Today in my sermon I told a story about the day I went before Presbytery for "examination for ordination". Of course, the story is not really about the examination, because frankly, that would be a rather short, boring story, as perfuctory as those things tend to be.

Instead it is a story about how I came to know the people in my congregation at their very best; before they knew me, nor I them, very well. (It has been edited to remove identifying details. The text in italics is exerpted from my sermon.) Enjoy.

I’ve been that friend for whom others dug through mud. Have you? I have a story I like to tell to people who aren’t familiar with the congregation of St. Stoic. Some of you here today were players in this story. The rest of you should hear it.

When my family and I moved here so that I could become your pastor, we had scheduled the move and the transition very carefully. OEH and CTA arrived in Snow Belt on Monday, I went before presbytery on Tuesday, we scheduled the closing on the house on Wednesday, and the truck was to arrive with our furniture on Thursday. That would give us a week or so to set up household before I started my work here, then a few more days until our family arrived to help us celebrate my ordination. There was no "wiggle room" for something to go wrong, but we were confident that we had covered all the bases.

On the day I went before Presbytery to be examined for ordination, OEH and I got a very troubling phone call at the hotel that had become our temporary home until we closed on our house. The short Reader’s Digest version of that part of the story is that we were informed that due to a paperwork mistake, the closing on our house would not happen unless we showed up with a very large check to supplement the down-payment. Regardless of the fact that the paperwork mistake was on the part of the mortgage company, and not on our part, the mortgage company was holding their ground, and insisting that we show up with about $9,000.

I cannot adequately describe the reaction I had when I got this phone call, two hours before I was to appear before Presbytery. One reason I cannot adequately describe it is because I had some less than pastoral things to say to and about the mortgage agent. Things I cannot, will not, say while standing in this room in front of God and witnesses, and while wearing this robe. But on that day I said them, out loud. Suffice it to say that I was distraught that I had brought my family 2,000 miles to a new community, and that a paperwork glitch by someone I had never met had rendered us homeless. And I was about to drive to Lake Town to stand in front of 100 or so of my Presbytery colleagues, and be interviewed. And this interview was to be the most important one of my life so far—the interview that I had spent seven years of my life preparing for. So while OEH stayed behind to try to convince the mortgage company to reconsider fixing the paperwork error in time for the scheduled closing, I took off in my rental car for Little Church on the Prairie, not knowing where my family and I were going to live.

I arrived at the church early, as is my habit, and hoping that my red eyes and tear stained face weren’t too obvious. The first person I saw from St. Stoic got the whole story, as soon as she asked, “How are you?” I couldn’t not tell her, even at the risk of feeling afraid that the PNC would get the wrong idea about what had happened and would decide that someone who was so bad with money should not be the pastor of this church.

But God had seen ahead to what I needed. And God had put somebody on the roof, digging through the mud and the twigs so that there there would be a way for me to see Jesus, face-to-face. Because the person I told this story to turned to me and said, “No problem. Don’t worry about it. If you need a check for $9,000, the church will lend it to you.”

I stood there for a second, stunned, speechless. Then I started to cry again. Through my tears of relief I said something brilliant like, “Really? You can do that?” “Of course.” Someone remembered that in order to have a thing like this happen, we needed a Session approval, so right there, in the narthex of Little Church on the Prairie, with the Presbytery meeting about to begin in a few minutes, and with a few dozen people milling about oblivious to what was happening, a quorum of the Session was declared, Cool Interim was grabbed to moderate, and an emergency loan was approved so that the pastor and her family could have a place to live. And I saw the face of God.

After the impromptu meeting ended, I turned to Cool Interim, and said, “Is this how they do things here?” He just laughed and said, “Yes.”

Epilogue: The mortgage company finally corrected the paperwork problem, admitting no error, and our closing happened on the day it was scheduled, although it took nearly five hours due to even more paperwork errors. We did not need the loan from the church. When I wrote the CEO of the bank's parent company, telling him our story, he offered a very perfunctory apology, and to waive all fees on a checking account if I would open one at his bank. (What, no toaster?)

I declined.