Ivar Peterson

In twenty years as a pastor I’ve only once not been able to get through a funeral sermon.  It was in 1993 and the funeral was for Ivar Peterson, my across-the-street neighbor.  Ivar was a 93-year-old 17-year widower who lived in an immaculately kept house with his 25-year-old yellow tabby.  It occurred to me more than a few times that I should have asked Ivar for several gallons of the tap water that he and that cat drank.

In the fall of his 92nd year Ivar took the storm windows from the shed in the back corner of his property and installed them for the coming winter that he never saw.  The entire town turned out for his funeral.  It took me about ten minutes to get through three minutes or so of the sermon, so I finally just stopped and left the pulpit.   Tom Ahlstrom, Immanuel’s organist and a faithful member of the Thursday Morning Bible Study, asked the congregation to stand for the hymn.

The Bible Study group was an interesting one.  Bill Matthis was a member, as was Robert the-Holy-Ghost-comes-out-at-night Jahnke and Ted Sheifelbein, a sweet old man who doted over his wife Beulah and consistently attacked the “Godless homos” in our studies.  There was Lloyd Grob, whom everyone called Bob, and Floyd Claflin, who was every bit as gentle as Ivar.  Paul Hinderlie, co-owner of the Harbor View Cafe and, like his father and mother, a delightfully effervescent and inclusive theologian, teamed weekly with cafe partner Tom, whom everyone but Ted seemed to know was gay, to keep things from going off the rails.  The group was rounded out by another three or four members, all equally colorful in their own way.

Probably several months before Ivar died we were studying in Luke 14: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”  We really took that verse apart, turning it upside down and inside out to explain just what Jesus was saying.  As we talked Ivar, a confused and hurt look on his face and not hearing a word of our conversation, sat and stared at his open Bible.  After some time Robert turned to Ivar and, in his typical outside voice, said, “Ivar!  You haven’t said a durn thing!  What do you think about this?”  Startled out of his reverie Ivar glanced up at us and then looked back at his Bible.  “There’s a misprint in my Bible,” he said quietly.  Robert again: “What the heck are you talking about, Ivar?”  “It says Jesus said we are to hate people.  That’s not true.  Jesus tells us we are to love people,” and he looked imploringly from face to face, hoping one of us could explain to him how he came to have a defective book.  Even Robert was speechless.

 

S if by day, G if by night

Every church has one.  Every church has a member whose calling it is to teach the pastor how to be a pastor.  At Immanuel in Pepin, it was Robert Jahnke.  Before moving into town Robert had been a farmer.  His father had been a farmer, and his father before him.  Farming was in his blood and in his soul.  If I had tried to tell Robert how to farm he would have been too shocked and horrified to laugh in my face.  It was only right, however, that he take on the responsibility of telling me how to pastor.

I could see Robert’s house from my office at Immanuel.  Like most farmers Robert had been left semi-lame by a lifetime of hard physical work.  At about 9 a.m. every morning I would see him hobble out of his door and head up the street.  He would nearly always pretend to be out for a walk or on an errand for Dorothy (and I later learned that the latter was often the case, that he would return home after his hour with the pastor and have to explain to his wife that he had never gotten to Dan’s General Store to pick up whatever it was she had sent him to get).  Invariably, however, he would stop in front of the church, look up at the sky (I never knew whether he was gathering strength or asking for forgiveness) and then turn toward the church’s red front door.

Robert discovered Scripture late in life.  When he was farming there was no time to read the Bible, but now that he was retired he read it over and over again, like a favorite “Superman” comic book, and he carried it with him wherever he went.  My enlightenment sessions with Robert were often about the things he had learned from the Bible, things which he felt bound to pass on to his pastor, occasionally telling me point blank, “Now THAT should be in your sermon on Sunday.”  The most memorable of those times was when I learned about the difference between the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost.

On this particular morning Robert erupted from his house earlier than usual and with real purpose.  I suspect that he he had been watching my front door and waiting for me to walk up the sidewalk to my office.  There was no hint of deception that morning as Robert made his way toward the church and when he arrived at his usual pondering spot he did not cast his eye skyward, but went straight for the door, his Bible gripped hard.  He burst into my office, sat down, took off his cap and announced, “I’ve figured it out!”  “Figured what out?” I asked, both curious and fearful.  “The difference between the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit!”  I had not known that this was a puzzle that needed solving.  Neither did I know that Robert had been been chewing on it.  I did know that the next hour of my time was spoken for.

First there were thirty minutes of background.  Then came a recounting of Robert’s epiphany in the wee hours of that same morning.    And when we did get to the point it was this: the Holy Spirit comes out during the day, the Holy Ghost at night.  I didn’t know what to say.  It’s quite possible I said nothing and instead chose to nod my head, which could have meant, “I think you’re nuts,” or “That’s brilliant.”  Robert, I am sure, understood it to mean the latter.

 

 

Bill and Vielma

I thought it might be fun to revisit some interesting characters and events from my time as a pastor, so I’ll start with some experiences from my first call as pastor of Immanuel (the “town” church) and Little Plum (the “country” church) in Pepin, Wisconsin.

I think I had been in Pepin for a year or so when Bill and Vielma Mathis joined Immanuel.  It was difficult for them to move in off the farm, but they bought a house in town with a big backyard, so in his 70s Bill still had the satisfaction of putting food on the table and Vielma still got to can and lay up for the winter.

Bill and Vielma were “salt of the earth / meat and potato” folk.  They had me over for dinner numerous times, and after Jennifer and I were married we had the pleasure of eating with them together on several occasions before we moved to Minneapolis.

I think my second meal in their home was shortly after Christmas one year.  They were in church every Sunday, so I mentioned I had missed them Chritsmas eve, probably assuming they had been out of town.  “No,” Bill said, “mother and I don’t go to church on Christmas Eve and Easter.”  “Why is that?” I asked.  “Well, there are just so many people who go to church only those times, and it’s so crowded, we figure it makes sense to leave a few seats for them.”  I waited for a wink or a grin, something to tell me he was giving the Chreasters a hard time, but it never came.

One other story.  I visited once in the early spring.  Couldn’t raise anybody at the front door so I walked around back.  Bill was in his garden (probably 80 feet by 50 feet), working his hoe.  He looked up at me and nodded, too hard at work to stop and chat, even with the pastor.  After a good ten minutes he took off his cap and leaned on his hoe.  “Hoeing?”  I asked (when one of my sons ask me “What are you doing” when I’m doing something obvious I always say, “Playing soccer.”  Bill could have said the same.).  “I am disturbing the earth,” he replied.  It’s a great image.  I’ve used it a few times, and I always think of Bill and Vielma when I do.

Tomorrow: Robert Jahnke and the Holy Ghost.