I Don’t Always Agree with My Pastor!

Brother L. H. Hatcher was the preacher at the First Baptist Church in McKenzie, Tennessee, during my formative years. I got to know him looking up from the fourth row where my Buster Browns were killing my feet and the extra dose of Niagara in my Sunday shirt had rubbed my neck a cherry red.

I would have nodded in agreement (if I could have moved my head) on those parts about Jesus being the Lily of the Valley and how much God loved us and Jonah wouldn't have been in such a fix if he had just gone on to Nineveh like he was supposed to! I didn't have any trouble with that "love your neighbor" part. Brother Hatcher was big on getting the other fellow's car out of the ditch. I wasn't opposed to going the extra mile. And I certainly thought we ought to support those missionaries in China.

The trouble started over the Philistines. Brother Hatcher taught that we also had to love our enemies. Listen here, I was nine or ten years old! And right in the middle of my little league baseball career! I didn't have any love for those guys on the Rotary team or the V. F. W. I was trying to beat their brains out! If Deake Bradley got a hit off of me, you'd better believe I was going to send the first pitch his next time at bat right at his left ear. He sure threw enough at mine!

I figured God wouldn't mind if I didn't start loving Deake and Buddy and Bo and Martin and the others until after our little league days were over. And I was hoping that He wouldn't send me to the belly of the big fish if He did!

Brother Hatcher was relentless on the subject. He got to doing the "turn the other cheek" sermon every other Sunday. He would kinda put it on your mind where you would walk around all week pondering on it. I could turn the other cheek if it was Mother or Daddy, and sometimes even Leon; but I wasn't about to "cozy up" to those guys on the other team. And when we got a little older those boys from Atwood would come over to Frank's Dairy Bar and eye our girls.

Now, I didn't for the life of me understand what they saw in Jane Hill, Charlotte Melton or Vicki Fields. We didn't have anybody in the group that looked like Sandra Dee. But that was beside the point! Them Atwood boys should have stayed in Atwood! And, in spite of all of Brother Hatcher's admonishments, this was different! We wasn't about to "love'em" for invading our territory!

When I turned sixteen, he started in on dancing. I think it was Jerry Lee Lewis that called his attention to all the "hopping, skipping and gyrating around!" He allowed it was the Devil's music. And no good could come from it. It really didn't bother me at first. To tell you the truth, I wasn't too big on it either. Then I ran into Billie Jean Barham over in Huntingdon. She was the prettiest girl I had ever seen.

I didn't know how to tell her. And, believe me, breaking the ice was a whole lot different back in those days... I don't rightly remember how me and Buddy and Yogi found our way over to the dance at the Huntingdon National Guard Armory. I do remember feeling a little guilty. I knew Brother Hatcher would be mighty upset with us. And I wasn't interested in "Great Balls of Fire", "High School Confidential" or "You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog"! I needed something slow and not so loud so I could get close enough to her to tell her how I felt.

Somebody put on "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" by The Platters and I hurried (as nonchalantly as I could) over to Billie Jean and asked her to dance. I stuttered for the 2 minutes and 40 seconds it took Herb Reed and his gang to get through that song. I did a little better during Smoky Robinson and the Miracles, "The Tracks of My Tears."

Brother Hatcher got up the very next morning and read from Hezekiah or someplace about all the problems you could get into if you went down that dancing road. I shriveled as low as I could in my fourth row spot and contemplated on how he found out so fast! It had to have been divine revelation!

He did a seventy-nine week series on dancing. The messages lasted longer than me and Billie Jean.

My present day pastor is a tad less loud and direct as Brother Hatcher. But he can get just as off base at times. He is on me now about going to Brazil. I said we ought to "support" foreign missionaries...not be one!

They have big snakes down there! And I think a body could get lost in those forests. Where would I sleep? Who would make me a sandwich before bedtime? They've got that big river where if you fall into it those man-eating fish tear your arm off before you can yell for help! And I'd be afraid my wife would disconnect the Golf Channel while I was gone.

I'm busy. Let somebody who can speak better than me go. I'll stay here and pray. How about I chip in a little money! I can't find anyone to teach my class. If a voice speaks to me out of a burning bush, I'll go.

I finally asked him where bouts in Brazil was this mission trip going.

"Up the Amazon River."

You see now why you just naturally can't agree with everything this pastor espouses! I have directed him over to Hezekiah and suggested he might want to consider a series on the evils of dancing.

And it just now dawned on me as I write this. Do you reckon those Huntingdon guys were mad at us for coming over to their town and dating their girls? Surely they didn't look on us as "Atwood" boys! If they did they could have used one of Brother Hatcher's sermons on turning the other cheek..

Respectfully,

Kes