THE BROTHER WHO TRIED
By Jim Olive

Brother Garfield went out behind the new modern church building and sat down to rest under the new green leaves of the huge maple tree. He was completely exhausted after having worked all morning packing his books and other personal belongings that he had used in his study for the past eight months. It had been such a short while since he had come to serve as the minister for the Main Street Church of Christ in New Jerusalem, Tennessee. He had come to New Jerusalem with a determination and ambition to make the most of his opportunities to serve the Master.

In the beginning everything had gone along just fine. Bro. Garfield had been meeting all the members of the congregation and had learned which ones had the higher spiritual values. After the first month he had had their worship planned and printed so that each member of the congregation could know what was happening. Of course it would take time for some of the members of the congregation, who had been more involved in observing traditions than they had in searching for truth, to adjust to a planned worship. Surprisingly, however, most of the members were happy to be a parr of anything that would make their worship more meaningful. Bro. Garfield was gratified for he knew that many of his brethren had not been so readily accepted in their plea for meaningful worship. It just seemed to good to be true. It was. About two weeks after the printed form had been used a preacher from a neighboring congregation heard about it. He was so upset that he just had to come to talk with Bro. Garfield. He moved slowly in the conversation for he feared that Bro. Garfield, who was obviously immature in the faith, would react violently. Bro. Garfield welcomed him and talked patiently for three hours. When it was apparent that Bro. Garfield would not see the error of his ways, the preacher told him his elders were going to be forced to withdraw from the entire congregation. He even threatened to expose him in the TRADITION ADVOCATE, a popular publication of his party.

As weeks went by the neighboring congregations began to “cool” and order was restored to the brotherhood in New Jerusalem. His peacefulness came just in time for the lectureship at Alexander Campbell College, the white Church of Christ college in New Jerusalem. Of course the colored brethren, if you would call them brethren, went to Racoon John Smith Institute across town. The lectureships were well attended in spite of the fact that the Bible Department Chairman had shown liberal tendencies the year before by asking the congregations to support the college out of the treasury. (Of course the treasury is scriptural, traditionally.) Bro. Garfield was not asked to participate in any way. He was permitted to attend the annual dinner for preachers given by the college. The loyal brethren did keep an eye on him.

A short while after the lectureship had closed Bro. Garfield began thinking about what his subject would be on Easter Sunday. He read Romans 14 and decided that since all of the people would have their minds centered on the death and resurrection of Christ that he would take advantage of the situation and preach on that subject. Since he had begun the use of the printed order he had also planned the songs to go with the sermon. Everyone in the congregation felt that since their sect felt that they should observe the resurrection every Sunday, nothing could possibly be wrong with doing it on Easter. By some coincidence one of the faculty members from ACC (Alexander Campbell College) was present for the service. Bro. Garfield, the kind and gracious man that he was, asked Brother Cleaver to pray. The service was beautiful until Brother Cleaver led his prayer. Instead of leading the prayer he preached a sermonette on the damnable practice of observing the resurrection on Easter. Later he “walked out” in the middle of the singing of “Christ the Lord is risen today” The entire congregation was shocked.

It was not long until the elders received a letter from Ima Churchmaster, Editor of the TRADITION ADVOCATE. They were told that if they did not get rid of that heretic the whole congregation would be excommunicated. Bro. Garfield heard of the letter and resigned the next Sunday. There was not a dry eye in the audience as they listened, for the last time, to the man that had made Christ’s love mean so much to them. — Box 513, David Lipscomb College, Nashville 5, Tennessee.