“Roach Wrath”

As you may have inferred from the title, there is absolutely nothing of socially redeeming value in the piece that follows. That is by intention. Jennie and I are at Chautauqua – summer camp for kids our age. Jennie and I are in Chautauqua, NY, this week. Tucked away in the far western tip of New York, Chautauqua is a spa for the soul – refreshment and renewal for body, mind, and spirit. Since this week’s theme is Comedy (The National Comedy Center is in nearby Jamestown, NY, birthplace of Lucille Ball), I pulled a light-hearted piece out of my files that ended up as a chapter in Pew & Pavement, my book on my years in St. Louis at Compton Heights Christian Church from 1985-1989.

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Back in 1984, singer-songwriter Ray Stevens released a hilarious song about a squirrel that wandered into a worship service at the First Self-Righteous Church in Pascagoula, Mississippi, causing an uproar among the faithful. It’s a catchy tune with wacky lyrics, the chorus of which went,

The day the squirrel went berserk
In the First Self-Righteous Church
In that sleepy little town of Pascagoula
It was a fight for survival that broke out in revival
They were jumpin' pews and shouting "Hallelujah!"

Silly? Sure. Corny? Yes. Unbelievable? Well, yes, but an equally uproarious song could have been written about the goings-on in Compton’s sanctuary one Sunday.

I prepared that Sunday’s sermon with much trepidation. After all, I was wrestling with a thorny issue, namely, the wrath of God. Having never preached on fire and brimstone, I crafted my sermon with special care. After having everything in place and entitling the message “The Merciful Wrath of God,” I was all set to go when Sunday morning came around.  

After the Scripture was read, I stepped into the pulpit and launched into my frightful theme. As I recall, I got off to a pretty good start. I was just getting into a vivid description of the wrath of God as depicted in Psalm 18 complete with smoke coming out of God’s nostrils and fire leaping forth from God’s mouth when I was aware of a commotion in the soprano section of the choir to my right. One of our sopranos was laughing.  

I was puzzled, to say the least. I was in the midst of a soliloquy on the wrath of God and one of my choir members was tittering. I tried to make sense of it but could not. I thought there might be a gaping hole in the seat of my trousers, but I had my robe on. I then surmised someone had whispered a joke that evoked the guffaw. The snickering rippled outward from the initiating soprano to the rest of the soprano section and into the altos. Harmonized hilarity. But why?

I was no stranger to muffled laughter in the choir. I had been a contributor to such the previous December, my first at Compton, during the annual Christmas cantata. During one of the rehearsals, as the handful of us who sang the bass, baritone, and tenor parts were singing the story of the wise men, one of us got to laughing. My remembrance is that it was induced by our recognizing the over-the-top schlock we were singing straight-faced accompanied by a saccharine sweet, overdone melody. To this day I can remember the lyric and melody: We are the wise men who’ve come from afar / Camelback, onward, we follow the star.

I don’t remember who did it, but during one of the umpteen times we rehearsed that line, one of the men dramatically raised his hand in a salute-like gesture above his brow, then turned his head back and forth from side to side in slow motion as if earnestly looking into the distance for yonder star. The gesture and dramatic flair that accompanied it was as over-the-top as the lyric and music. Tired after a full day, we were slaphappy. It got us tickled. There went the rehearsal. Just the sound of the notes that led into the wise men melody evoked our laughter, muted our singing, and required our starting over. Adding to the frivolity was the cluelessness of Lynwood, our choir director, who, in Absent-Minded Professor fashion, never seemed to notice either our cracking up when we reached the kings’ chorale or our raised hands above our brows gesture when we sang it.

On the Sunday morning when we presented the cantata and the measures drew near for our men’s section entrance, it was all I could do not to raise my hand. Nor did I dare make eye contact with the other men, especially Cliff in the tenor section or his son Darrell sandwiched between him and me, both of whom were in on the joke and both of whom were, in my peripheral vision, looking straight ahead trying to sing while stifling guffaws. I’ve remained in touch with Darrell over nearly forty years now, and part of our getting back together and reminiscing about days gone by calls for one of us to raise the hand and commence the singing, “We are the wise men….” No laughter is better than laughter that refuses to be shushed into staid silence in a sanctuary. With that history, I had no right to begrudge whatever was happening in the choir the day my wrath sermon went awry.

I was baffled. Cliff and Darrell showed no indication of being party to what was happening. The congregation seemed to be unaware of the chancel chuckles, so I continued my sermon, expostulating next on the Day of Judgement. A paragraph or so into that warning of gloom and doom, another soprano got into the act. Rather than laughing, though, she had an anguished look on her face. Her eyes were open wide, and her mouth was agape. At first, I thought she was responding to my rhetorical eloquence, caught up in the horrors of Judgement Day as proclaimed by the prophet Malachi (4:1-3), Jesus (Luke 21:25-28), and her twenty-seven-year-old pastor. She was paying no attention to me, however. She was looking in the direction of the communion table at some unidentified object that by this time had attracted the attention of yet another soprano, an alto or two, and Jim Clayton in the corner of the bass section two pews back.

Now I was really puzzled. What was going on back there? By this time, I was well into a vigorous condemnation of all that is evil, but my choir was oblivious to my preaching. They were transfixed by the underside of the communion table. For a moment, I was tempted to step out of the pulpit and continue my sermon from behind the communion table so I could take a peek at what had caught their attention, but I determined to follow through to the end. At least the rest of the congregation hadn’t been distracted yet.

So it was that I forged ahead through judgement and wrath to promised mercy. I wrapped it up in a paragraph or two, said Amen, and returned to my seat behind the pulpit, casting a stink eye at the choir on the way. The evocations of tittering and terror remained.

After the service was over, a repentant soprano filled me in on the reason for the commotion. When I heard her explanation, I nodded my head in disbelief and then broke out in laughter in concert with her renewed chuckles and the cackling of a few other choir members who were in the know.

Evidently, a certain multilegged creature belonging to Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta and Order Blattaria – aka, a cockroach – made an appearance on the communion table, ran a few laps, descended one leg of the Lord’s Table to the floor of the chancel, and skedaddled toward the choir. The little rascal then spent the duration of my sermon scurrying around the vicinity of the soprano section leaving in its wake a host of reactions ranging from muffled laughter to muted screams. The little bugger even scaled the modesty rail and shook its antennae at one of our altos before dashing off toward unknown territory. All of this transpired as I was trying to engage in a serious exposition of the wrath of God.

The next Sunday, I vowed to take a peek under the communion table and in the general vicinity of the choir before worship began just in case that reprobate insect got any ideas. And I was tempted to write Ray Stevens a note and tell him his tale about the squirrel getting loose in a church service was all right, but I had an even better story to offer for his next song.

Better yet, maybe he could write a Christmas cantata.