Meshumed. (Short Story).

“It’s been a few years, David, what’s happening in your life?” So asked the man in the nice suit and short trimmed haircut that looked like he had the day before. “You left church rather suddenly last time I saw you….”

David studied the man he had last seen about ten years ago; he looked a little more aged than David remembered. In fact he almost didn’t really recognize the guy but it had only been ten years.

“….Never did understand why you just left the church, David. Seemed rather abrupt and without saying goodbye to anyone….”

He seemed to expect David to respond thought David. Well, David Levy had no intention for the moment of giving the man what he wanted; he didn’t ten years ago so why would he start now. He was having a good day before he ran into the fellow at the downtown St. Paul bus station across from the Rice Park; the James. J. Hill Library sitting on the other side of the small park occupied by at least one homeless fellow sleeping on a bench. He was doing just fine reading his book while waiting for the number 64 bus and waste a little time at Maplewood Mall area and certainly Half-Price Books. It was going to be a good day of doing as little as possible before the Sabbath began. That was the plan anyway. The guy, one Mark Holmes, was still talking as they sat in the bus station.

“….I mean, it’s been a while since we talked and I just want to know how you’re doing as it’s been so long.”

David really wished the guy would get to the point. The fact was he didn’t want to talk to the guy and could and would have been very happy to have never spoken to the guy again. He didn’t want to talk to the man but at the moment he was trapped into talking to him or be rude; David wasn’t into being rude.

“You’re being very quiet, David. What’s happening in your life? Where have been? Still go to church?” The tone was somewhere between hopeful and something else David didn’t trust, “I assume you are still going to church?”

David slowly responded, “No, not in a long time, Mark, not in a very long time. I saw and see no reason to go anywhere near a church…” David could see the disappointment grow and cross the man’s features, David wanted to laugh but decided to be polite, “I haven’t been inside a church since I walked out of yours, Mark. And I don’t miss it too much.”

“You walked and reject Jesus then? Is That what you’re saying?”

David recognized the tone so that much about the man hadn’t changed, “I walked away from a place that didn’t want me there in the first place, Mark. I didn’t reject anything let alone anyone. I can’t reject someone I haven’t met…” He Knew that the man wouldn’t really be listening anymore than he did ten years ago; he seemed to have forgotten their last conversation.

Bus #65 arrived and unloaded and loaded people.

“….I have rejected no one, I have simply walked away from a false faith and I don’t feel too badly about it.” He noted the man’s features growing hard, he was thinking of something to say to show that he, David, was very wrong and had rejected Jesus to his damnation.

“You reject Jesus as Messiah?” The tone was cold, “It’s that simple, David. You walked away from the one true faith and what, gone back to the Law of Moses? You can’t keep the law, David. You can’t save yourself!”

He would have commented to Mark that he was rambling because that was what he did last time but David decided to just let him ramble; soon the bus would arrive and he would be away from the man.

“You were always a little strange, David. You acted more Jewish than a man who followed Jesus. It was something that always troubled some people at the church. More Jewish than a Christian was one comment I heard more than once…” He seemed to study David with a look of disbelief of what he was hearing, “You seemed to talk about the Old Testament a lot more than was needed…”

“Do you even remember why I left, Mark?” He had to interrupt as the man seemed to be grasping at reasons to argue with him, “I valued the Old Testament as you call it just as much as I did the New Testament. I saw no reason to not view them as co-equal in importance…I see and saw no reason to not study the Law. And I gave me my reasons why.” Repeating his question, “As I asked, do you remember why I left, Mark?” He actually wished the number three bus would hurry up and get to the stop so he could escape the man. The conversation was pointless and simply going over the same ground of reasons he left the church a while ago. “Just answer my question, let’s not go over all that old ground and get nowhere, Mark. Because I have no real desire to go back and defend my actions again…” He forced himself to slow down. “Just answer my question.”

He didn’t want to, “Look, David, I am more concerned that you have walked away from the church and rejected Jesus. That is more important to me than why you left and it’s not important why you left as much as you rejecting Jesus…”

He wanted to laugh at the man’s statement but didn’t, “That’s part of the problem, Mark. You nor anyone else at the time wanted to deal with it.” He saw the mood changing in those eyes that stared back unchanging in it’s feelings toward David. The man did indeed remember why David finally left and being reminded of it was annoying him. “As for the Lord, as you call Jesus, I questioned and I still question whether your Jesus is who you think He was.” He knew the reaction he was going to get and he could see it coming, “You also know it didn’t start out that way. I didn’t start questioning what Pastor Miller preached until it became apparent he was becoming more and more drawn into his own personal views on politics and then he started….”

“Enough, David, just stop!” He spoke sharply, “There was nothing wrong with Pastor Miller speaking his mind on the issues of the day…” The arms folded tightly around the man’s thin frame, the eyes stared at David, “He was simply doing what he felt was right and correct for the church to deal with the issues that was also causing issues in the church for which you know for well you were adding to, David.”

David decided to not interrupt as it was apparent the man wasn’t going to listen.

“You allowed your own political views to think you had the right to question as you did what Pastor Miller was preaching. You went too far with your opinions and then you started post them on your Facebook page…you didn’t think at all about the influence or impact it might have on other members of the church.” He continued to look at guy who seemed to be unaffected by what he was saying, “Pastor Miller was and still is the great pastor and the church is going better than ever and it’s growing. So you were wrong when you told some people that politics had no place in the church…”

“It has no place being more important than what the church is suppose to be doing and politics isn’t it.” Adding, “Pastor Miller seemed to forget why he was at the pulpit, Mark.”

“He preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ, David!”

David noted several people trying to act as if they hadn’t been listening; one elderly woman seemed amused. David would have smiled or even laughed at the people trying to avoid looking like their listening but it was obvious they were. But laughing or smiling just wasn’t in him at the moment.

“He might have in the beginning when I first started going to your church, but something changed in his preaching and it started changing the church toward something else that the Apostle Paul would have a problem with.”

“I wont be preached at by someone rejecting Jesus Christ or what He taught, David.”

Did the guy even notice that people about the bus station were listening and pretending to not react?

“Don’t blame the church for your rejection of Christ, David. You walked away from the church, from sound theology from the church….” The arms seems to go tighter around his chest, “You left the church, no one forced you to leave. You simply went too far in your views of the direction of the church under Pastor Miller. It’s that simple.”

“Politics was taking over, Mark.” He wanted to get up, “I watched the church become less and less about the Jesus you tell me I rejected and more about political stances. I voiced my concerns, Mark…”

Bus # 21 came and went.

“You were belligerent, David, to Pastor Miller.”

“Belligerent? I simply stated my concerns to the man who didn’t want to hear them. You were in his office with me…”

“David, I was in the room and your entire attitude was confrontational to the man who was your pastor and the leader of the church you were a member of…”

David noted that one of the people listening was leaving but it was obvious he was amused.

“….Pastor Miller was in his right as the pastor of the church to correct and this case stop the spread of division in his church and that was what you were doing. Causing division not only with your views on how what he was preaching but on what you were telling people in that Bible study you were holding…”

David had almost forgotten about the Bible study that didn’t last very long; apparently someone in the class took offence of his defense of the law and Moses. He was sure he knew who the person was but he had no way of proving it.

“You mean I defended the Law of God and Moses as well?” He did remember that being a hot bone of contention, “Yes, I still stand by what I said. The Law of Moses is still important.”

“David, you were causing great division in the church by that false doctrine. We don’t keep the law.”

“That’s not what I was teaching. I was teaching that there is value in studying the Law and understanding the Law and why it’s worth defending, Mark.” He added trying to sound patient, “I value the Law, I value what it teaches me, and there is nothing wrong with the Law.” He could see the man was not listening; nothing changed in ten years. “I was not causing division with anyone. I made my views and what I was teaching very clear…I voiced my concern that the church I had been part of for about five years was going in the wrong direction and it was becoming more political in it’s views on the Gospel let alone the Bible…let alone Jesus.” He let the interruption come.

“Look, David, as far as I can see you’ve rejected Jesus as your Lord and Savior, walked away from the church, and have become no better than an apostate.” He stood up stiffly, staring at David who looked up at the man with a look Mark didn’t like, “Pastor Miller was correct in denouncing you as a false believer and one who had rejected Christ….you’ve denied Christ and He’s rejected you.”

David wasn’t all that concerned, “Yes, I have become as it’s called in Hebrew, a Meshumed, a traitor to my faith in your Jesus.” He stood up slowly, “Your Jesus cannot possibly be the one I have read in the Bible…There is no way that person is the one Pastor Miller or you are following. Yes, I reject your political Jesus….and I don’t feel bad about my choice to walk away…He’d walk away to I think.” He could see the man wanted to walk away in an angry huff, “I taught from the Bible, from the Scriptures of both Old and New Testaments, can’t have one without the other, Mark.” Trying to make the man understand one last time, “It’s simple, Mark, Pastor Miller was becoming more and more involved in politics and it was and that alone was dividing the church. I tried to get him to see that his politics was becoming more and more about his sermons and less about the Bible let alone Jesus…it was my observation that the more he was becoming political the less the Gospel mattered….I cared about that church, Mark, I know what I was seeing and it was destroying the church…”

Mark Holmes only grunted in disgust and walked away with a comment, “Apostate, that’s all you are.”

David watched the man walk away quickly and didn’t feel angry about it nor did he feel that it was his place to try and correct the man anymore. He felt sorry for the man because if the rumors he was hearing from some people who still spoke to him the church was indeed dying; it had lost half it’s members since he left was what he was told. And he was told it was the fact Pastor Miller was more concerned and interested in the church being political to the point that whole families had started to leave. In ten years half the church was gone and Pastor Miller didn’t seem to care or notice but he did make note that those people were never real believers. David felt a strange pity even for Pastor Miller.

He picked up his backpack as Bus #64 pulled up and stopped loudly. He sat a bit on the bus and tried to not over-think the unpleasant encounter and all that had happened in that church with him and Pastor Miller and even Mark. It took a while to stop thinking about it and stop over-thinking it all. He calmly reached into his backpack and pulled out his book he had brought with him to read on the bus and started reading ‘A Short Life Of Keirkegaard.’ by. Walter Lowrie.

Off and on he looked out the window and observed the scenery go by. He had to agree with something that the Danish philosophy Keirkegaard once said about the church, “It’s harder to be a Christian in the church than outside it.” He had read that somewhere which was why he bought the biography he was now reading off and on as the bus rumbled on and toward Maplewood Mall. He agreed with the comment by the Dane. Being a Christian was easier outside the church than in it was certainly his brief church life. He had left and hadn’t felt any great lose to the action he finally took. But did he really leave Jesus? He stared outside and thought about it as he had thought about it in the last ten years. He hadn’t planned on walking away from the church let alone Jesus. But it did happen because he no longer saw the Jesus that the church claimed it followed? He left the church in the beginning but not the theology of it. The theology was never the issue. Jesus was never the issue? Well, he thought as he returned to the biography briefly, his life went on and he walked away and at the moment he didn’t feel all that guilty or bad about it. What did he feel if anything? Jesus was never the issue? Was that true? Did he just feel Jesus wasn’t who they claimed He was? The Messiah? The one and only true Messiah? Had he really rejected Jesus? He closed the book in annoyance of his own inability to not over-think all this. He closed his eyes and tried again to not think about it. Except the Danish philosopher was correct on one thing, it was easier to be a Christian outside the church than inside it.

He dozed off with questions still being asked of himself. But did he really reject Jesus was his last thought as he fell asleep; the book dropped to the floor.