at least the
fear of his parents—back into Amani, she would gladly be Mark’s sidekick.

Together
they approached their son, who was calmly chowing down on a burger at the
table. Mark removed the burger and the fries from the table and handed them off
to Sharla, who set them on the island. Mark grabbed one leg of Amani’s chair
and forced the boy to face the seat Mark took right next to him.

Though
Amani was still trying to play it cool, Sharla could tell that the jerking
motion had rattled her son.

“Dad,
you know this is just like when Jesus got lost and his parents didn’t know
where he was for, like three days,” Amani reasoned in his most intellectual
tone, wearing a nervous grin.

“Be
quiet,” Mark ordered.

Amani
gulped.

Sharla
crossed her arms and stood behind her husband. She stood perfectly still, but
inside she was dancing. She had to give credit where it was due; Mark looked
darn good sitting there getting ready to go in on their son. This whole scene
was straight sexy.

How
long has it been?

Mark
leaned forward and locked his eyes on Amani’s. “I don’t know what’s gotten into
you. I don’t know why you’ve been talking back to your mom. And I don’t know
what’s made you think you can talk to me like I’m one of your friends. But you
betta get yourself together
real
quick and remember who you are and what
kind of parents you’re dealin’ with ‘cause if we have to have this discussion
again, it won’t be this nice and neat.”

Sharla
resisted the urge to add, “Yeah!” after every sentence.

Amani’s
gaze darted to his mother. She kept her poker face intact.

Amani
dropped his head and grumbled, “Yes, sir.”

“A
little louder,” Mark commanded.

“Yes,
sir,” Amani spoke clearly. “Can I leave now? I’m not hungry anymore.”

Mark
dismissed him with a nod.

In
one motion, Amani scooted his chair back, tore away from the table and took off
for the front door. “I’m gonna walk around the block, okay?”

“A
quick walk,” Mark permitted.

“What
the heck is that supposed to mean?”

Amani
slipped away.

“Mark,
go get him,” Sharla could barely murmur. Felt like her throat had cinched
closed.

Mark
laced his fingers and hung his hands between his knees. “No. Give him his space.
He’s got a lot going on inside. He’s been telling us he wants to meet his birth
family, Sharla. Looks like it’s all coming to a head.”

“Okay,
we can put the whole birth family issue aside right now. You can’t just leave
him on the streets,” she feared aloud.

“Yes,
we can let him walk down the streets of the Honey Ridge subdivision alone,
Sharla. Nothing’s gonna happen to him. He needs some time to think. They warned
us about this, remember, when we attended those adoption classes.”

Yes,
she remembered. Yet, she’d filed those cautionary speeches and case studies in
the “It won’t happen to me” category. Hadn’t God punished her enough already by
making it impossible for her to give birth?

“He
needs counseling,” Sharla snapped to a solution. “We
all
do.”

“In
the infamous words of Sweet Brown, Ain’t nobody got time for that,” Mark
declined.

It
was Sharla’s turn to wonder if Mark was serious. She caught the hint of humor on
his face as he stood. “You think this is funny?”

“Babe,
I’m just trying to lighten the mood.” He placed both hands on her shoulders and
gently massaged the knots forming in her muscles.

As
much as her body wanted to give in to Mark’s comfort, she couldn’t shake the
idea of her son walking around aimlessly, even if it was only four in the
afternoon. What if the cops stopped him? What if a delusional neighbor thought
Amani was trying to break in somebody’s house, like Trayvon Martin?

She
grabbed her purse and keys. “You coming with me?”

“No.
I already told you he needs to blow off steam. He’s probably going to walk to
the park and pick up the next basketball game. He’ll be back.”

“Whatever.
He’s hurting and he needs someone. Since we obviously can’t depend on you, I’ll
have to do it myself.”

His
first real opportunity to seclude himself and get in God’s face didn’t come
until Wednesday. For one thing, his attitude was bad until Tuesday night, when
Sharla finally gave in to his sexual advances, probably out of a purely primal
urge. Mark had gotten so desperate he simply took it however she would give it,
but quickies weren’t his preference.

Sex
was definitely on the list of things Mark wanted to put on the prayer list in
this quiet hour. Along with Amani. And New Vision. And Sharla, period. Not to
mention his message for Wednesday night service, which was only hours away.

Mark
had made it a point to dress down that day. Denim, a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt and
a Kangol 507 cap. He unlocked the suite, secured the door behind him, then
entered the sanctum of his office.

Jonathan
had taken the initiative to meet with a bereaved family on Mark’s behalf as
they made preparations to funeralize their loved one Friday. Not meeting with
the member’s family might lead to a nasty letter via email, but Mark couldn’t
run on “E” anymore. If he didn’t get some time alone with the Lord, he wouldn’t
be any good to anybody, least of all the people who leaned on him in troubled
times.

He’d
planned to have words at the funeral, though, to make up for it.

Therein
laid the first issue Mark wanted to bring before God—being there for all
these people. Sixteen hundred adults and their families was a lot of people to
shepherd, not counting the sporadic members. What would happen when they had
2,000? 4,000? 6,000? What if they grew faster than he could manage?

Mark
kicked his feet up on the couch in classic psychiatrist’s-chair position. He
selected the “Worship” playlist on his phone and listened as Bishop Paul
Morton, Smokie Norful, and Crystal Aikin filled the atmosphere with praise. The
melodies seemed to push the sense of worry right out of the room as Mark
meditated on the words of each song.

Next,
he lowered his knees onto the floor and assumed a prayer posture before the
Lord. After thanking God for Jesus and salvation, Mark’s concerns rattled
across his lips as though they’d been bottled up, waiting to expel themselves
from his mouth. “God, I don’t know what to do. The ministers want to move
forward, but I don’t think this is what You want. Sharla’s acting like…well,
you know. Amani’s going through his teenage adopted child phase; I guess that’s
what they call it.”

Following
a good thirty minutes of talking to God as though one might talk to his best
friend, Mark sat up on the brown, suede couch and took out a notepad and his
Bible, waiting anxiously to receive guidance about his concerns. He also opened
the Bible search app on his iPad to search for scriptures that might shed light
on the things he’d mentioned.

Sitting
with the Father in this special time reminded Mark of why he’d become a pastor
in the first place. He loved God. Loved His Word and wanted to share the good
news of Christ with people. And on that note, the divine lesson began.

Mark
grabbed his tablet and scrolled back through the messages he’d preached over
the last month. Though some had indeed been downloaded from the internet, he
had to admit that even the sermons he’d managed to scrape up on his own were
void of the essential Element of the gospel: Christ.

He’d
preached on success, self-esteem, overcoming your haters, letting go of the
past, and a number of other subjects people could have just as easily heard at
a business seminar. But as he read Romans 10:17, he recognized a gap. He read
the verse aloud again from the NIV. “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the
message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”

Where
was Christ at New Vision—other than tacked on at the end of every sermon
with the invitation, the call for new members, and the benediction?

“Forgive
me, Lord,” Mark uttered to the Master. Without a doubt, he knew what He’d
preach that night, Sunday, and for however long the Lord wanted him to stay on
Christ, he would.

 Mark
waited for another prompting from the Spirit about the other matters bothering
him that morning. He prayed again. He worshipped again. He put his nose to the
carpet and begged for guidance, but just as quickly as the Father had started
class, He’d concluded it.

These
were the kinds of lessons Mark disliked, the ones where God showed him one
faith-required, blind step at a time what to do.

Mark
sat back up in his chair. “God, why? Why won’t you just tell me what I need to
know? Isn’t that what You said in Jeremiah thirty-three and three?”

In
frustration, Mark turned to the verse. He would put God in remembrance of His
word and, hopefully, force His hand to give an answer quickly. “Says right
here, ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable
things you do not know.’”

No
sooner than he’d read the NIV, he got the urge to tap the verse into the
tablet’s Bible app and read it in the New King James version. The word “tell”
was translated “show.”

This
complicated things, of course. A search of the original Hebrew said “shew”
which had several meanings, one of which was “make known”.

Mark
didn’t like the sound of “make known”. He didn’t want one of those long,
drawn-out life lessons that could only be understood retrospectively. He didn’t
want a trial-filled testimony. All he wanted was some simple answers. Was that
too much to ask? Step one, step two, step three, and BAM! It was done in
Jesus’s name.

All
this “shewin’” was for the birds.

And
yet Mark knew there was no other way. No other
perfect
way. It would
either be God’s will or Mark’s made-up, bootleg plan which would fail miserably
and lead him right back to God’s will. He could do this the hard way or the
easy way.

“I
surrender, Lord.”

Though
Mark hadn’t gotten exactly what he’d wanted from God, there was no mistaking
the joy that had flooded his heart after submitting to whatever it was God had
in mind. This joy, which the Word had promised to believers through Christ, was
the subject of his message Wednesday night.

Typically
the mid-week crowd was an older, more studious group. They came with Bibles in
hand after long, hard days at work to press in for a refill through the praise
team and to hear a message from Mark that would give them another boost for the
last half of the week. Yet they sat there and stared back at him the way he
might expect from the second service Sunday crowd.

It
was no secret that at almost every church with more than one service on
Sundays, the early crowd is the serious crowd. They’re older, traditional,
they’re established so they have more money.

The
second crowd came in still smelling like the clubs. If they hadn’t been out all
night dancing, then they’d been up all night with small children. This was a
younger group with less to put in the collection plate, but they were much more
forgiving toward program diversions and much freer with their praise.

Mark
sometimes altered his sermons for this youthful crowd the way a good teacher
differentiates her lessons to meet her students’ learning styles. He couldn’t
go too deep too quickly with second service or he’d lose most of them.

But
the Wednesday night group was a faithful mixture of people who presumably
cracked open their Bibles more than once a week. Mark wasn’t used to the blank
stares facing him now.
Why would joy in Christ be such a hard concept for
this bunch to grasp?

Mark
racked his brain for another verse to make the message come alive. “Let’s turn
to Romans chapter fifteen. Here Paul speaks of the joy that even the Gentiles
have in Christ. This joy is not necessarily the kind of joy that makes you
smile because you and I well know that a smile can be a cover-up.”

He
scanned the audience, finally landing on the small, practiced smile laced with
impatience set on Sharla’s face. Mark believed that God Himself had planned for
him to speak those exact words as his eyes met Sharla’s, because he suddenly
felt the depth of his wife’s suffering deep within his own heart. Though he couldn’t
put his finger on the source of her pain, he felt it the same way Jesus must
have felt when Mary wept at his feet because her beloved brother, Lazarus had
died.

Something
in his beloved Sharla had died, too.
How could I have been so blind?

Disturbed
by the revelation, Mark struggled to resume his train of thought. “Where were
we?”

“Romans
fifteen,” they mumbled.

“Y’all
give the Lord a hand praise,” he stalled as the church responded obediently. He
quickly scanned the chapter again, trying to find his place.
God, help me
.

“Amen,
let’s read verse thirteen,” he decided. “‘Now the God of hope fill you with all
joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of
the Holy Ghost.’”

They
mumbled in agreement, as though these words alone weren’t enough to rejoice
about. The very idea of God filling His people with hope and joy and peace was
completely amazing to Mark once he really started thinking about it. “Did you
hear what I said, church?”

A
few, “Amens,” squeaked through the silence as roughly four hundred people sat
waiting for him to say something extremely interesting.

He
tried again. “Don’t you see? Christ has given us
His
joy for our pain,
His
joy for our sufferings,
His
joy for our lives. He gave us all of Himself
on the cross. So you see, we’re not waiting for a blessing. Jesus
is
the
greatest blessing we could ever receive.”

“Make
it plain,” from a man to his left.

 “Bring
it home, Pastor,” from a familiar voice behind him, Reverend Jackson.

Make
it plain? Bring it home?
The comments, which were probably meant to encourage him, actually ticked Mark
off. If they didn’t want to hear about Jesus, what
did
they want to
hear?

Mark
decided he’d conduct a little private experiment. He grabbed the microphone
from its stand, which was Robert’s cue to start backing him up on the organ.
“You see, church, Jesus died on the cross to set us free.”

“Mmmm
hmmm,” they agreed.

“Free
from sin and shame,” he continued.

“Yes.”

“And
now that we’re free…”

Robert
hit the keys once.

“We
can be all that he called us to be.”

A
few people in the audience stood to their feet. “Preach, Pastor.”

“I
don’t know what kind of problems you had. I don’t know what your Daddy told
you, what your Auntie prophesied over you, what kind of notes your teachers
wrote in your little manila folder, but I’m here to tell you—you
are
somebody!”

Several
of the deacons got up, crossing their arms and shaking their sanctified heads.

“I
don’t care if you rode the long bus or the short bus…if you had to walk to
school with holes in your shoes ‘cause there was no bus…it does not matter
where you come from, what matters is where you’re going!”

They
were with him now! Clapping, standing, waving their hands and cheering him on.

“All
you got to do is believe,” Mark roared.

“Yes!”

“Believe!”
he roared again.

They
echoed, “Believe!”

“Believe
that you can be anything you want to be! You can have anything you want to
have! Nothing is too good for you!”

“Yes!”

“And
what do we as saints of the Most High believe in?” Mark thrust the bulb of his
microphone toward the crowd and then read as many lips as possible. Of the six
or so he was able to see, none of them mouthed the same thing.

“I
say what do we believe in?” He repeated the question and tried again to get a
handle on their responses. This time, the word ‘yourself’ could be clearly
heard.

Though
Mark couldn’t possibly have read everyone’s lips or heard everyone’s response,
he was one hundred percent certain that none in the sampling of responses he
had
heard came near God or Christ.

“Sit
down,” Mark said, fanning a hand for them to take their seats.

Robert
mistook this as a signal to rile them up on the organ again. He took off with a
fast beat and led the church on a three-minute praise party. Out of respect for
the fact that God is indeed worthy, Mark didn’t stop them.

He
stood there and watched as God supernaturally lifted the veil from the faces of
some of the most dedicated members of New Vision. They jumped, they hollered,
they yelled out—but for many, it wasn’t praise. It was pain.

My
God.

He’d
seen that same scene play out hundreds, maybe thousands of times, but
that
time, Mark’s eyes and ears perceived the massive uproar differently. The people
were desperately waiting for a blessing, eagerly waiting to receive the
carrot-on-a-stick breakthrough that would bring them the joy and peace he had
just tried to convince them they already had in Christ. If only they believed.