In Need of Christ’s Presence

When I accepted the call to serve the Presbyterian Church on Edisto Island I did so the summer before my final year in seminary under very unusual and unique circumstances. Representing Louisville Seminary as a seminary delegate for the General Assembly meeting in Houston in 1981, I was invited to visit the Edisto Church by a favorite son of the congregation, Jim Murray. When I returned to Louisville I picked up Kay, Lillian and Liesle and we drove to Florida in order for Kay and the girls to visit family for the summer. Enrolled in the Navy’s Theological Student Program in order to serve in the Naval Reserve as a Chaplain, I flew into Charleston on my way to Newport, Rhode Island where I was picked up on a Friday afternoon.

Having visited many of the historical sites on the island, conversed with the search committee and attended the Sunday morning worship service, I was surprisingly offered the call. Even more surprising I accepted on the spot without consulting with Kay. There was no formal paperwork,  promises, consultations with the presbytery or signatures, just a handshake. Kay supported my sense of call from the very beginning. When the summer was over and the Keeler Family returned to the seminary campus, I broke the news. My professors and close friends thought I had lost my mind. From their perspective I had broken all protocol. To their dismay I had accepted the first call without looking and considering other churches. The island was extremely rural with one gas station, a tiny grocery on the beach and a couple of restaurants that catered primarily to the tourists in the summer. That Fall semester the Clerk of Session, Billy Hills, Sr., would call me at the beginning of every month to ensure the Keeler’s were still coming. Before the semester was over, the congregation eventually met, voted in favor of the call, and sent me the terms of call for my “John Henry.” It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

What I learned from the people of a congregation founded sometime between 1685 and 1710 has served me well through the years. We’ll get to that in just a minute. The manse where we lived was a two story rice style plantation home built in 1832 on St. Pierre Creek. When the furnace would go out in winter, usually in the middle of the night, I would grab my bathrobe and make my way through the crawl space to relight it. In and among the many experiences, there was Buster Kizer who would come once a month and pour a gallon of bleach down the well that supplied water to the house. Buster was our Moderator of the Diaconate and quite a character (and a character he was in every sense of the word.)

Buster had served as a submariner in the Atlantic during World War II and retired from the Naval Shipyard in Charleston. Over the years he had learned to live hard, work hard and party hard. I remember the Sunday Buster showed up for church with a number of band aids affixed to his forehead and face. “Buster,” I said, “what in the world happened to you?” He looked at me with a little smile and answered, “Jack Daniels pushed me down the front door steps.” I couldn’t help but admire his honesty. We both laughed.

Then there was the morning I answered the phone at the manse. As I recall it was around 8:30 am. It was Buster on the other end. I extended a greeting, “Good morning, Buster. What can I do for you?” I received the surprise of my life when Buster said, “I’m coming to the Manse to shoot and kill you.” I don’t remember too much conversation after that, but what I do remember is saying clearly, “Buster, come on over. I’ll be here when you arrive.” I announced to Kay that we might have a visitor in the next hour or so.

As the day passed, I never saw Buster. However, I must admit I went about my business  practicing situational awareness. I kept looking for Buster to show up at the Manse or my Study. He never came.

Everyone knew Buster had a temper. It never took much to get him excited and there were days Jack Daniels would get the best of him, but the way I looked at it was through the lens of a pastor who has always tried, in Christ, to know and love my people. I suppose if I had spent a lot of time under the ocean in a submarine praying every day that a torpedo wouldn’t erase me and my fellow crew members from the face of the earth, if I had worked, toiled and retired from work in a shipyard repairing and refitting Navy ships in drydock in hot and uncomfortable spaces, Jack Daniels might have pushed me over the edge on occasion, too.

Down to his core, Buster was a good man, a faithful husband, a strong Christian and an active Presbyterian. Both Kay and I loved him, bleach, Jack Daniels, temper, occasional threats and all and we loved his wife, Wallace, too. If you ever needed someone to watch your flank, Buster was the person you wanted. If he could have maybe learned and incorporated an important word in the Presbyterian lexicon, the word “moderation.” But that wasn’t Buster. It was either full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes, or enjoying a wee drink or two, hardly anything ever in between.

On a mountain outside of Capernaum Jesus offered some life-giving words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” William Barclay makes the point that one of the ways we can understand this particular Beatitude is in the context of people like us who yearn for the holy presence of God in their lives. Because of who we are, we can’t survive without that holy presence. Buster and I never talked about that early morning phone call and the threat he made. In all likelihood, he was so under the weather he probably never realized he made the call in the first place. All these years later, I’m glad I was the one Buster sought in that early morning hour. I felt he was most probably blowing off steam and needed someone to talk to and take his heat. And that is one of the reasons I could always count on seeing Buster sitting in a pew with Wallace on Sunday mornings. In the words of Jesus, he yearned for the holy presence and love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. When we are honest about ourselves, who we are and what we do, in our good and bad moments, we all need that presence, too, don’t you think?

The day is almost done. Until tomorrow, stay safe and stay well as we remain calm in a time of distress, extend compassion to the suffering and pray for the healing of the world. In Christ +

—
Steve Keeler, Pastor