“The Lesson from Alvina Johnson”
Jeremiah 31:31-34
October 27, 2002
St. Paul United Methodist Church
Rev. John Fleming
I like the story that I have told a couple of different
places in my ministry, but never from this pulpit or in this church. I want to share it with you this
morning. The story is appropriate
because fall is in the air. Soon the
leaves on our trees will turn to brilliant colors of red, orange, yellow,
amber, and then dirt brown as they fall to the ground. Soon you will be spending your Saturday
afternoons raking leaves. So, I thought
that today would be the perfect time to tell the story of Alvina Johnson and
the Jefferson Street Leaf War.
It is the story of a preacher who was on his way home from
the church one Tuesday night. It was
late. It was ten thirty or so when he
walked from the church toward the parsonage.
He walked to and from the church that night because the weather was
perfect. Outside it was cool and
crisp. The moon was out and the stars
were shining. The preacher had just
finished teaching from the words that I read for us a few minutes ago, the
words from the prophet, Jeremiah. The
class had considered that Jeremiah had told the people that the laws that were
written on their hearts were important.
He was thinking about that when he approached the bungalow on Jefferson
Street that had been the home of Alvina Johnson for nearly fifty years. If you appreciate fine lawns and
landscaping, you would have loved Alvina’s yard. Not a blade of grass dared grow more than an inch and a half
tall. The flowers that lined her
sidewalk always stood at attention. If
they drooped even a little bit, they were pulled from the ground and replaced
by new flowers.
On that Tuesday night, it was too dark to appreciate any of
Alvina’s yard. It was also the time of
the year when the grass and the flowers were fading. The preacher walked past Alvina’s house. She was a member and regular attender of his
church. He was sure to check on her on
a regular basis. He noticed, as he
walked past her house, that there was a shadowy figure lurking near her
fence. He watched as the shadowy figure
bent down, lifted a bushel basket full of leaves, and then dumped it on the
other side of the fence that separated the Johnson place from the Lundin
place. It only took the preacher a
second to realize that the one who was doing the dumping was no one other than
Alvina Johnson herself. The preacher
knew that he had a couple of options.
He knew that he could quickly walk past her house. Chances were good that Alvina would not see
him. Or, he could confront Alvina. Opportunities like this seldom presented
themselves, so the preacher cleared his throat and coughed just loud enough for
Alvina to notice him. She said, “Oh,
hey preacher. I didn’t see you
there. How long have you been standing
there?” He replied, “Good evening,
Alvina. I have been standing here just
long enough. You know it is awfully
late to be working in your yard.” She
replied, “Snow will be here soon, preacher, and besides, you know how important
it is to me for my yard to look good.”
The minister took a step back.
He was at that place on the fence line where he could see both Alvina’s
and Ollie Lundin’s yard at the same time.
He took a step back, looked at the deposited leaves, then he smiled at
Alvina. Alvina said, “Now preacher, I
know what you are thinking. Those
aren’t my leaves. Those leaves belong
to the Lundins. They fell off that big
oak tree in their yard. The slightest
breezed and they’re over here in my yard.
They aren’t my leaves and I don’t want to rake them. Those are the Lundins’ leaves, preacher, and
it’s only fair!” The preacher could not
think of anything clever or brilliant to say, so he said, “Good night,
Alvina. Don’t work too hard. See you at church on Sunday.”
The preacher had almost put the incident out of his
mind. Then, on Friday morning, there
was a knock on his office door.
Knocking was Alvina Johnson.
When the preacher invited her in, she said, “I want a moment or two of
your time!” Alvina took off her hat,
coat, and gloves. She plopped down on
the chair opposite of the preacher’s desk.
She was not one for small talk.
She got right to the point of her visit. “Preacher, Ollie Lundin returned his leaves to my yard yesterday
in broad daylight!” The preacher wanted
to laugh, but he knew that he couldn’t laugh.
He knew that even a chuckle and Alvina would leave never to darken the
door of the church again. Instead of laughing, he waited for Alvina’s
next sentence. She asked, “Preacher, is
there anything in that Bible of your’s that could help me with my leaf
situation? I know that there are a lot
of rules about whose sheep are whose and whose goats are whose. There is a lot of that sort of thing in the
Old Testament. Could you give me a
little biblical ammunition? Ollie
Lundin is a good Lutheran and I know that he will pay attention to scripture!”
Going to see her pastor was not Alvina’s first line of
defense. She had been to see Billy
Hobart, the police chief. Billy had
told her that there were no laws or ordinances about who raked whose
leaves. He told her that by and large,
people just raked their own yards and did not worry about the ownership of the
leaves. Alvina saw this as a major,
legal oversight. Since the police were
no help to her, she was now in the office of her pastor. The preacher was about to tell Alvina the
only thing that he could think of, namely that there was no possible way to
tell whose leaves were whose. The words
were nearing his lips when Alvina confessed.
She said, “Preacher, back in June, I hired Danny Olson to climb into my
trees. I gave him four cans of black
spray paint. I told him to put an “x”
on all of my leaves.” The minister
imagined little Danny scooching across the oak tree limbs. He imagined Alvina pointing and saying,
“Danny, now don’t miss the leaves up there on that branch!” Again, the preacher wanted to laugh, but
knew that he shouldn’t. So, instead, he
said, “Alvina, I don’t have any biblical ammunition for you.” She said, “Well!” and stormed out of his
office. The preacher tells, “Alvina is
not happy with me these days, but, by and large, Alvina is not happy with
anyone.”
The preacher turned toward his computer screen. On it was the beginning of Sunday’s sermon. He had typed Jeremiah’s words, “I will put
my law within them and I will write it on their hearts.” The minister could not help but to think to
himself. “No, Alvina, it is not fair
that you have to rake Ollie’s leaves, but it would be a good thing for you to
do.”
I can sympathize with Alvina Johnson, can’t you? I once lived in a house where there were
only four trees in the yard. Two of
those trees kept their leaves until the spring and the other two were no more
than a foot tall. I planted those two
trees myself. The slightest breeze and
my neighbor’s leaves were in my yard.
This morning, I came down Ridge Road and noticed a tree whose leaves
were gorgeous. The leaves had begun to
fall. Half of them were on the side
where they belonged. The other half
were across the fence in the neighbor’s yard.
I remember raking the leaves in the yard that I once owned. I remember seeing my neighbor. I recall what he said to me. He called out, “I see that you’re out raking
leaves.” I smiled. I wanted to say, “I’m raking your
leaves.” But I did not say a word. I agree with Alvina. There ought to be a law against that sort of
thing. I will say that I am not as
convinced of that as I once was. Now I
live in a house that has many trees in it and my neighbors are good
Lutherans. If some of my leaves made it
down the street, that would be just fine with me. I would not chase them down.
I want you to know that I am a rule follower from way
back. If there is a law on the books,
then I try to follow it. When I was a
young boy, my parents gave me plenty of rules to follow. Maybe my childhood rules sound familiar to
you: “Don’t do that. Don’t touch
that. Don’t hit your sister.” I will admit that I broke that regulation a
time or two! “You cannot play outside
until your room is picked up! Do your
homework now!” As I got older, the
rules changed, but the fact that I had rules to follow has never changed. When I was a teenager the rules went
something like this: “By home by 11:30.
Clean your room.” For some
reason, a clean room was very important to my mother. Now that I am thirty-four years old, I still have rules to
follow: “Don’t disappoint anyone. Don’t
drive over sixty-five. Always preach
powerful sermons. Never let anyone
down. Don’t get made.” Well, you get the idea. It is next to impossible to keep all of the
rules.
When Moses came down from the mountain with the
commandments, there were ten rules, five on each tablet. By Jeremiah’s day, there were six hundred
and thirteen rules. In today’s gospel
lesson, the scribes and the Pharisees test Jesus by asking him which of the
commandments and laws is the greatest one.
Jesus answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your mind, with all your strength, and you must love your neighbor as
yourself.” Jesus says, “That is the
greatest commandment.” In the days of
Jeremiah, there were 613 different rules and ordinances. As a rule follower, I love today’s
lesson. Jeremiah writes, “The days are
surely coming...” I love that
line. The people of God are in exile,
but one day they will be free to come home.
Jeremiah prophesies, “The days are surely coming.” These words are almost as great as the ones
that were spoken of Jesus. The Bible
tells us that Jesus came: “In the fullness of time.” That is, when the time was exactly right, Jesus came into the
world. “The days are surely coming....”
says the prophet, “when I will watch over them and I will build them up and I
will plant.” The prophet says that he
knows that there will be a time when this people will have a new life and when
they will be at home. But instead of
giving the people the where and the when of their coming home, he speaks of a
spiritual homecoming. Jeremiah speaks
for God when he says, “I will make a new covenant. I will put my law within them.
I will write it on their hearts.
I will be their God and they will be my people. I will forgive their iniquity and I will
remember their sin no more.” Do you see
it? God is the one taking the initiative. Our part and the part that the people of
Jeremiah’s day were to play was to know God.
That is all that we have to do.
We are to know God. Jeremiah
says that no longer will we have to teach the lesson of knowing God, for the
least person to the greatest person will know God. Then there are the words of promise. God has Jeremiah say, “I will forgive their iniquity and I will
remember their sin no more.”
Let me ask you a question.
How does this passage speak to us as we live out our days? I don’t know any of you who are living in
exile. Though, there may be a time or
two when you feel like you are living an exiled life. When we first moved to Arkansas, Susie felt as if she were exiled
from her parents in Tennessee. Now
Susie considers Arkansas home. Not many
are kept against our will here in Little Rock.
But maybe it is true that we find ourselves spiritually far from home.
I always liked it when school started in the fall. The reason that I did was that with the new
school year, I had the chance to start over.
My teacher did not know my past history. I always thought, “This year, I am going to do better.” I used to not like it when my new teacher
talked with my former teacher. And, I
didn’t like it when my teacher asked me: “John, aren’t you Emily Fleming’s
brother? Oh, she was such a great
student.” That was not good. I like starting over.
In the United Methodist Church, pastors move every few
years. I am hoping that the Fleming
moving days are over for a while. When I
was appointed here in March of this year, I thought: “This is great. I have the chance to begin again. My new church members won’t know about the
mistakes that I made in Harmony Grove.
They might not know about the mistakes that I made downtown, at First
Church. So now five months into my
ministry here, I have a new set of mistakes that need forgiving. How do you begin again? How do you start over?
One of Liz Wright’s boys brought her a bottle of bubble bath
back from their honeymoon. It was “Wash
Away Your Sins Bubble Bath.” Is this
how we start over? The writing on the
bubble bath has these words: “Remove stubborn guilt. Baptism in a bottle.
Bishop tested. Cardinal
approved. A sanctified soap. Tempting ‘Do It Again’ scent. For liars, cheaters, and wrong doers.” Here are the instructions: “Kneel before thy
tub. Reflect upon wrongdoing. Run warm bath water. Pour enough bubble bath to equal your
sins. Double the estimate. Submerge thyself in blessed bubbles. Soak. Arise cleansed from sin and get ready
to do it again.” Is that how we start
over? Do we do it with soak like
this? No, I don’t think that is how we
do it.
Jeremiah says that we begin again with the new covenant
written on our hearts. So, it begins
out of your heart. I want to share a
story in the last minute or two of our sermon.
It is the story of a girl who needed to go home. This girl lived with her mother in a third
world country. The girl’s father died
when she was young. Her mother took
pride in the fact that she had raised her daughter well. They had saved money and they had made
it. But the daughter often thought, “I
wonder what life is like in the city.”
Her mother discouraged her from such thinking. She knew that her daughter could not make it on her own in the
city. Imagine this mother’s horror when
she woke up one day and found a note on the kitchen table. The note read: “Mother, I’ve gone to the
city to live. Love Maria.” The mother thought, “The only way that Maria
will be able to survive in the city is to sell herself to other people.” So this mother went to the bus station and
bought a round trip ticket to the city.
When she arrived, she went to one of those photo booths where you can
take pictures of yourself and get the prints instantly. With all of the money that she had, she took
forty or fifty pictures. Then she went
around placing pictures of herself in places where she thought her daughter
might be. She put her pictures in bars
and hotels. When she had distributed
all of the pictures, she went home.
Four months later, Maria came down the stairs of a hotel. Behind the front desk, she saw a picture of
her mother. She asked the clerk to hand
it to her. She could not imagine how
the picture had gotten there. Maria
turned the picture on it’s back. There
were written these words: “Maria, whatever you have done, whatever you have
become, I love you. Please come
home.” And she did. And she did. Jeremiah wanted the same thing for the people of his day. I want the same thing for our church. I pray for a spiritual homecoming. Let us pray.
(Special
thanks to the author of the story about the Jefferson Street Leaf War. I do not know the source of the story. It was given to me once upon a time. Special thanks to my parents who provided
necessary rules for me. Thanks is due
to those who have allowed me to begin again and the God who does so every
day. And special thanks to Max Lucado,
one of my favorite authors, for the final story in our sermon).